HERBERT SPENCER AND HIS WORK. 445 



of the homogeneous, the multiplication of effects, and segrega- 

 tion are exhibited as corollaries from the ultimate law, as inevi- 

 table results of the persistence of force under its forms of matter 

 and motion. In this way the circle of induction and deduction is 

 made complete. 



In this connection it will be interesting to say something about 

 the course of thought by which Mr. Spencer was gradually led to 

 the fundamental principles above summarized. I am fortunate 

 in having before me as I write a letter in which he was kind 

 enough to outline for me the important stages in his progress 

 toward the great doctrines of the synthetic philosophy.* If, in 

 following his account and in occasionally reproducing, as I shall 

 venture to do, his own words, I am forced to touch again upon 

 points already brought out, this will scarcely be deemed ground 

 for regret, since the slight repetition involved will serve perhaps 

 to throw the whole subject into clearer relief. 



The simple nucleus of his philosophic system first made its 

 appearance in Social Statics, where, in the chapter entitled Gen- 

 eral Considerations, mention is made of the biological truth that 

 low types of animals are composed of many like parts not mutu- 

 ally dependent, while higher animals are composed of parts that 

 are unlike and are mutually dependent. This, he writes, " was an 

 induction which I had reached in the course of biological studies 

 mainly, I fancy, while attending Professor Owen's lectures on the 

 Vertebrate Skeleton." With this was joined the statement that 

 the same is true of societies, " which begin with many like parts 

 not mutually dependent and end with many like parts that are 

 mutually dependent." This also was an induction. " And then 

 in the joining of these came the induction that the individual 

 organism and the social organism followed this law." Thus the 

 radical conception of the entire system took shape before Mr, 

 Spencer had become acquainted with von Baer's law, which, as we 

 have seen, did not occur till two years later. This law, though 

 applying to the unfolding of the individual only, had none the 

 less its use. In furnishing the expression " from homogeneity to 

 heterogeneity," it presented a more convenient intellectual imple- 

 ment. " By its brevity and its applicability to all orders of phe- 

 nomena, it served for thinking much better than the preceding 

 generalization, which contained the same essential thought." The 

 essays which followed Social Statics were marked by the estab- 

 lishment of various separate inductions in which other groups of 



* In this letter Mr. Spencer called my attention to the fact that certain paragraphs in 

 my Introduction (chapter ili, ^ ii) would, taken by themselves, be likely to leave the reader 

 with a mistaken impression of the philosophic method pursued by him. For this reason I 

 am glad to have the opportunity of returning to the matter here. 



