MR. HERBERT SPENCER AND MR. G. H. LEWES:
THEIR APPLICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION TO THOUGHT.
PART I.
MR. SPENCER ON THE RELATION OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT.
1. At the conclusion of an inquiry, recently published, into the course and result of that philosophical movement which is represented by the names of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, I ventured to speak of the systems of philosophy, which since their time have found favour in England, as anachronistic, and to point by way of contrast to Kant and Hegel, as representing a real advance in metaphysical inquiry. Among many of the few persons who attended to it, such language naturally excited surprise or offence. With those who look to ‘mental philosophy’ for discoveries corresponding to those of the physical sciences, the German writers referred to have become almost a by-word for unprofitableness, while the ‘empirical psychology’ of our own country has been ever showing more of the self-confidence, and winning more of the applause, which belong to advancing conquest. It had seemed to me, indeed, that a clear exposition, such as I sought to furnish, of the state of the question in metaphysics, as Hume left it, would suffice to show that it has not been met but ignored by his English followers. A fuller consideration, however, might have taught me that each generation requires the questions of philosophy to be put to it in its own language, and, unless they are so put, will not be at the pains to understand them. An historical treatment of them, indeed, is challenged alike by the loud pretension of contemporary metaphysic (whether so called or not), and by its complacent disregard of the metaphysic of the past; but, when offered, though it may be commended, it does not
