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PREFACE

It is therefore to this point that we address our examination, and in no unfriendly spirit; for the object Mr. Spencer had in view was one which appealed to every sentiment and every intellectual aspiration within us. But we feel bound to say how sadly we have been disappointed. We have found the object of our admiration to be like Nebuchadnezzar's dream god, a thing apparently perfect and complete in configuration but like the image compounded of iron and clay and precious stones inevitably falling to pieces under the strain of sustained criticisms.

Mr. Spencer's philosophic conception was indeed imposing, and before its magnificent proportions many have bowed down in sincere respect. But his cosmical scheme when carefully examined proved to be constructed of terms which had no fixed and definite meaning, which were in fact merely symbols of symbolic conceptions, conceptions themselves symbolic because they were not understood--and the moment we began to put them to use as having definite values they landed us forthwith in alternative contradictions! Then to effect cosmical evolution, which is a process of imperceptible objective change, what was necessary, but to adopt a system of imperceptible word changes, so that the imperceptible word changes accompanying the imperceptible objective changes should lead us in the end to the completed results, and the process of evolution should thus be made comprehensible! In this manner over the spaces of an enormous work have we been skilfully led by a master of language till we find ourselves in imagination following out mentally the actual processes of the universe. But after all it has only been a process, in our own minds, of the skilful substitution of words!

Errors to be successful must be big and bold. Fallacies of reasoning are detected on a medium scale, but when they are "writ large" it is difficult to detect them. Trains of syllogisms are sometimes more effective because they are vast than because they are true. Let them be imposing in their language and grand in their proportions, we naturally bow down to power, even if it is only power of largeness. When dealing with Mr. Spencer's reasonings we feel a certain awe as if we were contradicting the forces of the universe--seemingly allied to him. We feel conscious of an impertinence in treating of such great matters, dealt with in such a mighty sweep--disdainful of precision and consistency. The transformations and evolutions of reasoning in Mr. Spencer's works are no less wonderful than his treatment of words. The mind is swept along by an indiscernable but mighty flow, and sometimes after mysterious disappearances of consecutiveness between volumes or chapters, we find ourselves landed in a satisfied but bewildered manner at a conclusion about which we cannot but wonder however we arrived there.

But the real difficulty appears when the necessity for exposition arises. If one undertakes to explain, if one has to condense and solidify for the purpose of teaching, if one wishes to make others understand, and share the knowledge one has attained, then indeed our difficulties commence. What seemed so grand and alluring to look at will not stand the ordinary handling of scientific language and logical statement as between man and man. The illusion vanishes, the system has gone. In these remarks we speak only of Mr. Spencer's cosmical system. Of the general value of this work as a philosopher we express no opinion. In the estimation of competent thinkers it is very great. Fiske, Youmans, Carveth Read, Ribot, Maudsley, Clifford, Sully, Grant Allen, Gopinay, and others are all working on Spencerian lines, but we do not understand that they accept the cosmical explanation of Mr. Spencer. He marks not the age of complete accomplishment but the age of transition. He has not grasped the solution of problems, but he has shewn the direction of future studies. He has failed in his grand endeavour, but he has shown what to aim at and has pointed the way. Much of his detailed work has been good and effective, and therefore one feels some compunction in writing of him so severely. Nevertheless a man of such eminence must not be held sacred from criticism, but on the contrary, just by reason of his eminence and consequent influence, must his work be well examined before it is accepted and approved. This is the task we have set ourselves and which may now be considered as complete. We have approached the study without any prepossessions, and we have endeavoured, while being very strict, to be perfectly fair and honest in our presentations of Mr. Spencer's theories. Naturally the work has been long and tedious, and where so many contradictory and indistinct expressions of opinion are given it has been necessary to deal largely in quotations. This has been done in justice both to ourselves and to our author. If we have succeeded in bringing out the main lines of thought for the future use of students we shall have accomplished our end. It is only by very strict thinking and discussion that truth is finally evolved.

