which only the speculative faculty can provide, and which when provided,
directs our other impulses in their mode of seeking their gratification.
And hence the history of opinions, and of the speculative faculty, has
always been the leading element in the history of mankind.

This doctrine has been combated by Mr Herbert Spencer, in the pamphlet
already referred to; and we will quote, in his own words, the theory he
propounds in opposition to it:--

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"Ideas do not govern and overthrow the world; the world is governed
or overthrown by feelings, to which ideas serve only as guides. The
social mechanism does not rest finally upon opinions, but almost
wholly upon character. Not intellectual anarchy, but moral
antagonism, is the cause of political crises. All social phaenomena
are produced by the totality of human emotions and beliefs, of
which the emotions are mainly predetermined, while the beliefs are
mainly post-determined. Men's desires are chiefly inherited; but
their beliefs are chiefly acquired, and depend on surrounding
conditions; and the most important surrounding conditions depend on
the social state which the prevalent desires have produced. The
social state at any time existing, is the resultant of all the
ambitions, self-interests, fears, reverences, indignations,
sympathies, &c., of ancestral citizens and existing citizens. The
ideas current in this social state must, on the average, lie
congruous with the feelings of citizens, and therefore, on the
average, with the social state these feelings have produced. Ideas
wholly foreign to this social state cannot be evolved, and if
introduced from without, cannot get accepted--or, if accepted, die
out when the temporary phase of feeling which caused their