Page:The Herbert Spencer lecture.djvu/19

 the attention to flaws in the details of a symmetrical scheme of ideas is like wasting time over anachronisms in the Iliad, or false astronomy in the Divine Comedy.

What is the true definition of Philosophy—what of Synthesis—what of Evolution? Philosophy means ultimate generalization. Spencer correctly defined it as 'knowledge completely unified.' Our first crude observations are special, local, disparate. Science only begins with the colligation of crude separate observations. Each general science implies the colligation of a large body of departmental generalizations. The generalization of all the general sciences in their ultimate coordination is philosophy. Such is Spencer's own account of it; and, no doubt, with modifications in language, such an account of philosophy would be generally, or at least very widely, accepted. Well! it was to the search for such ultimate generalization of all general scientific conceptions that Spencer dedicated his life a task which so very few in the history of human thought have ever attempted in which almost no one has succeeded.

Now, as to the meaning of Synthesis an indispensable word which is needed not only for philosophy but for all serious thought. Synthesis the converse of analysis is the co-ordination of general conclusions. All real philosophy, no doubt, is synthetic a term introduced long ago by Comte, which Comte and Spencer incessantly employ. By a 'Synthetic System of Philosophy' Spencer seems to have understood a system which propounded a harmony of all the known sciences, as distinct from any system of transcendental Ontology. In that sense the ' Synthetic System' of Spencer and the 'Positive Philosophy' of Comte mean entirely the same thing. Both mean the ultimate