have a specific instance of the instability of neutral monism. For, though, like the famous ass of Buridanus, Mr. Spencer-according to his own account-should be left by "the imbecilities of the understanding" for ever in suspense between a spiritualistic and a materialistic interpretation of Nature, we find him, nevertheless, lapsing, now to the one and now to the other as his special problem changes. Thus, in bringing his First Principles to a conclusion, he writes :

"Over and over again it has been shown in various ways, that the deepest truths we can reach, are simply statements of the widest uniformities of our experience of the relations of Matter, Motion, and Force, and that Matter, Motion, and Force are but symbols of the Unknown Reality."-F. P., p. 557.

Among the instances presumably referred to in this summary I select the following from the chapter on the Transformation and Equivalence of Forces:

"Various classes of facts thus unite to prove that the law of metamorphosis, which holds among the physical forces, holds equally between them and the mental forces. Those modes of the Unknowable which we call motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, &c., are alike transformable into each other, and into those modes of the Unknowable which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought. . . . How this metamorphosis takes place--how a force existing as motion, heat or light, can become a mode of consciousness- ... these are mysteries which it is impossible to fathom. But they are not profounder mysteries than the transformations of the physical forces into each other."-F. P., p. 217. (Italics mine.)

...

According to these passages it seems plain that states of consciousness rank as instances of transformations of force precisely on a par with physical transformations, and further, that the deepest truths we can know about Mind are statements in terms of these symbols. But in the section of his Psychology devoted to what he is pleased to call Physical Synthesis, and spite of this title, we find Mr. Spencer saying:—

"Though the development of Mind itself cannot be explained by a series of deductions from the Persistence of Force, yet it remains possible that its obverse, the development of physical changes in a physical organ, may be so explained. -Pyschology, i., p. 508. (Italics mine.)

Here, from the transformation of "motion, heat, &c., into sensation, emotion, thought," we seem to have got as far as "psychophysical parallelism," which denies the possibility of any such transformation. But elsewhere in the same volume Mr. Spencer goes yet further:

"Were we compelled to choose between the alternatives of translating mental phenomena into physical phenomena, or of translating physical phenomena into mental phenomena, the latter alternative would seem the more acceptable of the two" (p. 159). ... "Hence, though of the two it seems easier to translate

so-called Matter into so-called Spirit than to translate so-called Spirit into socalled Matter (which latter is, indeed, wholly impossible); yet no translation can carry us beyond our symbols."-P. 161. (Italics mine.)

And so at length, with beautiful continuity, the "transfiguration is complete. And now it is felt to be high time that the agnosticism should at any cost re-assert itself. Accordingly, in the same context, Mr. Spencer says:

"We see that the whole question is at last nothing more than the question whether these symbols should be expressed in terms of those or those in terms of these a question scarcely worth deciding; since either answer leaves us as completely outside the reality as we were at first."-P. 159.

But may we not suspect that symbols allowing of all these liberties must be very treacherous symbols, and that something has gone wrong somehow in Mr. Spencer's philosophy? Is the following an altogether impertinent comment on such symbols ?—

"When our symbolic conceptions are such that no cumulative or indirect processes of thought can enable us to ascertain that there are corresponding realities. . . then they are altogether vicious and illusive, and in no way distinguishable from pure fictions."-F. P., p. 29. (Italics mine.)

7. What is wrong with Mr. Spencer's philosophy I suspect is, that it is not philosophy at all, but poetry. Had he but taken as his motto the saying of Heraclitus, Tóλeμos tatηρ távтwv, and written in blank verse, we might have had a moving, evolutionary epic, full of striking aperçus. That the leading conceptions in the poem should' illustrate the general mutation of all things, and evolve into their contraries, would offend no one, and enable the synthesis to proceed triumphantly to the final "transfiguration" of that realism from which it set out. Evolution for Mr. Spencer consists in a whole series of " equivocal generations," to use Kant's phrase, the change of category, if I may so say, being covered by" continuities" of sundry sorts. Let me cite instances:-1. Given the conservation of mass and energy, and we have generated all the variety of physical events. 2. Given certain hypothetical molecules of great complexity, and they will yield reactions "varying little by little into those called vital." 3. Given an unbroken succession of impressions in an organism, and "there must arise a consciousness. 4. Given “that our states of consciousness segregate into two independent aggregates," and we shall have not the fission of one consciousness into two, but "the mystery of a consciousness of something that is yet out of consciousness," a dualism of Ego and Non-Ego. 5. Then, given "the impression of resistance," and there will be "nascent consciousness of force," furnishing a principle of continuity for each of these correlatives, Ego and Non-Ego. 6. Equating the Absolute with the Non-Relative, i.e., the contrary of the Relative with its contradictory,

then a consciousness divested of all relativity will give us the Absolute, as "the Power manifested behind all manifestations, inner and outer." 7. Given our inability "to suppress consciousness" any further, and its persistence will constitute an immediate experience of the permanence of this manifested Power, alias Unknowable Reality. So we return to that quantitative constancy of Matter and Force with which the "Knowable" provisionally began.

