The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1904-02-20

NH i0ol vi tllhI SlCuL b"Ih ~
English thinkers who mad
the Victorian reign memor
able In the realm of letters. Among tn
list of great that predeceaset
Spencer, and each Of whom have LEI
a splendid legacy to the world o
thought, may be mentioned Darwin
Ruskin, Carlyle and Mill. But it II
doubtful If any of them accomplished
anything of so much importance to thu
world as S%pencer's System Of Syn
thetic Philosophy" which planned IL
1860, was completed after four decades
of ~unceasing labor, and this in spite o.
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 lin 1851 that he published
his first book, Social States" follow
ing it in 1856 with THE Principles Of
Psychology" which ultimately took its
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
b~reakdowns through overwork. In
somnia and dyspepsia sapped his
strength, SO that three hours work a
day was all he could accomplish, while
his slender mean 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 CANE 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 a poorer
man, Seven hundred and fifty of his
first books were sold in IA years. At
the end Of Is years he wa thankful that
he had lost no more than 81, 900. All
this time Mr.. Spencer once wrote, with
something Of pathos, "the 40, 900, 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
the great naturalist. but made it
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
80 often that those most familiar with
the catch phrases Of heredity and en-
are apt to forget who it was
who first made their import and infu-
ence on everyday life so clear. Those
who talk most glibly about his philoso-
,hy, however, would many Of them be
to give briefly the main pur-
sort: but Mr.. Hector Macpherson, in his
Herbert Spencer, the Man and His
puts it very tersely when he
iays: 'The problem which he set him
WAS, to discover the laws by which,
rom a diffused nebulous state, Matter
las Increased in concentration and com
so as to result in the world we
see, while Mr.. Spencer himself
a famous law Of Evolution,
which is as follows: Evolution is an
migration Of Matter and concomitant
dissipation of Motion. during which the {