New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-09
NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY DECEMBER g. 1903

LnOugn name,
long anterior to that philosopher. it will not be
out of place TO quote the paragraph in which
spencer summarizes his doctrine of the I'm
movable:
Every has heard of the king who wished he
had been present at the creation Of the world that
however. compared with those who profess TO UNI
tne created, but also how the creating Is consti-
tuted And yet this transcendant audacity. which
tested through all existence-nay even to stand
oenlnd tnat Power and note the conditions OF rs
acton-ths Is that which passes current as piety!
May we rot without hesitation affirm that sin
ceie recognition OF the truth that our own ana All
ever beyond comprehension contains more of
ten? Meanwhile. let US recognize whatever of per-
manent good there is in these persistent attempts
10 frame conceptions Of that which cannot be con
eeiyed. From the beginning II has been only
sassy h tne dnlh1 that hlgner anu ones mes
NAV be Willingly ronceded II IS nossibe nav prob
able. that under their abstract forms ideas
or this order will always continue 20 occupy the
will ever remain a need to give shape TO that in
definite sense of an ultimate existence which forms
me OASIS OF our intellgence we sAaH always De
under the necessity of c3ntemplating 1t as some
selves in some form Of Thought. however vague
And we shall not err in doing this so long as we
symbol. utterly without resemblance to that for
or such symbols and constant rejection OF them as
Inadequate may be hereafter. as it has hitherto
struct ideas requiring the utmost stretch Of ours
raouues and PerPStuay TO nn6 tnqt SoGa lGe 9
realize to US more fully than any other course the
Such efforts and failures may serve to maintain in
9nF minds due sense of me- the con men
ditioned By continually seeking 10 know and be
ing continually thrown back with a deepened con-
viCton of the impossibility of knowing We may
keep alive the consciousness that it is alike our
that through which all things exist as the In
movable.
NOT ABSOLUTELY UNKNOWABLE
It is hard 10 see how any one starting from
the exclusively scientific base line that all
knowledge is relative could reach a conclusion
different from the here stated. But it is
needless to say that Spencer's philosophy Of the
Unknowable from the day il first uttered
down to the present moment has been the occa-
sion Of earnest and sometimes acrimonious con-
troversy. 1t ignored all differences among the
religious systems Of the world, past and present
except that produced by evolution, and
practically subversive Of the belief in Revelation
which has been held by the majority of civilized
mankind in one form or another for unnum-
bered ages. II necessitated the rejection OF ev-
cry positive predicate Of Deity. Personality.
justice, mercy, pity. purity and the like could
be asserted of the insCruta BILE Power only fig
uratively. for man could know these only as
manifest in the world perceived by his senses;
a. absolute qualities or attributes they were as
lncomprehensible as the Unknowabe itself In
his chapter on the reorganization OF SCIENCE ana
religion Spencer showed his consciousness or
this by an attempt. rhetorical rather than philo-
sophical to guard against the possible moral
results OF his teaching. AS matter or fact,
however science had led him-illogically, ac-
cordng to the drift Of his argument, but rightly
enouCh-to predicate Of his UnknowabIe some
thing relatively familiar to human thought. but
absolutely by his definition incOnceiVab BILE
He talked Of the Unknowable as power. Now,
he had shown that the atheistic, the pantheistic
and the thtistic solutions Of the problem re-
speeding the origin of the universe, when traced
back. all alike ended in decentralization The
self-existence of the universe was incOm-
prehensible as any Of the ultimate facts OF
science. To go beyond the time in the past
when the universe was an 'incoherent no
Inogeneity'' impossible 1t is no wonder
that confronted by such a puzzle as he had thus
contrived for himself, he should almost by
slip of the pen admit all that he had denied.
For if the Unknowable is power, then some
thing can be predicated OF IT; and if thing
why not all the things that go to make up the
human ideal of Infinite perfection? Spencer's
oy-n rroof from the testimony OF consciousness
that space is real and external and not merely
ideal and subjective prevented his escape from
this dilemma for both in what he asserted and
have other witness than consciousness,
which, his own phrase, cannot be tran
scended." Thus. instead OF taking step in ad
vance OF Mansel. as had been somewhat AFRO
gantly predicted of him. he really fell short Of
the clear insight Of that thinker whose CON
clusion was 1T is our duty TO think OF God as
personal. and ii is duty to believe that He
is infinite"
SPENCERS RELATIONS TO COMTE.
There is reason to think that spencer's treatise
on the Unknowable which stands at the
beginning of his Synthetic Philosophy was
really an afterthought. 1t must be remembered
that his scheme of combining all knowledge into
a system had taken its general shape as early as
1857 in the form of two essays, the one entitled
Progress: Its Law and Cause" published in
The Westminster Review" for April of that
year. and the other on "TranscendentaI Physi-
oogy," or, as it first headed, The Ultimate
Laws of Physiology" in The National Review
for the following October These essays and
The Principles OF Psychology" published in
1855 establish his claim to priority over Darwin
in setting forth the modern theory Of evolution
The essay on Progress. though the point was
only tentatively put, showed that his doctrine
Of evolution contemplated the truth Of the
ular hypothesis. In fact this hypothesis is in
dispensable 10 his system in this sense, that
while demonstration Of ii would not establish
his formula a disproof Of it would make the
formula as II stands an absurdity. But in the
mean while he had become interested as a youth
in the problems Of government and society. In
1912 letters from bis pen on the proper sphere Of
government were published in The NOncOn-
forrnist-" From 1S4S to 1858 he was an assistant
editor Of The Economist. and in 1901 he pub
Iished a volume entitled Social States" which
was afterward suppressed The title Of this
book as we'll as its contents indicated the ooIlSa-
ttons of the author TO Comte, and gave obvious
warrant for classifying him a Positivist
name which his subsequent career as thinker
led him TO resent with some snow OF lrrlIatlG 1
In Social States as he himself remarked. the
deyeIopnlent Of an individual organism and the
DEVELOPMENT Of a social organism are described
ne alike consisting in advance from simplicity TO
con1nlexity and frcm independent like parts 10
mutually dependent unlike parts "a paraIleIlshl
ir1rIjad by Milne Edwards's doctrine Of the
physiological division of labor But this afteF
an vas more a figure of speech than scientlnc
principle In the year following the puohcdliu!l
Of social States" he became acquainted win
what is known as Won Baer's Law, that IN us
aa,1isst stage every organism has the greatest
rurnber OF ch tractors in common with all olher
nr1anisrns fn their earliest stages and that at
%rafT re 1Tn