Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/340

326 the theatre of forces having no relation to preceding conditions, and acting consequently as simple disturbers of the natural equilibrium of society. The adherents of this school must only fight the development theory as best they may. The battle is engaged, however, along the whole line, and, to defeat evolution, you must defeat it not in ethics only, but in biology and physics as well. As long as the two latter divisions hold their ground, be sure that any victory over the first can be but momentary.

It is obvious that the method pursued by Mr. Spencer must give rise to many misapprehensions. The first thought that suggests itself to even an attentive and earnest reader is, that he has left out of sight, and is prevented by his principles from doing justice to, a number of very important considerations. Our individual consciousness tells us nothing of the dependence of present modes of conduct upon past; but it tells us much of the special motives which influence us from moment to moment. So a wave of the sea, if we could imagine it conscious, might know much of the pressure of adjacent waves and its own adjustments of form in consequence of that pressure, but might know nothing of ocean-currents or the attraction of sun and moon. We feel the influence of some potent personality, but think little of the causes that have fitted us to do so; yet, to be able to trace and understand those causes, would give us a far more comprehensive theory of our moral nature than to be able to analyze and measure with the utmost accuracy the special personal influence by which we are so strongly affected. In a word, what may be called the accidents of our life fill an altogether larger space in consciousness than the general laws, in virtue of which we are substantially what we are. Mr. Spencer has undertaken to trace those general laws, leaving accidents out of sight as much as possible; and, naturally, consciousness protests. If, however, we only call to mind, and impress upon ourselves, what it is that Mr. Spencer attempts, we shall recall many of our criticisms, and find it better to listen attentively to what he has to say.

Again, with every action there goes a certain accompaniment of individual feeling. We have a sense of its voluntariness, and a consequent sense of responsibility. To us, each action stands and is seen in relation to the sum of our own individual actions, and the proportion when it bears to that sum is very different from the proportion it bears to the whole sum of action in general. It is easy, therefore, to conceive how different the subjective view of action must be from the objective, and how far a history of action such as Mr. Spencer undertakes to write must be from such an account as we might gather from the dicta of consciousness. But, if our individual lives are but links in one great chain of life, which we have learned in these latter days to extend to the lowest forms of the animate creation, can the individual consciousness, however bright and penetrating we may suppose it, be trusted in its affirmations regarding the genesis of action and the