The request so honourable to myself, to be the Herbert Spencer lecturer
of this year, aroused a multitude of vivid recollections. Spencer’s
strong personality, his complete devotion to a self-imposed and
life-long task, together with rare gleams of tenderness visible amidst a
wilderness of abstract thought, have left a unique impression on my mind
that years fail to weaken.
I do not propose to speak of his writings; they have been fully
commented on elsewhere, but I desire to acknowledge my personal debt to
him, which is large. It lies in what I gained through his readiness to
discuss any ideas I happened to be full of at the time, with quick
sympathy and keen criticism. It was his custom for many afternoons to
spend an hour or two of rest in the old smoking room of the Athenaeum
Club, strolling into an adjoining compartment for a game of billiards
when the table was free. Day after day on those afternoons I enjoyed
brief talks with him, which were often of exceptional interest to
myself. All that kind of comfort and pleasure has long ago passed from
me. Among the many things of which age deprives us, I regret few more
than the loss of contemporaries. When I was young I felt diffident in
the presence of my seniors, partly owing to a sense that the ideas of
the young cannot be in complete sympathy with those of the old. Now that
I myself am old it seems to me that my much younger friends keenly
perceive the same difference, and I lose much of that outspoken
criticism which is an invaluable help to all who investigate.