St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-09
THE ATTACK ON SPENCER.
Richard Proctor's Defence of ''TAe Bacon
OF This Day."

Richard Proctor's Defence of ''The Bacon
OF This Day."
The Edinburgh Review makes a savage as
sault on Herbert Spencer this quarter, in an
article written in a style so familiar that it
might as well have been signed.
Those who admire the work which
has already been achieved and is
in progress of achievement by the
leading philosopher of the century will be
scarcely less panied by this unfair and acr-
monious attack than those who have regard
for the reputation of Sir Edmund Beckett.
Sir Edmund has attacked the Bacon of this
day in terms that would be hardly appropri-
ate if applied to one of those absurd persons
who go about with theories that the earth is
fiat, the law of gravity a gigantic
blunder, and the squaring of the circle
child's play. Belonging myself to both cate
gories above mentioned, l am doubly
grieved. / value Sir Edmund Beckett as a
kind personal friend, mastery reasoner
within certain lines, and one of the most
skillful advocates whether of a
good or of mistaken cause that l
have ever met Herbert Spencer l esteem /
may almost say reverence, as the teacher of
the soundest system of philosophy the world
has yet, in my judgment, known. That
man whose researches reach owidely should
at times fall into error in matters of detail
may be readily admitted. Only a few
weeks ago pointed out in the pages of my
weekly journal, Knowledge what hold to be
an entirely erroneous view of Herbert Spen
GERS respecting the probable origin of the
system of asteroids. Yet even in matters of
detail belonging to the work of specialists he
has been singularly clear-sighted. He first
pointed out the fallacies underlying
the long-accepted teaching respecting
the stellar system, star clusters, nebula, etc.,
which men like Arago and Humboldt had
dealt with without detecting error. In every
department of science, in fact, though
specialist in none, Herbert Spencer has left
his mark.
The attack in The Edinburgh Reyie,o leaves
Spencer's fame untouched. 1t is evident in
every line of this sour production that the
enmity which Sir Edmund Beckett has al
ways felt and expressed toward the teachings
of the school of which Spencer had been the
Bacon, the Darwin and the Newton, has made
it impossible for him to read with even aver
age attention the work which he pretends to
criticise. He has not caught the
veriest glimmer of a notion of Mr.. Spen-
GERS real meaning. From the only passage
which he claims to quote entire he has al
lowed several important words to drop-by
accident doubtless, but yet not by mere ac-
cident in transcribing what he had already
carefully read and understood; for the rea-
soning which follows falls to the ground so
soon as the omitted words are restored
Let one example suffice to show how utter
" Sir Edmund Beckett either has missed or
misrepresents the meaning of the famous
contemporary whom he assaults Herbert
Spencer, speaking of the great first cause,
transcending all laws, absolute, uncondi-
tional, says that we only perceive it, can only
recognize it, by the persistence of force
which, as it were, symbolizes it. Sir Ed,
mund regards this as equivalent to saying
that the Great First Cause is nothing else but
persistent force. Beckett rebukes Spencer
for speaking of the Claws of notion as the
result of experience, saying that Newton re-
garded them as self-evident. He must have
forgotten Newton's ''Principia, T" where these
laws are presented by Newton as now spoken
by Spencer.