organism. We observed bow along witb complexity of 
organisation there goes an increase in the number, in the 
range, in the speciality, in the complexity, of the adjustments 
of inner relations to outer relations. And in tracing up the 
increase we found ourselves passing without a break from the 
phenomena of bodily life to the phenomena of mental life.^'* 
These passages must make it abundantly clear that it is a 
cardinal and structural doctrine of Mr. Spencer^s whole 
Philosophy that there has been no break between the first 
mechanical forces of Matter and the best and noblest develop- 
ments of Mind. This doctrine we have now surely over- 
thrown. It has been proved from his own statements in his 
own words, that no effort enables us to assimilate Mind 
and the Matter that is in close alliance with it. If, then, our 
reasoning be sound, his philosophy is no longer a whole, it 
is broken into fragments. It fails to account for the facts of 
the universe. 
And now, having pierced his centre, we can, I think, drive 
him back along the whole line. His sophistical evasion of the 
real difficulty, — his illicit introduction of a factor he has no right 
to introduce, which we have marked in this instance, — per- 
petually characterises his reasoning ; and although he cannot 
often be brought to book as in this case, yet at every point 
in his argument there is the same use of a forbidden element. 
He is engaged in elaborating the element of physical Force, 
and he is entitled to take all that Force can give him. But 
until he shoivs how Force can become Mind, how the extended 
beam of light can become the unextended, he is not entitled 
to one iota of mental energy. We may say to him, adapting 
well-known words : — • 
“ Take thou thy beams of light ; 
But, in the taking them, if thou dost filch 
The smallest particle of Mind’s proper powers. 
Thy system falls all shatter’d and o’erthrown ; 
Thy serried ranks are cleft, and ne’er again 
Shall Keason own thee as her loyal son.” 
Now this offence Mr. Spencer commits. He steals some 
Mind, and he maintains underneath the surface of his 
reasoning an illicit channel of communication by which he 
can, all unperceived, take feloniously as much more Mind as 
his necessities may demand. His argument is curiously 
like the common account of the introduction of sin into our 
world. One sin, seemingly simple, introduced the 'principle, 
Principles of Ps'ychology, vol. i. pp. 293-4. 
