om the various combinations, guided by unintelligent
physical laws, all the wonderful organisms of plants and animals have
arisen. To these combinations also all the phenomena of life, instinct,
and intelligence in the world are to be referred. This theory has been
adopted in our day by a large class of scientific men, especially in
Germany. The modern advocates of the theory are immeasurably superior to
the ancient Epicureans in their knowledge of astronomy, botany, zooelogy,
and biology; but in their theory of the universe, and in their mode of
accounting for all the phenomena of life and intelligence, they are
precisely on the same level. They have not added an idea to the system,
which has ever been regarded as the opprobrium of human thought.
Buechner, Moleschott, Vogt, hold that matter is eternal and
indestructible; that matter and force are inseparable: the one cannot
exist without the other. What, it is asked, is motion without something
moving? What is electricity without an electrified body? What is
attraction without molecules attracting each other? What is
contractibility without muscular fibre, or secretion without a secreting
gland? One combination of molecules exhibits the phenomena of life,
another combination exhibits the phenomena of mind. All this was taught
by the old heathen philosopher more than two thousand years ago. That
this system denies the existence of God, of mind as a thinking substance
distinct from matter, and of the possibility of the conscious existence
of man after death, are not inferences drawn by opponents, but
conclusions openly avowed by its advocates.

_Herbert Spencer's New Philosophy._

Mr. Darwin calls Spencer our "great philosopher." His is the speculating
mind of the new school of science. This gives to his opinions special
interest, although no one but himself is to be held responsible for his
peculiar views, except so far as others see fit to avow them. Mr.
Spencer postulates neither mind nor matter. He begins with Force. Force,
however, is itself perfectly inscrutable. All we know about it is, that
it is, that it is indestructible, and that it is persistent.

As to the origin of the universe, he says there are three possible
suppositions: 1st. That it is self-existent. 2d. That it is
self-created. 3d. That it is created by an external agency.[3] All these
he examines and rejects. The first is equivalent to Atheism, by which
Spencer understands the doctrine which make