The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Herbert Spencer’s Works.
• Note By the Trustees.
• Preface.
• Note.
• Family-antecedents.
• I.: Extraction.
• II.: Grandparents and Their Children.
• III.: Parents.
• Part I.: 1820—1837.
• Chapter I.: Childhood. 1820—1827. Æt. 1—7.
• Chapter II.: Boyhood. 1827—33. Æt. 7—13.
• Chapter III.: A Journey and a Flight. 1833. Æt. 13.
• Chapter IV.: Youth At Hinton. 1833—36. Æt. 13—16.
• Chapter V.: A False Start. 1836—37. Æt. 16—17.
• Part II.: 1837—1841
• Chapter VI.: Commence Engineering. 1837—38. Æt. 17—18.
• Chapter VII.: Life At Worcester. 1838—40. Æt. 18—20.
• Chapter VIII.: Some Months At Powick. 1840. Æt. 20.
• Chapter IX.: A Nomadic Period. 1840—41. Æt. 20—21.
• Part III.: 1841—1844
• Chapter X.: Return to Derby. 1841—42. Æt. 21—2.
• Chapter XI.: A Visit and Its Consequences. 1842. Æt. 22.
• Chapter XII.: Back At Home. 1842—43. Æt. 22—23.
• Chapter XIII.: A Campaign In London. 1843. Æt. 23.
• Chapter XIV.: At Home Again. 1843—44. Æt. 23—24.
• Part IV.: 1844—1848
• Chapter XV.: A Brief Sub-editorship. 1844. Æt. 24.
• Chapter XVI.: A Parliamentary Survey. 1844. Æt. 24.
• Chapter XVII.: An Interval In Town. 1845. Æt. 24—5.
• Chapter XVIII.: Another Parliamentary Survey. 1845—46. Æt. 25—26.
• Chapter XIX.: Inventions. 1846—47. Æt. 26—27.
• Chapter Xix A.: Suspense. 1848. Æt. 28.
• Part V.: 1848—1853
• Chapter XX.: Begin Journalism. 1848—50. Æt. 28—30.
• Chapter XXI.: My First Book. 1848—50 Æt. 28—30.
• Chapter XXII.: An Idle Year. 1850—51. Æt. 30—31.
• Chapter XXIII.: A More Active Year. 1852. Æt. 31—32.
• Chapter XXIV.: Leave the Economist. 1853. Æt. 33—34.
• Part VI.: 1853—1856
• Chapter XXV.: Two Months’ Holiday. 1853. Æt. 33.
• Chapter XXVI.: Writing For Quarterly Reviews. 1853—54. Æt. 33—34.
• Chapter XXVII.: My Second Book. 1854—55. Æt. 34—35.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Eighteen Months Lost. 1855—56. Æt. 35—36.
• Chapter XXIX.: Some Significant Essays. 1856—7. Æt. 36—37.
• Appendices.
• Appendix A.: Skew Arches.
• Appendix B.: Geometrical Theorem.
• Appendix C.: Velocimeter. an Instrument For Calculating Velocities On Railways, &c.
• Appendix D.: Scale of Equivalents.
• Appendix E.: Ideas About a Universal Language.
• Appendix F.: Remarks On the Theory of Reciprocal Dependence In the Animal and Vegetable Creations As Regards Its Bearing Upon PalÆontology.
• Appendix G.: Levelling Appliances.
• Appendix H.: On a Proposed Cephalograph.
• Appendix I.: Registered Binding-pins, For Securing Music and Unbound Publications.
• Appendix J.: the Form of the Earth No Proof of Original Fluidity.
• Appendix K.: Letter to the Athen Æum Concerning the Misstatements of the Rev. T. Mozley.

PART VI.

1853—1856

• XXV.Two Months’ Holiday.
• XXVI.Writing for Quarterly Reviews.
• XXVII.My Second Book.
• XXVIII.Eighteen Months Lost.
• XXIX.Some Significant Essays.

CHAPTER XXV.

TWO MONTHS’ HOLIDAY.

1853. Æt. 33.

Except for ten days at Christmas 1851—2, I had not been absent from London more than four days at a time since the autumn of 1848: a period of nearly five years. Naturally, therefore, as the close of my engagement approached, plans were laid for utilizing my freedom by visits and tours.

During the spring it had been arranged that I should spend a fortnight with the Potters immediately after my release. They had just migrated to a new residence near Stonehouse, named Standish House, owned by Lord Sherborne, and at one time inhabited by him. It stands on the flank of the Cotswold Hills, facing the west. Behind, separated from the grounds by a ha-ha, a large park-like field running up the side of the hill, is bounded by an amphitheatre of beech trees. In front lies a broad valley, on the far side of which, some ten miles off, is to be seen, when the tide is up, the silver streak of the Severn estuary. Beyond this lie high lands: on the right, in the dim distance, the Malvern Hills; far away to the left the hills of South Wales; and in front the Forest of Dean, over which gorgeous sunsets are often to be witnessed.

I have thus briefly described the surroundings of Standish House because, during the succeeding thirty years—in spring, summer, autumn, winter—very many happy times were passed under its hospitable roof. During this first visit there was the added charm of novelty. A walk up through the beech woods to the top of the high ground behind, brought into view the Vale of Stroud, with, to me, its bitter-sweet memories; and, running out of it in various directions, branch valleys, with here and there a village nestling in a fold of the hills. Then there was Beacon Hill, a spur of the Cotswolds; and the adjacent picturesque region known as Standish Park. Now first explored, these, and many other neighbouring scenes at that time unvisited, were in after years places for pleasant excursions: mostly walking, sometimes driving, and rarely riding.

Of course indoors our lighter conversations were interspersed with discussions. Probably on this occasion, as on many occasions, there cropped up what was becoming more and more dominant in my thoughts—the development of hypothesis. It was at that time rare to find anyone who entertained it; and my friends habitually met the expression of my belief with a tolerant smile.

On returning to town towards the close of July, a few days were occupied in preparations for a tour in Switzerland. During the spring I had agreed with Lott that we should visit in company. “I will go to heaven with you,” he wrote in one of his letters: so expressing his passionate love of scenery. When the time fixed for our departure came, he was detained by business; and, finding after some days that the detention would be considerable, I, anxious to get away, partly on grounds of health, decided to start in advance and await him at Zurich.

Why give any account of our journey? All who have not been in Switzerland have read about it; and only special genius for description, or else an endowment of humour great enough to evolve amusement out of familiar things, would be an adequate excuse for the narrative. I will limit myself to the briefest outline.

My first acquaintance with the Continent was made at Antwerp; whence, having just time to see the cathedral and Ruben’s picture, I departed for Aix-la-Chapelle. Early next day to Cologne; and, after an hour or two spent chiefly in its then unfinished cathedral, by steamer to Coblentz. On to Maintz and Frankfort next day; feeling a good deal disappointed with the picturesque part of the Rhine. Two nights and a day at Frankfort were made miserable by my first attack of tooth-ache, after an immunity of thirty-three years. Thence to Basle; and thence, after a day, to Zurich. Here I spent a week or so; and then, when the time for my friend’s arrival had been exceeded by some days, I got impatient, and left a letter for him at the post-office telling him that he would find me at the top of the Righi. Two days’ walk brought me there; and he joined me within a few hours of my arrival. The successive journeys of our subsequent days ran thus:—Along the Lake of Lucerne to Fluelin and Amsteg; to Andermatt and Hospenthal; the Furca Pass and up to Furca-horn; over the Rhone Glacier, up the Grimsel Pass, and down to the Handeck Falls; to Meyringen; over by Rosenlaui to Grindelwald; up the Faulhorn; down again, and up the Wengern Alp; to Lauterbrunnen and Interlaken; a day’s rest; by steamer to Thun, and by carriage to Frutigen; over the Gemmi to the baths of Leuk; by carriage to Visp and on foot to Stalden and Nicolai; to Zermatt; a day on the Gorner glacier; up the Riffelberg and Gorner Grat and down; back to Nicolai; back to Visp. Here ended our pedestrian tour. A diligence took us to Vevay and to Basle; the railway thence to Mannheim; steamer down the Rhine to Cologne; railway to Brussels; where my friend left me, and where I spent a few days before returning to London.

