her ship of state shall labor hopelessly floundering in political seas, her engine out of order, hull out of trim, tackle foul, no conduct at the helm, a French armada on her weather bow, and mutiny on deck. In such a juncture American aid might perhaps be as welcome as it was to the sea-worn company in the monster ship.

Meanwhile, England is doing what she can to alienate her nearest relative and natural ally. The bitter obloquy which pours from her press belies and countervails the professed neutrality of her government. British policy may seem to restrain its hand, but British journalism does not restrain its speech. British journalism has during the past year been sowing in the hearts of this people seeds of hatred and of wrath which many years will not suffice to eradicate. The youth of to-day, who are soon to have the conduct of our affairs and to sway the policy of this country, are receiving, simultaneously with their impressions of native treason and rebellion, impressions equally profound of British insolence and British injustice.

Our treatment of the theme proposed in the outset has strayed into criticism, more extensive than we had designed, of one particular government and nation, in which, as it seems to us, the best and the worst of civil polity are represented, the strongest guaranties of personal liberty combined with the most offensive of class prerogatives and inequalities. We have no space left for the further discussion of our main topic, and will only add one closing reflection, forced upon us by all our converse with the civil history of nations. Although political science, as we have seen, advances slowly, as compared with other knowledges, the two chief ends and primary blessings of civil government-liberty and equality-have gained on the whole with every great revolution in human affairs. The world's history thus far has been a continued conflict between industry and force, resulting always, after many defeats, in solid advantage to the former, with successive limitations of the latter. So it has been hitherto, and the progress of society, if there be that consent and convergence of races, empires, religions, to a common end which we so

The

name, if history be not a series without a sequence, a succession of detached cycles with no spiral continuity of process, the progress of society, in time to come, will be marked and measured by new triumphs of industry over force, by fresh surrender of right derived from lawless might. The English race may claim, in their own name and that of their American offspring, to have forwarded more than all other peoples the political emancipation of labor, - constitutional liberty. Whether the social emancipation of labor shall also redound to the credit of this race remains to be determined. That is the next great state in the progress of mankind. political battle has been fought of industry against force; the social conflict continues of low caste and high caste, of privation on one side with superfluity on the other. The political problem of representative self-government (if the cause of American union shall triumph in the war now waging against treason and secession) may be considered as solved; the social problem is still pending, - the perfect adjustment of capital and labor, and the reconciliation of the greatest individual freedom with the utmost efficiency of social union. The only possible solution of this problem is a peaceful one. The appeal here is not to arms, but to interest; nor yet to interest alone, but to time and the irresistible "logic of events." Time, the great mediator, rights all wrongs, abolishes all unrighteous distinctions, exalts every valley, depresses every hill, makes the rough place plain, and reconciles one by one the sheer contradictions of social life. The ideal polity in which Love is lawgiver and Reason minister presupposes a sinless constituency, and is possible only on heavenly terms; but mortal years may expect through mere development of the human understanding such commonwealths as Mr. Mill portrays, representative governments in which all classes are truly represented; from whose constitution the last of prescriptive rights, the right of sex, is expunged; in which rank is gauged by meritorious industry; - democracies which know no demagogue but superior wisdom, states in comparison with which "the best government the world has yet seen" will be deemed a failure.

1862.] Spencer's Reconciliation of Science and Religion. 337

&. L. Joumant.

ART. II. SPENCER'S RECONCILIATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

First Principles. By HERBERT SPENCER, Author of "Social Statics"; "The Principles of Psychology"; "Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative." New York: D. Appleton & Co. Nos. I.-IV. 1860-1861.

THE works of Herbert Spencer exhibit the latest form of the positive philosophy, and foreshadow its future development. Reverent and bold, reverent for truth, though not for the forms of truth, and not for much that we hold true, bold in the destruction of error, though without that joy in destruction which often claims the name of boldness, these works are interesting in themselves and in their relation to the earnest thought of the time. They seem at the first sight to form the turning-point in the positive philosophy; but closer examination shows us that it is only a new and marked stage in a regular growth. It is the positive philosophy reaching the higher realities of our being, and establishing what before it ignored, because it had not reached, and by ignoring seemed to destroy. This system formerly excluded theology and pure psychology. In the works of Spencer we have the rudiments of a positive theology, and an immense step towards the perfection of the science of psychology.

