MR. HERBERT SPENCER. US 



To change the illustration, the ordinary view is true 

 for seven places of decimals, and this commonly is 

 enough; occasions, however, have now arisen when 

 the error caused by neglect of the omitted places is 

 appreciably disturbing, and we must have three or four 

 more. Mr. Spencer showed no more signs of seeing 

 that he must supply these, and make personal identity 

 continue between successive generations before talking 

 about inherited (as opposed to post-natal and educa- 

 tional) experience, than others had done before him ; 

 the race with him, as with every one else till recently, 

 was not one long individual living indeed in pulsa- 

 tions, so to speak, but no more losing continued 

 personality by living in successive generations, than 

 an individual loses it by living in consecutive days ; 

 a race was simply a succession of individuals, each one 

 of which was held to be an entirely new person, and 

 was regarded exclusively, or very nearly so, from this 

 point of view. 



When I wrote " Life and Habit " I knew that the 

 words " experience of the race " sounded familiar, and 

 were going about in magazines and newspapers, but I 

 did not know where they came from; if I had, I 

 should have given their source. To me they conveyed 

 no meaning, and vexed me as an attempt to make me 

 take stones instead of bread, and to palm off an illus- 

 tration upon me as though it were an explanation. 

 When I had worked the matter out in my own way, 

 I saw that the illustration, with certain additions, 

 would become an explanation, but I saw also that 

 neither he who had adduced it nor any one else could 



