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ENGLISH MEN OF SCIENCE
EDITED BY
J. REYNOLDS GREEN, D.Sc.
HERBERT SPENCER
[Illustration]
HERBERT SPENCER
BY
J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN
THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
AUTHOR OF
THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE; THE SCIENCE OF LIFE;
OUTLINES OF ZOOLOGY; PROGRESS OF SCIENCE;
ETC. ETC.
[Illustration]
PUBLISHED IN LONDON BY
J. M. DENT & CO. AND IN NEW
YORK BY E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1906
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
CHAP.
I. HEREDITY 1
II. NURTURE 7
III. PERIOD OF PRACTICAL WORK 17
IV. PREPARATION FOR LIFE-WORK 27
V. THINKING OUT THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY 37
VI. CHARACTERISTICS: PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL 52
VII. CHARACTERISTICS: EMOTIONAL AND ETHICAL 74
VIII. SPENCER AS BIOLOGIST: THE DATA OF BIOLOGY 93
IX. SPENCER AS BIOLOGIST: INDUCTIONS OF BIOLOGY 110
X. SPENCER AS CHAMPION OF THE EVOLUTION-IDEA 135
XI. AS REGARDS HEREDITY 154
XII. FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION 180
XIII. EVOLUTION UNIVERSAL 209
XIV. PSYCHOLOGICAL 232
XV. SOCIOLOGICAL 242
XVI. THE POPULATION QUESTION 259
XVII. BEYOND SCIENCE 269
CONCLUSION 278
INDEX 283
INTRODUCTION
This volume attempts to give a short account of Herbert Spencer's life,
an appreciation of his characteristics, and a statement of some of the
services he rendered to science. Prominence has been given to his
_Autobiography_, to his _Principles of Biology_, and to his position as
a cosmic evolutionist; but little has been said of his psychology and
sociology, which require another volume, or of his ethics and politics,
or of his agnosticism--the whetstone of so many critics. Our
appreciation of Spencer's services is therefore partial, but it may not
for that reason fail in its chief aim, that of illustrating the working
of one of the most scientific minds that ever lived, "whose excess of
science was almost unscientific."
The story of Spencer's life is neither eventful nor picturesque, but it
commands the interest of all who admire faith, courage, and loyalty to
an ideal. It is a story of plain living and high thinking, of one who,
though vexed by an extremely nervous temperament, was as resolute as a
Hebrew prophet in delivering his message. It is the story of a quiet
servant of science, indifferent to conventional honours, careless about
"getting on," disliking controversy, sensationalism, and noise, trusting
to the power of truth alone, that it must prevail.
Another aspect of interest is that Spencer was an arch-heretic, one of
the flowers of Nonconformity, against theology and against metaphysics,
against monarchy and against molly-coddling legislation, against
classical education and against socialism, against war and against
Weismann. So that we can hardly picture the man who has not some crow to
pick with Spencer.
It is not to be wondered at, then, that we find extraordinary difference
of opinion as to the value of the great Dissenter's deliverances. In
1894, Prof. Henry Sidgwick spoke of Herbert Spencer as "our most eminent
living philosopher," and in the same sentence described him as "an
impressive survival of the drift of thought in the first half of the
nineteenth century." Some have likened him to a second Aristotle, while
others assure us that the author of the Synthetic Philosophy was not a
philosopher at all. Similarly there are scientists who tell us that
Spencer may have been a great philosopher, but that he was too much of
an _a priori_ thinker to be of great account in science. Many critics,
indeed, devote so much time and ability to demonstrating Spencer's
incompetence, in this or that field of thought, that the reader is left
with the impression that it must be a tower of strength which requires
so many assaults. And there are others, neither philosophers nor
scientists, who are content to dismiss Spencer with saying that the
least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he. Yet this much is
conceded by most, that Herbert Spencer was an unusually keen
intellectual combatant, who took the evolution-formula into his strong
hands as a master-key, and tried (teaching others to try better) to open
therewith all the locked doors of the universe--all the immediate,
though none of the ultimate, riddles, physical and biological,
psychological and ethical, social and religious. And this also is
conceded, that his life was signalised by absolute consecration to the
pursuit of truth, by magnanimous disinterestedness as to rewards, by a
resolute struggle against almost overwhelming difficulties, and by an
entire fearlessness in delivering the message which he believed the
Unknown had given him for the good of the world. In an age of specialism
he held up the banner of the Unity of Science, and he actually
completed, so far as he could complete, the great task of his
life--greater than most men have even dreamed of--that of applying the
evolution-formula to everything knowable. He influenced thought so
largely, he inspired so many disciples, he left so many enduring
works--enduring as seed-plots, if not also as achievements--that his
death, writ large, was immortality.
