In the chapter Metaphysics and Religion the biographer neatly hits off the humor of Spencer's attempt in First Principles, to deal with problems so far beyond his competence that he chiefly makes the impression of having imperfectly learned what Sir William Hamilton had so convincingly taught. "If 'the Unknowable' is really unknowable, there is surely nothing more to be said about it; and the ascription of various attributes to the Unknowable is in reality a sufficient condemnation of the whole doctrine" (p. 217).
After all the drawbacks are charged off, it still remains true that men who are able to be more critical than credulous may add cubits to their mental stature by studying the Synthetic Philosophy. If one is wavering about the value of such study, Mr. Elliot's book would almost surely remove the doubts, and it might most profitably be used as the brief for the respondent.
Obviously from what Mr. Russell tells us in a frankly written preface to Portraits of the Seventies, publishers in London regard his intimate knowledge of English politics of the last forty years and of English society of the same period as a valuable asset. There are readers of his books and of his contributions to the periodical press, especially readers who recall his contributions to the Manchester Guardian, who also appraise quite highly his peculiar and intimate knowledge of English politics, and his ability to write on English politics, which comes partly from the fullness of his knowledge. There is no man in England to-day—no man who has made any position for himself as a writer—who is better acquainted than Mr. Russell with the history of the Whig party from the Reform Act of 1832 to the eclipse of Whiggism that resulted from the extension of the parliamentary franchise in 1884-1885, and the epoch-making division in the Liberal party over Gladstone's bill for Home Rule for Ireland of 1886. Mr. Russell was born into the Whig cult. He was on terms of intimacy with most of the prominent men of the Whig party from 1867 to 1886, and while all through his political career he has been a convinced believer in democracy, he is steeped in the history and traditions of Whiggism. It seems never to have occurred to any London publisher to attempt to draw on this particular vein of Mr. Russell's store of political information. It may be that there is to-day little popular interest in the achievements of the Whig party; for since 1886 a new generation has come on to the electoral rolls in England to which Whiggism is not even a name or a tradition.
Mr. Fisher Unwin's request to Mr. Russell—as he tells us in his unconventional preface—was for a book about people eminent in the
