2 8o THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

kind or another. It must have certain qualities and charac-

ters be they what they may. Let us conceive of the most

attenuated and amorphous nebula we can ; it must yet be

quite definite. It must have some composition, some

characters of cohesion and possible resistance, some limits

as to size, and some shape, change as it may from instant

to instant. In reality it is as definite a thing as a plum-

pudding, and it is nothing but a trick of the imagination

which may make it seem not to be so. Less easily perceived

by our sense-organs, and therefore less easy to imagine and

less easy to describe, it certainly is. But less " definite " it no

less certainly is not.

Here then, at the very base, or the very starting-point, of

Mr. Spencer's whole philosophy, lies an absurdity so pro-

found as necessarily to destroy the philosophical value of the

entire system based upon it. And his system agrees with

that " levelling down " method of treating human intelligence

which now demands our attention. We need, however,

occupy but little space here or little of our reader's attention,

if he is already convinced that self-evidence, as recognized

by the intellect, is the supreme and ultimate criterion of the

truth of those propositions which lie at the base of all our

"ordered knowledge" i.e., of all science.

The process of " levelling down " seeks to explain our

highest faculties by our lowest, and to make not intellect but

sense the criterion of our judgments. After what we have

before pointed out, we think it needless to further criticise

that fundamental error which forms a main part of the

system of philosophy which underlies the system known

as Darwinism. Its result, for those who are so unfortunate

as not to have forced their way through it, is to hide from

their intellectual eyesight the objective truth of these

principles which are logically necessary for all science,*

* See ante, Chapter IV.

kind or another. It must have certain qualities and charac-

ters be they what they may. Let us conceive of the most

attenuated and amorphous nebula we can ; it must yet be

quite definite. It must have some composition, some

characters of cohesion and possible resistance, some limits

as to size, and some shape, change as it may from instant

to instant. In reality it is as definite a thing as a plum-

pudding, and it is nothing but a trick of the imagination

which may make it seem not to be so. Less easily perceived

by our sense-organs, and therefore less easy to imagine and

less easy to describe, it certainly is. But less " definite " it no

less certainly is not.

Here then, at the very base, or the very starting-point, of

Mr. Spencer's whole philosophy, lies an absurdity so pro-

found as necessarily to destroy the philosophical value of the

entire system based upon it. And his system agrees with

that " levelling down " method of treating human intelligence

which now demands our attention. We need, however,

occupy but little space here or little of our reader's attention,

if he is already convinced that self-evidence, as recognized

by the intellect, is the supreme and ultimate criterion of the

truth of those propositions which lie at the base of all our

"ordered knowledge" i.e., of all science.

The process of " levelling down " seeks to explain our

highest faculties by our lowest, and to make not intellect but

sense the criterion of our judgments. After what we have

before pointed out, we think it needless to further criticise

that fundamental error which forms a main part of the

system of philosophy which underlies the system known

as Darwinism. Its result, for those who are so unfortunate

as not to have forced their way through it, is to hide from

their intellectual eyesight the objective truth of these

principles which are logically necessary for all science,*

* See ante, Chapter IV.