HERBERT SPENCER
CHAPTER I
HEREDITY
_Ancestry--Grandparents--Uncles--Parents_
Remarkable parents often have commonplace children, and a genius may be
born to a very ordinary couple, yet the importance of pedigree is so
patent that our first question in regard to a great man almost
invariably concerns his ancestry. In Herbert Spencer's case the question
is rewarded.
_Ancestry._--From the information afforded by the _Autobiography_ in
regard to ancestry remoter than grandparents, we learn that, on both
sides of the house, Spencer came of a stock characterised by the spirit
of nonconformity, by a correlated respect for something higher than
legislative enactments, and by a regard for remote issues rather than
immediate results. In these respects Herbert Spencer was true to his
stock--an uncompromising nonconformist, with a conscience loyal to
"principles having superhuman origins above rules having human origins,"
and with an eye ever directed to remote issues. Truly it required more
than "ingrained nonconformity," loyalty to principles, and far-sighted
prudence to make a Herbert Spencer, and hundreds unknown to fame must
have shared a similar heritage; but the resemblances between some of
Spencer's characteristics and those of his stock are too close to be
disregarded. Disown him as many nonconformists did, they could not
disinherit him. Nonconformity was in his blood and bone of his bone.
_Grandparents._--Spencer's maternal grandfather, John Holmes of Derby,
was a business man and an active Wesleyan, with "a little more than the
ordinary amount of faculty." The grandmother, nee Jane Brettell, is
described as "commonplace," but her portrait suggests a more charitable
verdict. Spencer's paternal grandfather was a schoolmaster, a
"mechanical teacher," somewhat oppressed by life, and "extremely
tender-hearted." If, when a newspaper was being read aloud, there came
an account of something cruel or very unjust, he would exclaim: "Stop,
stop, I can't bear it!" Of this sensitive temperament his illustrious
grandson had a large share. The most notable of the four grandparents
was Catherine Spencer, nee Taylor, "of good type both physically and
morally." "Born in 1758 and marrying in 1786, when nearly 28, she had
eight children, led a very active life, and lived till 1843: dying at
the age of 84 in possession of all her faculties." A personal follower
of John Wesley, intensely religious, indefatigably unselfish, combining
unswerving integrity with uniform good temper and affection, "she had
all the domestic virtues in large measures." Her grandson has said that
"nothing was specially manifest in her, intellectually considered,
unless, indeed, what would be called sound common sense." Grandparents
taken together count on an _average_ for about a quarter of the
individual inheritance, but we would note that in Herbert Spencer's
case, Catherine Spencer should be regarded as a peculiarly dominant
hereditary factor.
_Uncles._--Two of her children died in infancy, the only surviving
daughter (_b._ 1788) was an invalid; then came Herbert Spencer's father,
William George (_b._ 1790), and there were four other sons. Henry
Spencer, a year and a half younger than Herbert Spencer's father, was "a
favourable sample of the type," independent with "a strong dash of
chivalry," an energetic, though in the end unsuccessful man of business,
an ardent radical and with "a marked sense of humour." The next son,
John, had strong individuality; he was a notably self-assertive,
obstinate solicitor, successful only in out-living all his brothers.