This is a difficulty which has not been overlooked by Mr. Spencer. He would escape it in two ways. Firstly by a mysticism, through which after the definite meaning he has given to his terms has been found to fail in actual work he changes all his fundamental terms into "symbolic conceptions." Why? Because they have no meaning; and if you give them a meaning the conclusions from them land the student in irreconcilable contradictions. Out of this mysticism no progress is possible. Secondly by means of the "double aspect" theory. According to this theory everything is both material and subjective, as you choose to regard it, and may be explained and accounted for in laws of the relations of either set of factors. It is true that phenomena may be so described, but it is not true that they can be so explained. There is an undoubted concomitance between the bodily act and the conscious feeling, but the real question is this,--Does the conscious feeling wholly depend upon the physical series of events and has itself no effects on the physical series? Is it produced without producing? Is it something occurring in connexion with certain motions in the nerves of the organism and therefore dependent upon and wholly produced by the physical factors in their interrelation, according to the known chemical and physical laws of the factors? If it is so determined, and does not determine as part in a chain of causation it cannot be said to interfere with the materialistic explanation. That is complete in itself. The only question left is this:--How comes it about that some portions of the physical series of phenomena have this strange accompaniment of consciousness? A very interesting but comparatively unimportant question. The theory that phenomena have two sides is of no use whatever in the endeavour towards the statement of a cosmical formula of explanation. The result of our studies is to the effect that there are physical factors and subjective factors alike produced and producing. We aim at the statement of their law of correlation, and in this we would seek the cosmical formula. We however seek it in vain, and we do not think it possible to attain it. In the meantime we look to the development of the subjective factor in life, and more especially in human life, as a fact of the greatest interest, the more so that we discern in that development an orderly progress in a well marked manner; and it is our task to understand the laws of that orderly development. This study has to be undertaken along with the study of material Evolution; and although we may not fully understand our problem, there is much that we can understand and much to make our views large and sympathetic and our minds expansive in working out the great questions that are set before us.

The study of Ethics from the Evolutionist's point of view assumes an altogether different phase from the old methods of inquiry and rests upon an altogether different basis. Its ground of authority is seen to rest in the very nature of humanity and does not come to him as an imposed law. Confidence is first shaken and then fully restored. From the new point of view the merit of all preceding systems is seen, and how they all fall into harmony in a wonderful manner in the consensus of mutual support and enforce ethical law by an united authority.

The chief merit of Mr. Spencer's "Data of Ethics" is that it puts the study upon an entirely new basis in grafting it upon the study of the larger science of Biology. Heretofore the study has been isolated, and supposed to be complete within its own borders. Henceforth no professor or student will be considered competent to express opinions without being well grounded in the study of Biological and Psychological evolution. Ethics, along with Sociology, must be studied as part of the greater movement.

FOOTNOTE:

"Revue Philosophique," Dec. 1883.

ON MR. SPENCER'S DATA OF ETHICS.

ETHICS AND THE UNIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW.

Always a very complex problem, the study of ethics, in Mr. Spencer's works, becomes in some respects still more complex from the necessity he is under of affiliating it in some way upon the cosmical process. Conceiving all knowledge to be capable of unification as a system of causation, so that when the relations of the original factors are understood, all histories are merely corollaries from these ultimate truths, Mr. Spencer feels bound, in the first place, to show that each particular science falls into its due place in the logical scheme. Consequently, one of the main ideas permeating the "Data of Ethics" is this view of ethics as interpretable only by an adequate knowledge of the cosmical process in which it forms a feature.

Indeed, the proposition is laid down at the outset that parts can only be properly understood through a knowledge of the wholes of which they form part. Upon this Mr. Spencer reasons that since ethics deals with purposed conduct, that kind of conduct can only be understood through a scientific knowledge of conduct in general, which again forms part of the study of action in general, bringing us at once to the cosmical process upon the understanding of which, therefore, depends the understanding of our special subject.

