THINKING OUT THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY
_Thinking by Stratagem--The System
Grows--Difficulties--Italy--Habits of
Work--Sociology--Ill-health--Citizenship--Visit
to America--Closing Years_
Having theoretically secured the requisite number of subscribers to the
projected series of volumes, Spencer tried to settle down to "something
like unity of occupation." In the Spring of 1860 he began the _First
Principles_--only to break down before he had finished the first
chapter; and the same depressing experience was continually repeated.
Fortunately for Spencer's peace of mind, his uncle William left him some
money; one may well say fortunately, since the number of defaulters in
the subscription list was so large that in the absence of other
resources even the first volume could not have been published.
_Thinking by Stratagem._--Spencer's devices for keeping off the cerebral
congestion which work induced were many and various--some almost
laughable, if the whole business had not been so tragic. He would ramble
into the country, find a sheltered nook or sunny bank, do a little work,
and move on like a "Scholar Gipsy"; he would take his amanuensis on the
Regent's Park water, row vigorously for five minutes, dictate for
fifteen, and so on _da capo_; he frequented an open racquet-court at
Pentonville, and sandwiched games and _First Principles_; even in the
Highlands he would dictate while he rowed. It was altogether like
thinking by stratagem, and the tension of working against time became so
irksome, that he issued a notice to the subscribers that successive
numbers would come out when they were ready. Nevertheless, he completed
the _First Principles_ in June 1862.
_The System Grows._--Having safely set forth his doctrine, Spencer
turned with zest to relaxation, acting as cicerone to his friends at the
International Exhibition, climbing in Wales, fishing in Scotland,
revisiting Paris, and so forth. The years passed in alternate work and
play, and the next great event was the publication of the first volume
of the _Principles of Biology_ in 1864. In spite of inadequate
preparation Spencer produced by the strength of his intelligence a
biological classic. At the time, of course, little notice was taken of
it; thus in "The Athenaeum" of 5th November 1864, a paragraph concerning
the book commenced thus: "This is but one of two volumes, and the two
but a part of a larger work: we cannot therefore but announce it." "In
1864," Spencer says, "not one educated person in ten or more knew the
meaning of the word Biology; and among those who knew it, whether
critics or general readers, few cared to know anything about the
subject" (_Autobiography_, ii. p. 105).
It was in the same year (1864) that Spencer formulated his views on the
classification of the sciences and his reasons for dissenting from the
philosophy of Comte.
Of considerable interest was the formation of a decemvirate of
Spencer's friends, which was first called "The Blastodermic" and
afterwards the "X" club. It consisted of Huxley, Tyndall, Hooker,
Lubbock, Frankland, Busk, Hirst, Spottiswoode, and Spencer, with one
vacancy which was never filled up. The members dined together
occasionally and talked at large. "Among its members were three who
became Presidents of the Royal Society, and five who became Presidents
of the British Association. Of the others one was for a time President
of the College of Surgeons; another President of the Chemical Society;
and a third of the Mathematical Society...." "Of the nine I was the only
one who was fellow of no society, and had presided over nothing." The
club lasted for at least twenty-three years (1887), and had considerable
influence both on its members and externally.
In 1865 Spencer took considerable interest in a new weekly journal,
called "The Reader," in which many prominent workers were implicated,
but the enterprise ended in disappointment, unless, indeed, it was a
step towards the establishment of _Nature_. In this and the following
year he busied himself with an investigation regarding circulation in
plants,--the only concrete piece of biological work he ever indulged in.
But the great event of 1866 was the completion of _The Principles of
Biology_.
_Difficulties._--In the beginning of 1866 Spencer found that many of the
subscribers to his serial publications had withdrawn, and that not a few
were much in arrears, and he sorrowfully decided that he must abandon
his undertaking. It was at this juncture that he discovered what stuff
his friends were made of. Mr John Stuart Mill wrote proposing to help
to indemnify Spencer for losses incurred, and offering to guarantee the
publisher against any loss on the next treatise. He called this "a
simple proposal of co-operation for an important public purpose, for
which you give your labour and have given your health." As Spencer felt
himself obliged to decline this generous proposal, the next move among
his friends was to arrange to take a large number of copies (250) for
distribution. To this, with mingled feelings of satisfaction and
dissatisfaction, Spencer agreed. Meanwhile, however, his American
admirers, organised by Professor Youmans, invested in Spencer's name a
sum of 7000 dollars as a fund to ensure the continued publication of his
works. This, in combination with an improvement in Spencer's financial
position, consequent on his father's death (1866), made publication once
more secure without the aid of the subsidising scheme proposed by his
English friends.
