INTRODUCTION 



IV 



:OSMIC philosophy" TO 

 LATER EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 



44. It remains to sum up very briefly the 

 nature of the evidences that exist as to how 

 Fiske, had he been able to rewrite his book, 

 would have supplemented or amended the trea- 

 tise, especially in the light, not merely of his 

 own growth in religious opinion, but of the 

 later developments of the philosophy of evolu- 

 tion. 



Since Fiske published the " Cosmic Philoso- 

 phy," the Spencerian system has been com- 

 pleted. As regards the two great divisions of 

 that philosophy which were not before Fiske 

 when he wrote, namely, the " Sociology " and 

 the " Ethics," I can find no evidence that Fiske, 

 apart from the matters which we have considered 

 in our third Division, would have seen reason 

 for a radical divergence from Spencer in main 

 principles. There are, however, grounds why 

 one must suppose that in important, though 

 still subordinate matters of doctrine, he might 

 have remained at variance with Spencer's later- 

 expressed theories, just as these theories, when 

 they came to light, were in a measure opposed 

 cxxxix 