I suppose I must say something about the impressions our tour left. My first remark is that we committed the usual error. With an insatiable appetite for scenery and a definitely limited holiday, my friend Lott was constantly a spur; and instead of seeing a moderate amount and seeing it well, we saw a great deal hurriedly.

But what were my impressions? Two unlike answers would seem to be given by two extracts from letters, either of which is misleading if taken by itself. The first is from one written to my father after my return.

The other is from a letter to my uncle William, hurriedly written in pencil, and dated “Top of the Faulhorn, 8000 and odd feet above the sea, 22 Aug. 1853.” This, though it avows no impression, indicates one.

The reconciliation between the different feelings implied by these different extracts, is furnished by a sentence which precedes the first of them.

Beauty is deficient both because there is a lack of the warmer and brighter colours and because the forms do not compose well—the lines do not combine picturesquely. But this deficiency of beauty leaves the grandeur undiminished. After a time during which is acquired some power of interpreting the impressions made on the senses, unfamiliar with scenes of such vastness, there all at once comes a revelation; as when, while looking from the smaller mountains on one side of a valley at the great ones on the other, which, instead of dwindling as we have ascended seem to have grown, a cloud comes drifting across their faces and over it their peaks suddenly rise to a height far above that which they previously seemed to have. “Nature is the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance,” says Emerson; and there are few places in which the truth of the saying is more vividly felt than in presence of one of these immense snow-crowned masses which now and again makes the valleys reverberate by its avalanches.

The often-quoted remark of Kant that two things excited his awe—the starry heavens and the conscience of man—is not one which I should make of myself. In me the sentiment has been more especially produced by three things—the sea, a great mountain, and fine music in a cathedral. Of these the first has, from familiarity I suppose, lost much of the effect it originally had, but not the others.

To this brief indication of the mental impressions left by the tour, there has to be added something concerning the physical effects apparently produced by it.

Years before, I had read Andrew Combe’s work The Principles of Physiology applied to the preservation of Health, and had duly accepted the warning given by him against excessive exertion on the part of those who, having previously led sedentary lives, attempt feats of walking and climbing. Yet, aware as I was of the possible mischiefs, I transgressed: not, however, as it seems, without excuse. In the above-named letter written on the Faulhorn, after urging my uncle to see Switzerland, I went on to say—

Of three excesses in walking which I recall (the last being subsequent to the date of the above-named letter, notwithstanding the resolution expressed in it) two were caused by misleading statements contained in Murray’s Guide. This led us to arrange for stopping at places which, when we saw them, we instantly decided to avoid at the cost of two or three hours’ more walking along rough roads and in partial darkness: previous experience having proved that nights made sleepless by fleas were the alternatives.

These details I set down as introductory to the statement that within a few days of my return to London, there began signs of enfeebled action of the heart. There was no mental cause. As said in a letter to my father, while in Switzerland “I cultivated stupidity assiduously and successfully;” and after my return it was some weeks before I got seriously to work.

Two distinguished physiologists have at different times assured me that the heart cannot be overtaxed; but, authoritative though their opinions are, I have found acceptance of them difficult. Among reasons for scepticism are these:—First, the improbability that there are no foundations for the many assertions that extreme exertion, as in rowing matches, sometimes leaves behind a long prostration. Second, there is the unquestionable fact that during states of debility the heart is easily overtaxed: the implication being that if, during an abnormal state, its limit of power may be exceeded, it may be exceeded during a normal state. Third, the truth that other organs have limits to their powers which cannot be over-passed without damage—damage sometimes ending in atrophy—seems scarcely likely to fail in the case of one organ alone. Fourth, such an exception does not seem reconcilable with the hypothesis of evolution; for how, by either natural selection or by direct adaptation, can any organ have acquired a never-used surplus of strength?

Be the interpretation what it may, however, here is a fact, that immediately after my return from Switzerland, there commenced cardiac disturbances which never afterwards entirely ceased; and which doubtless prepared the way for the more serious derangements of health subsequently established.

The record of my doings at this period will be incomplete if I do not mention a visit paid into Suffolk.

One of the places at which my uncle had, in 1852 I think, discharged for a time the duties of the absent clergyman, was Halesworth; and among those who were drawn from neighbouring places by the accounts of his preaching, was Mrs. Trevanion, one of the daughters of Sir Francis Burdett of political celebrity. A friendship with my uncle resulted, which was renewed during Mrs. Trevanion’s sojourns in London. I suppose it was on one of my Sunday evening visits to him at Notting Hill that I first met her; though I cannot recall the occasion.

From my aunt it doubtless was that she heard of my religious opinions, and thereupon became concerned about my state and anxious for my conversion. She was an admirer of Dr. Cumming, one of the popular preachers of that day, and begged that I would accompany her to hear him. There was no escape for me: I had to yield. It is scarcely needful to say that none of the hoped-for effect was produced. While it raises a smile, there is something pathetic in the confidence with which those who have never inquired, think that those who have inquired and rejected, need but to hear once more the old beliefs duly emphasized to be convinced.

During the spring or early summer, it was arranged that after my return from Switzerland I should spend a fortnight with Mrs. Trevanion at her residence in Suffolk—Earl Soham Lodge, near Woodbridge. After nearly a month in London I left it to make the promised visit. The following extracts from a letter to my father, written from Earl Soham on October 8, I quote chiefly because of the indications they give of engagements and intentions.

My visit to Earl Soham I brought to a close as soon as I could, finding it, as I anticipated, very dull. Being nearly twenty years my senior, and having comparatively few subjects of interest in common with me, my amiable hostess did not prove an enlivening companion; and I had not liveliness enough for two. In various ways Mrs. Trevanion resembled her younger sister Lady Burdett-Coutts. In the one there was, as in the other there is, a union between interest in human welfare at large and interest in the welfares of those around, prompting frequent acts of kindness and attention. This is a trait much to be admired; for general philanthropy is often not accompanied by philanthropy in detail.

On the 17th of October I was back in London, and leaving it next day, I spent a week with the Brays at Coventry; whence I departed in time to reach home towards the close of the month.

CHAPTER XXVI.

WRITING FOR QUARTERLY REVIEWS.

1853—54. Æt. 33—34.

That part of a biography which consists of printed gossip, having little or no significance, bears a variable ratio to that part which has significance more or less considerable. Commonly, the trivialities of incident and action, which might have been this way or that way without appreciably affecting the general result, occupy the larger space, and to many readers prove the most attractive; while relatively small interest is felt by them in those passages, occupying relatively subordinate places, which throw light on the genesis of character and belief and conduct.

