EDITORS TABLE. 



755 



penters error lias received prompt and 

 thorough correction. The Daily Tele- 

 graph closed a long editorial on Dr. 

 Carpenter's address with a reference 

 to the doctrine of modification of men- 

 tal faculties through organized and 

 transmitted experiences, and said : "It 

 certainly is a striking theory, and for 

 that reason the speaker might have 

 been expected to avoid the pretence 

 of treating it as if it were originally 

 his own. The honor of opening up 

 this new line of speculation belongs to 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer more than to any 

 other man, and yet not a word of rec- 

 ognition was paid to that eminent 

 thinker. If we are to accept the doc- 

 trine, let us begin to practise justice 

 on all occasions, so that posterity may 

 have all the advantage, and that future 

 presidents may display an instinctive 

 equity in their addresses." 



This called out the following from 

 Dr. Carpenter : 



To the Editor of ihe Daily Telegraph. 



Sir: Observing that, in the comments 

 on my Presidential Address -which are con- 

 tained in your leading article this morning, 

 you impute it to me that I have adopted 

 and put forth as my own a doctrine which 

 really belongs to Mr. Herbert Spencer, I 

 think it due to myself to state that, as you 

 will see by the slip I enclose from the 

 Brighton Daily News 1 of yesterday, I had 

 supplied before the delivery of my ad- 

 dress a reference to him, -which had been 

 inadvertently omitted from the copies issued 

 by Messrs. Taylor and Francis to the Lon- 

 don press, but which I at once transmitted 

 also to the Association printers, to be in- 

 cluded in all future copies. 



I use the words "first explicitly put 

 forth," because the germ of the doctrine is 

 contained in a paper by Mr. T. Andrew 

 Knight " On the Transmission of Acquired 

 Peculiarities," published in the " Philoso- 

 phical Transactions" for (I believe) 1837. 

 His views had been introduced into my own 

 "Physiological Treatises" long before my 

 friend Mr. Herbert Spencer began his valu- 

 able labors. 



Your obedient servant, 



WILLIAM B. CAEPENTEE. 

 BEmsn Association, Brighton, August 16th. 



1 " This doctrine was first explicitly put forth 



Whereupon the President is again 

 corrected by Mr. Spencer himself: 



To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph. 



Sir : Allow me to correct an error re- 

 specting date, into which Dr. Carpenter 

 has naturally fallen from his unacquaint- 

 ance with writings of mine earlier than 

 those he names. It is true that " The Prin- 

 ciples of Psychology," in which Mind is 

 dealt with as a product of evolution, and in 

 which the inheritance of accumulated effects 

 of experience is recognized, not simply as 

 producing "acquired peculiarities," but as 

 originating the mental faculties themselves, 

 emotional and intellectual, including the 

 " forms of thought," was not published till 

 1855. But the doctrine which in that work 

 took a developed and systematic form was 

 set forth in an undeveloped form in works I 

 published long before. Throughout " Social 

 Statics," issued in December, 1850, it is 

 taken as a cardinal principle : sundry lead- 

 ing ethical and political conclusions there 

 drawn depend on the postulate that through 

 inheritance there is a cumulative effect pro- 

 duced by the moral activities on the moral 

 faculties the discipline of social life grad- 

 ually developing men into greater fitness for 

 the social state {see pp. 33, 65, 413-441, first 

 edition). Further back still is this idea 

 traceable. Through a series of letters on 

 "The Proper Sphere of Government," 

 which I first published in 1842, and re- 

 published as a pamphlet in 1843, there runs 

 a belief in human progression as wrought 

 out by natural causes ; and along with this 

 there is shown, in its partial applications, 

 the belief that in all creatures, man in- 

 cluded, there goes on, through successive 

 generations, a continuous adjustment of 

 faculties, mental as well as bodily, to en- 

 vironing conditions. 



"While I have pen in hand, let me thank 

 you for supplying the reference which, by 

 the mischance Dr. Carpenter names, was 

 omitted from the reports of his address in 

 the daily papers. I am so much accustomed 

 to see views of mine ascribed to others (as 

 in this week's Saturday Review, p. 208, as 

 well as in this week's Spectator, p. 1030), 

 and I am so little accustomed to see a recti- 

 fication made by any one on my behalf, that 

 the close of your article on Friday produced 

 in me the effect of a surprise. 



HEEBEET SPENCEE. 

 Athen.eum Club, Aitgust ISth. 



by Mr. Herbert Spencer, in whose philosophies, 

 treatises it will be found most ably developed." 



