The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-12-12
! 11ER on HERBERr spENoEn.

almost no department of intellectual
activity to which he was entirely a
stranger. A thorough student all his
life, he was at his death master of a
greater number of the exact and spec
ulattve sciences than any other man of
his time. Herbert Spencer sought to
solve the whole mystery of the uni
verse through a complete understand
ing of facts proved to the Judgment
Of man working from things known to
things unknown. He contributed
more perhaps to the sum of earthly
knowledge than any other Englishman
of his own or any earlier age. To Oar
win and Huxley credit is popularity
given for the development of the theo-
ries Of evolution and the origin of spe-
cies, but Spencer's part in the great
work of the group of scientists to
which he belonged is known to have
been Invaluable. Before Darwin's first
works on these subjects appeared
Spencer was publishing articles on evo-
luton and natural selection and work.
ing on the theory of spontaneous gene
ration. He was moreover one of the
greatest writer's of his century, and his
books are remarkable for their literary
quality.
tiers, since the event of his death has
attracted universal attention to him. Of
the fact that Spencer was not a univer-
sity man, as the phrase goes, and that
he never attended college It must not
be supposed, however, on this account
that he was in any sense to be classed
with the self-made man whom we de-
light to honor. The average American
with hypocritieal pretense of superb
GRITTY to the advantages of birth and
early education, delights in calling at
tention to the fact that this or that
Successful" man was unschooled in his
boyhood and brought up among condi-
lions of rigid poverty and hard manual
labor. We are assured by those who
count only wealth or political power as
greatness that these conditions have
produced the greatest men But the
fact is that with the fewest exceptions
the men of real genius, scientists, art
lists, poets, musicians and statesmen
were born in an atmosphere of culture
and If not wealthy at least had the ad-
Vantages Of early education, travel and
the association of cultivated minds. In
most cases the unusual gifts of the son
may be traced to a similar talent or at
least a scholarly inclination in the
father or other ancestors and all the
testimony of biographical history is to
the effect that as a general rule it re-
quires at least three generations to
make genius no less than a gentle
man.
Herbert Spencer came of a scholarly
family. His father was a teacher, the
originator of notable educational
theories and author of a valuable work
on geometry. His uncle and tutor, the
Rev. Thomas Spencer was a classic
scholar of distinction and a clergyman
of note.
The young Spencer's early inclina-
tons for mathematics and the natural
sciences were encouraged by his family
He was not sent to school but was
guided and directed in his studies and
helped to lay a thorough foundation in
his boyhood for the great work of his
career. His father was interested in
philosophical experiments in which be-
fore the son was IA years old he had
assisted. At 16 Norbert Spencer devised
a new and ingenious theorem in de-
scriptive geometry which was published
with the demonstration in the Civil
Engineers and Architects Journal. At
II he was a practical engineer under
Charles Fox. Four years later he gave
up his position to return to his mathe-
NAUTICAL and scientific studies. To give
some idea of the scope of his interests
at this time, he had made a botanical
press and herbarium, was practicing
drawing and modelling and working at
several inventions: for the improving
Of matchmaking, q new form of print
ing press, for the manufacture of type
by new process and for the applica-
ton of electrotype to engraving. He
was also contributing although not al
ways successfully, to engineering and
other scientific journals. All these
studies and experiments were in pre-
paration for the great work of his life,
the development of a noble cosmic
philosophy which has almost entirely
superseded all other system and been
generally accepted by the civilized
world as the highest yet evolved by the
mind of man.
Herbert Spencer was an agnostic.
and held no belief in a future existence.
He found no justification in science or
reason for the theory of Immortality.
although he sought the truth all his
life and strived oassionately to grasp
the whole of human knowledge in or
der to penetrate the mystery which
encompasses the universe. The favor
lite argument against Spencer's belief
that death ends all is the futility of
earthly effort under such a theory. the
utter cruelty, stupidity and illogicality
of an existence bound by an earthly
career. But who can assert that the
great philosophers life, now that it is
ended-and If it is indeed as completely
ended to the universe as to the world
was in vain? Whatever we may know
of his body and whatever we may be-
lieve of his soul, it is at least indis-
putable that his work lives on imper-
ishably. However he may have erred
in his theories regarding a future life,
there is no doubt that in making the
most of his gifts and remaining true