In September 1866 Herbert Spencer settled himself in London, _en
pension_ at 37 Queen's Gardens, Lancaster Gate, which remained his home
for over a score of years. Henceforth he was less of a nomad, and he
secured himself against all interruptions by taking a secret study a few
doors off.
There are two records for the beginning of 1867 which are interesting in
their contrast. The first is that Spencer declined without hesitation
certain overtures by his friends that he should stand for the
professorship of Moral Philosophy at University College, London, and for
a similar post in Edinburgh; the second is that he invented a most
elaborate invalid-bed, which, like most of his inventions, fell flat.
The invalid-bed had been suggested by his mother's prolonged feebleness,
but it was not long to be used. Spencer was left in 1867 with no nearer
relatives than cousins. In reference to his mother, we quote with all
reverence one of the few strong personal touches in the _Autobiography_.
"Thus ended a life of monotonous routine, very little relieved by
positive pleasures. I look back upon it regretfully: thinking how
small were the sacrifices which I made for her in comparison with
the great sacrifices which, as a mother, she made for me in my
early days. In human life, as we at present know it, one of the
saddest traits is the dull sense of filial obligations which exists
at the time when it is possible to discharge them with something
like fulness, in contrast with the keen sense of them which arises
when such discharge is no longer possible."
In the spring of 1867 Spencer finished publishing the second volume of
the _Biology_, and immediately set to work to recast _First Principles_.
And as if that was not enough, he began in the same year, with the help
of his secretary, Mr David Duncan, his collection of sociological data,
which was intended to afford the foundation for a treatise on the
_Principles of Sociology_. In spite of occasional holidays at Yarrow, at
Glenelg, and in other delightful places, the usual nemesis of industry
was not avoided. Spencer's nerve-centres, which could never endure
prolonged attention, showed the usual symptoms of over-fatigue; and
though he tried morphia and skating, hydropathy and rackets, he had to
give up work early in 1868. He betook himself to Italy for rest,
attracted partly by the fact that Vesuvius was in eruption! About this
time he was elected a member of the Athenaeum Club, the sedative
amenities of which proved a useful prophylactic in after years.
_Italy._--Of Spencer's Tour in Italy the _Autobiography_ gives us some
interesting reminiscences. He arrived in Naples in a state of extreme
exhaustion, wearied with the voyage, wearied with a menu in which tunny
was the _piece de resistance_, and finding comfort only in the shelter
of his Inverness cape. And yet, the day after his arrival, the author of
_Social Statics_ might have been seen giving swift chase to an audacious
thief who had taken advantage of the philosopher's preoccupation to
abstract his opera-glass. "Most likely had the young fellow had a knife
about him I should have suffered, perhaps fatally, for my imprudence." A
few days later, the same characteristic rashness impelled him to ascend
the burning mountain without a guide and at great risk. "How to account
for the judicial blindness I displayed, I do not know; unless by
regarding it as an extreme instance of the tendency which I perceive in
myself to be enslaved by a plan once formed--a tendency to become for a
time possessed by one thought to the exclusion of others."
Nothing that Spencer saw in Italy impressed him so much as "the dead
town" of Pompeii. The man who "took but little interest in what are
called histories" was stirred by this concrete historical fossil. "It
aroused sentiments such as no written record had ever done." He enjoyed
Rome, but rather for its harmonious colouring than for its historical
associations, of which he had no vivid perception. He was more irritated
than pleased by the old masters. He got most pleasure from the scenery,
but Italy is "a land of beautiful distances and ugly foregrounds."
Companionless and impatient, his chief thought was how to get home most
comfortably, and so he returned no better than he went.
