12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



end of that book Mr. Darwin looked forward to a distant future 

 when the conception of gradual development might be applied 

 to the phenomena of conscious intelligence. He had not then 

 learned of the existence of such a book as the Principles of Psy- 

 chology. In later editions he was obliged to modify his state- 

 ment and confess that, instead of looking so far forward, he had 

 better have looked about him. I have more than once heard Mr. 

 Darwin laugh merrily over this, at his own expense. 



After struggling for a while with the weighty problems of this 

 book — the most profound treatise upon mental phenomena that 

 any human mind has ever produced — Mr. Youmans saw that the 

 theory expounded in it was a long stride in the direction of a gen- 

 eral theory of evolution. His interest in this subject received a 

 new and fresh stimulus. He read Social Statics, and began to 

 recognize Mr. Spencer's hand in the anonymous articles in the 

 quarterlies in which he was then announcing and illustrating 

 various portions or segments of his newly discovered law of 

 evolution. One evening in February, 1860, as Mr. Youmans was 

 calling at a friend's house in Brooklyn, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, 

 of Salem, h%nded him the famous prospectus of the great series 

 of philosophical works which Mr. Spencer proposed to issue by 

 subscription. Mr. Johnson had obtained this from Edward Sils- 

 bee, who was one of the very first Americans to become interested 

 in Spencer. The very next day Mr. Youmans wrote a letter to 

 Mr. Spencer, offering his aid in procuring American subscriptions 

 and otherwise aiding in every possible way the progress of the 

 enterprise. With this letter and Mr. Spencer's cordial reply be- 

 gan the life-long friendship between the two men. It was in that 

 same month that I first became aware of Mr. Spencer's existence, 

 through a single paragraph quoted from him by Mr. Lewes, and 

 in that paragraph there was immense fascination. I had been 

 steeping myself in the literature of modern philosophy, starting 

 with Bacon and Descartes, and was then studying Comte's Phi- 

 losophic Positive, which interested me as suggesting that the spe- 

 cial doctrines of the several sciences might be organized into a 

 general body of doctrine of universal significance. Comte's work 

 was crude and often wildly absurd, but there was much in it that 

 was very suggestive. In May, 1860, in the Old Corner Bookstore 

 in Boston, I fell upon a copy of that same prospectus of Mr. Spen- 

 cer's works, and read it with exulting delight, for clearly there 

 was to be such an organization of scientific doctrine as the world 

 was waiting for. It appeared that there was some talk of Tick- 

 nor & Fields undertaking to conduct the series in case subscrip- 

 tions enough should be received. Mr. Spencer preferred to have 

 his works appear in Boston ; but when in the course of 1860 his 

 book on Education was offered to Ticknor & Fields, they declined 



