34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



enough, his estimate of the sexual passion fell a good deal below the 

 truth. 



The strong leanings toward some form of socialism, indicated in 

 the " Autobiography," would have led us to believe that his opinions 

 nearly coincided with those of the Socialists commonly so called. The 

 recent publication of his first draft of a projected essay on the subject 

 shows the wide gulf that still separated him and them. The obstacles 

 to the realizing of socialistic schemes could not be more forcibly ex- 

 pressed. Above all, the great stress that he always put upon individ- 

 uality would be almost impossible to reconcile with the constructions 

 of Fourier, Owen, Louis Blanc, and the American communities. His 

 socialism is thus to be the outcome of a remote future, when human 

 beings shall have made a great stride in moral education, or, as Mr. 

 Spencer would express it, have evolved a new and advanced phase of 

 altruism. 



The publication of the " Political Economy " was followed by 

 another very serious break-down in his health. In the summer of 1848, 

 an affection of the thigh (I am not sure whether it began in a hurt) 

 was treated by his doctor with iodine ; the consequence of which was 

 a speedy impairment of his eyesight. I remember him in a state of 

 despair from the double misery of lameness and blindness. His elas- 

 ticity of constitution brought him through once more ; but in the fol- 

 lowing year (1849) he was still in an invalid condition. I introduced 

 to him that year Dr. Thomas Clark, of Marischal College, himself a 

 permanent invalid from overwork, who spoke a good deal to him about 

 regimen, and endeavored to induce him to try the water-treatment, 

 then just started. He was, however, not to be moved from his accus- 

 tomed routine. His view of the medical art (at the time I speak of) 

 was, that it should restore a shatterect frame by something like magic. 

 In other respects, his intercourse with Clark gratified him much, and 

 led to a permanent friendship. 



His work, as a great originator, in my opinion, was now done. 

 The two books now before the world were the great constructions that 

 his accumulated stores had prepared him for ; and I do not think that 

 there lay in him the materials of a third at all approaching to these. 

 It is very unlikely indeed that he was even physically capable of re- 

 newing the strain of the two winters — 1842-'43 and 1846-47. His 

 subsequent years were marked by diminished labors on the whole ; 

 while the direction of these labors was toward application, exposition, 

 and polemic rather than origination ; and he was more and more ab- 

 sorbed in the outlook for social improvements. Not that his later 

 wi-itings are deficient in stamina or in value ; as sources of public 

 instruction and practical guidance in the greatest interests of society, 

 they will long hold their place. But it was not within the compass of 

 his energies to repeat the impression made by him in 1843 and again 



