SOCIOLOGY. 
125 
Perhaps the most effective and appreciative criticism that has ever 
appeared of Mr. Herbert Speneer’s system was that given by the late 
Professor W. Stanley Jevons, whose untimely death is still fresh in 
our memories. In an article entitled “John Stuart Mill’s Philosophy 
Tested” in the “ Contemporary Review” for November, 1879, he said :— 
“ To me the Spencerian Philosophy presents itself in its main features 
as unquestionably true ; indeed it is already difficult to look back and 
imagine how philosophers could have denied of the human mind and 
actions what is obviously true of the animal races generally. 
Paley pointed out how many beautiful contrivances there are in the 
human form tending to our benefit. Spencer has pointed out that the 
Universe is one deep-laid framework for the production of such 
beneficent contrivances. Paley called upon us to admire such 
exquisite inventions as a hand or an eye. Spencer calls upon us 
to admire a machine, which is the most comprehensive of all 
machines, because it is ever engaged in inventing beneficial inven¬ 
tions ad infinitum. According to Mill we are little self-dependent 
gods fighting with a malignant and murderous power called Nature, 
sure one would think to be worsted in the struggle.According 
to Spencer, as I venture to interpret his theory, we are the latest 
manifestation of an all-prevailing towards the good,—the happy. 
Creation is not yet concluded, and there is no one of us who may not 
become conscious in his heart that he is no automaton, no mere lump 
of protoplasm, but the Creature of a Creator.”* 
“To Monsieur Comte,” the author of the “Positive Philosophy,” 
says Mr. Herbert Spencer, “ is due the credit of having set forth, with 
comparative definiteness, the connection between the science of life and 
the science of society.” He maintained that a knowledge of all the 
facts connected with the growth and development of individual man 
must be understood before the facts of the growth and development of 
aggregates of men—in other words, of societies—could be correctly’’ 
understood. In his classification of the sciences he therefore placed 
Biology before Sociology. 
For a very admirable opinion of the value of the teaching of Soci¬ 
ology under many of its aspects, I cannot resist quoting the observations 
of one of the most distinguished of living philosophers and exponents of 
the Doctrine of Evolution. In that memorable Address, which many 
of us had the good fortune to listen to, from Professor Huxley in the 
Town Hall on the occasion of the opening of this noble College on the 
1st of October, 1880, he said at the conclusion ;—“ Within these walls 
the future employer and the future artizan may sojourn together for 
awhile, and carry through all their lives the stamp of the influence 
then brought to bear on them. Hence, it is not beside the mark to 
remind you that the prosperity of industry depends, not merely upon 
the ennobling of the individual character, but upon a third condition, 
namely, a clear understanding of the conditions of social life on the 
* “Contemporary Eeview,” November, 1879. ‘John Stuart Mill’s Philosophy 
Tested, by Professor W. Stanley Jevons,’ pp. 537-8. 
