s from their vulgar
associations, we think that a candid reader would apply the best
conceptions they suggested to the writer of the discussions here
collected. The world as it is to-day is seen by Mr. Spencer as by few
living men. The sciences, which taken singly too often seem only good to
expel the false, have been summoned together to declare the true. Not
Nature alone, but Humanity, which is greater than Nature, must be
interrogated for answers that shall satisfy the ripest reason of the
age. By the rare gifts of comparison which turn to account his wide
observations, Mr. Spencer has already established principles which,
however compelled for a time to compromise with prejudices and vested
interests, will become the recognized basis of an improved society.

Our only interest in recommending this author to our countrymen comes
from the conviction that he is peculiarly capable of impressing for good
the present condition of our national character. By giving us fuller
realizations of liberty and justice his writings will tend to increase
our self-reliance in the great emergency of civilization to which we
have been summoned. "Our Progressive Independence," so brilliantly
illustrated by Dr. Holmes, emancipating us from foreign fine-writing,
leaves us free to welcome the true manhood and mature wisdom of Europe.
In the time of our old prosperity, amusing a leisure evening over
Kingsley or Ruskin, we were tempted to exclaim, with Sir Peter Teazle,
"There's nothing half so noble as a man of sentiment!" But in these
latter days we have seen "Mr. Gradgrind" step from Dickens's wretched
caricature to bring his "facts" to the great cause of humanity, while
"Joseph Surface" reserved his "sentiments" for the bloody business by
which Slavery sought to subject all things to herself. We have seen the
belles-lettres literature of England more deeply disgraced than when it
smirked before the harlots of the second Charles, or chanted a
blasphemous benediction over George IV. But the thought and science of
the Old World it is still our privilege to recognize. And it can hardly
be necessary to say that the sympathies of Mr. Spencer, like those of
Mill and Cochin, have been with the government and loyal people of the
United States. And so we take especial pleasure in mentioning that a
considerable interest in the American copyright of his writings has been
secured to the author, and also, despite the facilities of reading-clubs
and circ