1 Early Spencer: Influences and Ideas
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Notes 1 Early Spencer: Influences and Ideas 1. Francis appears to imply some model of the authentic emotionally fulfilled life from which Spencer fell short. Duncan’s Life and Letters volume (originally pub- lished in 1908) had not been ‘arranged’ in the sense of constrained by Spencer as Francis suggests (2007: p. 19). 2. Published in London in 1860, and New York in 1876. Anecdotal evidence sug- gests it made the study of geometry and Euclid notably more palatable and comprehensible to young minds than competing texts. 3. Mozley much later published four volumes of reminiscences, two entitled Reminiscences Chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford Movement (1882), and Reminiscences Chiefly of Towns, Villages and Schools (1885). A Church of England clergyman and writer of leaders for The Times, Mozley irritated Spencer in 1882 both by questioning his father’s faith and for implying that his ‘System of Syn- thetic Philosophy’ owed unacknowledged debts to George Spencer. Spencer’s responsestoMozleyaredealtwithintheAutobiography,particularlyinVol.1, pp. 549–56. There is no evidence of anything approaching plagiarism (see Lamar, 1953). Both sets of Reminiscences contain material on George Spencer. Mozley was also taught mathematics by Thomas Spencer in 1827 (see Mozley, 1885, vol. 2: pp. 174–85). 4. J. E. Bicheno’s chief publication (An Inquiry into the Poor Laws, Chiefly with a View to Examine them as a Scheme of National Benevolence and to Elucidate their Political Economy of 1824 – a revision of an earlier version of 1817) has some similarity with Spencer’s early writing. For Bicheno, ‘political science’ shows that ‘the social polity is the result of wise and immutable laws bearing the stamp of omniscience; that these laws may be assisted, but cannot be contravened; and that they are to be discovered by the study of mankind, under all climes’ (1824: p. 75). In species of animals we see that the ‘constant struggle for subsistence’ (1824: p. 101) improves ‘faculties’, and this principle applies throughout mankind: ‘man, being an animal endowed by the Creator with a larger capacity and a more improveable nature than any other, is benefited by this struggle for subsistence in a far greater degree than the rest; his moral powers being also developed, and the spring of civilization and refinement set in motion’ (1824: p. 114). Bicheno also served on the Royal Commission on the poor in Ireland which Whately chaired. 5. On Whately see also Akenson (1981), McKerrow (1981) and Rashid (1977). Whately had held the Drummond Chair in political economy at Oxford until his move to Ireland in 1831 as Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. A lead- ing Oriel Noetic or ‘reasoner’ he contributed prolifically to Christian political economics. Whately did much to develop the study of economics in Ireland. 6. ‘Library catalogues’, Lyon notes, ‘indicate that a number of them were reprinted between ten and 28 times, resulting in between 10,000 and 28,000 copies. Few other polemicists could match such a prodigious impact’ (1999: p. 157). Anna Spencer on occasion also wrote, in her case on local history matters (1844). 328 Notes 329 7. Vidler (1961: p. 90) points to other clergymen in Thomas Spencer’s position on the corn law. 8. References to Lamarck and Lamarckianism in this study concern Spencer’s own interpretation of Lamarck’s claims. For recent reassessments of Lamarck’s science see Corsi (1988b) and Burkhardt (1995). 9. On phrenology in general see Van Wyhe (2004). Combe’s phrenology and Spencer is discussed in Chapter 4. 10. Francis couples his own misleading analysis with the unnecessary comment that his analysis of Spencer’s early political thought, as at odds with David Weinstein’s in fact mostly conventional reading (1998), is not an analysis ‘of a kind that an American such as Weinstein would feel comfortable with’ (2007: p. 398). 11. As portrayed in Crotchet Castle,Chapter2. 12. The quotation included is from John Morley’s Life of Richard Cobden (1881: p. 142). 13. Persons of course belong to and comprise communities and societies; so it is diffi- cult to read Spencer here as committed to the kind of contrast which Francis has suggested in his study: ‘The young Spencer was certain that the community – not the individual – possessed moral standing’ (2007: p. 263). Francis omits Spencer’s last sentence from his own quotation from Spencer. 14. Spencer noted his inability to decide whether legislative restrictions on traffic in shares was desirable (1904, i: p. 290). 15. As translated by Marian Evans. 16. ‘At what time was formed the resolution to set forth my views on political ethics, is uncertain; but during those early months of 1846, I commenced a course of reading in furtherance of my project’ (1904, i: p. 304). 