The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-20
ABOUT HERBERT SPENCER.
He Had the Great Power OF stimulat-
ing Other Mems Thought.

New York Evening Post
Spencer's passion for logical symmetry
was. indeed. his besetting sin. 1t Is not
a common English falling. The great
English advancers OF science have been,
characteristically, of monographs. 1t
Is not their way. as it has been that of
F'renchmen and Germans, TO attempt to
pluck up the whole tree Of knowledge by
the roots, and repot IL In twenty volumes
Spencer was the shining exception. In him
was embodied that instinct for universal
philosophy and encyclopedia range which
Taine found wanting at oxford. Yet the
great system maker Jared badly at the
hands of the mighty cultivators of their
little garden plots. friends of his though
they were. Huxley said that he often
caught himself laughing in the beard OF
Spencer. He defined Spencer's positive
work. as in reality nothing but spinning
his own cobwebs;" and when asked what
objection ne had to Spencer's philosophical
system replied, mo objection except to
the whole" Darwin's less vivacious verdict
was really more weighty: such parts OF
Herbert Spencer as l have read with care
impress my mind with the idea of his mex
haustible wealth OF suggestion. but never
convince me; and so 1 find it with some
others"
This power of stimulus may. after all.
prove to be Spencer's best title to remem-
brance. He stirred other minds powerfully.
even when he could not satisfy them. 1t
Is the mark OF what he might have called a
dynamic intellect. Many have acknowl-
edged the virtue that passed to them from
him. Thus George Henry Lewes wrote with
gratitude OF the way in which his walks
and talks with Spencer reused his energy
and revived his dormant love OF science.
His intense theoriZing tendency was con-
fahous. and 10 was only the stimulus or a
theory which could then have induced me to
work" We need barely TO refer 10 Stew
enson's tribute: II should be much OF a
hound IL 1 lost my gratitude 10 Herbert
exists, and few better. % HIS words.
II dry. are always manly and honest There
dwells In his pages a spirit or highly alb
stract Joy. plucked naked like an algebraic
symbol but still Joyful: and the reader will
find there caput mortuum or piety, with
little indeed OF its lOveliness, with most
OF its essentials
on this side of personal quickening and
a lofty example, Spencer Is certainly
stronger than as a systematizer. The body
OF his work Is not up TO the best scientific
method, while wide open TO destructive
metaphysical attack. as shown most clear
ly perhaps. by Professor Ward. To him
Spencer reJoined. but. in the opinion OF the
judicious, IL was a response sans replique.
Yet all this should blind no one TO the i'm
nebse sweep or Spencer's learning; his
power OF apt illustration; his high capacity.
at times, OF lucid exposition; his practical
sagacfty, and. above ALL the noble serious
ness OF his life. No finer plea for tolerance
and for courage was ever written than that
passage in the First Principles which
gives US in a dozen sentences the phio-
sophie Justification and the actual keynote
Of she life OF the remarkable man who has
BASED away:
whoever hestates 10 utter that which
he thinks the highest truth, lest IL should
IA ~. IN Qnua ba mi
rsassure himself BY looking at his acts