In witnessing the increasing violence of any destructive power, it is hard to free ourselves from a certain shrinking terror, even if we know that there are barriers which this power cannot pass. When the tempest drives the flowing tide, with what seems irresistible might, against the shore, it is hard to keep wholly free from dread, even though we know that the "Thus far and no farther" has been written by the hand of God on the eternal rocks. So, many clear heads and trusting hearts felt a certain unacknowledged terror in the presence of that philosophy which seemed sweeping away what was dearest to their faith, even while they knew the limits which bound it.

Before considering the relation which the works of Spencer VOL. LXXII. - 5TH S. VOL. X. NO. III.

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bear to our religious thought, let us look for a moment at those limitations which were imposed upon this positive philosophy by its very nature. We will not speak of the most obvious and real of these, the fact that it left out of the account one whole department of our being,- for this would be to assume the whole question. An argument drawn from this would affect only the man of religious faith, and it would affect him only so far as his faith was strong; that is, it would be strongest when it was least needed. The positive philosophy, positive towards the sciences, was merely negative towards theology. It did not directly attack it. It only tried to crowd it out. It attempted to do this in two ways: first, historically; secondly, demonstratively. The historical method was this. It showed how every science had passed through the three stages of theological, metaphysical, and positive. The first of these stages was still further subdivided into the periods of Fetichism, Polytheism, and Monotheism. All the sciences had passed through these forms except the new and incomplete science of sociology. The direct hand of God was acknowledged only in our human life, and, as it had been excluded from every other sphere, the inference was unavoidable that it would be from this. But to make the inference from it valid, these changes should have been complete and radical. If it is seen that each of these was only a matter of degree, that it was a right principle too far extended, then the inference is without logical foundation. Even Fetichism was only such an undue extension. Fetichism was simply ascribing to all the objects in nature what was due to some of them, viz. consciousness and volition akin to those of the beholder. The savage had not drawn the line between the animate and the inanimate. We still apply the principle of Fetichism to men and to animals. Still further, our most accurate science has hardly yet drawn the line where Fetichism should cease, that is, where animal life ends, and vegetable begins. The principle, then, is only modified and limited, not abandoned. It is sufficient to show this in regard to the first of this series of changes, to expose the fallacy of the argument drawn from them. Had we space, however, the process could be continued in regard to the others. What was essential in Polytheism is

retained by the monotheistic Trinitarianism, and no profound Monotheism can long be free from some form of Trinitarianism. Enough has been shown, however, to prove that these changes are merely limitations and modifications, and these can never pass into destruction and annihilation. Least of all could this destruction be argued from them.

A similar fallacy is found in the other method of crowding religion out of the world. This method is, by showing the presence of law everywhere, and the absence of all arbitrariness, to leave no place for the Divine will. But the same system, when it comes to speak of the human will, makes that regular and subject to law. If it seem capricious, it is only because the circumstances about it change. If this be so, then this regularity in the world is what we should expect from the working of an absolute will, which was master of its circumstances. The account that the positive philosophy gives of the world just fits the conception which it gives of will, and gives us just such a world as we should expect from a supreme will, as it defines will.

Many persons conceive of fallacies in a system as places to be attacked, just as a boy imagines the eyes of the cocoa-nut to be designed by nature as weak spots for the insertion of his gimlet. Both overlook the great principle of germination.

If any system have real vitality in it, its points of weakness are its points of growth. It cannot be destroyed from without; but by the process of its own nature it will itself break through its limitations, and transform itself into a more perfect form, or at least into one that shall supply what it before lacked. What we should expect from these points of germination in the positive philosophy would be, then, a theology so modified as to be free from all arbitrariness and caprice. In the works of Spencer we have indications of the beginning of this process. In the system of philosophy of which Mr. Spencer has commenced the serial publication, we have first, under the heading of "First Principles," two divisions, viz. Part First, "The Unknowable," and Part Second, "Laws of the Knowable." It is with the first of these parts that we concern ourselves at present. In this he brings together the ultimate facts of science and religion. He takes up three