292 THE CROSSING, 



utility of information, so happily conveyed. If English- 

 men valued their reputation among posterity, they 

 would make a holocaust of Spencer's works; for, to 

 have such a tissue of charlatanry represent, as it is 

 said to do, the highest phase of English thought, is the 

 most disgraceful commentary upon the intellectual life 

 of a nation, ever recorded in history. By this, it is not 

 meant to intimate that the intellect of Spencer, is on a 

 level with his works. To insinuate anything of the 

 kind, would be as unfair, as it would be to estimate 

 the understanding of a politician, from the impolitic 

 and inane measures which party exigencies, and am- 

 bition for preferment, had counseled him to advocate. 

 Herbert Spencer has merely availed himself of the pre- 

 vailing mode of thought, and of the intellectual weak- 

 nesses of the English people, to insure his personal 

 fame. No man could play so deftly upon the preju- 

 dices of the heterodox, and make them digest such 

 absurdities as he has propounded; and not be a man 

 of an order of intellect, somewhat above the average. 

 It seems, even, here and there throughout his works, 

 that he has, in a vein of cynical humor, endeavored^ 

 to see how far he might carry an experiment, upon 

 English credulity, without detection. A case in point, 

 is where he animadverts, in the most unmeasured terms, 

 against the illegitimate and unphilosophical mode of 

 referring any phenomena to "innate tendencies," or 

 other "metaphysical entities;" whereas, his whole 

 system is built ugon such proscribed references; and 

 these " metaphysical entities " do yeoman's duty, upon 

 well-nigh every page of his works. His principal cue, 



