Herbert Spencer

00 iCNJ !CT> ft HERBERT SPENCER HERBERT SPENCER THE MAN AND HIS WORK BY HECTOR MACPHERSON Author of Thomas Carlyle and Adam Smith SECOND EDITION LONDON CHAPMAN AND HALL LIMITED 1901 DtU I <7D to Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers Her Majesty PREFACE A PHILOSOPHIC thinker of the first rank is always known by the amount of literature which his writings call forth. Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel these in their respective spheres were epoch-makers. From the philosophic germs which they scattered have sprung whole libraries of controversial literature. In like manner Mr. Herbert Spencer has paid the penalty of his great philosophic fame. As an epoch-maker, he, too, has had to pass through the fire of hostile criticism. For a great number of years his philo sophy has been the battle-ground of controversialists who, differing in many ways among themselves, have united in their attempts to discredit a system of thought which threatened to destroy long- cherished opinions and stereotyped beliefs. One result of this has been that to the general public the Synthetic Philosophy, embedded as it has been in the works of critics, has necessarily appeared in VI this a fragmentary form. My object in writing reader book has been to present to the general can Spencerism in lucid, coherent shape. Nothing but take the place of Mr. Spencer s own writings, mastery of these demands an amount of leisure are no means and philosophic enthusiasm which by widespread. Until after the first negotiations had been entered upon for the publication of this work Mr. Spencer was unaware that it was in contemplation, but since he has been informed of my design I have had his approval. I must add that Mr. Spencer has not seen a sentence of this work before publication, either in manuscript or in proof. He has been anxious that I should not be influenced by any criticisms he might pass. He has taken a kindly interest in the undertaking, and responded to my request for certain materials. The book is by no means a slavish re production of Mr. Spencer s writings. Taking my stand upon the fundamental ideas of the Synthetic Philosophy, I have used them in my own way to interpret and illustrate the great evolutionary process. While, therefore, Mr. Spencer has been in full sympathy with the aim of the book, he does not stand committed to the detailed treatment of the subject. The work has indeed been a labour PREFACE vii of love. Should it induce the reader to study Spencerism as expounded by the master himself, my reward will be ample. I should be lacking in gratitude did I not express my obligations to the elaborate work of Mr. John Fiske, entitled Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy. No student of Spencer can afford to neglect Mr. Fiske s book, which it would be difficult to rival in point of lucidity and intellectual ability. I am also indebted to Professor Hudson of California for his admirable book, Introduction to the Philo sophy of Herbert Spencer. In the philosophic and economic parts of the book, I have drawn upon a few paragraphs in my Thomas Carlyle and Adam Smith. Knowledge of a philosopher s system of thought is greatly helped by knowledge of the philosopher himself, and in this respect I have been exceedingly fortunate. The recollection of my personal relations with Mr. Spencer will ever be to me a priceless possession. HECTOR MACPHERSON. EDINBURGH, April 1900. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. EARLY LIFE, ...... 1 II. INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT, . .17 III. EVOLUTION OF THE EVOLUTION THEORY, . 38 IV. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS, . 52 V. THE COSMOS UNVEILED, . ... 64 VI. THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE, .... 82 JTHE EVOLUTION OF MIND, ... 103 ECONOMIC EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, . 122 IX. T^E POLITICAL EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, . 143 IE ETHICAL EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, . 165 XI. THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION, . 185 XII. THE PHILOSOPHIC ASPECT OF SPENCERISM, . 196 XIII. THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF SPENCERISM, . 210 CHAPTER I EARLY LIFE CARLYLE has remarked that the history of the world is in the main the history of its great men. There is profound truth in the saying, though in his anti pathy to a purely scientific treatment of civilisation Carlyle used his great man theory in fantastic and misleading fashion. The intellectual contribution which each century makes to the progress of the world takes its hue from the dominating influence of its leading thinkers. True greatness is epoch- making. If we wish to discover the place of a thinker in the great evolutionary chain, we must apply th"* epoch-making test. The mind of the great mail is like an overflowing reservoir which makes for itself new channels and fertilises hitherto unknown tracts of thought. Or to use a