86 Chauncey Wright. [vi. 



whether, after all, we have not great reason to believe 

 that throughout the length and breadth and duration 

 of the boundless and endless universe there is an 

 all-pervading coherency of action, such as would be 

 implied in the theorem that all Nature is the mani- 

 festation of one Infinite Power, — to any such ques- 

 tion he would probably have held that no legitimate 

 answer can be given. 



In this general way of looking at things we have 

 the explanation of Mr. Wright's persistent hostility 

 to the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. This hostihty 

 is declared in his earliest essay, entitled A Physical 

 Theory of the Universe, and it is maintained in the 

 paper on German Darwinism, published only three 

 days before his death, wherein great pains are taken 

 to show that Mr. Spencer's philosophy is utterly un- 

 Baconian and unscientific, as resting, not upon in- 

 ductive inquiry, but upon " undemonstrated beliefs 

 assumed to be axiomatic and irresistible." In the 

 first and last of my many conversations with Mr. 

 Wright — in July 1862, and in July 1875 — I found 

 myself charged with the defence of Mr. Spencer's phi- 

 losophy against what then seemed, and still seems, 

 to me a profound misunderstanding of its true cha- 

 racter and purpose. As the point is one which goes 

 as far as any other toward illustrating Mr. Wright's 



