Whether he has proposed a reconciliation, or only a compromise, whether evolutionism will ever be as popular in the pulpit as Transcendentalism, and whether there is not more reality in the forces of attraction and repulsion than in Spencer's great unknowable, are problems which I will not discuss. Darwin was an agnostic like Huxley, who held that "We know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena," and "Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed." Huxley pronounced the course of nature "neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral," and declared that "The ethical progress of society depends not on imitating the cosmic process but on combating it." The severity of his criticism of the Gospel narratives called out threats of prosecution for blasphemy. He avowed "entire concurrence" with Haeckel, who holds that belief in a personal God and an immortal soul are incompatible with the fundamental principles of evolution. The German scientist argues in his elaborate history of the development of animals, that life is no manifestation of divine power, working with benevolent purpose, but merely the necessary result of unconscious forces, inherent in the chemical constitution and physical properties of matter, and acting mechanically according to immutable laws. The position of Haeckel and Huxley is all the more significant because Frederic Harrison knows of "no single thinker in Europe who has come forward to support this religion of an unknown cause." VI. A much more important controversy has been called out by Spencer's theory of the limits of government. As early as 1842 he proposed "the limitation of state action to the maintenance of equitable relations among citizens." His _Social Statics_ demanded, in 1850, as a necessary condition of high development, "the liberty of each, limited only by the like liberty of all." His ideal would be a government where "every man has freedom to do all he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." These propositions are repeated in the revised edition of 1892, which differs from the earlier one in omitting a denial of the right of private property in land, and also a demand for female suffrage. How far Spencer had changed his views may be seen in his volume on _Justice_. Both editions of _Social Statics_ deny the right of governments to support churches, public schools, boards of health, poorhouses, lighthouses, or mints. Spencer would have titles to land guaranteed by the State, and property-holders protected against unjust lawsuits; but otherwise the government ought to confine itself, he thinks, to managing the army, navy, and police.