LITERARY NOTICES. 



271 



suffered from disease of the eyes, involving 

 weary months and years of sometimes par- 

 tial, sometimes total, blindness. 



Altogether he straggled for fifteen years 

 with this terrible disability, dating from the 

 time when his eyes were first attacked in his 

 fifteenth year. These years, however, were 

 not years of idleness : when he could not see 

 he could listen, and his sister, who was sel- 

 dom far from his side, would read to him 

 from any book he might indicate. Between 

 being read to and reading for himself, when 

 it could be done with any safety, he vastly 

 increased his stores of knowledge, and par- 

 ticularly became so proficient in chemistry 

 that he was able to produce a text-book 

 which had immediate success, and which, in 

 a revised form, is holding its ground to this 

 day. 



No sooner had he recovered a fair meas- 

 ure of sight than he betook himself to the 

 delivery of popular lectures on scientific sub- 

 jects ; and here he seemed to have found 

 his true vocation. The people heard him 

 gladly, and more engagements were offered 

 than he was able to accept. The work, how- 

 ever, was not without its dangers : the lec- 

 ture season was of course in the winter, and 

 in his journeyings to and fro Mr. Youmans 

 was frequently exposed to chills, and was 

 laid up more than once with severe bron- 

 chial and pulmonary attacks. If dangerous 

 to the lecturer, the work was useful to the 

 multitude. " Many a young man," observes 

 his biographer, " in many a town could trace 

 to Youmans and his lectures the first im- 

 pulse that led him to seek a university edu- 

 cation. In quarters innumerable his advice 

 gave direction to family reading in the best 

 treatises on astronomy, physics, chemistry, 

 geology, and physiology." 



It was not in the lecture field, however, 

 that he was destined to do his most impor- 

 tant work. In the year 1856 he saw in a 

 periodical an article on Spencer's then re- 

 cently published Principles of Psychology. 

 He sent for the book, and saw, to use Prof. 

 Fiske's words, that " the theory expounded 

 in it was a long stride in the direction of a 

 general theory of evolution." He then read 

 Spencer's Social Statics, which had appeared 

 a few years earlier, and, as we are told, 

 " began to recognize Spencer's hand in the 

 anonymous articles in the quarterlies in 



which he was then announcing and illustrat- 

 ing various portions or segments of his new- 

 ly discovered law." Finally, in the year 1860, 

 he was shown a copy of the circular in which 

 Spencer was announcing his philosophical 

 series. That such a man should be appeal- 

 ing for support, to enable him to bring out 

 works of so transcendent importance, sug- 

 gested at once to Mr. Youmans that here 

 was a chance for him to render service which 

 might be of much moment. He took what 

 he felt at the time to be the bold step of 

 writing to Spencer, and offering to interest 

 himself in getting American subscribers to 

 the series. Mr. Spencer replied, thanking 

 him very warmly for the offer and for the 

 sympathy which his letter had expressed ; 

 and thus was begun a friendship of the most 

 sincere and enduring character between these 

 two eminent men. Nothing in the volume 

 before us is more interesting or produces a 

 pleasanter impression that the extracts given 

 from the correspondence which passed be- 

 tween them from this date onward to the 

 death of Mr. Youmans. 



The result of the acquaintance thus 

 formed was that Spencer obtained a gratify- 

 ing number of subscribers to his series in 

 this country, and that the republication of 

 his works was begun by Messrs. D. Appleton 

 & Co., who were the publishers of Youmans's 

 Chemistry and of another work which he had 

 produced under the title of Handbook of 

 Household Science. This was really the turn- 

 ing point in Spencer's fortunes. In one of 

 his letters to Youmans we find the follow- 

 ing passage : " The energy and self-sacri- 

 fice you continue to show in the advance- 

 ment of my scheme quite astonishes me ; and 

 while, in one respect, it is very gratifying to 

 me, yet in another it gives me a certain un- 

 comfortable sense of obligation, more weighty 

 than I like to be under." This shows the 

 relations that had been established between 

 the two men, and makes the action which 

 Youmans so vigorously, we might say hero- 

 ically, took at a later date to help his friend 

 through a financial crisis entirely natural. 

 Such he was to Spencer all through the one 

 untiring upholder of his name, defender of 

 his views, and good providence of his for- 

 tunes on this continent. Spencer and the 

 evolution philosophy were inseparable in his 

 thoughts, and for so great a cause repre- 



