

THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



JANUARY, 1909 



THE CAREEE OF HEEBEET SPENCEE 



By Professor LESTER F. WARD 



BROWN UNIVERSITY 



THAT " the evil that men do lives after them ; the good is oft 

 interred with their bones/' is one of those literary palindromes 

 which may be read both ways. Probably there is no great man, who, 

 from the standpoint of pragmatism, has not done both evil and good, but 

 the question as to which predominates can never be decided to the satis- 

 faction of all. In the case of a Nero most men are agreed, but in that 

 of a Napoleon opinions differ. Aside from war and politics there are 

 few cases in which the consensus of opinion would fall on the side of 

 evil, but many cases leave it doubtful, as, for example, those of Machia- 

 velli, Hobbes and Eousseau, while in others it changes from one age 

 to the next, as in the cases of Voltaire and Thomas Paine. Usually it 

 is the evil that is most conspicuous during the life of the subject, and 

 this has often been carried to the extreme of persecution during life 

 and canonization after death. The world is full of monuments to 

 those who were put to death for the things that are now chiefly admired. 

 All this admonishes the biographer of the caution required in passing 

 judgment on those of his own day and generation. 



Herbert Spencer stands, and will probably always stand, on the 

 light side of the picture, but there are very few of those familiar with 

 his work who would maintain that there is no dark side. His Auto- 

 biography naturally presents the bright side, but the Life and Letters 

 emphasize rather the shades than the lights, and it may be doubtful 

 whether it would not have been better if that work had not appeared. 

 Still, when we remember the deficiencies of human nature, perhaps this 

 showing up of the whole man as he was is nothing more than a re- 

 assertion by him of the universally approved maxim of Terence: homo 

 sum. 