"A preparation in the simpler sciences is pre-supposed. Ethics has a physical aspect, since it treats of human activities, which, in common with all expenditures of energy, conform to the law of the persistence of energy; moral principles must conform to physical necessities. It has a biological aspect, since it concerns certain effects, inner and outer, individual and social, of the vital changes going on in the highest type of animal. It has a psychological aspect, for its subject matter is an aggregate of actions that are prompted by feelings and guided by intelligence. And it has a sociological aspect, for these actions, some of them directly, and all of them indirectly, affect associated beings.

"What is the implication? Belonging under one aspect to each of these sciences--physical, biological, psychological, sociological--it can find its ultimate interpretations only in those fundamental truths which are common to all of them. Already we have concluded in a general way that conduct at large, including the conduct Ethics deals with, is to be fully understood only as an aspect of evolving life; and now we are brought to this conclusion in a more special way.

"Here, then, we have to enter on the consideration of moral phenomena as phenomena of evolution; being forced to do this by finding that they form a part of the aggregate of phenomena which evolution has wrought out. If the entire visible universe has been evolved--if the solar system as a whole, the earth as part of it, the life in general which the earth bears, as well as that of each individual organism--if the mental phenomena displayed by all creatures, up to the highest, in common with the phenomena presented by aggregates of these highest--if one and all conform to the laws of evolution; then the necessary implication is that those phenomena of conduct in these highest creatures with which morality is concerned, also conform."

In this passage Mr. Spencer propounds morality or ethics as a matter for scientific study, only to be understood or explained as part of general conduct when it is capable of explanation deductively from antecedent causes. The distinction recognised between conduct called moral and conduct regarded as immoral is only to be understood when, after a historical survey of human actions and of the actions of organisms in general, we not only perceive its immediately antecedent causes, but, going behind them, recognise the ultimate necessity of their occurrence in the very nature of the universe. This reveals the special features of Mr. Spencer's method in the treatment of his subject as distinguished from that followed by Mr. Leslie Stephen in his "Science of Ethics," a distinction which we may conveniently mark by terming them respectively the Philosophic and the Scientific methods. The former term we use in the sense assigned to it in the definition given by Mr. Spencer in "First Principles."

A philosophy is complete when the mind has been able to form for itself such an appraisement of the relations and conditions of factors at a period sufficiently remote to ante-date any great amount of complexity as will enable us deductively to frame a history of developments which may correspond with the actual history of sequences in the concrete universe. If this appraisement of a remote cosmos characterised by comparative simplicity nevertheless admits the existence of many factors whose differences are not accounted for, philosophy is so far formally incomplete: but as the determination of these points lies beyond the powers of human reason, philosophy may justly be regarded as practically complete if it unifies from this point of view all the knowledge with which the human mind is conversant. If we are able to include all the sciences in one coherent whole nothing more can be expected of philosophy--beyond that lies the realm of speculation and the Unknowable.

The scope of the sciences is not so ambitious. Their aim is limited within a much narrower purview. They seek merely to ascertain the laws which subsume special classes of phenomena. They recognise causation and their inductions are valid to the extent of the classes of facts expressed in any particular law. But each science or class of facts is severally and separately worked upon even though the progress of study is ever disclosing the mutual dependence of the various sciences.

It is very evident that there must be great imperfections in our scheme of knowledge so long as there remain great blanks between the sciences. But this is a natural condition of the progress of thought. On the other hand a complete philosophic system such as that referred to above, and at which Mr. Spencer aims, would throw a flood of light upon each particular department if the mutual relation of all problems could be deduced from ascertained relations of the original factors. But it is also clear that if we think we have framed such a philosophy without having really succeeded in so doing, or at any rate without having succeeded in making others understand or accept it, then the supposed philosophy becomes a confusing element in the exposition of a scientific problem. In the work under review the philosophical attempt is very regrettable for it spoils the exposition of a scientific treatment, surpassing all former expositions, since it dims the clearness of the argument, and hinders the force of its practical application.

