This suggestion has some interest, but is of no great value, either in logic or in the theory of knowledge.
We cannot do more than refer to Charles for discussions as to how this theory of nature is connected with the metaphysical problems of force and matter, with the logical doctrine of universals, and in general with Bacon's theory of knowledge.
The doctrine of analogy was intended as a reply to the deistical conclusions that had been drawn from Locke's theory of knowledge.
To the theory of knowledge Spencer contributes a "transfigured realism," to mediate between realism and idealism, and the doctrine that "necessary truths," acquired in experience and congenitally transmitted, are a priori to the individual, though a posteriori to the race, to mediate between empiricism and apriorism.
Again, the relation between logic in its widest sense and the theory of knowledge is extremely close.