Of course detailed personalities in considerable amount are indispensable; since, without them, the narrative of a life cannot have the continuity and cohesion required to give it the concreteness of reality. Of such details I have myself found it needful to set down many. But I have sought to give more prominence than usual to the delineations of ideas and the manifestations of sentiments; and I have aimed to show, directly or by implication, the relations of these to innate traits, to education, and to circumstances.

In the life of the man of action an account of external events naturally occupies the first place; but in the life of the man of thought the first place should, I think, be occupied by an account of internal events. Not the origin and description of deeds is now the thing of chief import, but the origin and description of doctrines. Hence I have not scrupled to devote from time to time considerable space to digests of essays, and to such comments on them as seemed requisite to explain their antecedents.

I make these remarks here because, during the period of some eight months to be covered by this chapter, there occurred scarcely anything of moment in the shape of incident. Only those who are interested in tracing the growth of theories will find in it matter to detain them.

“Method in Education” was commenced while I was at Earl Soham, but the inertness of brain consequent on bodily exertion in Switzerland had not been overcome, and little progress was made. Save the first few pages, the essay was written at Derby during November.

Its subject had a triple interest for me. Relating to it there were certain results of observation, and to some extent of experiment, which seemed worth setting forth, considered intrinsically. Then it had direct connexions with psychology, which was at that time dominant in my thoughts. Moreover, mental development had its place in the theory of development at large: serving at once to illustrate this and to be elucidated by it. If not consciously, still unconsciously, the desire to treat of it from the psychological and developmental points of view decided me to make “method in education” the topic for a review-article.

Under its biological aspect, education may be considered as a process of perfecting the structure of the organism, and making it fit for the business of life. Inferior creatures exemplify this truth to a small extent. The behaviour of adult birds to their newly-fledged offspring, and the play of a cat with her kitten, show us ways in which the young are induced so to exercise their limbs and perceptions and instincts as daily to strengthen them and give finish to the various parts called into action. In children the physical education naturally effected by spontaneous play, as well as that artificially effected in a much less desirable way by gymnastics, visibly develops the muscles; and, as every physiologist will infer, develops also the nerves and ganglia which co-ordinate their movements, as well as the nerves and ganglia which are used in perception. A like development accompanies the activities classed as intellectual: there is a finishing of the employed cerebral plexuses. Nay, more than this is true. Every lesson learnt, every fact picked up, every observation made, implies some molecular re-arrangement in certain nervous centres. So that not only that effect of exercise by which the faculties are fitted for their functions in life, but also the acquirement of knowledge serving for guidance, is, from the biological point of view, an adjustment of structure to function.

What is the implication? Evidently that method in education must correspond with method in organization—must be a kind of objective counterpart to it. Organization does not go on at random, but everywhere conforms to recognizable principles; and unless these principles are recognized and conformed to in education, the organizing process must be impeded. It needs but to remember that in its rudimentary state every organism is simple, while it ends in being relatively complex, and often highly complex—it needs but to remember that in its first stage the forms and divisions of an unfolding germ are vague while in the adult they are quite distinct—it needs but to remember that these truths, holding of the transformation in its entirety, hold of it in all its details; to see that they yield guidance to the teacher in framing his system, and that if he disregards them he will commit grave errors; as when he insists on putting into undeveloped minds perfectly exact ideas: exactness being not only unappreciated by, but even repugnant to, minds in low stages.

I need not specify all the conclusions drawn from this general conception, which the essay set forth. I will add only that from it were derived reasons “for making education a process of self-instruction, and by consequence a process of pleasurable instruction.” And I name these two derivative principles only to gain the opportunity of saying that, in the enunciation and advocacy of them, I recognize, more than anywhere else, the direct influence of my father. It was by strengthening certain habits of thought that his chief influence over me had been exercised, and it thus was general only; but in this case it was special. If not by precept yet unmistakably by example, he produced in me an early acceptance of these principles; and there remained but to justify them by affiliating them on the Method of Nature.

That which is chiefly to be noted here, however, is the relation borne by the ideas in this essay to preceding and succeeding ideas. That its pervading doctrine was evolutionary goes without saying. But it yields proof that certain specific evolutionary doctrines were growing. It is said of mind that “like all things that develop, it progresses from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous”; and it is also said that “the development of the mind, as all other development, is an advance from the indefinite to the definite.” Thus are shown the presence, and the incipient spreading, of conceptions which were afterwards to take a far wider range.

The title of this essay when published in The North British Review for May, 1854, was changed to “The Art of Education.” It now forms the second chapter of Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical.

Some reflections may fitly introduce the next essay. An American—or to speak strictly an Americanized Scotchman,—who maintained the unlimited right of the majority to rule, said to me that if the majority were to pass a law directing what food he should eat, he would obey. He was an enthusiastic upholder of free institutions, or rather, of what he supposed to be free institutions. He would have been greatly astonished had I told him, as I might properly have done, that his conception of freedom was but rudimentary.

There has grown up quite naturally, and indeed almost inevitably, among civilized peoples, an identification of freedom with the political appliances established to maintain freedom. The two are confused together in thought; or, to express the fact more correctly, they have not yet been separated in thought. In most countries during past times, and in many countries at the present time, experience has associated in men’s minds the unchecked power of a ruler with extreme coercion of the ruled. Contrariwise, in countries where the people have acquired some power, the restraints on the liberties of individuals have been relaxed; and with advance towards government by the majority, there has, on the average, been a progressing abolition of laws and removal of burdens which unduly interfered with such liberties. Hence, by contrast, popularly-governed nations have come to be regarded as free nations; and possession of political power by all is supposed to be the same thing as freedom. But the assumed identity of the two is a delusion—a delusion which, like many other delusions, results from confounding means with ends. Freedom in its absolute form is the absence of all external checks to whatever actions the will prompts; and freedom in its socially restricted form is the absence of any other external checks than those arising from the presence of other men who have like claims to do what their wills prompt. The mutual checks hence resulting are the only checks which freedom, in the true sense of the word, permits. The sphere within which each may act without trespassing on the like spheres of others, cannot be intruded upon by any agency, private or public, without an equivalent loss of freedom; and it matters not whether the public agency is autocratic or democratic: the intrusion is essentially the same. My American friend would, I suppose, have admitted that had he been a negro; and had a planter who bought him and set him to work, happened to have his plantation confiscated by the Government; and if the Government, carrying on the planter’s business, made him, the negro, work under the lash as before; his slavery would be not much mitigated by the thought that instead of being coerced by an individual he was now coerced by the nation. Similarly, if he is forced to wear clothes of specified material or pattern, or if he is forbidden to take this or that kind of drink, the effect on him is the same whether the commands come from a despot or from a popular assembly. Had he a more developed conception of freedom, he would in all such matters of personal concern resent dictation by the million, as in past ages he would have resented dictation by the unit, and as he even now resents dictation by the million in respect of his religious beliefs and practices.

