4 02 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



KEPLIES TO CRITICISMS. 



By HERBERT SPENCER. 



II. 



OBJECTIONS of another, though allied, class have been made in 

 a review of the "Principles of Psychology," by Mr. H. Sidg- 

 wick — a critic whose remarks on questions of mental philosophy 

 always deserve respectful consideration. 



Mr. Sidgwick's chief aim is, to show what he calls " the mazy in- 

 consistency of his [my] metaphysical results." More specifically he 

 expresses thus the proposition he seeks to justify : " His view of the 

 subject appears to have a fundamental incoherence, which shows itself 

 in various ways on the surface of his exposition, but of which the 

 root lies much deeper, in his inability to harmonize different lines of 

 thought." 



Before dealing with the reasons given for this judgment, let me 

 say that, in addition to the value which candid criticisms have, as 

 showing where more explanation is needed, they are almost indis- 

 pensable as revealing to a writer incongruities he had not perceived. 

 Especially where, as in this case, the subject-matter has many aspects, 

 and where the words supplied by our language are so inadequate in 

 number that, to avoid cumbrous circumlocution, they have to be used 

 in senses that vary according to the context, it is extremely difficult 

 to avoid imperfections of statement. But while I acknowledge sundry 

 such imperfections and the resulting incongruities, I cannot see that 

 these are, as Mr. Sidgwick says, fundamental. Contrariwise, their 

 superficiality seems to me proved by the fact that they may be recti- 

 fied without otherwise altering the expositions in which they occur. 

 Here is an instance : 



Mr. Sidgwick points out that, when treating of the "Data of Psy- 

 chology," I have said (in § 56) that, though we reach inferentially 

 "the belief that mind and nervous action are the subjective and ob- 

 jective faces of the same thing, we remain utterly incapable of seeing, 

 and even of imagining, how the two are related " (I quote the passage 

 more fully than he does). He then goes on to show that in the "Spe- 

 cial Synthesis," where I have sketched the evolution of intelligence 

 under its objective aspect, as displayed in the processes by which be- 

 ings of various grades adjust themselves to surrounding actions, I 

 "speak as if" we could see how consciousness "naturally arises at a 

 particular stage " of nervous action. The chapter here referred to is 

 one describing that " differentiation of the psychical from the physical 

 life " which accompanies advancing organization, and more especially 

 advancing development of the nervous system. In it I have aimed to 

 show that, while the changes constituting physical life continue to be 



