MR. SPENCER ON SIR H. BESSEMER 87 



great man's achievements are wrought not out of Book i 

 aggregates of conditions, but "out of the very Cha P ter 3 

 substance of his own mind" emphasised by him 

 as a practical truth, with all the vigour of a practical 

 man. In his chapter on the " Interdependence and 

 Integration of Industrial Institutions " he dwells with and he attn- 

 much eloquence on the almost incalculable benefits 

 that have resulted, and extended themselves through - 



the whole industrial world, from certain improve- facture to Sir 



1 H. Bessemer. 



ments introduced into the manufacture of steel. 

 And to what were these improvements due ? Mr. 

 Spencer answers this question not merely by ad- 

 mitting, but by insisting with the fervour of a 

 hero-worshipper, that they were due to the genius 

 of one single man, namely Bessemer ; and so obvious 

 does this truth appear to him, that he devotes an 

 indignant footnote to denouncing the governing 

 classes for not being sufficiently alive to it, and for 

 conferring on a man who, " out of the very substance 

 of his own mind" had wrought such gigantic and 

 universally beneficial changes, no higher reward 

 than the title of Sir Henry Bessemer "an honour" 

 he says, " like that accorded to a third-rate public 

 official on his retirement, or to a provincial mayor on 

 the occasion of the Queens Jubilee. " 



After this, what more need be said ? Here we 

 have Mr. Spencer himself, the moment he touches 

 the practical side of life, contemptuously brushing 

 aside the whole of his speculative theory and admit- 

 ting, or rather insisting, with the most unhesitating 

 and uncompromising vigour, that " the phenomena of 



