what it places foremost, what it sees destiny to mean.  It will affect his insight, give shape to his plots, decide his characters, guide his ethical interpretations, fix his spiritual apprehension.  It was because George Eliot adopted a new and remarkable philosophy, one that teaches much which the instincts of the race have rejected, and repudiates much which the race has accepted as necessary to its welfare, that her teachings become so noteworthy.  Genius first of all she had, and the artist’s creative power; but the way she used these, and the limitations she put upon them by her philosophy, give her books an interest which not even her wonderful genius could alone produce.  That philosophy is in debate; and it is not yet decided whether it is mainly false because growing out of wrong methods, or if it be in reality a true explanation of existence.  Its revolutionary character, its negative spirit, its relations to ethics and religion, make it remarkable, and even startling.  Profound thinkers, men of commanding philosophic apprehension and power of generalization, have accepted it; physical science has largely lent its aid to the support of its conclusions.  Yet on its side genius, imagination, creative instinct, artistic apprehension, have not given their aid.  Without them it is defective, and cannot command the ideal sentiments and hopes of the race.  First to fill this gap came George Eliot, and she yet remains its only great literary ally and coadjutor.  Tyndall, Haeckel and DuBois Raymond can give us science; but this is not enough.  Comte, Mill and Spencer can give us philosophy; but that is inadequate.  They have also essayed, one and all, to say some true word about morals, religion and the social ideals; but they have one and all failed.  They are too speculative, too far away from the vital movements of life, know too little of human experience as it throbs out of the heart and sentiments.  They can explain their theories in terms of science, ethics and philosophy; but George Eliot explains them in terms of life.  They have speculated, she has felt; they have made philosophies, she has created ideal characters and given us poetry; they have studied nature, she has studied experience and life; they have tried to resolve the mind into its constituent elements; she has entered into the heart and read its secrets; they have looked on to see what history meant, she has lived all heart tragedies and known all spiritual aspirations.

George Eliot was not a mere disciple of any of the great teachers of evolution.  Though of their school, and largely in accord and sympathy with them, yet she often departed from the way they went, and took a position quite in opposition to theirs.  Her standpoint in philosophy was arrived at quite independently of their influence, and in many of its main features her philosophy was developed before she had any acquaintance either with them or their books.  She wrote concerning John Stuart Mill, [Footnote:  Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ “Last words from George Eliot,” is Harper Magazine for March 1882.  The names of Mill and Spencer are not given in this article, but the words from her letters so plainly refer to them that they have been quoted here as illustrating her relations to these men.]—­