The power of the society over the individual is greatest among the lowest peoples. The private doings of each person are far more tyrannically regulated by the community among savages, than they are among civilized men; and one aspect of advancing civilization is the emancipation of the individual from the despotism of the aggregate of individuals. Though in an uncivilized tribe the control of each by all is not effected through formulated law, it is effected through established custom, often far more rigid. The young man cannot escape the tattooing, or the knocking out of teeth, or the circumcision, prescribed by usage and enforced by public opinion. When he marries, stringent regulations limit his choice to women of certain groups, or, as in many cases, he is not allowed to have a wife until he succeeds in stealing one. All through life he must conform to certain interdicts on social intercourse with connexions formed by marriage. So is it throughout. Inherited rules which the living combine to maintain, and the authority of which no one dreams of questioning, control all actions. Similarly during the early stages of civilized societies, when the political and ecclesiastical institutions have become well organized, the despotism they exercise is associated with the despotism exercised by the whole community over every member through its irresistible usages. But on turning from the East, where this connexion has been in all times exemplified, to the West of modern times, we see that along with a decrease of political restraints and ecclesiastical restraints there goes a decrease of ceremonial restraints; so that now these dictates of the majority may, many of them, be broken with impunity or without serious penalty.

Doubtless the current conception of freedom is congruous with existing social life; and a higher conception would be dangerously incongruous with it. Primitive men, having natures in most respects unfitted for social co-operation, were held in the social state only by coercion of one or other kind: those varieties of them which would not submit, having failed to become social. Progress occurred where there existed such obedience to despotic rulers, political and ecclesiastical, as made possible the control of ill-governed and aggressive natures. At that stage the assertion of personal liberties, wherever it occurred, was a fatal impediment to national growth and organization. Only along with the gradual moulding of men to the social state, has it become possible without social disruption for those ideas and feelings which cause resistance to unlimited authority, to assert themselves and to restrict the authority. At present the need for the authority and for the sentiment which causes submission to it, continues to be great. While the most advanced nations vie with one another in committing political burglaries all over the world, it is manifest that their members are far too aggressive to permit much weakening of the restraining agencies by which order is maintained among them. The unlimited right of the majority to rule, is probably as advanced a conception of freedom as can safely be entertained at present; if, indeed, even that can safely be entertained.

Ideas like some of these but less definite, or rather the sentiments appropriate to such ideas, prompted the article on “Manners and Fashion”; named at the close of the last chapter as having been agreed upon for publication in The Westminster Review, and which appeared in April. It was, I suppose, written at Derby before the middle of January.

As just implied, and as may be inferred from the latter part of the article, its original purpose was that of protesting against sundry of the social conventions to which most people submit uncomplainingly. Inherited nature and paternal example had united to produce in me repugnance of these, and especially to such of them as are expressive of class-subordination. But though, when planning the article, evolutionary views were not present to me, they came to the front when executing it. How things have come to be what they are—how they have naturally grown into their present forms, seems to have become a question which in every case presented itself; with the result that some fragment of the general theory of evolution was more or less definitely sketched out.

The truth that Law, Religion and Manners are related as severally being systems of restraints, having been illustrated, their bond of relationship was found in the fact that “originally Deity, Chief, and Master of the ceremonies were identical.” When, out of the primitive group, there arose some man whose remarkable powers, displayed chiefly in war, gave him predominance, the various kinds of control over the rest were simultaneously initiated. And out of this unity of control there was shown to arise that diversity of control exercised by political, ecclesiastical and ceremonial institutions. Restricted to the development of one of these forms of control, the essay proceeded to show that in the genesis of Manners itself, may be traced this same divergence and re-divergence. As with obeisances, which are variously abridged and modified forms of the original prostration, so with titles, modes of address, and ceremonies of all kinds, the uniform has become the multiform.

Though between these conceptions and the developmental conceptions set forth in preceding essays, there is a manifest harmony, yet the phrases previously employed do not recur. The differentiation of the political, ecclesiastical, and ceremonial institutions, is said to be “in conformity with the law of evolution of all organized bodies, that general functions are gradually separated into the special functions constituting them”; but there is no reference to the implied transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous. Similarly, while various of the facts given illustrate the transition from the indefinite to the definite, no mention is made of this trait of development. The substance of the conception had grown in advance of the form—had itself not yet become definite.

It should be added that there here makes its first appearance a doctrine which was, many years afterwards, elaborately developed—the doctrine that propitiation of the ruling man, becoming after his death propitiation of his double expected presently to return, gave origin to ideas and observances which became eventually those we class as religious.

What took me to London in the middle of January? Possibly in part my constitutional impatience of monotony; for life in Derby was always dull, and the change to London life with its exhilarations often served to raise my health up to par when it had been below par. Probably, however, the obtaining of additional information required for articles in hand, and the making of engagements for further articles, were the predominant motives.

Letters written from my old haunt, 20, Clifton Road, St. John’s Wood, contain passages which show what I was doing and intending to do. Here is an extract from one to my father, dated January 20.

From another dated Jan. 28, I take the following:—

In a letter of 17 Feb. occur the paragraphs:—

Here are passages from a letter written to my mother on 27 Feb.

I wrote to my father on March 14—

It seems that I returned to Derby a few days after the last-named letter was written, and there remained until towards the end of June.

Instead of the words “I am busy reading Comte,” used in one of the foregoing extracts, the words used should have been—I am busy reading Miss Martineau’s abridged translation of Comte. This had then been recently issued; and as two of my friends, Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans, were in large measure adherents of Comte’s views, I was curious to learn more definitely what these were. Already, as said in a preceding chapter, I had got through the “Exposition” in the original; and while remaining neutral respecting the doctrine of the three stages, had forthwith rejected the classification of the sciences. I had also read Mr. Lewes’s outlines of the Comtean system, serially published in The Leader. Whether, when I began to read Miss Martineau’s abridged translation, I had any intention of reviewing it, I cannot remember; but evidently, if not present at the outset, the intention was soon formed.

The disciples of M. Comte think that I am much indebted to him; and so I am, but in a way widely unlike that which they mean. Save in the adoption of his word “altruism,” which I have defended, and in the adoption of his word “sociology,” because there was no other available word (for both which adoptions I have been blamed), the only indebtedness I recognize is the indebtedness of antagonism. My pronounced opposition to his views led me to develop some of my own views. What to think, is a question in part answered when it has been decided what not to think. Shutting out any large group of conclusions from the field of speculation, narrows the field; and by so doing brings one nearer to the conclusions which should be drawn. In this way the Positive Philosophy (or rather the earlier part of it, for I did not read the biological or sociological divisions, and I think not the chemical) proved of service to me. It is probable that but for my dissent from Comte’s classification of the sciences, my attention would never have been drawn to the subject. Had not the subject been entertained, I should not have entered upon that inquiry which ended in writing “The Genesis of Science.” And in the absence of ideas reached when I was tracing the genesis of science, one large division of the Principles of Psychology would possibly have lacked its organizing principle, or, indeed, would possibly not have been written at all. In this way, then, I trace an important influence on my thoughts exercised by the thoughts of M. Comte; but it was an influence opposite in nature to that which the Comtists suppose.

I need not here say anything about my strictures on the schemes of Oken and Hegel, each of whom preceded Comte in the attempt to organize a system of philosophy out of the sciences arranged in serial order; nor need I say anything about the proofs given that Comte’s classification of the sciences is neither logically nor historically justifiable; nor about the assigned reasons for holding that the relations of the sciences cannot be expressed by any serial arrangement whatever. This critical part of the article, though originally intended to be the chief part, eventually became merely preliminary to the constructive part; which alone calls for comment in this place as being connected with subsequent developments of thought.

