with a general knowledge of two or more languages, while your Englishman is accustomed to hold in contempt all languages except his own, and even to feel a certain pride in his ignorance. Our neighbours are more quick witted. Men are drafted off to China from the Oriental College at Paris, who on their arrival exhibit a very passable acquaintance with the rudiments of the Chinese language. A similar college has just been opened at Berlin, and the chair of Chinese is filled by Professor Arendt, a sinologue of the highest standing. True we have Professors of Chinese at our universities, but the teaching given is too scientific to be of much use to commercial men. Business men have neither the time nor the inclination to form even a tolerable acquaintance with Chinese literature or the flowers of official discourse. It must not be forgotten that the written language, the language spoken among officials, and the ordinary colloquial are practically three different tongues. It is the last which is necessary, and happily the colloquial is well within the reach of any one who cares to approach it in a spirit of patience and perseverance. With a Chinese teacher, under the supervision of a European sinologue, a two years' course would be sufficient to equip any one of ordinary ability and application with a fair talking knowledge of the colloquial which would prove of immense service to him in China. The importance of such a course on our future commercial relations with China is sufficiently apparent. The danger lies in delay. We have now a strong hold on the foreign trade of China, but when the interior is thrown open we shall see an enormous development in every branch of commerce. Foreign banks and trading-houses will become as much a feature of the inland as of the seaboard towns, and we shall have to strain every nerve to maintain our old lead, or the French and the Germans will be before us in the race.

CHARLES S. ADDIS.

"OUR GREAT PHILOSOPHER."

I.

[MAY

THE

HE late Mr. Charles Darwin, upon one occasion, spoke of Mr. Herbert Spencer as "our great philosopher.' Laudari a laudato viro, is a high distinction. And I am far from denying the propriety of much of the laudation of which Mr. Darwin is the object. But cuique in arte sua est credendum. And philosophy was not Mr. Darwin's art. His diligence, his accuracy, his candour, as an investigator of a certain class of physical phenomena, were eminently praiseworthy. His dialectical powers were extremely feeble. In mental science he appears to have been absolutely unversed. I question whether he ever so much as looked into a metaphysical treatise. Hence his judgment about philosophy and philosophers is, in itself, of small value. But there can be no doubt that the view expressed by him concerning Mr. Herbert Spencer is widely prevalent. I propose to inquire whether that view is just. In what I am about to write I must take leave to use great plainness of speech-even at the risk of shocking a coterie of fond enthusiasts, who resent as flat blasphemy any questioning of Mr. Spencer's ipse dixit: who appear to consider it the noblest occupation of a rational creature "to wonder with a foolish face of praise" when their Master exhibits "the set of visual states which he knows as his umbrella," moving across "the sets of visual states which he knows as the shingle and the sea." I am unfeignedly sorry to be obliged to offend these little ones who believe in Mr. Spencer. In truth, I may lay claim to some fellowfeeling with them. For, if Mr. Spencer will permit me to say so, regard him with much admiration, sincere respect, and lively gratitude, profoundly as I differ from him. I admire the fertility and subtlety of his intellect, and his singular power of generalization. I respect the heroic courage and faith unfailing which have sustained *"Principles of Psychology," second edition, § 462.

I

him in his colossal task: the sober enthusiasm which has led him to "scorn delights and live laborious days," careless of wealth and indifferent to popularity; intent, with noble singleness of purpose, upon the severe studies to which he has consecrated his life. I am grateful to him for the abundant light cast by his biological knowledge upon many dark places of psychology, and still more for exhibiting with a power both of analysis and synthesis, not likely to be surpassed, a phase of speculation which I must account vitiated by radical errors. But to point out those errors is a debt which we, who, as we consider, follow a more excellent way, owe to our day and generation. And the obligation is rendered all the more stringent by Mr. Spencer's wide popularity. The explanation of that popularity is not far to seek. It is due, in part, no doubt, to those great endowments of Mr. Spencer, of which I have just spoken. But it is due also, and far more, to this: that his theory of man and the universe is recommended as "scientific:" as a brand-new theory formed in independence of the great intellectual traditions of the human race. Few serious students of philosophy, probably, will reckon Mr. Spencer among the prophets. But such students are rare in England. rare in England. To the vast majority of those who are commonly called "educated men" the very alphabet of metaphysics is unknown. Of the experimental sciences they more commonly possess some tincture. And the fact that Mr. Spencer's method is essentially physical, is prima facie a recommendation to them of his system. Professor Max Müller has well remarked: "It is short and easy ... to be a philosopher, not by studying Plato and Aristotle, Berkeley and Kant, but by ignoring if not by despising them." "Such a philosophy by appealing, as it always does, to the common sense of mankind, is sure of wide, popular support."* "Common sense," indeed, is the indispensable foundation; but it is by no means sufficient for these things without a certain intellectual discipline. To mention one point only philosophy has a terminology of its own: time, space, force, motion, mean one thing for the metaphysician and another for the physicist. Common sense may, however, avail to judge the question whether Mr. Herbert Spencer is a great philosopher. And so avoiding, as much as possible, all technicalities, but holding fast by the elementary principles of ratiocination, let us now enter upon the inquiry.