biological simile, the sociological effects produced by the great man resemble the changes caused in the fauna and flora of a country by the introduction of a new species. Think of the impoverishment which history would sustain by the obliteration of the names, say, A 2 HERBERT SPENCER not of Paul, Augustine, Calvin. Those thinkers only unlocked new forces in their day and generation, but even yet from their tombs they hold sway over the minds of countless thousands. Their specula tions formed the creeds of centuries, and their life passionate and yearning musings upon human and destiny find echo in the souls of some of the noblest of earth s sons. When the long night of authority and credulity was drawing to a close, when the sun of inquiry was dawning above the horizon, great thinkers arose who, from the moun tain-tops of science, foresaw the meridian glory of the Age of Reason. After the splendid work of Mr. John Morley, it is superfluous to dwell upon the achievements in the cause of enlightenment of the intellectual heroes of the Revolution epoch. The great constructive systems of the past had not only fallen before the assault of Reason, but had become cumberers of the ground. The decaying creeds of the past not only impeded the progress of thought, but were a barrier to social amelioration. Paths had to be cut through the jungle, and, in the name of humanity, abuses hoary with the sanctity of re ligion had to be attacked. For the pioneering work accomplished, humanity is everlastingly debtor to the bold thinkers of the Revolution epoch. Not content with the work of destruction, they set themselves to the task of construction. Humanity EARLY LIFE 3 cannot live on negation. Through the writings of Voltaire, Diderot, and the Encyclopaedists may be detected attempts to formulate a conception of man and his destiny which would take the place of the theologic conception which in pre-scientiflc times had done duty for ages as man s attempt to solve of idea the problem Existence ; indeed the of the Encyclopaedia rose out of the feeling that destruction needed to be supplanted by painstaking attempts to attain to a comprehensive, coherent theory of life, in which humanity would find at once intellectual satisfaction and emotional har mony. Out of dissatisfaction with mere negation grew not only the Encyclopaedia, but the imposing systems of Holbach and Helvetius. The time was not ripe for imposing philosophic systems, for the simple reason that knowledge of the universe and man had not gone far enough to be organised on a scientific basis. No system can endure which rests on premature generalisations and unverified speculations; unconsciously the Rationalists of the Revolution imported into their creed-making the unreliable methods of the Theologians. Still their failure on the constructive side should not lessen our admiration for the splendid work they did as liberators of humanity. They loosened the hold of decaying creeds; they cleared the dense forest of the to the thought ; they pointed way promised land of mental freedom and social progress. 4 HERBERT SPENCER After the French Revolution had spent its force, progressive thinkers became alive to the purely destructive nature of that movement on the in tellectual side. Among them was Comte a thinker whose great merits have not had adequate re cognition. Comte had the true sign of greatness intellectual vision. He was not content, like Hume and analytic thinkers generally, to resign himself to the gloom of the forest, or to smother the ever-recurring thoughts of man and his destiny in the petty butterfly attractions of an Epicurean philosophy. His great ambition was to provide a path and an ideal by which humanity would march boldly on to the expansive uplands and heights of truth. Comte s methods were distasteful to his English readers. His colossal egoism, his prefer ence for mediseval modes of thought, and his disparagement of individual liberty and reason, set on edge the critical teeth of many who sympathised with his high-souled endeavours. Destructive critics like Huxley used Comte in order to make sport for the Philistines. The fatal blow to Comte s influence came from the new idea of Evolution, which wrecked his p ilosophic system as it did the systems of Buckle and Mill. All three thinkers found themselves stranded because of their inability to incorporate the n w views which were to revolutionise philoso as phical well as scientific thought. Still, in spite of the ridicule of Huxley and the contemptuous I EARLY LIFE 5 treatment accorded to him in Prance and England, Comte deserves to be held in remembrance as a thinker of fine calibre, prophetic vision, fertile thought, and massiveness of mind. The dominating idea of the last half of the nine teenth century is Evolution an idea so far-reaching in its influence, so mesmeric in its power, that at its touch all other ideas crystallise round it and, as if by magic, yield to its potent sway.

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