Such is our judgment of Mr. Spencer's "Data of Ethics." It contains at once an excellent scientific treatment of the subject and a weak attempt to affiliate it upon an impotent philosophy. To the philosophical or cosmical aspect of the work we will confine ourselves in the present chapter, so that we shall hereafter be free to devote our attention to the more solid scientific treatment of the questions at issue which it presents.

The students of Mr. Spencer's previous volumes will have observed that although he states the problem of evolution as a deductive one, he has yet regarded evolution in a different aspect in the working out of each specific problem. Thus it is very noteworthy that throughout the Biological, Psychological, and Sociological expositions, Mr. Spencer has regarded the establishment of the fact of evolution by the accretion of insensible changes as equivalent to an actual affiliation of the sciences upon the theory of evolution, utterly regardless of his own rigid requirement that these changes should be explained and accounted for by the general deductions of cosmical evolution. The histories of organisms, for instance, exhibit gradual development, and therefore are supposed to conform to the definition of evolution at large. But if these changes are not intellectually discerned as the result of antecedent conditions and traceable to the relations of the ultimate factors recognised by the philosophy, then the affiliation of the science upon evolution in general is not made good. While the form and outside show are present, the organic connexion is not exhibited. But it is a characteristic of Mr. Spencer's mode of exposition, that when the latter fails, the former takes its place. Hence the gradual development of conduct is evolution of conduct, but it is an evolution of which we want an explanation. We seek it in Biology, but find that Biology also is a gradual increment of insensible changes of which again we seek in vain for an explanation.

The effect of this mode of presenting evolution or the unification of knowledge is heightened by the seemingly systematic manner of its exposition. Development is shown to be universally characterised by progress in three forms--namely, from a simple, indefinite, incoherent state to a complex, definite, and coherent state: and the wonderful scope which the universe affords, both in time and space, for historically exhibiting these traits, overwhelms the mind with a sense of the universality of evolution, in spite of the fact that all the time the very point of the question is missed in the absence of any explanation. We recognise the gradual development, but where is the deductive connexion? Where is the promised system of corollaries from original factors which shall account for the historical development?

Thus, when in the "Data of Ethics" we find a reference to the Biology, the Psychology, and the Sociology as parts of an established philosophical system we are apt to suppose that the views as to ethics which Mr. Spencer expresses derive their authority from an antecedent apprehension of the cosmical process; whereas this is not really the case: and although it is essential to the study that ethics should be viewed as dependent upon the sciences named, yet such a connexion is not shown as one of logical order; we are only told that Ethics exhibits similar traits in its order of development.

Such deductive explanations Mr. Spencer does attempt--mainly in the Biology--the most important as to results, and the most badly reasoned of all his works. It is attempted firstly in a very concrete manner, by a consideration of the properties of the chemical substances which form the bases of organisms, and of the properties of the surrounding agencies--light, heat, air, water, etc. To the inter-relation of these are applied the laws of mechanics, such as movement in the direction of least resistance, etc., and by their instrumentality at last are organisms supposed to be evolved which have, somehow, a concomitant of consciousness which is nevertheless not a factor in any action of an organism. In such a history however, it is found necessary to admit genesis, reproduction, and heredity, and these, since they cannot be explained, are accepted without explanation.

It is true that Polarity is called in to assist the endeavour, but it is a polarity which is the obedient servant of the author, and does as it is bid, firstly in being so amenable to changed conditions as to alter conformably with them, and again in being so rigid in its acquired form as to coerce molecules into definite construction. It is alternately so pliable and so fixed as, hand over hand, to enable the author to scale the highest summits of Biology. It is also true that Equilibration is called in: but then every change in the organic and the inorganic world turns out to be an equilibration, so that the word becomes devoid of meaning.

As part of the deductive system which our philosophy requires, we have now to consider the origin and development of purposed actions--the subject-matter, namely, of our present study which is to lead us up to the ultimate study of Ethics proper.

