terialism, that a paper had to be circulated, and eminent names obtained, certifying that it was all right, and that Dr. Carpenter was quite sound and safe in his views. As regards the present address, its main point involves the explicit acceptance of the view currently designated as "Darwinian."
The metaphysical conflict into which the doctor has thrown himself has reference to the mode of origin of our ideas. One school affirms that they are not a part of the order of Nature, that is, they do not come into existence by natural processes of growth and development. They are held to be intuitive, and formed directly by the Creator in a supernatural or extranatural sphere. The opposite school maintains that ideas are not a part of the preconstituted original furniture of our minds, but grow and arise by experience in the regular order of Nature. Thus the intuitional hypothesis and the experience hypothesis are antagonist doctrines. Dr. Carpenter here proposes a compromise by calling in the principle of hereditary influence, or the power of habit to originate intuitive ideas in the course of generations. But, strange to say, Dr. Carpenter puts forth this view as his own, without recognizing that it is an old and fundamental doctrine of Herbert Spencer. It will surprise many that, upon so conspicuous and important an occasion, a theory of such undoubted moment in philosophy could have been put forth by Dr. Carpenter without the scrupulous recognition of its true authorship. Mr. Spencer's doctrine, long maintained, and fully elaborated in his system of Synthetic Philosophy, is that intuitions originate by slowly-organized experiences in the race, which are confirmed and accumulated through hereditary transmission as a part of the working of the great principle of Evolution. Dr. Carpenter indorses this view, and cites Mr. Mill as having recently given his Adhesion to it, and his position is therefore substantially the same as that of Prof. Gray and the developmental school. But, in common with many others who hold to this theory, he strongly urges that it does not exclude the conception of efficient causation or of a supreme cause by which Nature is controlled, and, like Dr. Gray, he takes broad issue with the atheists. His view is summed up in the following closing passage of the address: "The science of modern times, however, has taken a more special direction. Fixing its attention exclusively on the order of Nature, it has separated itself wholly from theology, whose function it is to seek after its cause. In this, science is fully justified, alike by the entire independence of its objects, and by the historical fact that it has been continually hampered and impeded in its search for the truth as it is in Nature, by the restraints which theologians have attempted to impose upon its inquiries. But when science, passing beyond its own limits, assumes to take the place of theology, and sets up its own conception of the order of Nature as a sufficient account of its cause, it is invading a province of thought to which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of those who ought to be its best friends. For, while the deep-seated instincts of humanity and the profoundest researches of philosophy alike point to mind as the one and only source of power, it is the high prerogative of science to demonstrate the unity of the power which is operating through the limitless extent and variety of the universe, and to trace its continuity through the vast series of ages that have been occupied in its evolution."
HERBERT SPENCER AND DR. CARPENTER.
Since the foregoing remarks were put in type, we have heard again from the other side, and find that Dr. Car-
