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other pro. this month (January 1884). My only object here is to 
Spencerian exhibit the impossibility and absurdity of his new alternative 
Evolution. £ 0 th e theory of a Creator ordaining and maintaining laws 
of nature; which he calls “the carpenter theory of creation, 
(p. 120) maintained only in the pride of ignorance,” of which 
I shall say a little more at the end. I might be content with 
this exposure of his final formula or definition of Evolution. 
But, if I stopped here, perhaps his disciples would say that 
it is a mere verbal question, and that they can afford to give 
up his definition of Evolution, unless we can also refute the 
processes by which he has satisfied them that the world was 
evolved by persistent force. I do not expect to convince 
them of anything. But perhaps I may some other people, 
who are only waiting to see if his other automatic processes 
are admitted to be possible results of the conservation of 
force, now that it is admitted to be true, not indeed as an 
axiom transcending demonstration and underlying experience, 
but as a law of nature proved by experience. 
His various automatic processes, with their wonderful de- 
signations, are all proved to the satisfaction of his admirers 
by a peculiar kind of logic, which consists in giving some 
specimens of each of them, and then pronouncing them 
universal, and then “ necessary corollaries of persistent force,” 
sometimes adding that every body will (or ought to) see it. 
Whenever any “ minor incident forces” are wanted, viz., such 
trifles as gravity, electricity, heat, crystallisation, and all the 
chemical and vital forces, they are instantaneously generated 
by Mr. Spencer's word, that matter is unthinkable without 
them. These processes of Spencerian Evolution are not 
only the integration and disintegration, differentiation and 
redistribution, dissipation and retention, which we have made 
acquaintance with already, but some more, viz., the Instability 
of the homogeneous, the Rhythm of all motion, Segregation, 
Multiplication of effects, Equilibration, and finally Dissolution 
(only that also is not final, any more than the “ final formula” 
of Evolution), besides a few promiscuous phenomena, hardly 
to be called processes or causes. There is a chapter on “ The 
Direction of Motion,” which begins with the important admis- 
sion that “ the absolute cause of changes, no matter what may 
be their special nature, is ... . incomprehensible.” What 
are we to think of a philosopher who professes to “unify all 
knowledge,” and to deduce everything from a single inde- 
structible force in no known direction, and then tells us that 
the initial change in every direction is incomprehensible — 
without a Creator ? for it is absurd to say they are in- 