Resuming the consideration of the problem at the point where we left off in our reference to the explanations of biology, we have first to review the arguments which would explain the origin of purposed actions in the nature and laws of the moving equilibrium. For if the actions of organisms are thus explainable, so must be the purposed actions or purposed conduct of organisms, and Mr. Spencer himself expressly includes them in the biological definition. And indeed it is doubtful whether "purpose" is not covertly introduced in the very definition of life as "the continuous adaptation of inner relations to outer relations."

The question is a very nice one, and brings us at once to the obscure confines of the organic and the inorganic worlds. How, for instance, from the laws of the moving equilibrium, as derived from the study of the solar system, are we to regard the movements of an infusorium? "An infusorium swims randomly about, determined in its course not by a perceived object to be pursued or escaped, but, apparently, by varying stimuli in its medium; and its acts unadjusted in any appreciable way to ends, lead it now into contact with some nutritive substance which it absorbs, and now into the neighbourhood of some creature by which it is swallowed and digested.... The conduct is constituted of actions so little adjusted to ends, that life continues only as long as the accidents of the environment are favourable."

This is one of Mr. Spencer's transitional passages. The infusorium is a moving equilibrium. Consequently it rearranges its forces for self-preservation in opposition to inimical forces of the environment, and in harmony with favoring forces of the environment. The special adjustment it displays is motion. But this is not communicated motion of a mechanical description, such as the kick given to a foot-ball. Nor, apparently, are we to regard its motions as due to a series of mechanical motions of the molecules of the environment. The action of the environment is expressed as being a stimulus. Does this mean a chemical action? Or does it refer to the action of heat and light? If so it means that the attractions and repulsions of atoms and the motions of ether and of molecules, account for the movements of the infusorium. There is certainly no "purpose" in such a theory. But then the question arises, how do we apply the theory of the moving equilibrium to such an assemblage of atoms thus acted upon to account for the fact that the assemblage of atoms endeavours to prolong its existence by defence and absorption or by absorption only? If it be said that it does not do so, and that its movements have no food object, but are simply the effect of chemical and mechanical action, then it is not an animal displaying life, inasmuch as it does not adapt means to an end--motions to the end of sustenance. If it be regarded as a moving equilibrium in this sense, it is one of the same sort as the solar system, and not one of the sort known as animals. Nevertheless, Mr. Spencer regards it as displaying life, yet very little adjusted to ends; but again he regards its actions as determined by external stimuli, without, however, explaining his meaning.

That there are biological adjustments which do not manifest purpose we experience every day in the thickening of the skin and the changes wrought by climate or daily avocation, although it is true these adjustments may receive a scientific explanation independently of their being adaptations of means to ends. We also find that there are reflex actions of organisms which take place in response to external stimuli without any conscious purpose, such as breathing, digesting, &c. We are also acquainted with the fact that purposed actions become by long habit automatic. Indeed we have more experience of purposed actions becoming automatic than of automatic or reflex actions becoming purposed.

Can there then be purpose without consciousness? There are adaptations in the vegetable world as well as in the animal, and of these we do not predicate conscious design. Nor can we, on the theory of life as the adaptation of a moving equilibrium to its environment, admit that these changes are due to mere happy accidents of origin and survival, for we are required to account for them as necessary results of their existence as moving equilibria. Yet if so the adjustments are so complex, so marvellous in their relations to the insect world and the animal world generally in view of their preservation and the propagation of their species, that purpose or means adapted to ends is the apparent characteristic. Means adapted to ends is denied in the "Happy Accident" theory, and is sought to be explained by the "Moving Equilibrium" theory. Yet when we come to consider the abstract conception of a moving equilibrium derived from our solar system we can discern no endeavour towards self-sustenance and self defence. No adaptations are there made to secure either of these objects. There is no purpose manifested, and no adjustment made in view of ends to be secured. On the other hand, there are many adaptations in the animal and vegetable worlds which are not consciously purposed. Since, however, ours is a critical task and not a reconstructive work we need do no more than point out that purposed actions in particular, and biological adaptations as a whole, are not explainable by regarding organisms as aggregates of the chemical elements acted upon by physical forces and constituting merely physical moving equilibria, of which the laws are similar to those derived from a consideration of moving equilibria like the solar system. Such a theory does not admit of purposed action.

