positive bearing, and teach us nothing but themselves. The scientist who ascertains them learns nothing but facts, and becomes no better able to foresee new facts. Such facts, it seems, occur but once, and are not destined to be repeated. There are, on the other hand, facts that give a large return, each of which teaches us a new law. And, since he is obliged to make a selection, it is to these latter facts that the scientist must devote himself.-H. Poincaré.

The spectacle of the evolution of life from its very beginning down to man suggests to us the image of a current of consciousness which flows down into matter as into a tunnel, which endeavours to advance, which makes efforts on every side, thus digging galleries most of which are stopped by the rock that is too hard, but which, in one direction at least, prove possible to follow to the end, and break out into the light once more. This direction is the line of evolution resulting in man.—Bergson.

What do we owe to Darwin? The first successful vindication of the evolution idea. It was not his own, nor was he its first champion, yet we always and rightly think of Darwin and the Doctrine of Descent together. He made it current coin of the intellectual realm. He made the nations think in terms of evolution.-J. Arthur Thomson.

A true scientific judgment consists in giving a free rein to speculation on the one hand, while holding ready to the brake of verification with the other. Now it is just because Darwin did both these things, and with so admirable a judgment, that he gave to the world of natural history so good a lesson as to the most effective way of driving the chariot of science.-Romanes.

CHAPTER XIV.

I

HERBERT SPENCER AND INDIVIDUALISM.

N 1877 Mr. Herbert Spencer gave some very interesting evidence before a Royal Commission on Copyright which was then sitting in England. He furnished full details about the sales of his books and the remuneration which had come to him from writing them. The results were the very opposite of encouraging, and few men would have persisted in work so large in sheer bulk, and which involved so much toil, in face of the apparent disinclination of the public to pay heed to, or cash for, his message. It required fourteen years to sell 750 copies of Spencer's Social Statics, twelve and a half years to sell 650 copies of his Principles of Sociology, and ten and a half years to sell 500 copies of his first volume of essays. After commencing to publish his system of philosophy, Spencer had at the end of fifteen years lost £1200, and was so afraid that he was ruining himself that he issued a notice to subscribers announcing that publication would cease. But a timely inheritance saved the situation. Not until he had been publishing for twenty-four years did the tide turn and his books begin to yield any profit. With some humour-in which Spencer was not lacking, despite the Himalayan altitude and solemnity of his philosophical work -he said to the Commission: "Now take one of my books, say, the Principles of Sociology. Instead of calling it caviare to the general, let us call it cod-liver oil to the general; I think it probable that if you were to ask ninety-nine people out of one hundred whether they would daily take a spoonful of cod-liver oil or read a chapter of that book, they would prefer the cod-liver oil."

There was no complaint of neglect on Spencer's part, not even a note of disappointment. He was aware that the subject of his speculations was not calculated to procure a great number of readers. But he had something to say

-very much to say, indeed-which he believed to be true, and he said it in his own fashion, bearing the cost cheerfully until such time as sufficient people were interested to make the sale of his stout volumes bear the expense of their production. Adverse criticism had no more effect upon him than popular indifference. If the criticism were serious and respectful he replied to it copiously; if otherwise, however much he might be annoyed for the moment, he treated it as an evidence of ordinary human stupidity.

An example is afforded by the case of an article which appeared in the Edinburgh Review in 1883. The reviewer had spoken of Spencer's First Principles as "nothing but a philosophy of epithets and phrases, introduced and carried on with an unrivalled solemnity and affectation of precision of style, concealing the loosest reasoning and the haziest indefiniteness." We find Spencer saying in a letter to a friend, "I am going this week to issue advertisements of First Principles in all the leading papers, to which I shall prefix this adverse opinion of the Edinburgh by way of showing my contempt for it." The method was afterwards adopted with gleeful wit by Whistler, who issued a catalogue of his pictures with extracts from adverse criticisms neatly printed beneath each title. But Spencer's contempt had an austerity which Whistler, with his malicious kink, could never approach. It was like the frown of Jove; it loomed with wrinkles of cosmic severity.

Spencer was the most undeviating of all philosophers. When he issued the prospectus of his system in 1860, he had made up his mind about the whole vast scheme. He had, as it were, found out the universe, and was going to show it up. First Principles were to be explained in the first volume, and then were to follow like the seasons in their regularly prescribed order the volumes on Biology, Psychology, Sociology and Ethics, covering the whole field of ⚫ evolution. A stretch of thirty-six years lay between the writing of the first lines of First Principles and the completion of the great design. He was seventy-six years of age when he dictated to his secretary the concluding words. "Rising slowly from his seat"-it is the secretary who records the occasion-"his face beaming with joy, he extended his hand across the table, and we shook hands on the auspicious event. 'I have finished the task I have lived for,' was all he said, and then resumed his seat. The elation.

was only momentary, and his features quickly resumed their customary composure." One is reminded of the moment when Archibald Alison finished the tenth and last volume of his History of Europe; he called his wife out of bed at midnight-in Scotland, too, where the nights are cold-and she stood in her nightdress holding his left hand while. he wrote the final words with his right. But, of course, there never was a lady in the case with Herbert Spencer. He was wedded to a System.

It would not be true to say that Spencer never changed an opinion which he had once put forth. He did admit some modifications, but they were few, and, it must be confessed, he did not make them in any confessional spirit. In this he offers a contrast with Darwin's perfect openmindedness. Thus, when Spencer issued a revised edition of Social Statics in America, he wrote to his representative there that he had inserted a declaimer in a "comparatively vague form." He admitted that the book "must be read with some qualifications," but could not be induced to state those qualifications plainly, though he did not object to the American representative writing a preface and explaining them therein if he pleased.

This magnetic-needle-like quality of Spencer's mind, together with the number and strength of his aversions, and his irritability, made him somewhat aloof and difficult of access. He was not addicted to the give-and-take of life. These characteristics were naturally more strongly revealed in his letters than in his formal writings. It required some magnanimity on Huxley's part to end a quarrel with Spencer which the biographer of the latter (Dr. Duncan) admits might have been repaired easily "had Spencer talked the matter over with his friends instead of shutting himself up and seeing no one." When Wallace took a view of heredity-Weismann's view-which was not Spencer's, the philosopher wrote: "I am astonished at the nonsense he is writing; he seems to be incapable of understanding the point at issue;" though the subject was one upon which Wallace was peculiarly entitled to be heard respectfully. Several entries in the index to the Life and Letters signify briefly the stiff angularity of the man"Books, objection to seeing;" "Ceremonial, aversion to;" "Classics, aversion from;" Criticism, sensitiveness to;" "Irritability;" "Reading, aversion to;" "Study, aversion