546 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



1896 the volume which, was the culmination of the work so per- 

 sistently prosecuted in the face of the most formidable and even 

 seemingly hopeless difficulties. In these departments of the sys- 

 tem, the argument was pursued, consistent with that which prevails 

 in all the other departments, that in the professions and the in- 

 dustries the principle of evolution operates just as surely and com- 

 pletely as in the derivation of an animal species from its ancestral 

 form. 



Appreciation of the value of Mr. Spencer's work had been grow- 

 ing for many years, and its influence was gradually making itself felt 

 in movements of various kinds in the active world. Whatever he 

 wrote or said received attention at once, was discussed, or influenced 

 action. The completion of his Philosophy was deemed worthy of 

 formal notice and a proper subject for felicitation wherever science 

 was known, and in England was regarded as a suitable object for a 

 national memorial. An address of congratulation was prepared for 

 presentation to him, and with it went a request that he would have hi8 

 portrait painted to be presented to the nation. It has always been his 

 principle to decline offers of testimonials, on the ground that the custom 

 had become an abuse, and persons invited to participate in presenta- 

 tions were often put under a kind of moral obligation to comply, to 

 which he would not be, even incidentally, a party. Consistently with 

 this attitude and not realizing the real nature of the movement in favor 

 of a testimonial and how really spontaneous it was, he wrote to its 

 promoters repeating his objections and asking that it be not pressed. 

 But when the address was presented and he saw the list of illustrious 

 names attached to it, including those of men who had been his an- 

 tagonists, he yielded to what was evidently a spontaneous feeling of 

 the representative men among his countrymen, and sat for his por- 

 trait as soon as circumstances permitted, or about a year afterward, to 

 Mr. Hubert Herkomer. The following is the letter of congratula- 

 tion and the request for his portrait, with the names of the distin- 

 guished signers, and Mr. Spencer's reply : 



THE CAMP, SUNNINGDALE, December 16, 1896. 



DEAR SIR: We, the undersigned, offer you our cordial congratu- 

 lations upon the completion of your System of Synthetic Philosophy. 



Not all of us agreeing in equal measure with its conclusions, we 

 are all at one in our estimate of the great intellectual powers it exhibits 

 and of the immense effect it has produced in the history of thought; 

 nor are we less impressed by the high moral qualities which have en- 

 abled you to concentrate those powers for so many years upon a pur- 

 pose worthy of them, and, in spite of all obstacles, to carry out so 

 vast a design. 



