demanded, does not this disprove theism? It may, according to the logical rules of the objector; but not according to the logical rules of Aristotle and Bacon, of Hamilton and Mill, not according to the ordinary process of induction or deduction. If the forces, when they are gravity and heat, do not disprove theism, it is difficult to understand how, by any known logic, they can disprove theism when they become correlated or converted into heat and gravity. Thus far we have referred to material forces only. Whether all the forces which are implied in a living body may be correlated or converted into gravity and heat in a lifeless bodywhether all the forces which are implied in an organic, living, thinking man may be correlated or converted into gravity and heat of an unthinking, lifeless, inorganic stock or stone may, at least a little longer, remain an open question. It should be borne in mind that mature and earnest champions of the doctrine of "conservation and correlation of forces" admit that entire correlation is an open question. Even Professor Barker, incidentally, and so the more strongly, admits this very state of the question: "Can we longer refuse to believe that even thought is in some mysterious way correlated to the other natural forces? And this even in face of the fact that it [thought] has never been measured?” Scientists, then, know of no way in which thought and material force can be correlated; they cannot weigh nor measure thought? Is not this, then, an open question? We commend the question to "positive science," as one which deserves and demands additional (scientific) research. And we suggest to the eager philosophic sceptic, impatient to publish the decisive oracle to the long-desired confusion of theism, that he cultivate patience, lest he run upon a fool's errand.

At the scientific reunion in Insprück, M. Mayer, a prominent physicist of Germany, who has directed especial investigation to the correlation of forces, made an address. Repudiating the hypothesis that thought is only a form of chemical force, and cognition the result of free phosphorus in the brain, he declared it "a great error to identify

molecular activity and intellectual action, which may be parallel, but are not identical. As what the telegraph says -the contents of the despatch-could never be regarded as a function of the electro-chemical action, ..... so the brain is only the machine. It is not thought; intelligence, which is not a part of sensible things, cannot be submitted to the investigations of the physicist and anatomist." In the mean time, let the eager philosophic sceptic carefully consider his logic, lest, if the oracle announce correlation of forces as demonstrable, the atheistic herald even then should run upon a fool's errand. The question of forces, their conservation and correlation and analysis, falls far within the comprehensive question involved in this discussion-the question of a God and of faith in God.

These are but a few of the many theories proposed to account for and explain the system of things. In these manifold and diverse theories, old and new and old renewed, there is involved not only an admission of the importance and difficulty of answering these great questions of the soul, but also the admission of inherent weakness in the theories themselves. They are mere hypotheses. Even the very positive Westminster Review (Oct., 1872) says of Darwin's theory: "The case of man's descent does not yet admit of proof. The same may be said of the origin of any other species, of Darwin's hypothesis in general, and of the hypothesis of special creations which it denies."

La Place, while he would dispense with the theism of Newton,- La Place, bold among the boldest scientific investigators, offers his "Exposition du Systême du Monde" as an hypothesis, and as such presents it with becoming diffidence: "Je presente avec la défiance que doit inspirer tout ce qui n'est point un resultat de l'observation, ou du calcul." But not only are these theories of "exact" science mere hypotheses concerning the questions at issue; they are made, it should be remembered, with the provisional admission that "science cannot find a first cause." 1 Whatever

science may answer to the soul's irrepressible and comprehensive challenge, it refers to method only, not to origin. Transcending, as well as comprehending, the field of its investigations are evermore the questions, Whence? and Why? The positive philosophy affirms truly, and must perpetually affirm: "Science cannot find a first cause." Science evermore traces, and can only trace, the manifestations of the first cause. Whatever it be material or spiritual -science studiously traces the manifestations of the first cause in the order or law which it discovers, and which it seeks to generalize. Retracing specific to more general laws, it classifies evermore in higher and still higher generalizations, steadily extending its knowledge as it reaches a larger unit. This it makes the point of a new departure, forever asking, What is? and the higher question, How? or in what order, or by what law it is.