First pointing out how erroneous is the common notion that the knowledge called science is somehow sharply distinguished from common knowledge; and then tacitly affirming the self-evident truth that science must have gradually emerged from common knowledge; the essay proceeds to set forth the process of emergence. Even crude knowledge of things around exhibits prevision of one kind or other. Scientific prevision, acquiring definiteness as the knowledge of a relation between phenomena grows into knowledge of the relation, acquires still greater definiteness as qualitative prevision grows into quantitative prevision—as the ability to predict the kind of foreseen result grows into the ability to predict both the kind and the amount. This advance implies the conception of measure. Ideas of like and unlike, underlying the discriminations which even animals make, are suggested to the primitive man by various things, and especially by organic bodies: like shapes, colours, weights, are shown him by fish from a shoal, birds from a flock, beasts from a herd. Occasionally the objects are so nearly alike as to be scarcely distinguishable; and there emerges the idea of absolute likeness or equality. Of equalities, the most exactly ascertainable are those of lengths. Two fish side by side, showing equality of length, simultaneously imply the ideas of duality and of measurement by apposition. Such experiences, while thus yielding the ideas of equal lengths and equal units of length, which are the root-ideas of geometry, also yield the idea of equal units in the abstract, which is the root-idea of number and of the calculus in general. At the same time, since these organic bodies habitually present like relations among their attributes—size, form, colour, odour, taste, motions—in such wise that two or more of them being given others can be inferred, a concomitant consciousness of likeness of relations results; whence arises ordinary reasoning. Eventually out of this comes the conception of equality of relations, on which scientific reasoning proceeds. Those subsequent steps in the genesis of science thus initiated which are presented by the several sciences as they arise and diverge, cannot here be named. It must suffice to say that along with the process of divergence and re-divergence sketched out, there is sketched out the increasing inter-dependence of the sciences. It is curious, however, that though there are clearly portrayed in the article the increasing heterogeneity in the general body of the sciences, the increasing definiteness shown by all its components, and the increasing integration implied by their mutual influence and aid, there is no specific reference to this advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous and from the indefinite to the definite; though these formulæ had been used in a preceding essay. Again the substance of the conception had grown faster than the shape, which had not yet acquired definiteness.

During the spring and early summer there continued those signs of cardiac enfeeblement which set in after my return from Switzerland. They had diminished, indeed, but were still perceptible enough. Towards the end of June I decided to try hydropathy: not, I believe, because I had much faith in the nominal remedy; for it seemed to me then, as now, that the actual remedy is the change from an unhealthy, indoor, hard-worked and often anxious life, to a life of ease, novelty, and amusement, spent largely in the open air, while keeping regular and early hours and eating wholesome food. But whether the causes of improvement to health were essential to the system or concomitant only, it seemed worth while to give them a trial. I went to the establishment in which my uncle had, more than once, derived much benefit. An account of my experiences there is contained in the following paragraphs from a letter to my mother, dated Umberslade Hall, Hockley Heath, Birmingham, 30 June, 1854.

There had then but just commenced that transformation which hydropathic establishments have undergone. It has been amusing to watch the process by which classes of English people with ascetic or semi-ascetic ideas, have been betrayed into a mode of enjoyment which they would have looked askance at had it been proposed to them without disguise. If, forty years ago, anyone had advertised a country house in which the guests, living as a family, were to be provided with facilities for passing the time pleasantly, he would have had small chance of success. But the average Englishman has great belief in the benefits of any regime which treats his body severely, and makes him do things that are not agreeable to his sensations. The water-cure consequently fell in with his humour; and he took to it kindly. For companionship, patients brought with them relatives, often much younger, who needed no treatment. Those who took baths presently came to be out-numbered by those who merely utilized the opportunities for amusement; until at length, the hydropathic element becoming comparatively unobtrusive, there have grown up all over the kingdom places in which people assemble to have games and drives and picnics and balls, to flirt and to make matches.

Leaving Umberslade for London before the middle of July, I there occupied myself in bringing to a close some literary engagements. Though, as implied above, the article on “Railway Morals and Railway Policy” had been commenced early in the spring and had been completed at Derby, it was requisite, considering the seriousness of the allegations it made, to submit it, when in proof, to sundry of those who were familiar with the doings of the railway world. After these allegations had received their indorsement there came the need for dissipating the qualms of the editor of The Edinburgh Review—at that time Sir George Cornewall Lewis. I have pleasant recollections of my interview with him, and retain a clear picture of his remarkable face, though I never saw it again.

In a letter to my father dated 5 September 1853, occurs the passage:—“If you will get hold of Tuesday’s Times you will see a report of a meeting of South-Western Railway shareholders in which I took part—moved a resolution and made a speech.” It was from the impression made on me by the doings of the Board at this meeting, that the article in question originated. The experiences of my earlier engineering days had not revealed to me much; partly because I was not behind the scenes and partly because at that time corrupting influences were but beginning. During the railway-mania, however, when I resumed engineering, the motives and actions of those concerned became partially known to me. The conspiring together of lawyers, engineers, and others seeking for professional work, with promoters greedy of premiums, all utterly regardless of those who were betrayed by their hollow schemes, repelled me so effectually that I never applied for a single share, though I might have had many. Having at that time seen something of railway morals from the inside, I now, as proprietor, saw something of them from the outside: knowledge of motives gained in the first case serving to interpret actions in the second. I was indignant at the way in which proprietors were deluded by schemes projected and executed for the benefit of those who governed and those in league with them; and determined to expose the state of things.

As the developmental course of thought which it has been my purpose to trace in preceding brief analysis of articles, is not illustrated by this article, I need not here say anything about its contents further than to note the sole philosophical, or in this case ethical, principle enunciated. This principle was the undeniable one, that by a contract no person can be committed to more than he contracts to do. It was argued that this applies to the proprietary contract as to all other contracts; and that therefore the railway-shareholder cannot in equity be committed by any act, either of a board of directors or of his brother shareholders, to schemes not named in the deed of incorporation. And it was contended that the wide-spread ruin of individuals, and immense loss of capital by the nation in making unremunerative lines, would never have occurred had not the proprietary contract for making a specified railway, been habitually interpreted as though it were also a contract for making unspecified railways.

Concerning, as it did, the interests of multitudinous people, and containing many startling statements, this article attracted much attention—much more attention than anything else I ever wrote. It was eventually, with my assent, republished by Messrs. Longman in their “Traveller’s Library.” Some of the contained revelations brought upon them the threat of an action for libel.

My detention in London during the greater part of July was not without its compensations. Among these were several visits to the Crystal Palace, then recently opened, and then having a beauty which those who have seen it only of late years can hardly imagine. A letter to my friend Lott, expressing the wish that he would join me in visits to it, says:—“but I suppose that nothing can neutralize your yearning for the hills (joined with that of your wife) for this summer at least.” Succeeding paragraphs in the letter I give, because of the sundry things which they indicate.

Above, I have spoken of the attractiveness of the Crystal Palace in its early days. Here from a letter to my mother dated 15 July, let me quote a passage referring to it.

The degradation which it has since undergone, illustrates the way in which too strenuous an effort to make a thing good may end in making it bad. Had there not been so vast an expenditure on the great terraces, the immense flights of steps, the basins, fountains, and water-towers, the dividend on the capital invested in the Palace and its contents, would probably have been sufficient to satisfy shareholders; and there would not have been those frantic efforts to increase returns, which have ended in making the place a compound of bazaar, theatre, fancy fair, refreshment room, and tea-garden.

