and the multitudinous populations of our great central valleya valley which in the year 2000 will contain a population perhaps not inferior to that of the great central valley of China. If anywhere on earth there is need of the most potent instrumentalities for promoting the highest moral and spiritual culture of which man is capable under the influence of the gospel, it is here. It is here too that there is greatest danger that these instrumentalities will pass into neglect and disuse. The bare suggestion of such a danger has in it much that is alarming.

But there is no occasion for despondency. This rage for a civilization wholly material will not last forever. The God of this world will not have things all his own way after all,-God has never yet deserted this nation in the times of its necessity. In relation to the subject discussed in this Article, this is one of those times; and there are not wanting indications that the day of deliverance may be near at hand.

ARTICLE IV.-HERBERT SPENCER'S PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY.

Principles of Psychology. By HERBERT SPENCER. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1873. 2 vols.

THIS work was first published in 1855. It has since been revised and greatly extended, and now appears as the psychological part of Mr. Spencer's philosophical series. Before proceeding to its direct examination, however, we wish to make some preliminary remarks about the Spencerian doctrine of evolution.

It is hardly necessary to point out that some forms of the doctrine of evolution are perfectly compatible with Theism. The Theist of the last century conceived of creation as the work of a moment. The Creator spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. In the twinkling of an eye, as the lightning flashes out of the dark night, so the worlds were "won from the void and formless infinite," and each one started on its way, perfect after its kind. But it is claimed that the long times of natural history and geology, and the gradual introduction of higher forms which these sciences seem to teach, have thrown doubt upon this conception. It is said that the law which holds for all present development is true of creation also: first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. It was while darkness yet hung over the face of the deep that the Spirit of God brooded over nature, to bring forth the living from the lifeless. It was while yet the earth was without form and void that the Divine Sower went forth to sow. There, upon that waste theater of mist, were sown the seeds of life and mind. They were freighted with the destinies of individuals, and species, and races, for all the ages to come. In them was involved all that has since been evolved. They made for themselves form, and laid under contribution all the forces of nature, until earth, and air, and sea, swarmed with the most varied and complex existence. Such a doctrine

of evolution might be worthily held, and, indeed, it has many elements of peculiar sublimity and grandeur.

But there is another form of the evolution theory. The thorough-going evolutionist, availing himself of the doctrine of the unity of the forces, paces with firm step through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and then brings all things home to the parentage of matter and force. He drives back beyond all life, beyond all form, beyond even the present material elements, back to the raw beginnings of matter and force. At that distant point there are no such myths as life and mind; these are unimaginable ages down the future. There is nothing but little lumps of good, hard matter. These are the fountain head of existence, and need but to enough to transform chaos into creation. ports to be the scientific book of Genesis. it is held by the "New School" of philosophy, of which Mr. Spencer is one of the chief apostles.

be left alone long This is what purThis is evolution as

It may be well just here to state the true nature of the problem which the New Philosophy attempts to solve. It often happens that a few vague and general analogies are allowed to blind the reason to the infinite complexity of the problem, and it may even be questioned whether many of the evolutionists themselves properly appreciate the task they have to perform. Their proposition in plain words is this: all things have come by a rigid mechanical sequence from the condensation of that primeval mist. Not merely the forms of matter, but life, and mind, and their various manifestations, have all been evolved by necessary physical causation. Men think that thought and motion have nothing in common with the buzzing of atoms, but, in truth, these little lumps need only to be properly combined to become self-conscious, and think, and feel, and hope, and aspire. If there had been a spectator who could have detected the position of the forces in that nebulous mass, he could by the parallelogram of forces have reasoned down through orbital rings to solid globes, to continents and seas, to the lowest forms of life, to man, to Homer and the Iliad, to Newton and the Principia, to Milton and the Paradise Lost, to Shakespeare and his plays. By simple deductive reasoning, as the engineer traces beforehand the track of a ball, so that spec

He

tator could have foreseen all our art, our science, our civilization, and could have prophesied all that is yet to come. could have foretold all the folly, and suffering, and sin of men. There is not a mote that trembles in the sunbeam, nor a leaf that is driven in the wind, whose existence, and whose exact position, he could not have foretold. The problem would have been a complex one, to be sure, but it would have been a purely mechanical one. There is not a thought that ever has toiled or that ever shall toil in a human brain, there is not an ache that has ever wrung a human heart, that was not potentially there. Our longings for knowledge were there; and when we inquire after the origin of things, our thoughts but return to their early home. Mr. Spencer, and his philosophy, and the criticisms upon it, were there. Whatever we can conceive that is complex, or accidental, or free, was there. Those dancing atoms whirled and whirled until they became self-conscious, and thought, and reflected, and wrote their own autobiography in the philosophy of Mr. Spencer. We are not misrepresenting the theory. Prof. Tyndall says of it: "Strip it naked and you stand face to face with the notion that not only the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse and the lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human mind itself-emotion, intellect, will, and all their phe nomena-were once latent in a fiery cloud." (Frag. Science, p. 159.) In this evolution there has been no guiding mind. Mr. Spencer demands no purpose, but only a power. The aim of his philosophy is to show that the hypothesis of an intelligent Creator is needless. He is impatient of the doctrine which makes creation the work of wisdom, and calls it the "carpenter theory." If we consider the function of reproduc tion, it would seem that here is overwhelming evidence of a purpose to preserve the species; but we are not allowed to think so on pain of being charged with "fetishism." If we think of the eye or ear as it forms in the womb, it would seem the power at work must understand the laws of optics and acoustics, to form these organs in such exact and complex accordance with them. It would seem, too, that these organs, thus forming before they are needed, indicate a knowledge of

future needs, and a purpose of supplying them; but this belief, too, lies under the ban of fetishism. The eyes are used to see with, but they were not made for that purpose. The ears hear, but they were not designed for hearing. The organs of reproduction serve to perpetuate the species, but they were not made for this end. Everything, no matter how complex in its adaptations, exhibits the working of a power; nothing represents the fulfillment of a purpose. "The transformation of an indefinite incoherent homogeneity into a definite coherent heterogeneity, which goes on everywhere until it brings about a reverse transformation, is consequent upon certain simple laws of force." (First Prin., p. 495.) Such is the theory. To many it will seem to break down from pure excess of absurdity. We pretend not to decide; but we insist that every one who is fond of talking magniloquently about evolution, should know precisely what he has to prove.

Yet, strange as it may seem, Mr. Spencer denies that his system is atheistic. The ground of the denial is this; he believes in an unknowable. But upon inquiry this unknowable proves to be merely the substance which underlies phenomena. It has neither sense nor intelligence nor will. To attribute these to it is a species of fetishism. Yet Mr. Spencer thinks that he saves his system from atheism by calling this thing God. We will not quarrel about names. That which we know as matter is declared to be the cause of all things. This matter, working according to mechanical laws, without intelligence or purpose, has transformed chaos into creation. This is the doctrine, and this is essential atheism.

Mr. Spencer further denies that his system is materialistic. The New Philosophy plumes itself upon rising above the contest between spiritualist and materialist, and pronounces the question to be a strife of words. The claim is the emptiest pretense. "That no idea or feeling arises save as a result of some physical force expended in producing it, is fast becoming a common place of science; and whoever duly weighs the evidence will see that nothing but an overwhelming bias in favor of a preconceived theory can explain its non-acceptance." (First Prin., p. 280.) That mental force is but transformed physical force, is the primary assumption. The mind itself is