1870-1882] SOCIOLOGY 351 



To H. Spencer. Letter 262 



Mr. Spencer's book The Study of Sociology, 1873, was published 

 in the Contemporary Review in instalments between May 1872 and 



October 1873. 



Oct. sist [1873]. 



I am glad to receive to-day an advertisement of your 

 book. I have been wonderfully interested by the articles in 

 the Contemporary. Those were splendid hits about the Prince 

 of Wales and Gladstone. 1 I never before read a good defence 

 of Toryism. In one place (but I cannot for the life of me 

 recollect where or what it exactly was) I thought that you 

 would have profited by my principle (i.e. if you do not reject 

 it) given in my Descent of Man, that new characters which 

 appear late in life are those which are transmitted to the 

 same sex alone. I have advanced some pretty strong evidence, 

 and the principle is of great importance in relation to 

 secondary sexual likenesses. 2 I have applied it to man and 



1 See The Study of Sociology, p. 392. Mr. Gladstone, in protest 

 against some words of Mr. Spencer, had said that the appearance of 

 great men " in great crises of human history " were events so striking 

 " that men would be liable to term them providential in a pre-scientific 

 age." On this Mr. Spencer remarks that "in common with the ancient 

 Greek Mr. Gladstone regards as irreligious any explanation of Nature 

 which dispenses with immediate Divine superintendence." And as an 

 instance of the partnership " between the ideas of natural causation 

 and of providential interference," he instances a case where a prince 

 " gained popularity by outliving certain abnormal changes in his blood," 

 and where "on the occasion of his recovery providential aid and natural 

 causation were unitedly recognised by a thanksgiving to God and a 

 baronetcy to the doctor." The passage on Toryism is on p. 395, where 

 Mr. Spencer, with his accustomed tolerance, writes : " The desirable 

 thing is that a growth of ideas and feelings tending to produce modifica- 

 tion shall be joined with a continuance of ideas and feelings tending to 

 preserve stability." And from this point of view he concludes it to be 

 very desirable that " one in Mr. Gladstone's position should think as 

 he does." The matter is further discussed in the notes to Chapter XVI., 

 p. 423. 



2 This refers to Mr. Spencer's discussion of the evolution of the 

 mental traits characteristic of women. At p. 377 he points out the 

 importance of the limitation of heredity by sex in this relation. A 

 striking generalisation on this question is given in the Descent of Man, 

 Ed. I., Vol. II., p. 285 : that when the adult male differs from the adult 

 female, he differs in the same way from the young of both sexes. Can 

 this law be applied in the case in which the adult female possesses 



