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Show HERBERT SPENCER, In the death of 1 lerbert Spencer, England loses one of its greatest men. He was born in Derby. England, in 1820. At the age of 17 he became a civil engineer, which, after eight years, he abandoned aban-doned for a higher and more exalted avocation destined for him by nature. As a writer Herbert Siiencer had no equal in all England. To him is awarded the prize of merit, even against such writers writ-ers as Buckle and John Stuart Mill. AH his works denote a man of a strong mind and an independent writer, whilst his language is chaste, and what may be termed classical English. His intellectual supremacy su-premacy he maintained in, England for. nearly seventy sev-enty years, and he. will be always remembered as an eminent scientist 'atijl profound philosopher. But Mr: Spencer, notwithstanding his deep thought, laborious la-borious and industrious works, was. not always log ical in his conclusions, nor consistent with his own premises. Some of his theories were not only unchristian, un-christian, but they woj-e unscientific. In his "Principles "Prin-ciples of Philosophy," he restricts all knowledge to what is known through. the senses, or the sensible world, i. e., the material world. First principles, origin and causes, he designates as unknowable. The science of life, on which he writes, is treated only organically. He describes the whole process of assimilation in a scientific manner. But the vital spark that, does ihe work silently and with precision, was to him the unknown quantity, and therefore he passed it over. He knew that the body or stomach, minus this living power, could not convert con-vert food into chyle, bone, flesh and blood, yet that vital spark, ihe immortal soul, which is the primary cause of all that takes place in the assimilation as-similation of food, he-discarded. In the same work, treating of generation, or reproduction, he strongly adhered to the theory of metagenesis, which sub-' verts the Biblical account of creation, that every kind produces its like. Whether in later years he abandoned his theory, as unscientific, the reader is not aware, but we have it on the authority of Dr. Burnham of Boston, whose fame was widespread and whose authority, as a naturalist, is generally admitted, that metagenesis, as applied to aphids, was wrong. "I have," said he, ''been making my, observations for some years on these little organisms, organ-isms, audi find that what we have taken for metagenesis meta-genesis is only one of the different stages in the process of reproduction, for I have discovered the young aphid properly formed and enveloped in the so-called virgin or sexless mother." Sperfcer's theory of evolution was, like that of the old pagan philosophers, phi-losophers, that' matter, fire, water and the elements alone produced all things. Man was not originilly ereated, but,, like. Topsy, '"growed." His "First Principles of a 2yew System of Philosophy" is also unsatisfactory, as its trend is to lead doubting minds away from certain knowledge and entangle them, by his false philosophy and unverified scientific scien-tific theories. The account of creation, as given in Genesis, he denies, because it did not harmonize with his philosophy. Yet he admitted his inability to. give any scientific or philosophical account of the origin of the universe. He writes : "Respecting the origin of the universe, three verbally intelligible suppositions may be made. We may assert that it is self -existent, 'or that it is self-created, or that it is created by an external agency." Self-existeuce, the first supposition, he rejects, because-, as he said, and truly, tod, such a supposition is absolutely inconceivable in-conceivable an impossible idea. The second supposition, sup-position, namely, that it. is self-ereated, he must, as a philosopher, necessarily deuy, because to create means action, which would imply that tho world acted before it existed. He also denied that it was -created by any external agency. But his reasons for this denial and that he would admit a First Cause, and presupposed that the external agent, like tho builder of a mansion or factory, would require materials to construct the universe. Then he asks: "But whence- comtr the materials?-' We know not what answer our pagan philosophers could give to his query, but Christian philosophers, who believe in God, and all his attributes, would answer that lie created all things from nothing. For Him there was no need of pre-existing materials, ma-terials, as all things came into existence by "the sole Word of his power." This Mr, Herbert Spencer failed to discover in his philosophy. :Hc followed in the line of anti-Christian anti-Christian writers who at the beginning of the last century laid claim to all scientific knowledge. Herbert Her-bert Spencer, their pupil, was the most brilliant of them all. Unfortunately his thoughts, in the beginning, be-ginning, were directed in the wrong channel. From him lesser lights," who proclaimed themselves agnostics,' ag-nostics,' received their training, and in the dark- . ness winch surrounded them he was their master. "In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed is kingl' . |