The first of these unconscious subreptions is the consequence of a mistake as to the scope of his fundamental principle which Mr. Spencer shares with many popular writers about Energy. As I have said in the Lectures in question:-"So far from accounting for all the phenomena of Evolution, the doctrine of the persistence of energy alone will not account for a single one" (i., p. 213). Again, the fact that Mr. Spencer has never really divested his mind of the dualism of common thought is answerable for many of the illicit steps in his argument. This has led him to range the antitheses of Impressions and Ideas, of Vivid and Faint States of Consciousness, of Ego and Non-Ego, of Subject and Object, of Mind and Matter as co-ordinate dualities; and so to maintain that " the antithesis of subject and object, never to be transcended while consciousness lasts, renders impossible all knowledge of that Ultimate Reality in which subject and object are united." As if subject and object were not always united in the unity of experience, or could be subject and object in any other way. Mr. Spencer's sensationalist psychology is another source to which many of the strange surprises of his philosophy may be traced. "Rational Synthesis" is supposed to be his watchword, yet the following is substantially all he has to tell us of synthesis :

"We have seen reason for thinking that there is a primitive unit of consciousness, that sensations of all orders are formed of such units combined in various relations, that by the compounding of these sensations and their various relations are produced perceptions and ideas, and so on up to the highest thoughts and emotions."-Psychology, § 272.

Here we have "atomism" in psychology with a vengeance, and when to this is added the assumption that "a shock in consciousness and a molecular motion are the subjective and objective faces of the same thing," must we not confess to a sense of hopeless bewilderment? And yet this is not the worst, for we have also to note that this subject-object stuff, by "entering into definite and coherent relations," constitutes thought! A difference or succession of presentations, for example, becomes—as we all know—a presentation of difference or succession for psychologists like Mr. Spencer. This brings us to the last of the cardinal defects in the Synthetic Philosophy which there is space to mention: "The universal process of intelligence is the assimilation of impressions. And the differences

displayed in the ascending grades of intelligence are consequent upon the increasing complexity of the impressions assimilated." (Psychology, § 381.) "Knowledge of the lowest kind is un-unified knowledge; Science is partially-unified knowledge; Philosophy is completely unified knowledge." (First Principles, p. 134.)

From such ground it is impossible to legitimate the real categories of Unity, Substance, Cause, End, which, of course, Mr. Spencer freely uses, and, in fact, never accounts for. From such a ground, too, it is impossible to show that the world is rational, and Mr. Spencer gives no signs of even understanding that there is such a problem. The only unity his philosophy discloses is that of the Purely Indeterminate, and in this asylum ignorantiæ, with "unconscious pleasantry,' as it has been well said, he invites Science and Religion to dwell together and be at peace.

When I read the first paragraph of Mr. Spencer's criticism, and saw the long string of damnatory epithets some kind friend of his had culled from my book-by way, I suppose, of stirring up his ire to my grievous detriment-I confess I felt that I must have exceeded the limits of propriety, and meant to apologise. But now, at the end of these remarks, I find I have only repeated the old indictments in less "plain English," and I really do not see how to do more to spare Mr. Spencer's feelings. However great Mr. Spencer's personal merits may be, his philosophy, I sincerely believe, deserves the worst that has ever been said of it.

JAMES WARD.

THE MILITARY FORCES OF OUR COLONIES.

THOUGH the British Public have long been aware that our Colonies possessed Military forces of their own, they have, until recent years, attracted little attention except from military experts. Twenty years ago Canada offered a large contingent when we seemed on the brink of war with Russia; in 1884-1885 the Colony of New South Wales sent a contingent of Field Artillery and Infantry to take part in the Soudan Campaign, and other Colonies offered similar assistance; but the matter was regarded with a somewhat languid interest—the Public considered that it was very nice of the Colonies, and our Press patted them metaphorically on the back, and made much of them for a time. But all was soon forgotten here (though not in the Colonies), and the help given was hardly taken seriously. The offers of assistance subsequently made by them, whenever we have been at war, have since then been politely refused.

Far-seeing Statesmen, of all parties, have, however, of late years been wisely cultivating a thorough rapprochement between ourselves and our Colonies, and knitting closer the ties. In this respect stands pre-eminent the present Secretary of State for the Colonies, who has done more than any man living to bind them to the Mother Country, by bonds of mutual interest, esteem, and affection. The population, and the commerce, and the wealth of these Colonies have been rapidly increasing, and their military forces more or less keeping pace, while, with more ample and rapid communication by sea, they are far better known to us all than they were even ten years ago. But it was on the occasion of Her Gracious Majesty's Diamond Jubilee, in 1897, that the public began to form a definite and favourable opinion as to their forces; detachments of these troops, of sufficient strength to show what they were like, were sent to take part in the great manifestation of loyalty then made; their appearance was greeted everywhere in Great Britain with immense popular enthusiasm, and a deep impression made as to their value.

The present crisis in South Africa has carried them up to quite another level; they are no longer regarded by the British public as our nice Colonial cousins who look so well in their picturesque uniforms, amuse themselves by playing at soldiers, and usually ride so admirably; it is at last recognised that, though Colonial, they are real soldiers, as fit for fighting, as brave and as ready to shed their blood for the Empire they are proud of, as those of the Mother Country: and more than that, it is seen that, for some purposes of War, the conditions of their ordinary life prepare them better than