HERBERT SPENCER AND HIS DISCIPLE
Herbert Spencer, with his friend Mr. Lott and myself, were fellow
travelers on the Servia from Liverpool to New York in 1882. I bore a
note of introduction to him from Mr. Morley, but I had met the
philosopher in London before that. I was one of his disciples. As an
older traveler, I took Mr. Lott and him in charge. We sat at the same
table during the voyage.
One day the conversation fell upon the impression made upon us by
great men at first meeting. Did they, or did they not, prove to be as
we had imagined them? Each gave his experience. Mine was that nothing
could be more different than the being imagined and that being beheld
in the flesh.
"Oh!" said Mr. Spencer, "in my case, for instance, was this so?"
"Yes," I replied, "you more than any. I had imagined my teacher, the
great calm philosopher brooding, Buddha-like, over all things,
unmoved; never did I dream of seeing him excited over the question of
Cheshire or Cheddar cheese." The day before he had peevishly pushed
away the former when presented by the steward, exclaiming "Cheddar,
Cheddar, not Cheshire; I said _Cheddar_." There was a roar in which
none joined more heartily than the sage himself. He refers to this
incident of the voyage in his Autobiography.[72]
[Footnote 72: _An Autobiography_, by Herbert Spencer, vol. I, p. 424.
New York, 1904.]
Spencer liked stories and was a good laugher. American stories seemed
to please him more than others, and of those I was able to tell him
not a few, which were usually followed by explosive laughter. He was
anxious to learn about our Western Territories, which were then
attracting attention in Europe, and a story I told him about Texas
struck him as amusing. When a returning disappointed emigrant from
that State was asked about the then barren country, he said:
"Stranger, all that I have to say about Texas is that if I owned Texas
and h--l, I would sell Texas."
What a change from those early days! Texas has now over four millions
of population and is said to have the soil to produce more cotton than
the whole world did in 1882.
The walk up to the house, when I had the philosopher out at
Pittsburgh, reminded me of another American story of the visitor who
started to come up the garden walk. When he opened the gate a big dog
from the house rushed down upon him. He retreated and closed the
garden gate just in time, the host calling out:
"He won't touch you, you know barking dogs never bite."
"Yes," exclaimed the visitor, tremblingly, "I know that and you know
it, but does the dog know it?"
One day my eldest nephew was seen to open the door quietly and peep in
where we were seated. His mother afterwards asked him why he had done
so and the boy of eleven replied:
"Mamma, I wanted to see the man who wrote in a book that there was no
use studying grammar."
Spencer was greatly pleased when he heard the story and often referred
to it. He had faith in that nephew.
[Illustration: HERBERT SPENCER AT SEVENTY-EIGHT]
Speaking to him one day about his having signed a remonstrance against
a tunnel between Calais and Dover as having surprised me, he explained
that for himself he was as anxious to have the tunnel as any one
and that he did not believe in any of the objections raised against
it, but signed the remonstrance because he knew his countrymen were
such fools that the military and naval element in Britain could
stampede the masses, frighten them, and stimulate militarism. An
increased army and navy would then be demanded. He referred to a scare
which had once arisen and involved the outlay of many millions in
fortifications which had proved useless.
One day we were sitting in our rooms in the Grand Hotel looking out
over Trafalgar Square. The Life Guards passed and the following took
place:
"Mr. Spencer, I never see men dressed up like Merry Andrews without
being saddened and indignant that in the nineteenth century the most
civilized race, as we consider ourselves, still finds men willing to
adopt as a profession--until lately the only profession for
gentlemen--the study of the surest means of killing other men."
Mr. Spencer said: "I feel just so myself, but I will tell you how I
curb my indignation. Whenever I feel it rising I am calmed by this
story of Emerson's: He had been hooted and hustled from the platform
in Faneuil Hall for daring to speak against slavery. He describes
himself walking home in violent anger, until opening his garden gate
and looking up through the branches of the tall elms that grew between
the gate and his modest home, he saw the stars shining through. They
said to him: 'What, so hot, my little sir?'" I laughed and he laughed,
and I thanked him for that story. Not seldom I have to repeat to
myself, "What, so hot, my little sir?" and it suffices.
Mr. Spencer's visit to America had its climax in the banquet given
for him at Delmonico's. I drove him to it and saw the great man there
in a funk. He could think of nothing but the address he was to
deliver.[73] I believe he had rarely before spoken in public. His
great fear was that he should be unable to say anything that would be
of advantage to the American people, who had been the first to
appreciate his works. He may have attended many banquets, but never
one comprised of more distinguished people than this one. It was a
remarkable gathering. The tributes paid Spencer by the ablest men were
unique. The climax was reached when Henry Ward Beecher, concluding his
address, turned round and addressed Mr. Spencer in these words:
"To my father and my mother I owe my physical being; to you, sir, I
owe my intellectual being. At a critical moment you provided the safe
paths through the bogs and morasses; you were my teacher."
[Footnote 73: "An occasion, on which more, perhaps, than any other in
my life, I ought to have been in good condition, bodily and mentally,
came when I was in a condition worse than I had been for six and
twenty years. 'Wretched night; no sleep at all; kept in my room all
day' says my diary, and I entertained 'great fear I should collapse.'
When the hour came for making my appearance at Delmonico's, where the
dinner was given, I got my friends to secrete me in an anteroom until
the last moment, so that I might avoid all excitements of
introductions and congratulations; and as Mr. Evarts, who presided,
handed me on the dais, I begged him to limit his conversation with me
as much as possible, and to expect very meagre responses. The event
proved that, trying though the tax was, there did not result the
disaster I feared; and when Mr. Evarts had duly uttered the
compliments of the occasion, I was able to get through my prepared
speech without difficulty, though not with much effect." (Spencer's
_Autobiography_, vol. II, p. 478.)]
