8. HERBERT SPENCER 



The life of a philosopher is generally less exciting than that of a 

 war correspondent or a prima donna. Spencer's life is a very plain 

 one indeed. If one does not insist on quoting the titles of the 

 books and essays, which are the most conspicuous mile-stones of 

 his career, it can be told in a few words. He was born in Derby 

 on April 27, 1 820, a thoroughbred Englishman. His father, George 

 Spencer, was a teacher, a man of small means and little imagina- 

 tion, but honest to the core and of an unbending type. His mother, 

 who does not seem to have influenced him to any extent, was very 

 different from her husband, as patient and gentle as he was 

 irritable and aggressively independent. They do not seem to have 

 been very happy together, and their union was not blessed 

 with many children who survived; although nine were born to 

 them, only one, Herbert, the eldest, passed the stage of infancy. It 

 is as if already the parents had been obliged to pay the heavy 

 ransom of genius. The boy was left a great deal to himself, and 

 he followed his bent toward scientific information, learning also 

 a little English and arithmetic. At the age of thirteen, he was sent 

 to his uncle, the Reverend Thomas Spencer, but the discipline of 

 this new home seemed at first so hard to him that he ran away to 

 his father's, walking one hundred and fifteen miles in three days 

 with hardly any sleep or food. However, after a while he re- 

 turned to his uncle and stayed with him, being tutored by him, 

 chiefly in mathematics, for the next three years. This was the 

 end of his systematic education, which certainly was very in- 

 complete. When he began to earn his living at sixteen, he knew 

 probably less than the average well-to-do boy of his age. It is 

 true he knew considerably more in other ways, and he had also 

 exercised to a greater extent his mother-wit. He worked suc- 

 cessively as an assistant schoolmaster (for three months), as 

 an engineer, and, after a vain attempt to earn a living as a literary 



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