My matters of business having been transacted, I was now free to commence my long contemplated work on Psychology. Foregoing extracts from letters contain two indications that during the spring there had arisen the question—Why remain in England while writing the book? Why not write it abroad? Easy access to other books was not requisite; for its lines of thought had scarcely anything in common with lines of thought previously pursued; and of such material as was needed for illustration, my memory contained a sufficient stock. Why not then go to France, spend the remainder of the summer on the coast, and winter in Paris? Arrangements in pursuance of this scheme had been gradually made.

At the close of Chapter XIX, where my experience of a remarkable coincidence was noted, I said that a still more remarkable one would have presently to be described. It occurred just before I departed for France. While in London in the spring, I had been attended during indisposition by Mr. Robert Dunn, a medical man then residing in Norfolk Street, Strand. The small claim he had against me I wished to settle before leaving. What happened is told in the following extract from a letter to my father, dated 28 July.

At that time its strangeness seemed much greater than it seems now; for in the days when my double and I were baptized, the name Herbert, though now not uncommon, was extremely rare. Up to the age of 30 I never met any one bearing it.

The incident had a sequel. On my return from France some time afterwards, I again called to pay Mr. Dunn’s account, and again Mr. Dunn was from home. Not wishing to have any further trouble, I said I would pay to this namesake of mine the amount due. The result of course was that I obtained a bill made out to Herbert Spencer and receipted by Herbert Spencer. I still have it among my papers.

Some years afterwards this second Mr. Herbert Spencer was house surgeon to the London Hospital. Eventually he settled at Bradford, in Yorkshire, where he still resided in 1886.

[Afterwards there appeared on the scene a Dr. Herbert Spencer, who now practices in London. From 1888 to 1899 the two names occurred together in The Medical Register. Later came still another Herbert Spencer—a pickpocket! (See daily papers for July 6, 1893.)]

CHAPTER XXVII.

MY SECOND BOOK.

1854—55. Æt. 34—35.

Lying about eight miles north-east of Dieppe, Tréport is a small sea-port at the mouth of a valley which there makes a gap in the fine chalk cliffs extending along the coast each way. Some three miles, perhaps, up the valley, lies Ville d’Eu, containing, among other things, a château which belonged to Louis Philippe, who had also built himself a pavilion on the shore of Tréport. This Royal patronage it was which, I suppose, had brought Tréport into fashion as a sea-side resort—fashion which had not, however, in 1854 risen high enough to spoil it. My father had spent his midsummer vacation there; and his account of the place led me to choose it as my place of sojourn for the rest of the summer.

As the sea-side is found to be salubrious, the common inference is that the nearer the water the more beneficial the effect. This is a great mistake. The air of a beach, especially during warm weather and when the tide is out, is highly charged with vapour, and to many constitutions therefore enervating: differing widely in this respect from the air fifty or a hundred feet higher. My attention was first drawn to this contrast by my experiences at Tréport, where, on this first occasion, I settled myself in the Grande Rue, some distance back from the shore and high above it.

The house had a garden running up the slope towards the western cliffs, and at the top of this garden was a summer-house which made an agreeable writing-room for me in fine weather. Here I commenced The Principles of Psychology. A letter to my father dated 7 August contains the paragraphs:—

A tall, finely-built man, obviously English, had several times passed me in the town or on the cliffs, and we had looked askance at one another. At the public room or salon on the beach, I one day handed him a newspaper. This led to friendly interchange of remarks, and in a week or so we took our afternoon walks together. It was Mr. George Rolleston, in later years Professor Rolleston of Oxford. Our intercourse enlivened my stay; for besides being a man of wide culture he had a pleasant facetiousness which gave zest to his talk. Probably but for the acquaintanceship thus commenced, I should not have remained at Tréport as long as I did.

Even as it was my impatience of monotony caused me to leave it while the weather was still hot, and, as it turned out, much earlier than I ought to have done.

Curiosity was doubtless a spur to this premature departure. I was now 34 and had never seen Paris. Naturally the anticipated pleasure hastened my movements. A letter home speaking of my migration, dated Paris 14 Rue de l’Université, 31 August, 1854 says—

This was the first of many instances showing that I cannot bear to be cut off from my roots, and that I have not patience enough to wait until I root myself afresh. I soon get weary of sight-seeing, and cannot play the flaneur with any satisfaction. Moreover, in this case, the difficulty of carrying on conversation soon made wearisome what little social intercourse was available. When, with the effort to find words, there is joined the consciousness that multitudinous blunders are being made, there naturally results a tendency to abridge interviews, even when they are interesting, which most interviews are not. Hence the resolution notified in a letter to my father dated 12 September, after only a fortnight’s stay.

To the list of those I made acquaintance with, should have been added M. Littré, to whom Lewes had given me a letter of introduction. What passed between us I cannot now say. I remember only that he was a mild-mannered man, who had the traits of a student and a recluse. Judging from his appearance, I should have thought he had not stamina enough for his amazing achievement.

The resolution above indicated was carried out; and the next sign of my whereabouts is a letter dated Bree’s Boarding House, Jersey, 26 September. After giving some account of a twenty-seven hours’ journey, chiefly by diligence, which had proved somewhat injurious, the letter continues:—

Of course, as for leaving Paris long before I had intended, so for soon leaving Jersey, there were assignable reasons: there always are reasons for doing that which one’s feelings prompt. In either case, the discontented mood consequent on being far from friends, was, I suspect, the chief cause. I can do pretty well without seeing friends for some time, if I am within hail of them; but the consciousness that they are inaccessible is soon followed by depression.

The intention of migrating to Brighton took effect at the time named. In a letter thence, dated 2 Clifton Terrace, 2 October, occurs the following paragraph:—

Answering a question from my father respecting the discussion with Louis Blanc, a subsequent letter says—

As the little man—something under five feet I suppose—was animated, and my own mode of expression not wanting in energy, we drew inquiring glances as we walked up and down the parade. He spoke English remarkably well: having a good choice of words which he put together correctly and articulated with great distinctness—greater distinctness, indeed, than is usual among ourselves. Moreover, he had acquired the English cadence much more nearly than foreigners generally do.

I am reminded of a story which he told concerning a dreadful typographical blunder. The story has not, I think, become generally known; and as it is too good to be lost, I repeat it here. At that time, or not long before, lived a French lady-novelist who wrote as “La Comtesse ———.” The blunder occurred in the closing sentence of one of her stories: a sentence which was intended to embody its moral. As it left her pen the sentence ran—“Bien connaître l’amour il faut sortir de soi.” Instead of this the printers made it—“Bien connaître l’amour il faut sortir le soir.”

Correspondence shows that I was in town before the end of October. Giving the address 4 St. Ann’s Terrace, Acacia Road, I wrote home—

In a letter dated 2 November, occurs the paragraph:—

As thus shown, the four parts were not written in the order they followed when printed. Part III was written first: the reason being, I believe, that it contained the fundamental conception which pervades the entire work; and I was anxious to put this conception down on paper in its complete form. This having been done, I reverted to the arrangement of the parts as they were intended to stand; and wrote the remaining ones in the order I, II, IV.

On December 3, I wrote responding to my father’s expressed wish that I should go down to Derby for a time. One reason for assenting was want of society.

Passing to other matters the letter continues:—

In pursuance of the intention indicated in this letter, I presently went home, and, spending Christmas there, remained through part of January. No clue to any occurrences is given by correspondence, save by a letter from my father to my mother, who was away on a Christmas visit. It appears from this that I was unwell, and sometimes got no sleep till five o’clock in the morning: a sign, I suppose, that thinking and writing were beginning to tell upon me.

