the scientific, but it concedes the value of the former as a supplement to scientific knowledge and training.

Mr. Spencer's religious views are readily discernible to any one who has read the "First Principles" of his philosophy. Supernatural revelations he rejects; but to say that his scheme has no place for religion would be a gross mis statement. He makes all nature dependent upon and the outcome of a Power which is not and cannot be known, but whose existence must ever be postulated. Toward this Power, faith may turn, but what it is must forever transcend our knowledge; and respecting its nature or attributes, those relating to personality included, no affirmations or denials can be made. This is strictly Agnostic doctrine, and it presents to us the famous "Unknowable," respecting which so much has been said.

If the term be used absolutely, "Unknowable" is not a proper characterization. To be able to affirm that it exists, implies some knowledge of it; and it is a contradiction to declare that anything which can be made an object of cognition is unknowable. In a relative sense, however, the term may be used to mean something existing, but beyond the reach of further objectification, or of cognition by human intelligence as we have experience of it. This, no doubt, is what Mr. Spencer intends. The true statement is that we know the existence of an Ultimate Reality which is known as such but not otherwise known.

Here is our philosopher's creed, in a passage from "First Principles": "Thus the consciousness of an Inscrutable Power, manifested to us through all phenomena, has been growing ever clearer; and must eventually be freed from its imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such a Power exists, while on the other hand its nature transcends intuition and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards which intelligence has from the first been progressing. To this conclusion science inevitably arrives as it reaches its confines; while to this conclusion religion is irresistably driven by criticism. And satisfying, as it does, the demands of the most rigorous logic at the same time that it gives the religious sentiment the widest possible sphere of action, it is the conclusion we are bound to accept without reserve or qualification."

Let us also note the following passages showing the true relationship of religion and science:

"In religion let us recognize the high merit that from the beginning it has dimly discerned the ultimate verity, and has never ceased to insist upon it. . . . From the first the recognition of this supreme verity, in however imperfect a manner, has been its vital element; and its various defects, once extreme but gradually diminishing, have been so many failures to recognize in full that which is recognized in part. The truly religious element of religion has always been good; that which has proved untenable in doctrine and vicious in practice has been its irreligious element and from this it has been ever undergoing purification.

:

"And now observe that, all along, the agent which has effected the purification has been science. We habitually

overlook the fact that this has been one of its functions. Religion ignores its immense debt to science: and science is scarcely at all conscious how much religion owes it. Yet it is demonstrable that every step by which religion has pro-. gressed from its first low conception to the comparatively high one it has now reached, science has helped it, or rather forced it, to take: and that even now science is urging further steps in the same direction. ... Otherwise contemplating the facts, we may say that religion and science have been undergoing a slow differentiation; and that their ceaseless conflicts have been due to the imperfect separation of their spheres and functions. Religion has, from the first, struggled to unite more or less science with its nescience; science has, from the first, kept hold of more or less nescience as though it were a part of science. Each has been obliged gradually to relinquish that territory which it wrongfully claimed, while it has gained from the other that to which it had a right; and the antagonism between them has been an inevitable accompaniment of this process. . . . . So long as the process of differentiation is incomplete more or less of antagonism must continue. Gradually, as the limits of possible cognition are established, the causes of conflict will diminish. And a permanent peace will be reached when science becomes fully convinced that its explanations are proximate and relative; while religion becomes fully convinced that the mystery it contemplates is ultimate and absolute." (Part I., Chap. V.)

These, in barest outline, are some of the things that Herbert Spencer has begun to teach the human race. The fields of knowledge are wide, and many have been the la

borers therein. We appreciate and admire the work of the scientist who increases the stock of human learning in any of its departments. Agassiz, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Wallace, and all the host of them, awaken our gratitude and command our reverence. But though we have traveled much in these realms of gold,

"And many goodly states and kingdoms seen,"

profounder emotions are stirred when we contemplate Mr. Spencer and his work. We think no longer of the ingenious mechanisms and marvelous adaptations of nature; the wonderful order, the many beauties, the curious things revealed and displayed for our observation and study. Rather, it seems as if barriers were suddenly thrown down, and a vision opened of boundless knowledge and exhaustless being. Then, our past experience becomes merely the arch where-thro'

"Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when we move."

Then feel we, rather,

"Like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken."

