Winter in the Riviera. 357 



would be here by this time, I conclude nothing was written, 

 and it is a satisfaction to think there was no occasion for 

 it. Prices here are frightful. I told Spencer his frolic 

 would turn out expensive. He replied, " It would merely 

 make so much less to be left and spent on the Descriptive 

 Sociology " with which he is evidently getting tired. 



CANNES, FRANCE, January 7 or 8, 1879. 



We have now been a week in Cannes, and leave here to- 

 morrow. We have had five beautiful days here that have 

 been both enjoyable and profitable. I am undergoing a 

 sharp discipline ; and what between a" revolutionized diet, 

 cessation of smoking, and triple my former exercise, I ought 

 to pick up. At this point I was meddled with by my laissez- 

 faire friend, and now resume at Nice. And it would take a 

 big book to tell it all. It is now Wednesday, and I should 

 think must be the loth. We started yesterday morning 

 from Cannes, and got to Nice in an hour. . . . 



I had a fire in my room last night, but could not get 

 warm till toward morning. Routed at eight as usual, but, 

 thank Goodness ! it rains so hard we can't go out. So we 

 have fires in our respective rooms, and Spencer has just been 

 in to show me how to bring the table round close to the 

 little fireplace, and then put one side of the rug in the 

 chair and wrap it round my legs, so as not to utterly freeze 

 to death before the fire. 



I spoke to you about Spencer's new work, The Data of 

 Ethics. I have not seen it yet, as the corrections of the 

 first four chapters have not come. But I have got the 

 titles of the chapters, and now send them. When they are 

 published the question will cease to be asked, " What has 

 evolution to do with morality ? " 



This is the first systematic, scientific treatment of 

 ethics, and its effect will be to rank morality with the sci- 

 ences, to give it the intrinsic authority of science, and to 

 vindicate evolution againSt the sceptical cui bono. 



