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HERBERT SPENCER 279

philosophy out, bat no one will deny the grandeur of

his aim in seeking to present a unified system of

scientific knowledge. As Prof. A. S. Pringle-Pattison

has said: " It was much to hold aloft in an age of

specialism the banner of completely unified knowledge;

and this is, perhaps, after all, Spencer's chief claim to

gratitude and remembrance. He brought home the

idea of philosophic synthesis to a greater number of

the Anglo-Saxon race than had ever conceived the

idea before. His own synthesis, in the particular

form he gave it, will necessarily crumble away. He

speaks of it himself, indeed, at the close of First

Principles (ed. L), modestly enough as a more or

less rude attempt to accomplish a task which can

be achieved only in the remote future and by the con-

bined efforts of many, which cannot be completely

achieved even then. But the idea of knowledge as a

coherent whole, worked out on purely natural (though

not, therefore, naturalistic) principles—a whole in

which all the facts of human experience should be

included—was a great idea with which to familiarise

the minds of his contemporaries. It is the living

germ of philosophy itself."



	HERBERT SPENCER 279 philosophy out, bat no one will deny the grandeur of his aim in seeking to present a unified system of scientific knowledge. As Prof. A. S. Pringle-Pattison has said: " It was much to hold aloft in an age of specialism the banner of completely unified knowledge; and this is, perhaps, after all, Spencer's chief claim to gratitude and remembrance. He brought home the idea of philosophic synthesis to a greater number of the Anglo-Saxon race than had ever conceived the idea before. His own synthesis, in the particular form he gave it, will necessarily crumble away. He speaks of it himself, indeed, at the close of First Principles (ed. L), modestly enough as a more or less rude attempt to accomplish a task which can be achieved only in the remote future and by the con- bined efforts of many, which cannot be completely achieved even then. But the idea of knowledge as a coherent whole, worked out on purely natural (though not, therefore, naturalistic) principles—a whole in which all the facts of human experience should be included—was a great idea with which to familiarise the minds of his contemporaries. It is the living germ of philosophy itself."