THE PBOGRESS OF SCIENCE 



283 



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF 

 HERBERT SPENCER 



Spencer's " Autobiography," stereo- 

 typed during his lifetime and published 

 in two large volumes shortly after his 

 death in December, 1903, is now fol- 

 lowed by two further volumes, a '' Life 

 and Letters," prepared by Dr. David 

 Duncan in accordance with a clause in 

 Spencer's will which read as follows : 

 '" I request that the said David Duncan 

 will write a Biography in one volume 

 of moderate size, in which shall be in- 

 corporated such biographical materials 

 as I have thought it best not to use 

 myself, together with such selected 

 correspondence and such unpublished 

 papers as may seem of value, and shall 

 include the frontispiece portrait and 

 the profile portraits, and shall add to 

 it a brief account of the part of my 

 life which has passed since the date at 

 which the Autobiography concludes." 



Dr. Duncan, who was Spencer's sec- 



retary and assistant for two years in 

 the late sixties and was subsequently 

 in India as professor of logic at Mad- 

 ras, had a task made extremely diffi- 

 cult by the preexisting autobiography. 

 This, like all Spencer's works, makes 

 a different appeal to different minds; 

 some find it tedious, while to others 

 it is of absorbing interest. In any 

 case it is a work of genius written by 

 a man of genius. It is so full and 

 complete that most of the material of 

 real interest had been used, except for 

 the last years when Spencer was a 

 confirmed invalid and found his own 

 life wearisome. 



Spencer says: "It is a provoking 

 necessity that an autobiography should 

 be egotistic." As a matter of fact the 

 autobiography emphasizes the egotistic, 

 the priggish and the petty sides of his 

 character much less than does the biog- 

 raphy, while the true largeness, sin- 

 cerity and kindliness of the man emerge 



Herbert Spencer when nineteen 



Herbert Spencer when forty-six 



