The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-09-23
:f41[lt.ilj{@IIlt|j:t|1I(1rl


| who sought to explain natural phenomena
| by an immutable and infinitely powerful
/ law, instead of by the caprice OF a mag
| nifed man sitting up in the clouds, was
! generally counted a materia1ist. To the
| unprejudiced mind II might seem that
the operations of intangible, invis bic
| forces. working in perfect harmony, and
extending to the most subtle and intimate
relations of human life were much less
material than tangible, visible angels. but
! in those days few minds were unpreju-
diced. The new idealism is widsly differ
ent from the old-so different that minds
| formed under the old system of thought
| could hardly have been expected to recog-
nize its beauty. The nature of the Spen-
! cerian philosophy is defined, partly by
the biographer and partly by Spencer
| himself, as follows:
So far from thinking that life is product
| of Matter he has clearly indicated that in his
view Matter itself is a form OF life in his own
words: Under one of its aspects, Sieihtinc
progress is a gradual TRANSPORTATION of Nature.
Where ordinary perception saw perfect simple
ity it reveals great completely; where there
seems absolute inertness ii discloses intense ac-
tivity; and in what appears mere vacancy it
finds marvellous play of force Each generation
of physicists discovers in so-called brute mat
ter powers which but a few years before the
most instructed physicists would have thought
incredible. When the explorer of nature sees
that, quiescent they appear, surrounding solid
bodies thus sensitive TO forces which are H.
fnitesmal in their amounts-when the spsctro-
scope proves 10 him that molecules the earth
pulsate in harmony with molecules in the stars
when there is forced on him the inference
that every point in space thrills with an III
fnity OF vibrations passing through it in all
directions; the conception TO which he tends is
much less that OF universe of dead matter
than that o. a universe everywhere alive; alive,
if not in the restricted sense, still in the gen
eral sense :" At the end of all scientific and
philosophic enquiries We come. according to Mr.
Spencer, to infinite and omnipresent Energy
from which all things proceed Manifestly this
conception Of life renders unreal the old
dispute about non-livinG and living matter Liv-
ing matter no longer think of something
entirely different in kind from non-liviHg mat
ter. We now think of the difference as one
of degree. Matter is alive, not because there
has been added to it a special property. What
call living matter only seems to to be
specially alive, because its movements are OF a
highly complex nature, and because it is or
gaHzed on what seems to US to be a principle
OF inherent self-actiyity.
The revolution in intellectual life which
so radical a change in theory as this has
effected is hardly as yet to be measured.
Future generations may be able to esti-
mate it more accurately than we. But
the freeing of the human mind from tbs
letters of WORKOUT religious and philo-
sophical materialism was a trem ndous
dCulSNSntul, anu III iuiS NOIh Inc CltdI
and sane philosophy of Herbert Spencer
had 4 very large share. He put into shape
and expressed the theories toward which
many intellectual men of his time, and
masses who were not in any sense in
tellectual, were more or less blindly work
ing. That is the secret of his leader
ship, as it is of the ascendancy OF most
great thinkers. They do not influence
the thought of their age so much as their
opponents claim that they do. They mere
~ blaze the way for the crowds who are
moving in the same direction. 1t takes
clear mind and brave soul to be a
pioneer In the jungles of intellectual be-
wildernlent, but the thinker does not Gre
ate truth. he discloses it.
In the chapter On THE Evolution of
Mind" there is a remarkably good sum-
mary of the difficulties and blunders of
pre-Spencerian thinkers, and of Spencer's
solution of their problems. 1t is as fol-
lows:
In dealing with biological phenomena it was
pointed out that one great source of error was
the fact that the processes OF Nature neces-
sarily studied in inverse order We see ell
iects before we discover causes Ignorant OF
the slow, complex processes OF Nature, the
mind naturally seeks for causes sufficiently strik-
ing and dramatic to account for imposing ef-
fects. As already remarked, had we been ignO-
CINE, should naturally have attributed its
power OF motion to property or, in other
words, to a Locomotive Principle. In the alb
sence of scientific knowledge man naturally falls
back upon entities as causes Of phenomena. We
have seen the part which entities have played
IN biology. Even yet, many scientific men, in
dread o. Aaterialism, cling to the Vital Prin-
cipie as the chief and dominating OF life
and its multiiorm manifestations. When we
come TO the study OF mind, we are not sur
prlsed 10 ind that here, even more than in life
IN general, entities have played an important
part The m2rvcls OF consciousness, the mys-
Jeries of brain and mind, are so overpowering
that the first impulse Of the student is to look
for the cause altogether outside Of ordinary cos
mic forces. Primitive could find no cause
adequate TO the effect short OF supernatural pow
er. In his view, God formed man of the dust
Of the earth, and breathed into him a living
soul. As the theological conception faded
away, its place was taken by the meta physical
conception. Instead Of 4 supernatural agent
acting outside Of the Cosmos, the metaphysicians
postulated agent within the organism. Just
as Vital Principle invoked to explain life
in general, so an Intelligent Principle was in
voked to explain the conscious life OF man in
particular. Philosophers pictured the mind as
beirtg somewhat like a political State where in
tellect and conscience ruled by a kind of divine
right Their authority liable to be over
turned. Evil, in fact, the result Of mental
and moral anarchy. The lower passions were in
revolt against the higher. Thus have Butler
plaintiyely remaTkIng that If Conscience had
power it had right, it would rule the world.
The process OF thought personified until the
intellect became, not generalizad term, but an
active agent. As Samuel Bailey says: The
facuiJes have been represented acting like in
dependent agents, giving birth to ideas passing
them on to each other mutually, and transact
Ing their business among themselves In this
kind of phTsseology the mind often appears like
q sort OF field in which perception, reason, mem.
CRY, Imagination. will, conscience, the passions
produce their operations like 50 many powers,
either allied or hostile"
H1HHHar HaaQd alafdr HI
ishing the absolute distinctions which Inetaph;
siciars had drawn between mind and the outer
world, between subject and object. He de-
throned entities and distractions by the simple
process Of representing mind and matter, not as
two antithetical substances, but two phases
of one cossnical process Mr.. Spencer has made
1t impossible TO speak Of the mental life of man
as being under the control Of principle OF
Intelligence, mysterious Entity, which ere.
ates and directs thought. In the spencerin
philosophy Psychology stands in Close and neces-
ssry relation TO Biology. In both departments
two Administering conceptions hold sway-thc
lations between the organism and its environ.
ment. there is no absolute distinction be-
tween non-living and living matter, it follows
shat between the earliest and the latest mani
festations Of psychical life there be no alb
solute demarcation- Between the hurnbest ex-
pres7sions of life in the animal world and the
highest manifest atoms in the intellect of man
the difference is not enc of kind but Of degree
The spencerian Philosophy is based, not on the
pre-evolution view that mind is an entity with
supernzturally endowed capacities CAPABLE of
being studied apart from its material mechan.
ism, but the idea that the mental facuf,ies
evolved by slow and imperceptEble prada
lions, along with a slowly evolving mechanism
in response TO movements in the environment
And thus we are brought back to Mr. Srencer's
definition OF life as the continuous al ilK tmeut
of internal TO external relations. The organism
however humble, only continue its ~ ,stenee
by maintaining correspondence with its environ