November 27, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



761 



Spencer's own pen. Of these the iirst deals 

 with his Physical Traits and some Sequences 

 (written in 1902) ; the second with his intel- 

 lectual history, under the title, The Filiation 

 of Ideas (written in 1889). In a prefatory 

 note Spencer points out that they really be- 

 long to the " Autobiography," but that this 

 book was stereotyped ten years before the 

 first of them was written. The third is a 

 three-page unpublished letter on The Nebular 

 Hypothesis (written in 1900). (6) First, a 

 List of Herbert Spencer's Writings. Second, 

 a list of Academic and other Honors offered to 

 Herbert Spencer. I ought to add that I have 

 found Dr. Duncan's volumes much more in- 

 teresting than the " Autobiography." In 

 fact, they present a complex, in some ways 

 contradictory, personality. Perusal of them 

 can not fail to dispel many current miscon- 

 ceptions ; they will also enable the reader to 

 orient himself more readily towards this 

 latest " runner " in the wonderful race of 

 British empirical " torch-bearers." Their 

 wealth of incident will, of course, elicit vary- 

 ing reactions from different minds, and I can 

 only indicate one or two of my own. 



Spencer was wont to pride himself upon the 

 non-conformity of his ancestors. Exiles for 

 conscience sake from their old homes on the 

 continent of Europe, they appear to have re- 

 mained " agin' the government " in the land 

 of their adoption. However this may be, it is 

 of more vital interest by far for us to note 

 that Spencer's own nonconformity can not but 

 have been influenced deeply by the life upon 

 which he looked out. A Saul among the 

 prophets of the dissidence of dissent in re- 

 ligion, in politics and in society, he felt him- 

 self commissioned as a kind of supreme critic. 

 His lack of school and university experience 

 left " all his angles acute," while his career, 

 after 18Y8, dans le mouvement at London, 

 seems to have been too belated to work radical 

 alteration. Had the Eoyal Society elected 

 him in 1853, when Huxley introduced him to 

 Tyndall for the first time in its rooms, he 

 would doubtless have welcomed the recogni- 

 tion gladly. But, as he thought afterwards, 

 in 1874, the courtesy arrived over-tardily. I 

 incline to believe that much of his contrari- 



ness must be sought deep down in the nature 

 of the English environment during his active 

 days. The movement, so marked since, where- 

 by eminent representatives of science ' pass 

 readily from their middle-class origins to 

 terms of equality with the " upper ten thou- 

 sand," had not eventuated. The standards of 

 judgment, inherited from medievalism, that 

 wrote a man dovm a scoundrel for his 

 matured opinions, still prevailed widely. In a 

 word, the great period of transition from 

 renascence to modern thought was on, and 

 Spencer had the fortune, or misfortune, to be 

 a main instrument in a profound trans- 

 formation, one by no means over yet, espe- 

 cially in English-speaking lands. Of this he 

 exhibits slight awareness, and the continuous 

 friction serves to confirm incipient idiosyn- 

 crasies. His influence upon the philosophical 

 trend in Britain after J. S. Mill's death, say, 

 has remained slight; his public in the United 

 States was constituted sooner, and has always 

 been larger. These straws show how the 

 wind blew; and he felt the chill keenly, even 

 if he never perceived the causes. Or, to put 

 it otherwise, his career must be read in the 

 light of the contemporary religious, social and 

 philosophical situation in England. He 

 tended naturally to dissent, and regnant 

 moods of his contemporaries served to in- 

 tensify this leaning. Remembrance of this 

 will help to explain not a little. Eor, as he 

 records himself, he was at odds with his 

 countrymen. 



A further indication of the unstable condi- 

 tion of the intellectual world may be traced in 

 Spencer's morbid fear lest he should be ac- 

 cused of elaborating any ideas save his very 

 own. I have noted no less than fourteen 

 references in point (I., 128, 147, 185, 188, 197, 

 207, 253, 268, 315, 327, 342; U., 90, 168 f., 212). 

 Be it Comte or Darwin, Rousseau or Tylor, 

 he will acknowledge no obligation ; nor does he 

 relish that Maudsley, or Clifford, or Lockyer 

 should, as he supposes in evident good faith, 

 trade upon his ideas, and amass reputation 

 while he goes supperless to bed. His un- 

 humorous punctilio in these and other matters 

 almost renders Gilbert's whimsies fit com- 

 mentary ; 



