105 
how thou art avenged, for thy fiercest assailant is now pos- 
sessed by a double portion of thy spirit. Evidently Mr. 
Spencer here commits himself to a theory of the wildest 
Idealism. He denies the existence of all substance of Mind, 
and asserts that there are in us only a fieeting succession of 
transitory states ! Just as well he might deny the existence 
of all substance of matter, and say that matter is nothing more 
than a bundle of phenomena. John Stuart Mill asserted this, 
but hitherto Mr. Spencer has been too wise. He can take up 
this position if he likes, but he will know the fate which in that 
case awaits him. Elsewhere he has many times said that 
mind as distinct from all phenomena of Mind is the one 
existence of whose reality we can be most absolutely certain, 
‘^is a truth transcending all others in certainty * In this 
sentence, then, are two contradictions. He confounds sub- 
stance with phenomena, which elsewhere he has carefully 
distinguished ; and he denies, what he has in other places 
asserted, that Mind, as distinguished from its modifications, 
exists. 
4. In the next sentence but one there is the same assump- 
tion. There is not one particle more of reasoniug. He simply 
asserts that the entire group of psychical states which con- 
stituted the antecedent of the action also constituted (the 
actor) himself at that moment — constituted his psychical 
self, that is, as distinguished from his physical self.^^ Now 
here is a very clever and plausible sophism. We cannot say 
point blank that Mr. Spencer^s statement is false, but as he 
means it, it is false. The entire group of psychical states 
may be, perhaps, held to make up a man's psychical self/^ 
if within those psychical states that power of free-will 
which rules them all is included. But Mr. Spencer means by 
psychical states simply states of mind held in the bonds of 
unvarying law, with all freedom of will shut out. Hence his 
sentence, reasonably true in sound_j is false in meaning, and 
no fresh argument is adduced. It is one more ^petitlo 
principii. 
5. In the very next sentence he makes the same round 
assertion, advancing no fresh argument. 
6. In the next sentence he makes a break as if about to go 
on a new line of departure, and give us something more 
worthy of his masterly dialectic. But it is only to continue 
the same logical vice. He says : — Either the ego which is 
supposed to determine or will the action is present in con- 
* Principles of Psychology, vol i. p. 209. 