Towards the end of January I returned to town. It seems that my chief purposes in doing so were to arrange with the printer, and, if possible, to find some publisher who would take the whole or part of the risk of my forthcoming book. While referring to these objects, a letter which I have headed simply Monday, but to which my father has fortunately added the date, 29 Jan. 1855, also contains a passage of importance.

After some weeks, during which my hopes had been somewhat raised by Messrs. Smith & Elder’s intimation that they took a “favourable” view, I received their proposals. These, to my surprise, practically left me to bear all the risks, with but a remote chance of benefit should the book succeed. In my letter closing the negotiation, I remember saying that if such were their “favourable” terms, I was curious to know what their unfavourable terms might be.

But it was absurd to expect that a publisher could be found who would speculate in a work of so unpopular a kind. Very few grave books pay; most of them fail to return their expenses; and one on so uninviting a subject as psychology, by an author not bearing any endorsement, was sure to entail a loss. I ought to have known at the outset that, as before, so again, I should have to publish at my own risk; or, to speak definitely, should have to pay a penalty for publishing.

The need for economy now became increasingly manifest. I had done no remunerative writing since the preceding midsummer; and the non-receipt of an anticipated dividend on certain American railway-shares which I held, reduced my resources below the amount I had counted upon. It was thus clear that unless I took precautions, my purse would be empty before my book was finished. Leaving a quantity of MS. with the printer, I therefore, in the middle of March, returned to Derby; where I could live at much less cost than I could live in London.

An uneventful three months now followed. Concerning my life at Derby until the close of June, there is scarcely anything to say. The daily routine, and the signs of coming bad health, are the sole things I remember.

I spent something like five hours a day in writing: beginning between nine and ten, continuing till one, pausing for a few minutes to take some slight refreshment, usually a little fruit, and resuming till three; then sallying out for a country walk and returning in time for dinner betwen five and six. I had often warned my friends against overwork, and had never knowingly transgressed. Five hours per day did not seem too much; and had there been no further taxing of brain, no mischief might have been done. But I overlooked the fact that during these months at Derby, as during all the months since the preceding August, leisure hours had been chiefly occupied in thinking. Especially while walking I was thinking. The quickened circulation consequent on moderate exercise, produced in me then, as always, a flow of ideas often difficult, if not impossible, to stop. Moreover the printers were at my heels, and proofs coming every few days had to be corrected: tasks which must have occupied considerable portions of my evenings. Practically, therefore, the mental strain went on with but litle intermission.

That mischief was being done ought to have been clear to me. A broad hint that I was going wrong was this:—One of Thackeray’s stories—The Newcomes I think it must have been—was in course of issue in a serial form. When a new part came out I obtained it from a local library, and, reserving it till the evening, then read it through. As often as I did this I got no sleep all night, or, at any rate, no sleep till towards morning. My appearance, too, should have made me pause. A photograph still existing, which was taken during the spring, has a worn anxious look; showing that waste was in excess of repair. It seems strange that such knowledge as I had of physiology, did not force on me the inference that I was injuring myself, and that I should inevitably suffer.

But giving no heed to these warnings I thoughtlessly went on without cessation; eager to get the book done, and, I suppose, hoping that rest would soon re-establish my ordinary health. Towards the end of June there remained but three chapters to write. These were written elsewhere.

An artist, and head of the School of Art in Derby, Mr. A. O. Deacon, was about to spend his midsummer vacation in North Wales. I had been on friendly terms with him for some years; and our plans were in partial agreement. Travelling together as far as Conway, we there parted—he for Llandudno with his two boys and I for Bettws-y-coed—after having arranged to meet subsequently.

I had fixed upon Bettws as a place where I should get some fishing to occupy leisure times; but, as experience soon proved, the expectation was an ill-grounded one. Experience soon proved, moreover, that my vain hope had taken me to an undesirable place; for Bettws, being at the bottom of a close valley, is very enervating. A further sign of the coming disaster commenced here and continued afterwards; namely lying awake for an hour or two in the middle of each night.

A migration at the end of the week took me to Capel Curig, or rather to a hamlet half a mile to the East of it, Bryntich, where was a small hotel frequented by artists who had not yet won their spurs. Two were staying there. One of them at that time unknown but now well known, was Mr. Alfred Hunt. As I was interested in art, and apt to give utterance to my heresies, there resulted a good deal of lively talk between us, which usefully diverted a little the current of my thoughts.

The weather being fine, my writing while in Wales was done almost wholly out of doors. Furnished with a pocket inkstand I daily started off, manuscript in hand, for a ramble among the hills or along the banks of the Llugwy; and, from time to time finding a convenient place, lay down and wrote a paragraph or two. The opening of the chapter on “The Feelings” was written while reclining on the shore of Llyn Cwlya, a secluded lake some two or three miles from Bryntich. A week or so previously, while at Bettws, this practice had led to an amusing incident. After lying for some time with eyes fixed on the paper, I raised my head and saw, a few feet off in front, a semi-circle of sheep intently gazing at me: doubtless puzzled by a behaviour unparalleled in their experience. I was at the time busy with the chapter on “Reason,” and had I thought of it might have used the incident as an illustration. For it is a truth made manifest not only by comparing lower animals with men, but also by comparing different grades of men with one another, that whereas inferior intelligences go on making multitudinous observations to little purpose (drawing either no conclusions or wrong conclusions), superior intelligences, from a few observations properly put together, quickly draw right conclusions.

After some ten days at Bryntich, I removed to a place a few miles higher up the valley, where Deacon and I had agreed to meet.

This place was Pen-y-Gwyrid—a place of sad memories to me; for it was here that my nervous system finally gave way. Deacon failed to keep his appointment: writing me a letter from Nant Mill saying that he had commenced a picture there, and could not leave. The result was that, in the absence of all other guests at the hotel, I was alone; and thinking went on during meals and in the evening, as well as while I was at work and while I was walking. Some days seemed to have passed without manifest mischief, as witness the following passages from a letter to my mother, dated 16 July:—

But before this removal the mischief was done. One morning soon after beginning work, there commenced a sensation in my head—not pain, nor heat, nor fulness, nor tension, but simply a sensation, bearable enough but abnormal. The seriousness of the symptom was at once manifest to me. I put away my manuscript and sallied out, fishing-rod in hand, to a mountain tarn in the hills behind the hotel, in pursuance of a resolve to give myself a week’s rest; thinking that would suffice.

Next day came a walk to Beddgelert. That place being much shut in, proved, as I might have known it would, very enervating. After two days I left for Carnarvon and afterwards for Bangor; taking up my abode at Garth Point for a week. While there I managed to finish everything but the chapter on “The Will,” with which the work ends.

The close of the month found me back at home; where this last chapter was completed under great difficulties. I alternated between house and garden: writing a few sentences and then pacing up and down for a time to dissipate head-sensations—a persistence in physiological wrong-doing which brought on further serious symptoms.

Meanwhile the printers had overtaken me. There remained only to see the last proofs; make arrangements with the publishers; give directions about advertisements and the distribution of the work for review; and send copies to friends. Imprudently (and as I look back on these past days I am struck by my frequent imprudences) I went to London to transact these matters of business. Without any serious delay, everything might have been done by letter; and I ought to have remembered that London was not the place in which to find the quiet I needed.

