ies
which will creep into even as handsome typography as this are
unimportant, and rectified as quickly as observed. The size is
convenient, and the shape comely.

_Illustrations of Progress_: A Series of Discussions by HERBERT
SPENCER. With a Notice of Spencer's "New System of Philosophy." New
York: D. Appleton & Co.

Mr. Herbert Spencer is already a power in the world. Yet it is not the
vulgar apprehension of power which is associated with notoriety that we
claim for him. He holds no position of civil authority, neither
do his works compete with Miss Braddon's poorest novel in the
circulating-libraries. But he has already influenced the silent life of
a few thinking men whose belief marks the point to which the
civilization of the age must struggle to rise. In America, we may even
now confess our obligations to the writings of Mr. Spencer, for here
sooner than elsewhere the mass feel as utility what a few recognize as
truth. The reader acquainted with the admirable papers upon Education,
which have been republished and extensively circulated in this country,
has recognized their author's fresh and vigorous spirit, his power of
separating the essential from the accidental, as well as his success in
grasping the main features of a subject divested of frivolous and
subordinate details. That he possesses a thinking faculty of rare
comprehensiveness, as well as acuteness, will be allowed by all who will
study his other works now in course of republication in New York.

Mr. Spencer is at present engaged in an heroic attempt to construct a
sufficing system of philosophy, which shall include Biology, Psychology,
Sociology, and Morality. The great interest to mankind of the discussion
proposed, as well as Mr. Spencer's claims to be intrusted with it, are
set forth with singular clearness and felicity in the essay which
introduces the present volume. Whatever success the latest discoveries
in science render possible to solid intellectual force assisted by the
keenest instruments of logic will doubtless be attained. As far as the
frontiers of knowledge where the intellect may go, there is no living
man whose guidance may more safely be trusted. Mr. Spencer represents
the scientific spirit of the age. He makes note of all that comes within
the range of sensuous experience, and declares whatever may be derived
therefrom by a careful induction. As a philosopher he does not go
farther. Yet beyond this the heart of humanity must