And here to conclude this Article we reach the comprehensive admission that science seeks to trace all effects to unity that philosophy would unify its knowledge by retracing all phenomena to one common origin. Each particular science seeks this unity for itself, and "universal science seeks after absolute unity." To this ultimate result all its processes tend. To seek this unification it is authorized; nay, it is compelled. It is claimed, on the one hand, that this final unification may consist in matter, and not in mind; that matter exists by a reason in itself; and that matter is the beginning, the originator. But how do we get a notion of any beginning? Is it not by the power (the energy) of our own minds putting forth new activities, producing effects, originating phenomena ? What, we ask, is matter, that it should be the originator, the beginning? Does scepticism reply, "It is force"? Again we ask, Is force an abstraction, independent and unrelated? Does not force itself originate in mind?

These and similar questions confront the theory of materialistic unity.

On the other hand, it is claimed that multiplicity in the

universe may be reduced to pantheistic unity; that there is not only theism, but pantheism. God is all, and all is God. But, as no one else will believe that the pantheist is God, and as each knows for himself that he is not God, the excess of pantheistic admission is apparent.

The fault is not in the attempt at unification; for this is unavoidable. Atheist, pantheist, and theist, materialist and spiritualist, are alike compelled to it by the very law of thought. The admission is inevitable. The fault lies in the principle and the process of unifying. Is the principle right? Is the process broad enough? Here is the point of divergence. Which is the true course? Which is the false? These questions remain to be considered.

ARTICLE IV.

THE "GENERAL PHILOSOPHY" OF HERBERT SPENCER.

BY M. STUART PHELPS, PH. D., NEW HAVEN, CT.

HERBERT SPENCER defines philosophy as "knowledge of the highest degree of generality."1 "Knowledge of the lowest kind is un-unified knowledge" [whatever that may be]. "Science is partially unified knowledge. Philosophy is completely unified knowledge."2 "Knowledge has obviously not reached its limits, until it has united the past, present, and future histories into a whole."3 "Philosophy, then, has to formulate this passage from the imperceptible into the perceptible, and from the perceptible into the imperceptible." 4

The system of philosophy which Spencer gives us is, then, an attempt to explain the ultimate a priori laws of the universe. By its success or its failure in that attempt must it be judged true or false philosophy.

NOTE.-References, unless otherwise specified, are to Spencer's "First Principles of Philosophy" (2d edition). New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1 p. 131. 2 p. 134.

1

3

p. 278.

1872.

4 280.

A system of philosophy is a product of thought. But a product implies a producer and a process of production. This process, logically intermediate between producer and produced, has a relation to each. It partakes of, is included in, the nature of the first; it regulates the second.

Philosophy, then, as the product of thought, must involve certain assumptions concerning the existence, the nature, and the laws of thought.

"The fundamental intuitions that are essential to the process of thinking must be temporarily accepted as unquestionable." 1 "Speculators have habitually set out with some professedly simple datum or data, have supposed themselves to assume nothing beyond this datum or these data, and have thereupon proceeded to prove or disprove propositions which were, by implication, already unconsciously asserted along with that which was consciously asserted." 2

Spencer, having acknowledged that philosophy must presuppose certain primary data, gives us three tests of the validity of such assumptions. Two of the three are simply implied; one only is distinctly stated.

The first of these is Necessity. Such assumptions are "fundamental intuitions, essential to the process of thinking."

The second is Universality. Searching for the truth in religion, in science, and in philosophy, he collects all various opinions of men, and, "after eliminating discordant elements," he accepts, as an indisputable assumption, "the remaining constituent, which holds true throughout its divergent modifications." 3

These tests of necessity and universality are united in the statement that the "absolute validity" of realism "will be shown, if we find it to be a necessary product of thought, proceeding according to laws of thought that are universal."4

A third test is Consistency. This is the only one distinctly formulated. Yet it is simply a corollary of the test of necessity. A proposition claims admission as a primary datum, yet contradicts primary data already established. If 8 pp. 11, 128. Psych. Vol. ii. p. 445.

1

p. 137.

2

p. 135.

4