Thomas, the next brother, began active life as a school-teacher near
Derby, was a student of St John's, Cambridge, achieved honours (ninth
wrangler), and became a clergyman of the Church of England at Hinton. He
was "a reformer," "anticipating great movements," a "radical," a
"Free-Trader," a "teetotaler," "an intensified Englishman." The youngest
son, William, "distinguished less by extent of intellectual acquisitions
than by general soundness of sense, joined with a dash of originality,"
carried on his father's school, and was one of Herbert Spencer's
teachers. He was a Whig and a nonconformist, but more moderate than his
brothers in either direction.
These facts in regard to Herbert Spencer's uncles corroborate the
general thesis that heredity counts for much. The four uncles had
individuality, rising sometimes to the verge of eccentricity; in their
various paths of life they were independent, critical, self-assertive,
and with a characteristic absence of reticence.
_Parents._--George Spencer, Herbert's father (_b._ 1790) was "the flower
of the flock." "To faculties which he had in common with the rest
(except the humour of Henry and the linguistic faculty of Thomas), he
added faculties they gave little sign of. One was inventive ability, and
another was artistic perception, joined with skill of hand." He began
very early to teach in his father's school, and was for most of his life
a teacher. As such, he was noted for his reliance on non-coercive
discipline, and at the same time for his firmness; he continually sought
to stimulate individuality rather than to inform. His _Inventional
Geometry_ and _Lucid Shorthand_ had some vogue for a time.
He was an unconventional person, as shown in little things--by his
repugnance to taking off his hat, to donning signs of mourning, or to
addressing people as "Esq." or "Rev'd.," and in big things by his
pronounced "Whigism." With "a repugnance to all living authority" he
combined so much sympathy and suavity that he was generally beloved. He
found Quakerism "congruous with his nature in respect of its complete
individualism and absence of ecclesiastical government." He had unusual
keenness of the senses, delicacy of manipulation, and noteworthy
artistic skill. A somewhat fastidious and finicking habit of trying to
make things better was expressed in his annotations on dictionaries and
the like, but he had also a larger "passion for reforming the world."
As his son notes, the one great drawback was lack of considerateness and
good temper in his relations with his wife. For this, however, a nervous
disorder was in part to blame. He lived to be over seventy.
Herbert Spencer's mother, nee Harriet Holmes (1794-1867), introduced a
new strain into the heritage. "So far from showing any ingrained
nonconformity, she rather displayed an ingrained conformity." A Wesleyan
by tradition rather than by conviction, she was constitutionally averse
to change or adventure, non-assertive, self-sacrificing, patient, and
gentle. "Briefly characterised, she was of ordinary intelligence and of
high moral nature--a moral nature of which the deficiency was the
reverse of that commonly to be observed: she was not sufficiently
self-asserting: altruism was too little qualified by egoism."
Spencer did not think that he took after his mother except in some
physical features. He had something of his father's nervous weakness,
but he had not his large chest and well developed heart and lungs.
Believing that "the mind is as deep as the viscera," he does not scruple
to state that his "visceral constitution was maternal rather than
paternal."
"Whatever specialities of character and faculty in me are due to
inheritance, are inherited from my father. Between my mother's mind
and my own I see scarcely any resemblances, emotional or
intellectual. She was very patient; I am very impatient. She was
tolerant of pain, bodily or mental; I am intolerant of it. She was
little given to finding fault with others; I am greatly given to
it. She was submissive; I am the reverse of submissive. So, too,
in respect of intellectual faculties, I can perceive no trait
common to us, unless it be a certain greater calmness of judgment
than was shown by my father; for my father's vivid representative
faculty was apt to play him false. Not only, however, in the moral
characters just named am I like my father, but such intellectual
characters as are peculiar are derived from him" (_Autobiography_
ii., p. 430).