th ed., 1890; _Principles of Sociology_
(vol. i. 1876, 3d ed., 1885; part iv. _Ceremonial Institutions_, 1879, 3d
ed., 1888, part v. _Political Institutions_, 1882, 2d ed., 1885, part vi.
_Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 1885, 2d ed., 1886, together constituting
vol. ii.); _Principles of Ethics_ (part i. _The Data of Ethics_, 1879, 5th
ed., 1888; parts ii. and iii. _The Inductions of Ethics_ and _The Ethics of
Individual Life_, constituting with part i. the first volume, 1892; part
iv. _Justice_, 1891). A comprehensive exposition of the system has been
given, with the authority of the author, by F.H. Collins in his _Epitome of
the Synthetic Philosophy_, 1889.[1] The treatise on _Education_, 1861, 23d
ed., 1890, his sociological writings, and his various essays have also
contributed essentially to Mr. Spencer's fame, both at home and abroad. The
_First Principles_ begin with the "Unknowable." Since human opinions, no
matter how false they may seem, have sprung from actual experiences, and,
when they find wide acceptance and are tenaciously adhered to, must have
something in them which appeals to the minds of men, we must assume that
every error contains a kernel of truth, however small it be. No one of
opposing views is to be accepted as wholly true, and none rejected as
entirely false. To discover the incontrovertible fact which lies at their
basis, we must reject the various concrete elements in which they disagree,
and find for the remainder the abstract expression which holds true
throughout its divergent manifestations. No antagonism is older, wider,
more profound, and more important than that between religion and science.
Here too some most general truth, some ultimate fact must lie at the basis.
The ultimate religious ideas are self-contradictory and untenable. No
one of the possible hypotheses concerning the nature and origin of
things--every religion may be defined as an _a priori_ theory of the
universe, the accompanying ethical code being a later growth--is logically
defensible: whether the world is conceived atheistically as self-existent,
or pantheistically as self-created, or theistically (fetichism, polytheism,
or monotheism), as created by an external agency, we are everywhere
confronted by unthinkable conclusions. The idea of a First Cause or of
the absolute (as Mansel, following Hamilton, has proved in his _Limits
of Religious Thought_) is full of contradictions. But however widely the
creeds diverge, they s