INTRODUCTION 



of the philosophical value of Spencer's main 

 ideas — a matter with which I have at present 

 no concern. 



1 6. In chapter v. of this Second Part, Fiske 

 begins, however, the task of supplementing the 

 text of the " Synthetic Philosophy " in an im- 

 portant respect. Spencer, in the Prospectus 

 of his system, had announced that he should 

 not undertake, in any separate division of the 

 Synthetic Philosophy, the " application of the 

 First Principles to Inorganic Nature." "This 

 great division," said Spencer, " it is proposed 

 to pass over ; partly because, even without it, 

 the scheme is too extensive ; and partly be- 

 cause the interpretation of Organic Nature, 

 after the proposed method, is of more immedi- 

 ate importance." ^ Nevertheless, Spencer had 

 published essays bearing upon the problems of 

 inorganic evolution, and had freely used illus- 

 trations belonging to this realm in the " First 

 Principles " and elsewhere in the course of the 

 exposition of his system.^ Under the title 



^ See the " Prospectus '* as reprinted in the Preface to the 

 original edition of the First Principles (a Preface found also 

 in all the later editions of that work) . 



^ See especially first the relevant passages in Spencer's 

 paper on ** Progress, its Law and Cause " (Spencer's Essays y 

 Library Edition, vol. i. pp. 8-62) ; secondly, the essay on 

 "The Nebular Hypothesis " (^Essays, \o\. i. pp. 108-155, 



Ivi 