17. In the process he encountered Isambard Kingdom Brunel who was apparently angered by the implied challenge to his estimate of costs for the line. In the Auto- biography Spencer catalogued what to his mind were some of Brunel’s professional misjudgements and a failure to give credit to one of his engineering colleagues, Hughes, who, for his work on bridge foundations in deep water which had led to the award of the Telford medal, had made an invaluable contribution to per- mitting as a possibility Brunel’s celebrated Saltash Bridge over the River Tamar: for having done ‘much work which had to be undone, wasted many millions of national capital, and entailed great losses upon multitudes of citizens, Mr. Brunel was knighted and is commemorated by a statue on the Thames Embankment’ (1904, i: p. 328). 18. Not the same James Wilson associated with The Pilot. On the Economist see Ruth Dudley Edwards, The Pursuit of Reason: The Economist 1843–1893, 1995. 19. The question of Spencer’s intellectual indebtedness to Hodgskin was raised by Elie Halévy (1903). It is clear that Spencer visited Hodgskin at home and consulted his collection of books, but nothing more substantial emerged in A. E. Taylor’s investigation (1955). Francis quotes from and discusses a letter from Spencer to Hodgskin of April, 1855, which suggests that Hodgskin may have helped con- firm Spencer in his drift away from accepting the rigid categories of the ‘faculty’ psychology of the phrenologists (2007: p. 175). 20. On Comte and Spencer’s choice of the expression see Eisen (1967: p. 229). 21. Milne-Edwards was already well-established in French biological circles as a result of his research into comparative physiology. So far as I can ascertain no English translation of his work was published before 1856. Spencer also recalled that it was ‘a little book just published’ (in Duncan, 1911: p. 542). It is thus probable 330 Notes the book Lewes had brought with him was the one issued in 1851 in Paris by the publisher Masson, Introduction à la zoologie générale, ou, Considérations sur les tendances de la nature dans la constitution du regne animal. 22. The widespread confusion afflicting the date of origination of ‘survival of the fittest’ is discussed in Paul (1988). 23. Nor is the opportunity spurned for a libertarian jibe at public expressions versus actual developments in France: ‘Whatever it maybe in theory, it is clear that in practice the French idea of liberty is – the right of every man to be master of the rest’ (1852b: p. 343). On the phrenological psychology underpinning the essay see Denton (1921). 24. Von Baer (1828/1837). On the influence of Von Baer see Ospovat (1976). 25. Notably Francis (2007). A discussion of Eliot’s responses in her fiction to Spencer’s ideas as well as of their personal connections is available in Paxton (1991). 26. Although Spencer revised his individual essays when they were later collected together for publication in book form, the references here to evolution all date from the original Westminster Review version. 2 Middle Spencer: Towards a Tapestry of the World 1. Thompson himself was using words taken from the Life of Goethe by Lewes, whom he describes as Spencer’s ‘closest friend’. 2. When this essay was later republished Spencer added a note at this point explain- ing that the sentence was ‘written before the publication of the Origin of Species.I leave it standing because it shows the stage of thought then arrived at’. 3. In 1893, Sir William Flower invited Spencer to join the committee to arrange a memorial to Owen. Although he did on further reflection agree to join the committee, his first reaction was to refuse, to which effect he replied in blunt terms to Flower: ‘large though Owen’s claims may be in the way of achievement, he lacked a trait which I think essential – he was not sincere. He did not say out candidly what he believed, but tried to please both parties, the scientific world and the religious world. This is not my impression only, but that, I believe, of many’ (in Duncan, 1911: p. 325). 4. The reference to ‘sociology’ at 1857b, 102, is one of his earliest, and the accep- tance of ‘direct metamorphosis’ in social life was novel for Spencer and seldom discussed later, though the point does reappear in the first volume of the Sociology (1893: pp. 471–2). One may presume that he came to see that giving prominence to the idea might be perceived as lending support to ‘artificial’ remodellings of society, undermining the echt Spencer postulate that societies were growths, not manufactures. 5. Colonel J. Jacob was the editor of the Record Book of the Scinde Irregular Horse, London, 1856. Pelly edited The Views and Opinions of Brigadier-General John Jacob, London, Smith Elder, 1858. 6. Some years after publication, Spencer recalled, ‘the Rev.