_Habits of Work._--About this time the tide had turned as regarded the
sale of his works, and he wrote gratefully "the remainder of my
life-voyage was through smooth waters." As the _Autobiography_ shows, it
was a quiet and uneventful voyage. Periods of work alternated with
holidays, many parts of the country were visited, and angling became
more and more his best recreation. "Nothing else served so well to rest
my brain and fit it for resumption of work." Another resource was
billiards, which he greatly enjoyed. He never could remember whist or
similar games.
On fine mornings he used to spend two or three hours on the Serpentine,
alternating rowing and dictating. After his morning's work and after
lunch he used to walk through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and the
Green Park, without more than a quarter of a mile upon pavement, to the
Athenaeum Club, where he skimmed through periodicals and books, and
played his game. Thereafter he sauntered back to dinner at seven, "which
was followed by such miscellaneous ways of passing the time without
excitement as were available. Thus passed my ordinary days." By this
time he had given up novel-reading, only treating himself to one about
once a year, and then in a dozen or more instalments. He did not care to
multiply social relations, he "avoided acquaintanceships and cultivated
only friendships." "There is in me very little of the _besoin de
parler_; and hence I do not care to talk with those in whom I feel no
interest." And thus, though far from being a recluse, he lived his life
of thought quietly.
In 1871 Spencer was nominated for the office of Lord Rector at the
University of St Andrews, but he declined the honour for the sake of his
work. He also declined the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the
same University, and subsequently, similar honours, chiefly on the
ground "that the advance of thought will be most furthered, when the
only honours to be acquired by authors are those spontaneously yielded
to them by a public which is left to estimate their merits as well as it
can."
The first (synthetic) volume of the new edition of the _Psychology_
begun in 1867 was finished in 1870, the second (analytic) volume begun
in 1870 was completed in the end of 1872. Having become much interested
in the well-known "International Scientific Series," Spencer contributed
to it in 1873 the volume known as _The Study of Sociology_, which has
done much in Britain and America to secure the position of Sociology as
a workable science. It was unusually successful for a book of its kind,
and brought Spencer about L1500.
_Sociology._--From 1867 onwards Spencer had been collecting Sociological
Data to serve as a basis for generalised interpretation. With the help
of Mr David Duncan, Mr James Collier, and Dr Scheppig, this big piece of
work made steady progress, and its publication began to be discussed in
1871. It was hoped that the plan of "exhibiting sociological phenomena
in such wise that comparisons of them in their co-existences and
sequences, as occurring among various peoples in different stages, were
made easy, would immensely facilitate the discovery of sociological
truths." The first part of this _Descriptive Sociology_ was published in
1873, but the demand for it was very slight; not quite 200 copies were
asked for in eight months. "I had," Spencer says, "greatly
over-estimated the amount of desire which existed in the public mind for
social facts of an instructive kind. They greatly preferred those of an
uninstructive kind." In this and similar connections, the reader of the
_Autobiography_ cannot but be impressed by two facts,--on the one hand,
the chivalrous eagerness on the part of American friends to be allowed
to lessen Spencer's pecuniary burden, and, on the other hand, the almost
ultra-sensitive resoluteness which Spencer exhibited in declining these
offers.
In 1874, with the materials and memoranda of a quarter of a century
around him, the thinker, who was blamed for not being inductive, set
himself to write the _Principles of Sociology_, "feeling much as might a
general of division who had become commander-in-chief; or rather, as one
who had to undertake this highest function in addition to the lower
functions of all his subordinates of the first, second, and third
grades. Only by deliberate method persistently followed was it possible
to avoid confusion."
The period of work on the _Sociology_ was broken by some delightful
holidays in the Highlands and elsewhere, by the British Association
meeting at Belfast (1874) when Tyndall gave his famous Presidential
Address, and by the usual ill-health. The first volume was completed in
1877. Apart from the nemesis of nerves, Spencer's life at this time
seems to have been a happy one; he was fairly free from pecuniary cares;
he was no longer tied to a serial issue of his publications; he could
afford pleasant holidays, and he had a small circle of loyal friends.
