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                      ILLUSTRATIONS

                           OF

                   UNIVERSAL PROGRESS;

                A Series of Discussions.


                           BY
                    HERBERT SPENCER,

                        AUTHOR OF
    "THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY," "SOCIAL STATICS,"
  "ESSAYS, MORAL, POLITICAL AND AESTHETIC," "EDUCATION,"
          "FIRST PRINCIPLES," ETC., ETC., ETC.


                          WITH

   _A NOTICE OF SPENCER'S "NEW SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY."_


                        NEW YORK:
                D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
                   443 & 445 BROADWAY.
                          1865.




                WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

             PUBLISHED BY D. APPLETON & CO.

  _EDUCATION--INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL._ 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth,
      $1.25.

  _A NEW SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY._ Vol. I. _FIRST PRINCIPLES._ Large 12mo.
      503 pages. Cloth $2.00.

  _PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY._ In Quarterly Parts, by Subscription. $2.00
      per year.

                           NOW IN PRESS:

  _ESSAYS--MORAL, POLITICAL, AND AESTHETIC._ 1 vol., large 12mo. Cloth.

        _Copies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price._

        ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
                         D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
                      Southern District of New York.




       AMERICAN NOTICE

            OF A

  NEW SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY.

             BY

      HERBERT SPENCER.


The author of the following work, Mr. Herbert Spencer, of England, has
entered upon the publication of a new philosophical system, so original and
comprehensive as to deserve the attention of all earnest inquirers. He
proposes nothing less than to unfold such a complete philosophy of Nature,
physical, organic, mental and social, as Science has now for the first time
made possible, and which, if successfully executed, will constitute a
momentous step in the progress of thought.

His system is designed to embrace five works; each a distinct treatise, but
all closely connected in plan, and treating of the following subjects in
the order presented: 1st, First Principles; 2d, Principles of Biology; 3d,
Principles of Psychology; 4th, Principles of Sociology; 5th, Principles of
Morality. The opening work of the series--_First Principles_--though
somewhat of an introductory character, is an independent and completed
argument. It consists of two parts: first, "The Unknowable," and second,
"The Laws of the Knowable." Unattractive as these titles may seem, they
indicate a discussion of great originality and transcendent interest.

When public consideration is invited to a system of philosophy so extended
as to comprehend the entire scheme of nature and humanity, and so bold as
to deal with them in the ripest spirit of science, it is natural that many
should ask at the outset how the author stands related to the problem of
Religion. Mr. Spencer finds this the preliminary question of his
philosophy, and engages with it at the threshold of his undertaking. Before
attempting to work out a philosophical scheme, he sees that it is at first
necessary to find how far Philosophy can go and where she must stop--the
necessary limits of human knowledge, or the circle which bounds all
rational and legitimate investigation; and this opens at once the profound
and imminent question of the spheres and relation of Religion and Science.

Mr. Spencer is a leading representative of that school of thinkers which
holds that, as man is finite, he can grasp and know only the finite;--that
by the inexorable conditions of thought all real knowledge is relative and
phenomenal, and hence that we cannot go behind phenomena to find the
ultimate causes and solve the ultimate mystery of being. In such assertions
as that "God cannot by any searching be found out;" that "a God understood
would be no God at all;" and that "to think God _is_ as we think Him to be
is blasphemy," we see the recognition of this idea of the inscrutableness
of the Absolute