Jan-. 19, 1883.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



41 



MR. SPENCER'S IMPRESSIONS OF 

 AMERICA. 



DISCUSSING the conditions and causes of the immense 

 developments of material civilisation, which he has 

 observed in America, developments of which his pre- 

 vious studies had siven him no adequate idea, Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer properly gives a prominent place to the inventive- 

 ness wliich has been " so wisely fostered." " Among us in 

 England," he said, "there are many foolish people who, 

 while thinking that a man who toils with his hands has an 

 equitable claim to the product, and, if he has special skill, 

 may rightly have the advantage of it, also hold that if a 

 man toils with his brain, perhaps for years, and uniting 

 genius with perseverance, evolves some valuable invention, 

 the public may rightly claim the benefit Tlie Americans 

 have been more far-seeing. The enormous museum of 

 patents which I saw at Washington is significant of the 

 attention paid to inventors' claims ; and the nation profits 

 immensely from having, in this direction (though not in all 

 others), recognised property in mental products. Beyond 

 question, in respect of mechanical appliances, the Americans 

 are ahead of all nations." 



Touching the probable issue of the gigantic social, politi- 

 cal, and racial problems in process of evolution in the 

 United States, Mr. Spencer said : — 



" No one can form anything more tlian vague and 

 general conclusions respecting your future. The factors 

 are too numerous, too vast, too far beyond measure in their 

 quantities and intensities. The world has never before seen 

 social phenomena at all comparable with those presented 

 in the United States. A society spreading over enormous 

 tracts, while still preser\'ing its political continuity, is a 

 new thing. This progressive incorporation of ■vast Vjodies 

 of immigrants of various bloods has never occurred on 

 such a scale before. Large empires composed of different 

 peoples have, in previous cases, been formed by conquest 

 and annexation. Then your immense plexus of railwaj-s 

 and telegraplis tends to consolidate this vast aggregate of 

 States in a way that no such aggregate has ever before been 

 consolidated. And there are many minor co-operating causes 

 unlike those hitherto known. No one can say how it is all 

 going to work out. That there will come hereafter troubles 

 of various kinds, and very grave ones, seems highly probable ; 

 but all nations have had, and will have, their troubles. Already 

 you have triumphed over one great troulile, and may rea- 

 sonably hope to triumph over others. It may, I think, be 

 reasonably held that both because of its size and the 

 heterogeneity of its components, the American nation will 

 be a long time in evolving its ultimate form ; but that its 

 ultimate form will be high. One great result is, I think, 

 tolerably clear. From biological truths it is to lie inferred 

 that the eventual mixture of the allied varieties of the 

 Aryan race forming the population will produce a more 

 powerful type of man than has hitherto existed, and a type 

 of man more plastic, more adaptable, more capaV)le of 

 undergoing the modifications needful for complete social 

 life. I think that whatever difficulties they may have to 

 surmount, and whatever tribulations they may have to 

 pass through, the Americans may reasonably look forward 

 to a time when they will have produced a civilisation 

 grander than any the world has known." 



University Lectures. — The London Society for the 

 Extension of University Teaching has just issued its pro- 

 gramme of lectures for the ensuing session (January-April). 

 Courses of lectures, accompanied Viy class teaching, will be 

 given at eighteen different centres in all parts of the 

 London district, from Whitechapel in the east to Bedford 



Park in the west, and from Stoke Newington in the north 

 to Peckham in the south. The lectures comprise a con- 

 siderable variety of subjects, such as English history and 

 literature, mediaval art (in the congenial soil of Bedford 

 Park), hygiene, and physical geography. The lecturers are 

 all appointed by a Joint Board of the Universities of 

 Oxford, Cambridge, and London, of which Professor Stuart, 

 of Cambridge, is chairman ; and mucli of the work is done 

 by well-known authorities on their subjects, such as Pro- 

 fessor S. R. Gardiner and Professor J. W. Hales. All 

 particulars may be obtained from the Secretary, at 22, 

 Albemarle-street, W. 



The Ei.rrTRic Lir.nT ix tub City of Lo.vDox.^The 

 Select Committee of Commissioners of Sewers on Electric 

 Lighting reported on Tuesday that a licence would in all 

 probability be granted, making it compulsory to supply 

 electric lighting in a small area, and permissive to supply 

 outside that compulsory area, such permissive powers to be 

 rea-sonably and fairly exercised at the discretion of the 

 Commission. The committee suggested that the Court 

 should apply for a licence for pcnnissive power to 

 supply or contract for the supply to the whole 

 City, and specify certain areas in which the supply 

 should be compulsory, and they recommended that 

 they be empowered to prepare a draft licence framed 

 on the principle of becoming undertakers and of con- 

 tracting with reliable electric lighting companies for 

 the supply of electric lighting, and they asked authority 

 to negotiate with the companies in respect of the areas 

 in which the supply was proposed to be made compulsory, 

 leaving the other portions of the City to be dealt with 

 more at leisure, as circumstances and the experience 

 gained in respect of the compulsory areas might dictate. 



Mr. Courtney, M.P., ox Science. — Mr. Courtney, in 

 presiding at the annual meeting of the Royal Cornwall 

 Geological Society at Penzance, referred to the introduction 

 of the electric telegraph and the invention of the steam- 

 engine, by which electricity and steam had been made our 

 slaves in almost all the operations of life. No doubt these 

 were most remarkable applications, and we in the present 

 day were gi'eatly indebted to them ; but at the same time 

 he was bound to say that, in his opinion, we might overrate 

 the debt. The conveyance of news l)y the telegraph was 

 insignificant, if the news itself were not of importance. As 

 to the diminution of toil which steam effected in supplying 

 our wants, it depended very much on the use we made of 

 it, and how far that did or did not confer a benefit on 

 mankind. Was it a fact that, owing to the introduction of 

 steam, the labour which was necessary for the subsistence 

 of the multitude had been in any sense diminished, and 

 the ragged edge of pauperism which surrounded the borders 

 of society had in any sense disappeared ) We might derive 

 either of two advantages from the introduction of steam — 

 we might either make life less toilsome while maintaining 

 the mass of it as it w-as, or keep up the toil of life while 

 increasing the mass, and he was afraid the result of the 

 discovery of steam power had been an increase in the 

 number of human beings rather than an improvement in 

 the quality of life. He was, indeed, more disposed to 

 reverence science for its educational than for what he might 

 call its economic advantages, for the way in which it 

 elevated the mind of man rather than for its ability to 

 enable more men to live on the same low level on which 

 men lived before ; and it was because he believed in geology, 

 and its kindred science, astronomy, as most powerful helps 

 to the elevation of the mind of man, that he was willing to 

 pay his humble respects to those who prosecuted those 

 particular sciences and conveyed to others their blessings. 

 — Times. 



