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THURSDAY, MARCH 133, 1873 
HERBERT SPENCER’S PSYCHOLOGY * 
The Principles of Psychology. By Herbert Spencer. 
Second edition. (Williams and Norgate.) 
Ue 
O the healthy scientific mind the fine-spun arguments 
and the wonderful logical achievements of metaphy- 
sicians are at once so bewildering and so distasteful 
that men of science can scarcely be got to listen even to 
those who would undertake to show that the arguments 
are but cobwebs, the logic but jingle, and the seeming 
profundity little more than a jumble of incongruous ideas 
shrouded in a mist of words. Hence, it is hardly known 
that one of the two living thinkers who in philosophy 
stand head and shoulders above all their contemporaries, 
has put forth all his strength in a grand effort to demon- 
strate the baselessness, the inconsistency, the unreality of 
all anti-realistic metaphysics. The disciples of Berkeley 
and Hume, skilful in argument, and generally armed with 
a psychology superior to that of their antagonists, have 
hitherto gained easy victories over the hosts of theo- 
logians, who, confident in the truth of their cause, have 
stood forward, as one might say, unarmed and with naked 
breast, to fight for the reality of mind and matter. So 
easily and so invariably have the sceptics and idealists 
remained masters of the field against all-comers that they 
have agreed among themselves to regard realism as an 
exploded superstition “altogether unworthy of the name 
of philosophy” (Prof. Bain). But the end is not yet. 
They will have once more to look to their weapons. In 
Mr. Spencer realism has for the first time found a 
champion that can do it justice. Nothing behind the 
acutest idealist in subtlety and force of intellect, he brings 
to bear on the great metaphysical question of the reality 
_ of an external world a psychology as much superior to 
that of the idealists, as their mental science was superior 
to that of the divines they so easily vanquished. 
Of course we shall not attempt to sketch the argument 
that occupies nineteen chapters of Mr. Spencer’s volume ; 
which has for its groundwork his whole system of psy- 
chology, and on the issue of which he considers that his 
entire philosophy is at stake ; for, in his own words, 
‘ should the idealist be right, the doctrine of evolution is 
_adream.” It may, however, not be altogether profitless 
to dip into this elaborate argument at one or two places. 
“The argument of the Realist,” says Mr. Spencer, 
“habitually fails from not having as a fulcrum some 
_ universally-admitted truth which the Idealist also has to 
admit.” This necessary fulcrum, he alleges, is to be 
_ found in the Universal Postulate, which is, that we must 
accept as true that of which the negation cannot be re- 
presented in thought. But, it would almost seem no 
more easy to obtain universal assent to the doctrine, that 
the ultimate appeal must be to the inconceivableness of 
the negation of a proposition, than to establish the truth 
of realism by argument without the aid of such a fulcrum. 
At least, Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer have been battling 
over this question for twenty years, without coming much 
nearer agreement than at the beginning. But though 
, * Continued from p, 300. 
No, 176—VoL, vil. 
NATURE 357 
they may have done little towards their mutual instruc- 
tion, many students of philosophy must have profited 
greatly from what they agree in describing as their 
“amicable controversy.” And in venturing briefly to 
review the discussion, our justification must be that we do 
so as a disciple, who studies with reverence the works of 
both these imperial intellects. We shall first endeavour 
to outline in as few words as possible what appears to us 
an important part of Mr. Spencer’s argument, leaving his 
full meaning to become apparent when we proceed to 
notice some of Mr, Mill’s strictures thereon. Propositions, 
says Mr. Spencer, “ are the ultimate components of know- 
ledge. The simplest intuition equally with the most complex 
rational judgment, has the same fundamental structure: it 
is the tacit or overt assertion that something is or is not of a 
certain nature—belongs or does not belong to a certain 
class—has or has not a certain attribute.” ‘ Propositions, 
then, constitute the common denomination to which all 
systems of belief, simple or complex, have to be reduced 
before we can scientifically test them.” But propositions 
are of many kinds ; some are relatively simple, some are 
highly complex. ‘There are some propositions which 
tacitly assert little more than they avowedly assert ; while 
there are other propositions in which what is tacitly 
asserted immensely exceeds in amount what is avowedly 
asserted.” Accordingly, to “compare conclusions with 
scientific rigour, we must not only resolve arguments into 
their constituent propositions, but must resolve each com- 
plex proposition into the simple propositions composing 
it.” When intelligence is thus resolved into its simplest 
elements, it is found that there are cognitions of which 
the terms cannot be separated. Such cognitions we 
necessarily accept. To ascertain that the predicate of a 
cognition invariably exists along with its subject, all we 
can do is to make a deliberate and persistent effort to 
conceive the negation of the proposition, and having done 
this, ‘‘to assert the inconceivableness of its negation, is 
at the same time to assert the psychological necessity we 
are under of thinking it, and to give our logical justifica- 
tion for holding it to be unquestionable.” Further, as it 
is only by the aid of cognitions of this class, and for the 
trustworthiness of which no higher warrant can be given, 
that propositions are linked together so as to form what 
we call proof or disproof, since “logic is simply a systema- 
tisation of the process by which we indirectly obtain this 
warrant for beliefs that do not directly possess it,” it must 
follow that an attempt to invalidate a cognition of this 
class by a process of reasoning must somewhat resemble 
the mechanical absurdity of trying to lift the chair on 
which one sits. Now, the belief that a universe exists 
apart from and independently of our states of conscious- 
ness, is, according to Mr. Spencer, a cognition possessing 
this quality of highest certainty. When a man looks at 
a book without speculating, “he feels that the sole content 
of his consciousness is the book considereJ as an external 
reality, ... he feels that do what he will he cannot 
reverse this act; ... while he continues looking at the 
book, his belief in it as an external reality possesses the 
highest validity. It has the direct guarantee of the Uni- 
versal Postulate.” 
Against this Mr. Mill has argued that the proposed 
warrant of the truth of propositions cannot be accepted, 
if for no other reason, because we know as a matter of 
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