First, then, to begin with the beginning, What is philosophy? Joubert supplies us with a neat answer to the question: "Je, d'où, où, pour, comment, c'est toute le philosophie : l'existence, l'origine, le lieu, la fin et les moyens." With this, I suppose, Mr. Spencer would not disagree. It seems, indeed, to be involved in his own distinction: "Science is partially unified knowledge; philosophy is completely

"Science and Thought," p. 145.

unified knowledge." 'Completely unified knowledge!" Well, unquestionably, a philosophy which completely unified knowledge, would be a perfect philosophy. We may admit that as the ideal. In proportion as it approaches such an ideal, a philosophy is great. In other words, in proportion as it satisfies the intellect, and increases the limits of rational knowledge. If its principles are objectively true and certain, if they are founded in the order of being and eternal reality, they can be justified on rational grounds. If their root is in the constituent principles of the human intellect, the mind will be bound by its own intrinsic laws to accept them; they will internally cohere; they will be symmetrical, for between all speculative truths there is correspondence or analogy: natura sibi ubique consentanea est. All philosophy is a search after unity. Hitherto, philosophers have confessed that only an imperfect synthesis rewarded their endeavours. Mr. Spencer claims, apparently, to have been completely successful in the quest. The secret of the universe has been revealed to him. What is it?

The foundation of Mr. Spencer's philosophy is the clear and emphatic distinction drawn in his "First Principles" between the Unknowable and the Knowable. The sentiment of a First Cause, infinite and absolute, is, according to Mr. Spencer, the eternal and secure basis of all religion. This Deity, whom, hidden more or less under anthropomorphic disguises, the votaries of all creeds ignorantly worship, declares he unto them as The Unknowable. Next, he bids us turn to the physical sciences, taking as our guide experience. Every persistent impression made upon our consciousness, reveals to us an external reality, a reaction, a resistance, and, consequently, a force. The indecomposable mode of consciousness is force. All ultimate scientific ideas are traceable to experiences of force.† But it is one of the most striking discoveries of the nineteenth century, that forces are intimately connected, are correlated: and this discovery has been largely employed by Mr. Spencer in his theory of the universe. He regards all forces as manifestations of the dynamic energy everywhere diffused, which co-ordinates the whole range of phenomena, past, present, and future: an immanent and eternal energy, at once active and passive, subject to perpetual revolution, and maintaining all things in an ever-changing equilibrium. But what is this dynamic energy? We know not. Whether we analyze what passes within or without ourselves, its essence escapes us. Thus the last word of physical science, as of religion, is that "the Power which the Universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable."+ In this "ultimate truth" of The Unknowable, "this deepest, widest, and most certain of all facts," is "the basis of [their] reconciliation." § We can know, then, in the strict sense of knowing, only the * "First Principles," fifth edition, § 37. † lbid. § 15-21. ‡ Ibid. § 14. § Ibid.

phenomenal manifestations of The Unknowable, and these we can know only as purely relative and subjective realities. "Even the highest achievements of science are resolvable into mental relations of co-existence and sequence, SO co-ordinated as exactly to tally with certain relations of co-existence and sequence that occur externally." These manifestations, "called by some impressions and ideas," Mr. Spencer prefers to distinguish as "vivid" and "faint." "Manifestations that occur under the conditions called those of perception "-Mr. Spencer means sensuous perception-" are ordinarily far more distinct than those which occur under the conditions known as those of reflection, or memory, or imagination, or ideation." + "Manifestations of the vivid' order precede, in our experience, those of the faint' order."‡ "Those of the one order are originals,' while those of the other are copies."§ "What is the meaning of this? What is the division equivalent to? Obviously it corresponds to the division between object and subject. This profoundest of distinctions between the manifestations of the Unknowable, we recognize by grouping them into self and non-self. These faint manifestations, forming a continuous whole, differing from the others in the quantity, quality, cohesion, and condition of existence of its parts, we call the ego: and these vivid manifestations. indissolubly bound together in relatively immense masses, and having independent conditions of existence, we call the non-ego; or rather, and more truly, each order of manifestations carries with it the irresistible implication of some power that manifests itself; and by the words ego and non-ego respectively, we mean the power that manifests itself in the 'faint' forms, and the power that manifests itself in the vivid forms." || "The totality of my consciousness is divisible into a faint aggregate which I call my mind; a special part of the vivid aggregate cohering with this in various ways, which I call my body; and the rest of the vivid aggregate which has no such connection with the faint aggregate. This special part of the vivid aggregate, which I call my body, proves to be a part through which the rest of the vivid aggregate works changes in the faint, and through which the faint works certain changes in the vivid." ¶ And, "the root-conception of existence, beyond consciousness, becomes that of resistance, plus some force which the resistance measures." Mr. Spencer's philosophy then requires as "a primordial proposition," as "a datum," the acceptance of these two separate aggregates, as constituting the world. of consciousness, and the world beyond consciousness, and the ascription of both to the action of one single cause, which he terms, "The Unknowable." Thus is "the unification of science" "complete," and "philosophy reaches its goal." †† That one and the same law every"First Principles," § 25. † Ibid. § 43. Ibid. $ Ibid. Ibid. § 44. ¶ "Principles of Psychology," § 462. ** Ibid. § 466. tt"First Principles," § 40.