124 



NA TURE 



[December 3, 1908 



in its finished form was drawn up before he read 

 the " Origin of Species." 



It was doubtless Spencer's keen sense of accuracy 

 and justice rather than any feeling' of personal rights 

 that made him so sensitive about priority, and it was 

 perhaps his jealousy for the honour of science that 

 led him to behave in a somewhat strange way con- 

 cerning his election as a foreign correspondent of 

 the Reale Accademia dei Lincei. It should be remem- 

 bered, too, that while Spencer was unwilling that any- 

 one should use his ideas without acknowledgment, 

 he was even more troubled by the suggestion that 

 he ever did anything of this sort himself. To be 

 accused of cribbing from Comte was a serious charge, 

 though absurd on the face of it; but it seems strange 

 that he should have found it " very annoying " to 

 be accused of stealing the idea of " the gospel of 

 relaxation "—and the phrase as well — from an 

 American writer. This was in allusion to his well- 

 known thesis that " Life is not for learning, nor is 

 life for working; but learning and working are for 

 life" — "a strange maxim this," as the biographer 

 well remarks, " to come from one who scorned de- 

 lights and lived laborious days in order to complete 

 a task he had deliberately imposed upon himself." 



In curious inconsistency with Spencer's sensitive- 

 ness over questions of priority was his very small 

 appetite — sometimes amounting to total abstinence — 

 as regards the works of previous evolutionists, and 

 in this connection the " Life " has some additional 

 information that is instructive. Spencer went in for 

 " little reading and much thinking, and thinking 

 about facts learned at first hand." 



"All along," he said, "I have looked at things 

 through my own eyes and not through the eyes of 

 others. I believe that it is in some measure because 

 I have gone direct to Nature, and have escaped the 

 warping influences of traditional beliefs, that I have 

 reached the views I have reached." 



.•\s one would expect, the " Life " informs us that 

 many of the things said about Spencer were untrue. 

 He once said that he could fill a small volume with 

 absurd stories about himself, and the trouble was 

 that his high standard of accuracy led him to take 

 them somewhat too seriously. Instead of recognising 

 that it is one of the penalties of greatness to become 

 a centre of myths, or contenting himself with docket- 

 ing the canards as evidences of " the extreme un- 

 trustworthiness of human testimonv," he was some- 

 times annoyed by them, and spent time in correct- 

 ing them — for instance, in the case of the quite 

 innocent stateme-t which appeared in the Aberdeen 

 Free Press tlia' .spencer had once written articles on 

 sociology for the Birmingham Pilot. As he lived a 

 very quiet ..fe, certainly not one that furnished pic- 

 turesque cony, there was scope for inventiveness, and 

 thus absurd paragraphs appeared to the effect that 

 Spencer always wore white gaiters, invariably carried 

 a bulky umbrella, lived chieflv on bread and coffee, 

 and changed his occupation every ten minutes. Per- 

 haps the only matter for real regret was that the 

 inventiveness was of so low an order. 



The biographer is nothing if not loyal to Spencer; 

 NO. ^040, VOL. 79] 



he is inclined to rebut what seems to us just criticism. 

 We cannot always agree, and we may give one ex- 

 ample. At the close of his account of the Weismann 

 controversy — the issue of which is so momentous in 

 relation to Spencer's aetiology — Dr. Duncan says 

 that it is not for a layman to express an opinion on 

 a question that divides biologists into distinct schools. 

 He goes on, as one usually does after this sort of 

 bow, to express very decided opinions. 



" Bearing in mind how frequently th? charge of 

 a priori reasoning has been brought against Spencer, 

 one cannot help remarking on the hypothetical nature 

 of Prof. Weismann 's premises and the a priori 

 character of his arguments. The demands he makes 

 on one's credulity are, to say the least, not less 

 numerous or less astounding than those made by the 

 opposite school. Prof. Marcus Hartog's descrip- 

 tion of Prof. Weismann's work on Amphimixis, 

 may be applied to the theory as a whole. It is ' a 

 magnified castle built by the a priori method on a 

 foundation of " facts " carefully selected, and for the 

 most part ill known, misinterpreted, or incomplete.' " 



This opinion seems to us erroneous and misleading. 

 One mav compare Weismann's theory of determin- 

 ants with Spencer's theory of physiological units ; 

 both are imaginative constructions, and unverifiable 

 in any direct way. Experts have to choose the one 

 that seems the simpler, the more consistent with 

 known facts, and the more useful in interpretation, 

 or to refuse them both in favour of a third. But 

 the real issue was not in regard to a subtlety of this 

 sort; it was in great part a question of fact — is 

 there evidence warranting a belief in the transmis- 

 sibility of somatic modifications? — and as one result 

 of the controversy no evolutionist can any longer 

 make the Lamarckian assumption without some 

 energetic attempt at justification. 



Much of the truth which Spencer expounded has 

 now passed into the framework of the scientific 

 universe of discourse ; part, perhaps, has still to be 

 incorporated ; and not a little, bound up with " use- 

 inheritance," will probably have to be rejected alto- 

 gether. But, in addition to the reverence and grati- 

 tude with which we regard Spencer as thinker and 

 teacher, there must rise in the minds of all who 

 read this " Life " a desire to join with the author 

 in paying homage once more to " the high and in- 

 domitable purpose that sustained Spencer throughout 

 these years, enabling him, in face of difficulties that 

 seemed almost insurmountable, ever to keep sight 

 of the goal." 



"Take him for all in all," the biographer 

 says, " he was intellectually one of the grandest 

 and morally one of the noblest men that 

 have ever lived. His life was devoted to a single 

 purpose — the establishing of truth and righteousness 

 as he understood them." 



Finallv, we would say that we have, on reading 

 the " Life," a refreshment of admiration for one 

 who, while he was an intellectual Alpine climber, and 

 accustomed to altitudes where many find it difficult 

 to breathe, vet was a citizen of the world who took 

 much thought for the people. " Ein Kerl der 

 spcculirt " was liow Huxley, quoting from " Faust," 



