The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 74

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Excerpt from The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 74: January to June, 1909 It is true that Spencer failed to see the essential distinction be tween cosmic and organic evolution, and when it was pointed out in as it was not his own idea, he characteristically ignored it. He also missed the principles of creative synthesis, cosmic, organic and social synergy and sympodial development, which are quite as important as those set forth in First Principles. But he is to be judged for what he did rather than by what he did not do. There is, however, one omission, which, deliberate and intentional though it was, has not been condoned by his readers. This is his failure to elaborate these fundamental principles of inorganic nature in a manner proportionate to that in which be elaborated the principles of biology, psychology, sociology and ethics. Uniform regret has been expressed by his read ers, including his warmest admirers, that he should have abandoned this great work so auspiciously begun, and hurried on to the more special and complex sciences before laying an adequate foundation for them. The present writer was among those to express this regret and to maintain that his excuse for omitting the two volumes upon which the Synthetic Philosophy would and should have rested, viz., that the scheme would have been too extensive for him to complete it, and that the interpretation of Organic Nature after the proposed method is of more immediate importance, was not a sufficient or valid excuse. It is 'generally felt that if these two volumes had been written, which might have borne the title of Principles of Cosmology, it would be small matter whether the Principles of Ethics ever saw the light or not. The world was even left in the dark as to how and in what order he would have treated inorganic nature had be written the omitted volumes. It is true that in the opening paragraph of the first volume of the Principles of Sociology he says. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.