Herbert Spencer. 5 



never got along well with languages, but was excellent in 

 geometry, in physics, and in drawing, both mechanical and 

 free-hand. At the age of sixteen he taught school for three 

 months, with good success. Immediately after this, he en- 

 tered upon a year's engagement under Sir Charles Fox, then 

 engineer for the construction of the London and Birming- 

 ham Railway. This was succeeded by eighteen months' 

 similar service in connection with the Birmingham and 

 Gloucester Railway. From 1841 to 1850 he was occupied 

 with private studies ; now and then with engineering engage- 

 ments, to some extent upon mechanical inventions, in one 

 or two political movements, in the writing and publication 

 of various papers, and finally as sub-editor of the Economist. 

 In 1850 he published " Social Statics," his first important 

 work, but one with which he was so much dissatisfied after- 

 ward that he tried to suppress it. 



From 1850 to 1855, a number of essays were completed, 

 — "The Theory of Population," "The Development Hy- 

 pothesis," "Over-Legislation," "The Universal Postulate," 

 and others. In 1855 the "Principles of Psychology" was 

 finished, and it was in the writing of this that the author 

 arrived at the conviction that the law of evolution was uni- 

 versal in its applications. The labor of preparing the Psy- 

 chology, carried on without due attention to hygienic rules 

 as to diet and exercise, was sufficient to break down his 

 health. His nervous system was so disordered that he 

 could do no work for eighteen months. This, however, did 

 not prevent his active mind from elaborating a scheme 

 which grew more definite day by day. He came to believe 

 that the law of evolution should be made the basis of phi- 

 losophy, and to devise the plan of a system established 

 thereon. As his health improved, he prepared to devote 

 his entire life to such a work, and in 1860 he published the 

 prospectus of his philosophical system, as we have it to-day, 

 laying out a task of twenty years, which ill-health has pro- 

 longed to the present time and which is still unfinished. 



If to what has been said we add that Mr. Spencer, while 

 engaged in his great work, has lived a quiet life in London, 

 with occasional vacations, often on account of illness, dur- 

 ing one of which he made a trip to Egypt and during 

 another a voyage to America, we shall have substantially 

 his biography — the uneventful existence of a student who 

 saw what was in him to do, planned his course, and fol- 



