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Spencer "was incapable", our critic haughtily remarks, "of discerning the difference between a homogeneity in matter, necessarily and blindly tending toward a heterogeneity, , and such a law of organism [sic], progress, and growth as requires a spiritual intelligence to originate and maintain it." Perheps he was a poor man! or perhaps he thought he had better discern and formulate progress where he could do it to the best advantage, and leave the postulating of spiritual intelligences to those who had a greater talent than he for building in the region of the unverifiable.
— NOAH PORTER