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And^the only maintains, and practically is, persistent or indestructible but 
gion. * transformable Force, and nothing else. We profess to know 
no more of our Supreme Power than it has told us. Mr. 
Spencer professes to know everything by the light of his own 
intellect. Which, then, is the most “ irreligious and absurd,” 
according to his own dictum ? 
The religious or ethical parts of the Spencerian Philosophy 
have been discussed by former writers and speakers in this 
Society. For that reason, and also because this particular 
question of design in creation involves no metaphysics (which 
only mean interminable discussion), I shall confine myself to the 
theory of undesigned cosmogony propounded in those “ First 
Principles of Synthetic Philosophy or Unified Knowledge,” 
which I have already described almost in the author's words, 
only rather more briefly. Whether one of his admirers in a 
scientific j ournal is right or not in pronouncing his “work of 
the calibre of that which Newton did, though it as far sur- 
passes that in vastness of performance as the railway surpasses 
the sedan chair,” he does unquestionably far surpass Newton in 
vastness of language, both as to quantity and quality. We 
shall presently see also the real nature of the “ clearness of 
thought and of expression” which it is equally the fashion of 
his admirers to glorify. 
[Other critics find it easier to say that I impute to him 
opinions which are not his, than to explain how they differ. 
They evidently do not understand, if they have really read, 
my arguments ; and I doubt very much if anybody under- 
stands his. I give them in his own words wherever I can, 
and it is not necessary to profess to understand what you are 
demonstrating to be absurd. Nothing can be more futile than 
for writers ignorant of science, and especially of mathematics, 
to set up for either defenders or improvers of Spencerian 
natural philosophy.] 
Though it is his philosophy and not his style that we are 
concerned with here, they are inseparable in this respect, that , 
he claims the right to call everything by new names, and to 
use old ones in any sense he pleases, and for just as long as he ! 
pleases, without prejudice to the right of tacitly resuming the 
old senses, or intending his readers to do so, whenever he finds 
it convenient. Thus nobody must suppose that his “ Dif- j 
ferentiation and Integration,” which are the chief agents of 
Evolution with him, have any kind of relation to their well- 
known meaning in the only science in which they have 
hitherto been used. Mathematical “ differentiation ” means | 
infinitely small variations according to known laws, and ! 
