Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-02-03

NWNE last OF tnat great Dand OF
r. English thinkers who made
the Victorian reign memoir
able in the realm Of letters. Among the
list of great names that predeceased
Spencer, and each of whom have left
a splendid legacy to the world of
thought, may be mentioned Darwin.
Ruskin, Carlyle and Mill. But it is
doubtful if any of them accomplished
anything of so much Importance to the
world as Spencer's System of Syn
thetic Philosophy which planned in
1860, was completed after four decades
Of unceasing labor, and this in spite of
every hindrance offered by poverty and
i'll health.
Born at Derby on April q, 1920 the
same year as George Eliot and Tyndall,
IA years after Darwin, and five years
before Huxley, Herbert Spencer, at the
age of II, was sent out to learn the bust
ness of engineering, but after eight
years he abandoned engineering for lit
erature, and, in 1S4S, became sub-editor
Of the London Economist. 1t was while
on This paper Tin 1851 that he published
his first book, Social Statics," follow
ing it in 1855 with The Principles Of
Psychology" which ultimately took it's
place in the great system of philosophy
to which he devoted his life.
Even at this early period his health
was bad, and he suffered from serious
breakdowns through overwork. In
somnia and dyspepsia Slapped his
strength, so that three hours work a
day was all he could accomplish, while
his slender means made him over and
over again despair of continuing the
colossal task to which he had commit
ted himself. Three times, however, be-
quests of money came to him, which en-
able him to proceed. No publisher,
however, would risk a penny on his
books, and he at last, in the desperation
of despair, printed them at his own ex-
pense, and every one left him I. poorer
man. Seven hundred and fifty of his
first books were sold in IA years. At
the end of Is years he was thankful that
he had lost no more than $11, 900. "All
this time," Mr.. Spencer once wrote, with
something Of pathos, "the 100000, 900 of
people constituting the English nation
demanded of the impoverished brain
worker free gratis copies for the nation
al libraries"
A Darwinian-or, at least, an evolu-
zionist before Darwin-he applied the
doctrine not merely to organic life, as
did the great naturalist, but made it
an integral part of his whole philosophy.
He profoundly Influenced not only all
the scientific thinkers Of his generation,
but novelists as well, while his works
have been diligently studied by artisans
and by the girl of the period, and quoted
SO often that those most familiar with
the catch phrases of heredity and en-
vironment are apt to forget who it was
who first made their import and influ-
ence on everyday life so clear. Those
who talk most glibly about his phiioso-
ply, however, would many of them be
puzzled to give briefly the main pur-
port; but Mr.. Hector Macpherson, in his
Herbert Spencer, the Man and His
Work." puts it very tersely when he
says: "The problem which he set him
self was, to discover. the laws by which,
from a diffused nebulous state, Matter
has increased in concentration and COM
plexity so as to result in the world we
now see, while Mr.. Spencer himself
formulated a famous law of Evolution,
which is as follows: Evolution is an
integratlon of Matter and concomitant
dissipation of Motion, during which the