Stated in the abstract, the problem is how to explain the origin of purpose in a moving equilibrium--commencing from the solar system and proceeding to a self-feeding engine and pursuing our investigation to the abstract moving equilibrium of forces in which external inimical or favourable forces generate internal forces as a counterbalance, either of opposition or harmony of adjustment. Thus stated, the problem is purely of a dynamic nature, and would give an understanding of purpose as a dynamic relation of aggregates of forces. This is the true Spencerian view to take of the problem and its mode of settlement, but it is one to which Mr. Spencer does not apply himself. In the absence of such a study Mr. Spencer forsakes the true line of explanation required by his philosophy.

But we think if we proceed more deeply into this study we shall find purpose connected with consciousness. The question arises, must all purpose be conscious purpose? Purpose implies the direction of action, it implies an interval of time, it implies the accomplishment of a result. In these respects it differs from chemical and mechanical action. We have to ask what place consciousness finds in the constitution and action of a moving equilibrium. Evidently it has no place in the solar system, for physicists can make their calculations without taking it into consideration as a factor. Yet the ideal or abstract moving equilibrium, by whose aid we are endeavouring to understand the actions of organisms, is derived from the consideration of the solar system as a moving equilibrium. But reducing the problem from the abstract to the concrete study of an organism, we have to ask what place consciousness holds in a moving equilibrium of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, etc., in relation with an environment of heat, light, etc. We find that it is in the main a factor in all those classes of actions which we term purposed--that in so far as actions depart from the chemical and mechanical, that in so far as aggregates manifest the characteristics of life--namely, the adaptation of inner relations to outer relations--the nearer do they approach the most complete adaptation of means to the ends of complete living, and the more do they manifest conscious purpose.

The theory has been propounded that consciousness is the result of complexity in the combination of the chemical elements, a complexity which can be explained on purely physical grounds. Mr. Spencer's biology is partly worked so as to prove this theory. But it is evident that no more can be got out of a deductive theory than is contained in the original factors. It is useless to say that we do not sufficiently know all the properties of the original factors, because that is to abandon this particular theory, and to acknowledge its inadequacy. The admission necessitates an attempt to re-state the original forces of the factors. If this can be done it is equivalent to propounding a new theory, which again must be judged by its deductive efficacy.

The theory that complexity of nervous structure--a structure produced by chemical and mechanical combination--suffices to explain memory, reflection, judgment, choice, and purpose, has been treated by Dr. Bain and Professor Clifford at considerable length, and has been criticised in our former works in great detail.

The theory that organisms are the result of chemical and mechanical combinations, and that consciousness is a concomitant of some processes in the continuous existence of such physical combinations, throws all the burthen of explanation just as fully upon the line of physical causation as if there were no such concomitant of consciousness whatsoever. The determining causes are wholly physical, and the chain of sequence is complete within the lines of chemical and mechanical relations. The fact that independent and concomitant consciousness accompanies some of the actions in question is an interesting circumstance, but although consciousness is produced as an effect, it never on this theory produces any effects itself.

