ENGLISH MEN OF SCIENCE

EDITED BY

J. REYNOLDS GREEN, D.Sc.

HERBERT SPENCER

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.

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