The philosopher began a series of annual picnics, which he seems to have
engineered with great skill; in various ways he acted up to what he says
was his habitual maxim, "Be a boy as long as you can." In 1877 he had
the excitement of a shipwreck near Loch Carron, and the encouragement of
having his _Descriptive Sociology_ translated into Russian.
_Ill-Health._--In spite of all his care, the year 1878 opened with a
serious illness, and this prompted him to begin dictating _The Data of
Ethics_ lest an aggravation of his ill-health should hinder him from
raising this coping-stone of his system. Just before Christmas of this
year, he went with Prof. Youmans to the Riviera, and for a couple of
months was more than usually successful in combining work and play. He
finished _The Data of Ethics_ in June 1879, and _Ceremonial
Institutions_ later in the year. As a reward of industry, and as a
safeguard against too much of it, a holiday up the Nile in pleasant
company was then arranged, and Spencer entered upon it in great spirits.
But an ill-considered meal at Alexandria brought on dyspepsia and morbid
fancies, and he was forced to return at the first cataract. He had seen
many of the sights and was inevitably impressed, but he seems to have
been glad to get out of the "melancholy country"--"the land of decay and
death--dead men, dead races, dead creeds," as it appeared to his
jaundiced eyes.
On his return journey he spent three days in Venice, but though he
derived much pleasure from the general effects, he was repelled by the
obtrusiveness and superficiality of the decorations. He regarded St
Mark's as "a fine sample of barbaric architecture"; "it has the trait
distinctive of semi-civilised art--excess of decoration"; "it is
archaeologically, but not aesthetically precious."
The entry in his journal for Feb. 12th, 1880 reads: "Home at 7-10;
heartily glad--more pleasure than in anything that occurred during my
tour."
Although he did not greatly enjoy his tour in Egypt, and brought back
his packet of work unopened, the break seems to have been "decidedly
beneficial." "It has apparently worked some kind of constitutional
change; for, marvellous to relate, I am now able to drink beer with
impunity and, I think, with benefit--a thing I have not been able to do
for these fifteen years or more." He thought that it had also perhaps
furthered his work to have had contact with people in a lower stage of
civilisation.
In 1881 Spencer published the eighth part of his _Descriptive Sociology_
and put a full stop to the undertaking which left him with a deficit of
between three and four thousand pounds, and which had half-killed two
secretaries.
Spencer's next task was the completion of _Political Institutions_,
another instalment of the _Sociology_, which he had begun in 1879, and
he was at this time also occupied in considering and answering the more
formidable of the criticisms which his system had aroused, and in
revising new editions of the _First Principles_ and _The Study of
Sociology_. It is interesting to note that the last work was carefully
revised sentence by sentence five times.
_Citizenship._--In 1881 Spencer felt in a new way the universal call
"_Il faut etre citoyen_"; he was drawn into practical action, and
although this led to the greatest disaster of his life, the cause was
worthy of the sacrifice. It was the cause of peace. While writing
_Political Institutions_ he had become more firmly convinced than ever
that "the possibility of a higher civilization depends wholly on the
cessation of militancy and the growth of industrialism." Conversations
with Mr Frederic Harrison and others led to meetings of those who were
sympathetic with what might be called a non-aggression policy, and
Spencer was so keenly interested that in spite of forebodings he
undertook some organising work, and even went the length of moving a
resolution and making a speech at a public meeting. There was no direct
political result of the "Anti-Aggression League," but there was most
mischievous result to Spencer. "There was produced a mischief which, in
a gradually increasing degree, undermined life and arrested work." He
had now begun to descend the inclined plane which brought him down in
the course of subsequent years to "the condition of a confirmed invalid,
leading little more than a vegetative life." What Spencer did in
connection with the Anti-Aggression movement was probably only the last
straw, but he could not look back on his intrinsically right action
without regret. "Right though I thought it, my course brought severe
penalties and no compensations whatever. I am not thinking only of the
weeks, months, years, of wretched nights and vacant days; though these
made existence a long-drawn weariness. I refer chiefly to the gradual
arrest and final cessation of my work; and the consciousness that there
was slipping by that closing part of life during which it should have
been completed." He was too honest to profess a pleasure he did not feel
in a _mens sibi conscia recti_. "It is best," he said, "to recognise the
facts as they are, and not try to prop up rectitude by fictions."
