HERBERT SPENCER’S “FIRST PRINCIPLES.”
Mr. Spencer’s genesis of the universe from chaos to the Crimean War ... For our own part, we must confess that this new book of Genesis appears to us no more credible than the old.
J. Martineau (Science, Nescience, and Faith).
JAMES MILL.
Did the facts of consciousness stand, as he represents them, his method would work. He satisfactorily explains—the wrong human nature.
J. Martineau (Essay on John Stuart Mill).
(Referring to those who insist on the practical as against the theoretical.) This solitary term (“practical”) serves a large number of persons as a substitute for all patient and steady thought; and, at all events, instead of meaning that which is useful as opposed to that which is useless, it constantly signifies that of which the use is grossly and immediately palpable, as distinguished from that of which the usefulness can only be discerned after attention and exertion.
Sir Henry Maine.