Or, again, like Cortes,

"When with eagle eyes

He stood at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent upon
" that "peak in Darien."*

* Besides what comes from the personal knowledge of the writer, the authority for statements of facts in the foregoing essay may be found in two articles on Herbert Spencer and his works in the "Popular Science Monthly," one in the issue of November, 1874, the other in the issue of March, 1876, both by the late Prof. Edward L. Youmans, and also in the paper entitled "Herbert Spencer and the Doctrine of Evolution," in Cazelles' "Evolution Philosophy," published by D. Appleton & Co. in 1875. The writer wishes furthermore to acknowledge his indebtedness to Miss Eliza A. Youmans for several valuable suggestions.

Before entering upon the discussion of the admirable essay of Mr. Thompson, I may be permitted, having had little or nothing to do with its preparation, to congratulate you on this splendid programme of Essays and Readings upon the subject of Evolution. It may seem too much to say at this time, but I believe it will give a great impulse to the study of Evolution in the Christian church and elsewhere in America, and may produce effects now expected by few. Personally holding this opinion with tenacity and entire conviction, I might nevertheless not be willing to express it here and now if I stood alone in entertaining it. But I am made bold to utter it by the fact that I am in possession of the opinion of the Master himself on the subject, as expressed in the letter which I will now read:

"Dear Sir:

"The Nook, Horsham Road, Dorking, 24th July, 1888.

"I am obliged by your letter of July 11th, with its enclosures. I am glad to say, and you will perhaps be glad to hear, that I am considerably better than when I gave to Dr. W. J. Youmans the impression you quote. Leaving London in a very low state about a month ago, I have since improved greatly, and am now in hopes of getting back to something like the low level of health which I before had, though I scarcely expect to reach that amount of working power which has been usual with me.

"The information contained in your letter was, I need hardly say, gratifying to me both on personal and on public grounds. The spread of the doctrine of Evolution, first of all in its limited acceptation and now in its wider acceptation, is alike surprising and encouraging; and doubtless the movement now to be initiated by the lectures and essays set forth in your programme will greatly accelerate its progress—especially if full reports of your proceedings can be circulated in a cheap printed form. The mode of presentation described seems to me admirably adapted for popularizing evolution views, and it will, I think, be a great pity if the effect of such a presentation should be limited to a few listeners in Brooklyn.

"Wishing you and your coadjutors every success in your efforts, "I am, truly, yours,

"Mr. J. A. SKILTON."

"HERBERT SPENCER."

Happening to have in my possession early in the summer an advance copy of your programme, it occurred to me that it might be to Mr. Spencer a comfort and a consolation, if not an aid to a renewal of strength, to learn what you were proposing to do; and I therefore sent him a copy of the programme, together with a letter of cordial sympathy; to which the letter just read is his reply. I subsequently learned, from Mr. W. R. Hughes of Birmingham, the President of the Sociological Section of one of them, that Mr. Spencer had caused the programme and my letter to be forwarded to societies in England and France engaged in the study and advancement of Evolution Philosophy, as matter of interest to European Evolutionists.

In listening with pleasure to the essay of the evening, I have found but one statement open to criticism. It seems to me we may believe the world has been blessed in that Mr. Spencer was not biased by a thorough academical education, but was left to the natural development of his intellectual powers untrammeled by direct and overmastering academic influences. His refusal to accept the alleged privileges and opportunities of such an education while yet a mere boy, marks, to my mind, the early self-recognition of those splendid natural powers by which the world has been already greatly benefited, and will continue to be benefited throughout the ages. I make only a passing allusion to this subject, which it would be out of place to discuss here at length; but I may be permitted to say that the history of the development of the mind and philosophy of Herbert Spencer is most instructive and interesting; that the great advances in the thought and work of the world are almost never made by those of the "guild," and that we should probably have marred rather than mended if we could have had it otherwise.

The time allotted me permits mention of only two or three incidents in that history. Examination of the original English edition of "Social Statics," published in 1850, discloses to us the action of a mind as yet dominated by its intellectual environment; the facts presented, the line of thought pursued, and the method of treatment adopted, being such as many of his contemporaries might naturally have employed in dealing with the subject. We find in that work little of the promise of the splendid fruitage we have already garnered from his subsequent works, except that derivable from the exhibition of transparent intellectual honesty and love of truth. Turning thence to the American edition of "Social Statics," published by the Appletons in 1865, we find that Spencer consented with reluctance to its publication