Reproduction of the original: Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative; Vol. II by Herbert Spencer

W. J. Mander presents a history of metaphysics in nineteenth-century Britain. The story focuses on the elaboration of, and differing reactions to, the concept of the unknowable or unconditioned, first developed by Sir William Hamilton in the 1829. The idea of an ultimate but unknowable way that things really are in themselves may be seen as supplying a narrative arc that runs right through the metaphysical systems of the period in question. These thought schemes may be divided into three broad groups which were roughly consecutive in their emergence but also overlapping as they continued to develop. In the first instance there were the doctrines of the agnostics who developed further Hamilton's basic idea that fundamental reality lies for the great part beyond our cognitive reach. These philosophies were followed immediately by those of the empiricists and, in the last third of the century, the idealists: both of these schools of thought—albeit in profoundly different ways—reacted against the epistemic pessimism of the agnostics. Mander offers close textual readings of the main contributions to First Philosophy made by the key philosophers of the period (such as Hamilton, Mansel, Spencer, Mill, and Bradley) as well as some less well known figures (such as Bain, Clifford, Shadworth Hodgson, Ferrier, and John Grote). By presenting, interpreting, criticising, and connecting together their various contrasting ideas, this book explains how the three traditions developed and interacted with one another to comprise the history of metaphysics in Victorian Britain.

This 3-volume book features a comprehensive collection of most significant scientific, political and speculative essays by Herbert Spencer. The first volume is made up of essays in which the idea of evolution, general or special is dominant. In the second volume essays dealing with philosophical questions, with abstract and concrete science, and with aesthetics, are brought together; but though all of them are tacitly evolutionary, their evolutionism is an incidental rather than a necessary trait. The ethical, political, and social essays composing the third volume, though mostly written from the evolution point of view, have for their more immediate purposes the enunciation of doctrines which are directly practical in their bearings._x000D_ Volume 1:_x000D_ The Development Hypothesis_x000D_ Progress: Its Law and Cause_x000D_ Transcendental Physiology_x000D_ The Nebular Hypothesis_x000D_ Illogical Geology_x000D_ Bain on the Emotions and the Will_x000D_ The Social Organism_x000D_ The Origin of Animal Worship_x000D_ Morals and Moral Sentiments_x000D_ The Comparative Psychology of Man_x000D_ Mr. Martineau on Evolution_x000D_ The Factors of Organic Evolution_x000D_ Volume 2:_x000D_ The Genesis of Science_x000D_ The Classification of the Sciences_x000D_ Reasons for Dissenting From the Philosophy of M. Comte_x000D_ On Laws in General, and the Order of Their Discovery_x000D_ The Valuation of Evidence_x000D_ What is Electricity?_x000D_ Mill versus Hamilton – The Test of Truth_x000D_ Replies to Criticisms_x000D_ Prof. Green's Explanations_x000D_ The Philosophy of Style_x000D_ Use and Beauty_x000D_ The Sources of Architectural Types_x000D_ Gracefulness_x000D_ Personal Beauty_x000D_ The Origin and Function of Music_x000D_ The Physiology of Laughter_x000D_ Volume 3:_x000D_ Manners and Fashion_x000D_ Railway Morals and Railway Policy_x000D_ The Morals of Trade_x000D_ Prison-ethics_x000D_ The Ethics of Kant_x000D_ Absolute Political Ethics_x000D_ Over-legislation_x000D_ Representative Government – What is It Good for?_x000D_ State-tamperings With Money and Banks_x000D_ Parliamentary Reform: the Dangers and the Safeguards_x000D_ "The Collective Wisdom"_x000D_ Political Fetichism_x000D_ Specialized Administration_x000D_ From Freedom to Bondage_x000D_ The Americans

The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences collects newly commissioned essays that examine fundamental issues in the social sciences.