Harvard College, Cambridge. WITH THE AUTHOR'S COMPLIMENTS, 2, PARKFIELD ROAD, LIVERPOOL. "ON MR. SPENCER'S FORMULA OF EVOLUTION." LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 1882. [All rights reserved.] PREFACE. THIS work, taken in conjunction with a previous one "On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution," must be regarded as a criticism of the general logical construction of Mr. Spencer's philosophical system. The writer is not opposed to the author he criticises as regards the scientific doctrine. of evolution or natural development, so far as it is known to us; but he sees great blanks in the deductive treatment, and great failures of explanation, which cause him to regard Mr. Spencer's presumed fulness of exposition as merely illusory. In so far as Mr. Spencer's work is viewed as an attempt to show the à priori reasonableness of evolution by gradual development already established in various departments of science by à posteriori methods, it may be held to have accomplished its object; but in so far as it claims to have put together a framework of thought commensurate with all the sequences of the cosmos, it must be considered a disjointed structure, from which as yet several connecting parts are missing. And it will be found that the deductive system which Mr. Spencer attempts is so mystical in its fundamental ideas, as well as so incomplete in its logical connections, that, regarded |