Materialism, but also the attenuated realism of John Stuart Mill. Deprecating all dogmatism as inconsistent with the modest nature of our only reliable knowledge—a knowledge of states of consciousness—he has suggested the name of Agnosticism to indicate the attitude of empiricists before the great world-problems. Under that title must be ranged all the distinguished names which precede, as well as Mr. Herbert Spencer, the Positivists (so far in sympathy), the long list of great writers who are more familiar in connection with ethics and general criticism—Harriet Martineau, George Eliot, Sir J. F. Stephen, John Morley, Charles Darwin, etc.
The most powerful advocate of empiricism, however, and the author of the form which is now most widely accepted, is Mr. Herbert Spencer. To give the barest outline of Mr. Spencer's vast system, in which the great wealth of modern science is largely incorporated, and which treats every branch of human activity and every aspect of being, is far beyond our scope.[1] Biology, psychology, sociology, ethics, aesthetics, and pedagogics are treated by the eminent philosopher with an exhaustiveness, and withal a unity of principle, which has no parallel in English literature. The law of evolution which astronomers, geologists, and biologists had successively detected is made an object of profound speculation, formulated as a universal law, and pursued throughout the entire dynamics of the universe, But to the empirical principles, and the rejection of Spiritualism and Theism, which are common to all Agnostics and Positivists, Mr. Spencer adds certain elements of a distinctive nature, which are usually regarded as an approach in the direction of Theism. Indeed, nothing is more common with German writers than to put him with or near Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel. It is usually said that Mr. Spencer recognises with them the existence of an Absolute, and the entire inscrutability of its nature to human reason. The former, however, contends that we have no other source of knowledge of the Absolute, hence
- ↑ A comprehensive exposition of the system, written on the authority of Mr. Spencer, by F. H. Collins, under the title "Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy," is an excellent introduction to Mr. Spencer's voluminous works.