The attempt to amend the conceptions of the original chemical factors and of the physical factors by the association with them of mind, feeling, etc., has at various times produced vague theories. More particularly of later years Professor Clifford's theory of mind-stuff has attracted a great deal of attention. But, singular to say, Professor Clifford only endeavoured to work out his theory in some vague semi-mechanical, semi-subjective kind of way. It was not of such a sort that, given a nebula such as we supposed to be the predecessor of the solar system, we should be able to deduce from it the existing universe. The proper statement of such a problem would be a statement of the relations not merely of mind-stuff, but of mind-oxygen, mind-nitrogen, etc. The conception would have to be of such a nature as to express the mind-factor, mental side, or subjective aspect of oxygen, as related to the mind-factor of nitrogen, etc., and how they variously affected the conduct of the doubly-constituted atoms or of the more complex molecules into which they formed themselves. But this is a mere indication of the larger task of estimating the whole of the elementary substances, and estimating the value and the action of their relative mind-factors. From this would have to be determined the law of growth by which increasing complexity evolved the continually increasing power of the mind-factor in determining actions. Upon this might rest a rational basis for a definition of life of such sort that the organic could be recognised as arising out of the inorganic. And since the organic, in its latest and highest development, is mainly distinguished by purposed actions, purposed actions might be deemed to have evolved in a natural way out of actions which were not purposed. But such a theory is not capable of definite statement, and our philosophic object in endeavouring to account for the origin of purposed action out of non-purposed action is as far off as ever.

It might be as well here for the full satisfaction of the student, to consider how far the origin of purposed action is taken account of by Mr. Darwin, or is to be accounted for by his methods. There is a wide distinction between Mr. Spencer's treatment of Biology and that of Mr. Darwin. Mr. Spencer aims at a complete logical deductive system, and endeavours to show how in the very nature of things, everything that is, must have been what it is. Mr. Darwin's endeavour is not so ambitious. He confines his studies to the field of biology, and to past histories of living creatures, as preserved for us in the geological record. His is a purely scientific work, not trespassing beyond the generalisation of the facts with which he deals. These are large and immensely important; so much so, that they cover the whole history of living things: but his explanations only go a certain way. They are not fundamental, and we are only led backwards in time to the original twilight and ultimate darkness. His theory is strictly causational. The explanation of existing organisms is to be found in the relations of antecedent factors. Part of these we understand, and part of them we do not understand. We do not understand the wherefore of genesis and heredity, but we know them to be facts, and they form the basis for large explanations. For if organisms are modifiable, ever-increasing changes of structure and function can be produced and reproduced. The increment of induced changes in various directions may in succeeding generations be such as to obliterate all semblance of relationship to the original ancestor. What are the laws of these changes it is Mr. Darwin's great achievement to have explained. The struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest, the adaptation to new environments by the use and disuse of parts, the changes induced by change of climate and food, or by the action of new organisms in the environment, all these considerations open out to the astonished and admiring gaze of man vast and interesting histories of changes such as a discerning mind like Mr. Grant Allen revels in in his rambles through the English fields.

The question arises how far Mr. Darwin's theories can be extended philosophically, so as to explain what he accepts unexplained, viz.: genesis, heredity, the origin of organisms out of the inorganic, the gradual development of consciousness, the increase of feeling and intelligence, and the advent of purposed conduct directed to the achievement of definite and deferred ends? For all these points he leaves undealt with as not coming within his scientific province. Evidently his theories are not fitted to explain what they take for granted. They cannot explain what they are founded upon. The origin of organisms is unexplained: propagation of the species is accepted as an unexplained fact, so are heredity and the presence of consciousness. Purposed actions are not accounted for in Mr. Darwin's works.

But there is one point to which we wish to call attention as regards the different method in which the changes of species are treated by Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin. The former regards all changes as necessitated by the laws of the moving equilibrium, so that a change of climate of such a nature as to deprive an organism of the requisite moisture for continued existence through a long period of time, would absolutely necessitate some device on its part to counterbalance the external force of drought. It would be a consequent in the very nature of things that the plant should become thick and succulent like the cactus, or that the animal should form for itself a reservoir for the storage of water.

