life lias hitherto been moulded. It is to supply us with 
all the guidance we need, and is in many ways to trans- 
form our present views of our duties and capacities. Mr. 
Herbert Spencer’s qualifications for this task do not seem 
disputed by those who deem it a practicable one. On all 
hands, indeed, his ability alike in thought and in expression 
is acknowledged, and we may therefore safely trust his 
exposition of the bearings of the new philosophy upon 
the subjects he discusses. Now, so long as the Evolution 
hypothesis is applied solely within the realm of nature, 
many of us would be content to leave its value to be dis- 
cussed by men of science like Professor Huxley. Though the 
arguments ostensibly adduced in its favour may not seem to 
us conclusive, we should not feel ourselves competent to in- 
trude into a field where so much special knowledge is required. 
But when the Evolution philosophy leaves this region and 
enters a domain like that of Ethics, in which it “ comes homo 
to men’s business and bosoms,” we may assert some compe- 
tence to judge of its claims, and it becomes a duty to attempt 
to do so. Ethics include the most important of all questions in 
human affairs. They affect the simplest matters of daily life on 
the one hand, and the most momentous questions of religion 
on the other. They at once supply the foundation and deter- 
mine the superstructure of human action; and when the 
exponent of a popular school of philosophy proposes to treat 
them from an entirely new point of view, we cannot but 
listen with attention. The subject is one which men of 
general education are qualified to discuss, and which requires 
the exercise of the reasoning and reflecting powers rather than 
special and technical knowledge. 
2. In this estimate of the import of the present publication 
we are following Mr. Herbert Spencer himself. He explains 
in his preface that it constitutes the first division of the 
work on the principles of morality, with which his system 
ends ; and he has somew T hat deviated from the order he had 
prescribed for himself in publishing* it before some other 
parts of the system are completed. But he was afraid lest, 
if he adhered strictly to that order, his health might fail 
before he reached the last part of his task ; and “ this last 
part of the task it is,” he says, “ to which I regard all the 
preceding* parts as subsidiary.” For nearly forty years, his 
“ ultimate purpose, lying behind all proximate purposes, 
has been that of finding for the principles of right and wrong 
in conduct at large a scientific basis.” To leave this pur- 
pose unfulfilled would be a failure of which he did not like 
to contemplate the probability; and in the present work he 
