ABSTRACT
CHAPTERS 6, 7, and 8 contain discussions of Spencer’s philosophy—general, religious, and ethical. The present chapter mostly includes materials on, first, Spencer’s religious or metaphysical doctrine (as delineated in the first part of First Principles [item 16]) of the “Unknowable,” including his proposed reconciliation of science and religion; second, his “Religious Retrospect and Prospect” (the last chapter of the separately published Ecclesiastical Institutions [item 30]—itself the sixth part of The Principles of Sociology [item 19]), which was first published in The Popular Science Monthly (24 [January 1884]: 340-351) and (under the title of “Religion: A Retrospect and Prospect”) The Nineteenth Century (15 [January 1884]: 1-12); and, third and related, his thoughts on the presumed future role of religion for man and society. Additionally, Chapter 13 of the present work contains appraisals of Spencer’s sociology of religion, as this is developed in his 175-page “Ecclesiastical Institutions” (vol. 3, part 6 of The Principles of 528Sociology).