Mr. Darwin's theory is very different. He advances the fact that organisms, and more particularly those of the lower and simpler forms constantly produce "sports." These are not chance accidents in the false metaphysical sense of being uncaused, but are termed accidents as being produced by some external or internal incident in the growth of the embryo, which causes it to deviate in some point from the structure of the parent. This "sport" may be to the advantage or to the detriment of the new organism. If it should be the latter, it soon perishes: but if it should assist the organism to a fuller life, then it will live longer and better, and its progeny will in like manner survive to the detriment of its fellows of the unimproved type. The accretion of changes produced in this way, now in one direction, and now in another, together with the influences elsewhere indicated, might do and no doubt has done much in the development of species.

To this cause of change we give in no disrespectful spirit, the name of the "Happy Accident Theory" as opposed to Mr. Spencer's "Moving Equilibrium Theory," and would ask what it may and may not account for. It may account for much within the limits of Mr. Darwin's enquiry, but does it at all account for those fundamental facts which he takes for granted--genesis, heredity and consciousness, or the origin of the organic out of the inorganic. Could some inorganic aggregate, produced by the relations of certain chemical compounds under the action of light, heat, &c, accidentally take to generation by fission or otherwise, and then by a succession of sports eventuate in sexual generation? Could such a chemical combination accidentally become conscious, and by a succession of sports organise its consciousness into purpose? Into these regions we think we cannot carry the Happy Accident Theory--the theory of sports. This is a valid and justifiable theory within the limits of biology, though even here the estimate of its results may be exaggerated; but beyond it and behind those limits it is of no use. The very admission of it is a confession of ignorance and incapacity to apprehend the exact line of causation; but so long as we are satisfied that the accident or the sport which gives rise to a variety, occurs within the scope of factors which we are able to recognise, the incapacity to account for the special cause of a special sport does not affect the general theory. But if any one should rashly extend the application of the theory so as to explain the otherwise unaccountable presence of a new factor, or advance it as an explanation of a line of sequences not logically deducible from all that is included in the mental appraisement of the original factors by which the system of sequences is to be unified, then he makes a very great mistake indeed.

It is to guard against such a mistake that we take notice of the proper limits to the applicability of Mr. Darwin's theory. Indeed we think it is too commonly supposed that Mr. Darwin's theory is of the universalistic scope of Mr. Spencer's theories; his work however is purely of a scientific character relating to the province of Biology.

It will have been noticed that in the preceding argument we have not dealt with the philosophical problem of the theory of knowledge. We have simply taken the study of the cosmos in the historical order, finding the inorganic as antecedent to the organic, the unconscious to the conscious, a historical order which cannot be disputed whatever theory of knowledge may be held.

We conclude therefore that in so far as the Data of Ethics is an attempt to explain purposed actions and their ethical quality upon a philosophical method of the kind propounded by Mr. Spencer, namely, as included in a proper understanding of the cosmical process, and of the histories of the universe consequent upon a knowledge of the relations of its original factors--so far Mr. Spencer's work must be considered a failure. That there is much of real scientific value in the work under review, and much original insight and true apprehension of process, we hold to be true; but this scientific value is much obscured by the vague cosmical references which pervade an otherwise admirable study. As stated at the outset of the chapter, we consider the attempt to affiliate purposed actions upon the general lines of the cosmical process to mar the effect of the work in its scientific aspect. The fault is all the greater since Mr. Spencer rests the full stress of his theories, not so much upon their limited scientific value, as upon the soundness of the philosophic basis. For twenty years or more he has been working from this basis, and in the course of his marvellous work has had ever in view as his crowning achievement the establishment of Ethics upon a cosmical basis through a cosmical process of which it should be the glorious outcome. Ethics should be shown to be dominant and imperative through the voice of the expanding universe. Yet, except as showing Ethics to be a part of the study of Biology, the general laws of the development of which are known, but which in its factors and their relations and origin is utterly unknown, he has not succeeded. He might, with the exception indicated, just as well have written his "Data of Ethics" first as last.

FOOTNOTES:

Data of Ethics, pp. 5 and 6.

Data of Ethics, p. 61.

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