These words were spoken in slow, solemn tones. I do not remember ever
having noticed more depth of feeling; evidently they came from a
grateful debtor. Mr. Spencer was touched by the words. They gave rise
to considerable remark, and shortly afterwards Mr. Beecher preached a
course of sermons, giving his views upon Evolution. The conclusion of
the series was anxiously looked for, because his acknowledgment of
debt to Spencer as his teacher had created alarm in church circles. In
the concluding article, as in his speech, if I remember rightly, Mr.
Beecher said that, although he believed in evolution (Darwinism) up to
a certain point, yet when man had reached his highest human level his
Creator then invested him (and man alone of all living things) with
the Holy Spirit, thereby bringing him into the circle of the godlike.
Thus he answered his critics.
Mr. Spencer took intense interest in mechanical devices. When he
visited our works with me the new appliances impressed him, and in
after years he sometimes referred to these and said his estimate of
American invention and push had been fully realized. He was naturally
pleased with the deference and attention paid him in America.
I seldom if ever visited England without going to see him, even after
he had removed to Brighton that he might live looking out upon the
sea, which appealed to and soothed him. I never met a man who seemed
to weigh so carefully every action, every word--even the pettiest--and
so completely to find guidance through his own conscience. He was no
scoffer in religious matters. In the domain of theology, however, he
had little regard for decorum. It was to him a very faulty system
hindering true growth, and the idea of rewards and punishments struck
him as an appeal to very low natures indeed. Still he never went to
such lengths as Tennyson did upon an occasion when some of the old
ideas were under discussion. Knowles[74] told me that Tennyson lost
control of himself. Knowles said he was greatly disappointed with the
son's life of the poet as giving no true picture of his father in his
revolt against stern theology.
[Footnote 74: James Knowles, founder of _Nineteenth Century_.]
Spencer was always the calm philosopher. I believe that from childhood
to old age--when the race was run--he never was guilty of an immoral
act or did an injustice to any human being. He was certainly one of
the most conscientious men in all his doings that ever was born. Few
men have wished to know another man more strongly than I to know
Herbert Spencer, for seldom has one been more deeply indebted than I
to him and to Darwin.
Reaction against the theology of past days comes to many who have been
surrounded in youth by church people entirely satisfied that the truth
and faith indispensable to future happiness were derived only through
strictest Calvinistic creeds. The thoughtful youth is naturally
carried along and disposed to concur in this. He cannot but think, up
to a certain period of development, that what is believed by the best
and the highest educated around him--those to whom he looks for
example and instruction--must be true. He resists doubt as inspired by
the Evil One seeking his soul, and sure to get it unless faith comes
to the rescue. Unfortunately he soon finds that faith is not exactly
at his beck and call. Original sin he thinks must be at the root of
this inability to see as he wishes to see, to believe as he wishes to
believe. It seems clear to him that already he is little better than
one of the lost. Of the elect he surely cannot be, for these must be
ministers, elders, and strictly orthodox men.
The young man is soon in chronic rebellion, trying to assume godliness
with the others, acquiescing outwardly in the creed and all its
teachings, and yet at heart totally unable to reconcile his outward
accordance with his inward doubt. If there be intellect and virtue in
the man but one result is possible; that is, Carlyle's position after
his terrible struggle when after weeks of torment he came forth: "If
it be incredible, in God's name, then, let it be discredited." With
that the load of doubt and fear fell from him forever.
When I, along with three or four of my boon companions, was in this
stage of doubt about theology, including the supernatural element, and
indeed the whole scheme of salvation through vicarious atonement and
all the fabric built upon it, I came fortunately upon Darwin's and
Spencer's works "The Data of Ethics," "First Principles," "Social
Statics," "The Descent of Man." Reaching the pages which explain how
man has absorbed such mental foods as were favorable to him, retaining
what was salutary, rejecting what was deleterious, I remember that
light came as in a flood and all was clear. Not only had I got rid of
theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution.
"All is well since all grows better" became my motto, my true source
of comfort. Man was not created with an instinct for his own
degradation, but from the lower he had risen to the higher forms. Nor
is there any conceivable end to his march to perfection. His face is
turned to the light; he stands in the sun and looks upward.
Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious,
that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is,
right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume,
might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from
pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not
done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of
retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred
writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such
good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible
our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To
perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is
the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next
world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it.
I am as a speck of dust in the sun, and not even so much, in this
solemn, mysterious, unknowable universe. I shrink back. One truth I
see. Franklin was right. "The highest worship of God is service to
Man." All this, however, does not prevent everlasting hope of
immortality. It would be no greater miracle to be born to a future
life than to have been born to live in this present life. The one has
been created, why not the other? Therefore there is reason to hope for
immortality. Let us hope.[75]
[Footnote 75: "A.C. is really a tremendous personality--dramatic,
wilful, generous, whimsical, at times almost cruel in pressing his own
conviction upon others, and then again tender, affectionate,
emotional, always imaginative, unusual and wide-visioned in his views.
He is well worth Boswellizing, but I am urging him to be 'his own
Boswell.'... He is inconsistent in many ways, but with a passion for
lofty views; the brotherhood of man, peace among nations, religious
purity--I mean the purification of religion from gross
superstition--the substitution for a Westminster-Catechism God, of a
Righteous, a Just God." (_Letters of Richard Watson Gilder_, p. 375.)]