REPLIES TO THE QUARTERLY REVIEWERS. 541 

 EEPLIES TO THE QUAKTEKLY REVIEWERS. 



By HEEBEET SPENCEE. 



WITH the concluding paragraph of the previous article replying 

 to criticisms I had hoped to end, for a long time, all contro- 

 versial writing. But, while it was in the printer's hands, two criti- 

 cisms, more elaborate than those dealt with above, made their appear- 

 ance ; and, now that the postponed publication of this latter half of 

 the article affords the opportunity, I cannot, without risking misinter- 

 pretations, leave these criticisms unnoticed. 



Especially do I feel called upon by courtesy to make some response 

 to one who, in the Quarterly Review, for October, has dealt with me 

 in a spirit which, though largely antagonistic, is not wholly unsympa- 

 thetic, and who manifestly aims to estimate justly the views he op- 

 poses. In the space at my disposal, I cannot of course follow him 

 through all the objections he has urged. I must content myself with 

 brief comments on the two propositions he undertakes to establish. 

 His enunciation of these runs as follows : 



" We would especially direct attention to two points, to both of which we 

 are confident objections may be made ; and, although Mr. Spencer has himself 

 doubtless considered such objections (and they may well have struck many of 

 his readers also), we nevertheless do not observe that he has anywhere noticed 

 or provided for them. 



" The two points we select are : 



" 1. That his system involves the denial of all truth. 



"2. That it is radically and necessarily opposed to all sound principles of 

 morals?'' 



On this passage, ending in these two startling assertions, let me 

 first remark that I am wholly without this consciousness the reviewer 

 ascribes to me. Remembering that I have expended some little labor 

 in developing what I conceive to be a system of truths, I am some- 

 what surprised by the supposition that "the denial of all truth" is an 

 implication which I am " doubtless " aware may be alleged against 

 this system. Remembering, too, that by its programme this system is 

 shown to close with two volumes on " The Principles of Morality," 

 the statement that it is " necessarily opposed to all sound principles 

 of morals " naturally astonishes me, and still more the statement 

 that I am doubtless conscious it may be so regarded. Saying thus 

 much by way of repudiating that latent skepticism attributed to me 

 by the reviewer, I proceed to consider what he says in proof of these 

 propositions. 



On those seeming incongruities of Transfigured Realism com- 

 mented on by him, I need say no more than I have already said in 

 reply to Mr. Sidgwick, by whom also they have been alleged. I 



