stantially the same question put to him as that directed to the editor of the Nation, but he returns to it a very different answer, while there is probably no living man better able to answer it. No one, certainly, knows more thoroughly the nature and extent of Mr. Darwin's contributions to the subject, or has a profounder appreciation of them, than he. And yet, in a lecture before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Prof. Huxley said, after avowing his belief in the theory of evolution, "the only complete and systematic statement of the doctrine, with which I am acquainted, is that contained in Mr. Herbert Spencer's 'System of Philosophy'—a work which should be carefully studied by all who desire to know whither scientific thought is tending." Nothing can be more explicit or decisive, and, we may add, nothing more candid and just. Knowing perfectly all that Mr. Darwin had done, conversant as he was with the whole literature of the subject, foreign and domestic, he also thoroughly understood the claims of Mr. Spencer's contributions to the question, and his deliberate opinion, given to a critical audience, was, that whoever wanted information relating to the "theory of evolution" could only obtain it in a complete and satisfactory form from Mr. Spencer's works.
But the Nation thinks differently. It not only does not commend Mr. Spencer's works to readers seeking information on the "theory of evolution," but such readers are tacitly warned against them. Prof. Huxley, who ought to know what science is, recommends all who wish to understand the tendencies of scientific thought, to the study of Spencer's works; the Nation objects to Mr. Spencer as an expositor of science. A distinction is drawn between Darwin and Spencer, in which the former is characterized as "scientific and inductive," and the latter as "speculative." But this distinction is altogether groundless. Mr. Spencer's treatment of the problem of evolution is as rigorously inductive as Mr. Darwin's; but, if, to the inductive procedure, Mr. Spencer superadds the deductive, using established truths in an a priori way to strengthen and verify his conclusions, we hope that is not to be regarded as a contravention of true scientific method. The implication of the writer that Darwin gives the theory of evolution a firm inductive basis, while Mr. Spencer grounds it upon speculative a priori axioms, is as far as possible from being true.
Again, Mr. Spencer's works are contrasted with Darwin's by the writer in the Nation as treating of "general speculative philosophy in connection with theology and religion," while Mr. Darwin "nowhere considers scientific theses as either favorable or unfavorable to general philosophical or religious conclusions." Now, let us see what ground there is for this distinction. To a series of exhaustive works on evolution which were expected to run through a dozen volumes, there was prefixed an introductory part of 123 pages, the object of which was to define the sphere of science; and, in doing this, theology and religion were excluded from the discussion. And so this rejection of theology and religion becomes the basis of a charge that Mr. Spencer runs into theology and religion, in contrast to Mr. Darwin, who sticks to inductive science. It seems to be inferred that, because Mr. Spencer has designated his system of thought as a "philosophy," therefore he is chargeable with all the empty and baseless speculation which that term, in its old applications, connotes. But he clearly explains the sense in which he uses the terra philosophy. By "philosophy" Mr. Spencer means actual, verifiable, scientific knowledge of the highest degree of generality. His philosophy, in its leading characteristic, is a synthesis or unification of the sciences, and it is