_Visit to America._--In 1882 in the hope of recovering tone, not, as
some of the papers said, of recouping his finances, Spencer went on a
visit to America, along with Mr Lott his friend of forty years. He was,
of course, pressed to lecture, and was offered terms up to 250 dollars
per night, but he would have none of it. Lecturing was not his metier,
and his health was broken. "As matters stand," he wrote, "the giving a
lecture or reading a paper, would be nothing more than making myself a
show; and I absolutely decline to make myself a show." The only public
appearance he made was at a dinner in his honour at New York, where,
with his fatigued brain, he spoke straight to the Americans on the sin
of over-devotion to work. With his friend Lott as a buffer, he succeeded
in avoiding all interviewers until he had got on board the _Germanic_ on
his return voyage, when he was taken unawares at the last moment.
Spencer saw some of the finest sights in America and Canada; he met
congenial spirits, and everything possible was done to make his visit a
tonic; but he came back in a worse state than he went, "having made
another step downwards towards invalid life."
_Closing Years._--From 1882 till 1889, when the _Autobiography_ ends,
Spencer's life was one of invalidism with occasional gleams of health.
There was nothing organically wrong with him, but he had no reserve of
nervous energy, and he was not able to work for more than brief
intervals at a time. Yet he produced during these years _The Man Versus
the State_, a volume on _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, and _The Factors
of Organic Evolution_. He also dictated the _Autobiography_ at the
average rate of about fifteen lines per day!
As years went on Spencer became more and more of a recluse, more and
more a man of nerves, the grasshopper became a burden, and as he watched
himself with scientific minuteness, hypochondria naturally grew upon
him. He continued, however, to use for work the minute fractions of a
day when he felt relatively vigorous, and thus he at length actually
finished his _Synthetic Philosophy_ in 1896.
He gives an account of his daily routine when he had attained the age of
seventy-three. In the mornings he did a little work, dictating for ten
minutes at a time, and repeating the process from two to five times.
During the rest of the day he killed time, walking a few hundred yards,
driving for an hour or so in a carriage with india-rubber tyres, or
"sitting very much in the open air, hearing and observing the birds,
watching the drifting clouds, listening to the sighings of the wind
through the trees." He could not read or bear being read to, he could
not play games or listen to music, he used ear-stoppers to shut out
conversation whenever he got tired of it, and without respect of
persons, and he took opium to secure a few hours sleep at nights. He
might have been more comfortable, physically, if he had abandoned all
attempt at work, but the architectonic instinct tyrannised over him. He
really lived for the sake of the little oases of work-time which broke
the monotony of his daily journey.
It should be remembered, that invalid as he was, Spencer aggravated
matters by his scientific hypochondria, and perhaps also by his
soporifics. His disturbances of health involved little positive
suffering, and, till he was considerably over sixty, he had few
deprivations. Even in old age he had no invalid appearance. "Neither in
the lines of the face nor in its colour, is there any such sign of
constitutional derangement as would be expected. Contrariwise, I am
usually supposed to be about ten years younger than I am" (1893).
"Spencer's closing years," Prof. Hudson writes, "were clouded with
much sadness and disappointment." His days were vacant and his
nights a weariness; he had outlived most of his friends and was
lonely; and "the completion of his _Synthetic Philosophy_ in 1896
did not bring him the keen satisfaction he fairly might have
expected." He saw his political advice disregarded, and on all
sides an exuberant growth of the socialistic organisations which he
had spent himself in criticising. "He saw, too, with profound
sorrow, unmistakable signs everywhere of reaction in religion,
politics, society. The recrudescence of militarism, the development
of a sordidly materialistic spirit throughout the modern nations
and their abandonment of the principles of sanity and political
righteousness--all these things cast a very black shadow over his
declining path. I do not wonder that, as he looked back over his
magnificent life-work, his mind should have been darkened by the
doubt as to whether some of the truths, to which he attached the
greatest value, might not after all have been set forth in vain"
("Fortnightly Review," 1904, p. 17).
Spencer's life closed in his eighty-third year, on December 8th, 1903.