A certain honesty and directness of mind prevent Sophereus from being bewildered by the Spencerian philosophy. Before his next meeting with the scientist, he has reviewed the main features of this philosophy as developed in Mr. Spencer's published works; and he has taken notice of the warning which Mr. Spencer has given to his readers in the preface to his "Data of Ethics," that "there will probably be singled out for reprobation from this volume, doctrines which, taken by themselves, may readily be made to seem utterly wrong." There is not much likelihood that Sophereus will be able, if he is willing, to avail himself of this "opportunity for misrepresentation" in a discussion with such a champion of Mr. Spencer's philosophy as the scientist who explains and defends it, especially as they have the works before them to refer to. Being thus respectively equipped for the discussion, the conference between them proceeds: SOPHEREUS. Before I give you my convictions respecting Mr. Spencer's philosophy as a whole, I wish to say something about the passage which you read from the preface to his "Data of Ethics," because it is the key to his ethical system. In the first place, to what does he refer when he speaks of "the current creed"? When I undertake to investigate a system of morality, the only "creed" that I care about--the only one that is of any importance--is that which accepts, as a matter of belief, the existence of the Creator and Supreme Governor of the universe, from whose infinite will and purposes have proceeded certain moral as well as physical laws. This, I take it, is the "creed" of which Mr. Spencer speaks; the one which assigns moral injunctions to the will of a Supreme Lawgiver as "their supposed sacred origin." It is to this creed that he opposes his "secularization of morals," which must take the place of their supposed sacred origin, because the authority of the latter is rapidly dying out of the world. It is this "creed" which is rejected by those who "assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may be safely thrown aside, and the vacancy left unfilled by any other agency."