Page:The Herbert Spencer lecture.djvu/24

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16
HERBERT SPENCER

of human cognition: that all true knowledge recognizes and rests on some invariable order of phenomena in all things subject to human observation, whether in the material or the moral world. (2) Next comes the law of constant evolution, the development of each cognizable state from a preceding state under the operation of regular influences and conditions. (3) Thirdly, the relativity of knowledge is a universal axiom; the absolute being beyond the bounds of human knowledge, and in its nature truly unthinkable. (4) Fourthly, Philosophy relegates unverifiable hypotheses to a world outside positive science. (5) The Telos of Philosophy is a constructive reorganization of all human knowledge in a synthesis, or correlation of parts. (6) The Telos of human life is the practical and continuous amelioration of the material, social, and moral conditions of the Human Organism—the unity of the Brotherhood of Man on this planet. In all these fundamental bases of thought Spencer's System coincides with all types of positive philosophy. They can only be displaced by the final triumph of some form of theological and intuitional belief.

But at this point, I mean with the acceptance of these six principles, and all their many corollaries, Spencer parts company with the other schools of the Philosophy of Experience, certainly with the positive school, strictly so called. Spencer takes a new and a wholly different position a ground where he is entirely independent and unique. So far as I know, Spencer, with those who follow him, stands alone amongst all philosophers of any experimental and naturalist school in propounding an objective theory of the Universe. Of course, the theological, idealist, and ontological schools of thought have ever regarded it as the crown of philosophy