5io Edward Livingston Youmans. 



early studies were in the sciences. Born in a sphere of life 

 which made a vocation necessary, he was educated as a 

 civil engineer,* and up to 1842, when he was twenty-two 

 years of age, he had written nothing but professional papers 

 published in the Civil Engineer and Architects' Journal. 

 But he had always been keenly interested in political and 

 social questions, which he had almost daily heard discussed 

 by his father and uncles. In the summer of 1842 he began 

 to contribute a series of letters to a weekly newspaper, the 

 Nonconformist, under the title of The Proper Sphere of 

 Government. It was the main object of these letters to 

 show that the functions of government should be limited 

 to the protection of life, property, and social order, leaving 

 all other social ends to be achieved by individual activities. 

 But, beyond this main conception, it was implied through- 

 out that there are such things as laws of social develop- 

 ment, natural processes of rectification in society, and an 

 adaptation of man to the conditions of social life. The 

 scientific point of view was thus early assumed, and society 

 was regarded not as a manufacture but as a growth. These 

 letters were revised and published in a pamphlet in 1843. 



The argument, however, was unsatisfactory from its 

 want of depth and scientific precision, and Mr. Spencer de- 

 cided in 1846 to write a work in which the leading doctrine 

 of his pamphlet should be affiliated upon general moral 

 principles. By reading various books upon moral philoso- 

 phy he had become dissatisfied with the basis of morality 

 which they adopt ; and it became clear to him that the 

 question of the proper sphere of government could be dealt 

 with only by tracing ethical principles to their roots. The 

 plan of this work was formed while Mr. Spencer was still a 

 civil engineer; and it was commenced in 1848, before he 

 abandoned engineering and accepted the position of sub- 



* See Note B. 



