158 
Gospel still stimulates. But our present concern is simply 
to observe the immense pretensions thus put forward. Mr. 
Spencer proposes to supersede a Revelation and to regenerate 
morality. It would hardly be practicable, within the space 
of a paper to be read before this Society, to offer a complete 
examination of so comprehensive an attempt; but it will 
probably not be found difficult to come to a general conclusion 
as to its value. 
4. It need not be said of any work of Mr. Spencer that it 
contains many interesting discussions, and that the illustra- 
tions drawn from his wide knowledge of natural philosophy 
frequently place the facts of life in a striking light. On the 
other hand, it is necessary to say that the book contains ex- 
amples of inaccurate statements and fallacious argumentation 
which are extremely surprising in a writer of Mr. Spencer’s 
reputation, and which must raise a strong presumption against 
the trustworthiness of his conclusions on such a subject. Take, 
for instance, his criticism of Aristotle’s view of the relation of 
virtue to happiness, on pp. 34-37. He is speaking of moral- 
ists “who think that the idea of virtue is not resolvable into 
simpler ideas.” “This,” he says, “is the doctrine which appears 
to have been entertained by Aristotle. I say, appears to have 
been, because his statements are far from consistent 'with one 
another. Recognising happiness as the supreme end of 
human endeavour, it would at first sight seem that he cannot 
be taken as typical of those who make virtue the supreme 
end. Yet he puts himself in this category by seeking to 
define happiness in terms of virtue, instead of defining virtue 
in terms of happiness.” The fallacy of this objection is con- 
cealed by the vagueness of its expression. What does Mr. 
Spencer mean by defining one thing in terms of another ? 
Definition consists in assigning an idea to the class to which 
it belongs, and specifying the difference which distinguishes 
it from other ideas of the same class. If, then, Aristotle had 
said that happiness was a kind of virtue, he would no doubt 
have treated virtue as a more general idea than happiness. 
But this is what he does not do. He defines happiness to be 
“ an energy of the soul in accordance with virtue.”* He 
describes virtue, in other words, as conducive to happiness, 
not happiness as conducive to virtue. 
5. But Mr. Spencer proceeds to show a complete disregard 
of Aristotle’s conceptions on this point. Those, he says 
(p. 36), which Aristotle calls virtues, “must be so called 
* ivtpytia kcit' dptrrjv apLaTt]v tv rt\ti(p. — Eth. Eic. } i. 5. 
