Chancellor Crosby on Spencer's Books as Text-Books

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 29, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 18

Chancellor Crosby on Spencer's Books as Text-Books

—Chancellor Crosby, on Herbert Spencer's books as text-books: “It is one thing for the teacher to have a book in his own library, or even to exhibit it to his own class, commenting thereon, and warning his class against the pernicious and dangerous tendency of the author, and quite another for that class to use it promiscuously and freely as a text-book. I have read Spencer and Darwin; I have investigated what Spencer calls the process of evolution, and I believe it to be a system of philosophy that rests upon its apex. There is no doubt that Herbert Spencer is a very powerful writer, and a man with a very powerful mind; but then, so is the devil. The devil is far more powerful than either you or I, and can do ten thousand times more harm. I do not think that the doctrine of evolution, as taught either by Spencer or Darwin, can do a man any good, either morally or spiritually. It is a great question, and for minds who have attained to something of their full growth, and whose vocation renders it necessary that they should investigate that and kindred doctrines, it may be a good thing for them to become thoughtful readers of the books of such men; but when I am asked whether I would introduce Spencer's works into my university classes as text-books, you may report me as saying, ‘No,’ with all the emphasis accompanying the ‘No’ that it is possible for you to print,”