Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era. John Lord
name is associated can be held in anybody's hands. Letting that pass, however, Mr. Spencer has himself suggested that, since the system of synthetic philosophy begins with a division entitled the "Unknowable," having for its purpose to show that all material phenomena are manifestations of a Power which transcends our knowledge,–that "force as we know it can be regarded only as a Conditioned effect of the Unconditioned Cause"–there has been thereby afforded sufficiently decided proof of belief in something which cannot be held in the hands. It is, indeed, absurd to apply the epithet "materialist" to a man who has written in "The Principles of Psychology": "Hence, though of the two it seems easier to translate so-called matter into so-called spirit than to translate so-called spirit into so-called matter (which latter is, indeed, wholly impossible), yet no translation can carry us beyond our symbols."
III
Any exposition of the "Synthetic Philosophy" must, of course, begin with the volume entitled "First Principles." In the first part of this preliminary work the author carries a step further the doctrine of the Unknowable put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel. He points out the various directions in which science leads to the same conclusion, and shows that in their united belief in an Absolute that transcends not only human knowledge but human conception lies the only possible reconciliation of science and religion. In the second part of the same book Mr. Spencer undertakes to formulate the laws of the Knowable. That is to say, he essays to state the ultimate principles discernible throughout all manifestations of the Absolute,–those highest generalizations now being disclosed by science, such, for example, as "the Conservation of Force," which are severally true, not of one class of phenomena, but of all classes of phenomena, and which are thus the keys to all classes of phenomena.
The conclusions reached in "First Principles" may be thus summed up: over and over again in the five hundred pages devoted to their formulation, it is shown in various ways that the deepest truths we can reach are simply statements of the widest uniformities in our experiences of the relations of Matter, Motion, and Force; and that Matter, Motion, and Force are but symbols of the Unknown reality. A Power of which the nature remains forever inconceivable, and to which no limits in Time and Space can be imagined, works in us certain effects. These effects have certain likenesses of kind, the most general of which we class together under the names of Matter, Motion, and Force; and between these effects there are likenesses of connection, the most constant of which we class as laws of the highest certainty. Analysis reduces these several kinds of effects to one kind of effect; and these several kinds of uniformity to one kind of uniformity. The highest achievement of Science is the interpretation of all orders of phenomena as differently conditioned manifestations of this one kind of effect, under differently conditioned modes of this one kind of uniformity. When science has done this, however, it has done nothing more than systematize our experiences, and has in no degree extended the limits of our experiences. We can say no more than before whether the uniformities are as absolutely necessary as they have become to our thought relatively necessary. The utmost possibility for us is an interpretation of the process of things, as it presents itself to our limited consciousness; but how this process is related to the actual process we are unable to conceive, much less to know.
Similarly we are admonished to remember that, while the connection between the phenomenal order and the ontological order is forever inscrutable, so is the connection between the conditioned forms of being and the unconditioned form of being forever inscrutable. The interpretation of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion, and Force is nothing more than the reduction of our complex symbols of thought to the simplest symbols; and when the equation has been brought to its lowest terms, the symbols remain symbols still. Hence the reasonings contained in "First Principles" afford no support to either of the antagonist hypotheses respecting the ultimate nature of things. Their implications are no more materialistic than they are spiritualistic, and no more spiritualistic than they are materialistic. The establishment of correlation and equivalence between the forces of the outer and the inner worlds serves to assimilate either to the other, according as we set out with one or the other. He who rightly interprets the doctrine propounded in "First Principles" will see that neither the forces of the outer, nor the forces of the inner, world can be taken as ultimate. He will see that, though the relation of subject and object renders necessary to us the antithetical conceptions of Spirit and Matter, the one is no less than the other to be regarded as but a sign of the Unknown Reality which underlies both.
In logical order the formulation of "First Principles" should have been followed by the application of them to Inorganic Nature. This great division of Mr. Spencer's subject is passed over, however; partly because, even without it, the scheme is too extensive to be carried out in the lifetime of one man; and partly because the interpretation of Organic Nature, after the proposed method, is of more immediate importance. Before noting how Mr. Spencer applies his fundamental principles to the interpretation of the phenomena of life, it may be well to put before the reader's eye the "formula of evolution" in the author's own language: "Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." This law of evolution is equally applicable to all orders of phenomena,–"astronomic, geologic, biologic, psychologic, sociologic, etc.,"–since these are all component parts of one cosmos, though disguised from one another by conventional groupings. It is obvious that, so long as evolution is merely established by induction, it belongs, not to philosophy, but to science. To belong to philosophy it must be deduced from the persistence of force. Mr. Spencer holds that this can be done. For any finite aggregate, being unequally exposed to surrounding forces, will become more diverse in structure, every differentiated part will become the parent of further differences; at the same time, dissimilar units in the aggregate tend to separate, and those which are similar, to cluster together ("segregation"); and this subdivision and dissipation of forces, so long as there are any forces unbalanced by opposite forces, must end at last in rest; the penultimate stage of this process "in which the extremest multiformity and most complex moving equilibrium are established," being the highest conceivable state. The various derivative laws of phenomenal changes are thus deducible from the persistence of force. It remains to apply them to inorganic, organic, and superorganic existences. The detailed treatment of inorganic evolution is omitted, as we have said, from Spencer's plan, and he proceeds to interpret "the phenomena of life, mind, and society in terms of Matter, Motion, and Force."
IV
The first volume of the "Principles of Biology" consists of three parts, the first of which sets forth the data of biology, including those general truths of physics and chemistry with which rational biology must start. The second part is allotted to the inductions of biology, or, in other words, to a statement of the leading generalizations which naturalists, physiologists, and comparative anatomists have established. The third and final part of the first volume of the "Principles of Biology" deals with the speculation commonly known as "the development hypothesis," and considers its a priori and a posteriori evidences.
The inductive evidences for the evolutionary hypothesis, as contra-distinguished from the special-creation hypothesis, are dealt with in four chapters. The "Arguments from Classification" are these: Organisms fall into groups within groups; and this is the arrangement which we see results from evolution where it is known to take place. Of these groups within groups, the great or primary ones are the most unlike, the sub-groups are less unlike, the sub-sub-group still less unlike, and so on; and this, too, is a characteristic of groups demonstrably produced by evolution. Moreover, indefiniteness of equivalence among the groups is common to those which we know have been evolved, and to those supposed in the volume before us to have been evolved. There is the further significant fact that divergent groups are allied through their lowest rather than their highest members. Of the "Arguments from Embryology," the first is that, when developing embryos are traced from their common starting-point, and their divergencies and re-divergencies are symbolized by a genealogical tree, there is manifest a general parallelism between the arrangement of its primary, secondary, and tertiary branches, and the arrangement of the divisions and subdivisions of Mr. Spencer's classifications. Nor do the minor deviations from this general parallelism, which look like difficulties, fail on closer observation to furnish additional evidence; since those traits of a common ancestry which embryology