During my short stay in London there did, indeed, occur an excitement which exacerbated my disorder. Meeting one afternoon Mr. F. O. Ward, a friend named in a previous chapter, I was pressed by him to join a dinner-party which he was giving that evening. I resisted: telling him of my break-down and of my consequent unfitness. But he was urgent and I weakly yielded. In a letter to my father I find an account of the dinner and its effect.

This expectation proved, alas! immeasurably too sanguine. I had no adequate conception of the damage which preceding months had done. The pursuit of health, now commenced, was fated to be unsuccessful; for health, in the full sense of the word, was never again to be overtaken.

Here, before narrating the incidents of that long interval which, in so far as concerns my active life, was a blank, let me say something about The Principles of Psychology, and the reception it met with.

At the time when it was published, extremely few were prepared even to entertain its fundamental conception, much less to agree with it; and nearly all were, in virtue of their established convictions, distinctly antagonistic. Hence the average criticisms were pretty certain to be unsympathetic. Two critics, indeed, were fully appreciative—Mr. G. H. Lewes and Dr. J. D. Morell. Most were as civil as could be expected considering the difference of view. Some were decidedly hostile. Among the last was Mr. R. H. Hutton, who made the book the text for an article entitled “Modern Atheism,” published in the National Review, a then-existing quarterly organ of the Unitarians, of which he was one of the editors. A review so entitled was of course damaging; and the more so because it gave the cue to some other reviewers. Among all the criticisms however, favourable or unfavourable, none gave a systematic account of the book. Anyone who, though possessed by the beliefs then current alike in the scientific world and the world at large, had thought it worth while to make a brief exposition, might have written somewhat as follows:—

Of course if Mind has been actually built up by this process, it can be, if not actually, yet theoretically, unbuilt by a reverse process. If it is composed of inner relations adjusted to outer relations, then it can be resolved into such inner relations. Mr. Spencer does not say this but apparently assumes it; and he seems to have written the part entitled “Special Analysis,” for the purpose of exhibiting the resolution of Mind into such components. Limiting himself to intellectual actions, he begins with the most involved of these—compound quantitative reasoning. This he aims to show is at every step a recognition of equality or inequality between relations severally existing between two clusters of equal relations. Descending through less involved forms of quantitative reasoning and coming down to ordinary reasoning, he argues that this differs only in the respect that the compared relations, no longer of measurable kinds, are now recognized not as equal or unequal but as like or unlike. In a succeeding chapter on classification, naming, and recognition, he finds no difficulty in showing that these mental acts are effected by the assimilation of clusters of relations (along with the impressions between which they exist), to their likes in past experience. There come next a number of chapters in which a kindred analysis of our perceptions is attempted—first those of special objects, then those of body, as presenting its several classes of attributes, and then those of space, time, motion and resistance: the aim throughout being to show that in every process of perception, a cluster of mental states, held together in relations like previously known relations, is partially or wholly classed with clusters previously known that were similarly composed. Mr. Spencer then proceeds to the relations themselves, grouping them as relations of Co-intension, Co-extension, Co-existence, Con-nature. At length he comes down to the ultimate relations of Likeness and Unlikeness, out of the variously compounded consciousnesses of which, he contends that all acts of intelligence are framed. In the closing chapter he insists upon this “unity of composition,” as he calls it: regarding it as evidence of the truth of his analysis, and apparently regarding it also as justifying his general theory. For if Mind is resolvable into continually established relations among states of consciousness, the conclusion harmonizes with the theory that Life is a continuous adjustment of inner relations to outer relations, and that Mind emerges from it as fast as the adjustment becomes more extended, more involved, and more complete.

The remaining part, “General Analysis,” which in the work itself comes first, is, it seems, an elaboration of an Essay entitled “The Universal Postulate,” originally published in The Westminster Review. Its subject-matter, otherwise described, is the ultimate criterion of belief; and its thesis is that in the last resort we must accept as true a proposition of which the negation is inconceivable. One might have expected that in discussing this topic, there would be no occasion for reference to the theory pervading the rest of the book. Nevertheless it is brought in by implication. Dealing with beliefs as products of experience, and contending that those beliefs of which the terms have been most frequently connected in experience are those which have the best warrant, Mr. Spencer holds that those of which the terms have been connected in experience perpetually, and without exception, are those of which the negations become inconceivable. And it appears that, regarding the effects wrought on the nervous system as transmissible; and thinking that these effects produce, by accumulation, organic connexions; he holds that those which have been repeated perpetually and uniformly in the experiences of all preceding generations produce “forms of thought.”

Succinctly stated, these are the doctrines set forth in The Principles of Psychology. It seems not improbable that here and there a credulous reader will be misled by the coherence and symmetry of the theory into acceptance of it: forgetting that it is based on an assumption which is not only entirely unwarranted, but which, directly at variance with Revelation, is rejected alike by all people of common sense and by all authorities in Science who have expressed their opinions. It is, indeed, strange that any one should have had the courage, not to say the audacity, to base an elaborate theory upon a postulate thus universally discredited. We suspect that hereafter Mr. Spencer’s volume will be relegated to a shelf on which are grouped together the curiosities of speculation.

Some such review as this might, with a little license of imagination, be supposed to have been written when the work was published in 1855. I say with a little license of imagination, because any one accepting, as the review implies, the beliefs concerning the organic world current at that time, would have been unlikely to bestow so much trouble in making an abstract. The days were days when the special-creation doctrine passed almost unquestioned. Though for the interpretation of the structure of the Earth’s crust, miracle was no longer invoked, it was invoked for the interpretation of the fossils imbedded in the Earth’s crust. This was unhesitatingly regarded by nearly all as a rational compromise; and any one expressing dissent was liable to be laughed at.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LOST.

1855—56. Æt. 35—36.

Tréport had proved so beneficial during my month’s stay the year before, that I decided to revisit it after my break-down. My friend Lott, who was invalided by a lame knee, agreed to follow me; and he arrived at the end of August, after I had been at Tréport about ten days.

Sometimes basking on the shingle, sometimes collecting specimens for two aquaria which we established—now taking rides and now spending an hour at the Salon near the sea, or at he shooting-gallery, we remained at Tréport till Sept. 18, with varying results in respect of health, and then returned by way of Calais and Dover. Next day we parted at Folkestone, where I remained a week.

Huxley, then recently married, was spending his honeymoon at Tenby; and I wrote to him making inquiries about the place. The result was that at the end of the week I journeyed thither. Letters show that I had hoped to benefit by going out dredging, and also by the pleasures of companionship. But I was disappointed. My state was such that I had to shun society: being unable to bear more than a few minutes’ conversation. I describe myself as “leading a very quiet life, looking at neither books nor newspapers”; and I enlivened my solitude by exploring St. Catherine’s Rock and its caves for creatures to fill my aquarium. and by watching their habits.

Reading the correspondence of these and subsequent months has somewhat changed my conception of myself. Having all through life had an even flow of spirits, unvaried by either elation or depression, I have usually supposed that I tended towards neither sanguine nor despondent views. But my statements and anticipations at this time make me think that I must be constitutionally sanguine. On the average, letters give the impression that satisfactory progress is being made, and that recovery may be looked for in a short time—an impression not at all congruous with my recollections. Here is a paragraph from a letter of 10 October, which I quote partly in illustration of this trait and partly because of the fact it contains.

But it did not continue to answer, and yet there is no mention of its failure. It may be that I was anxious to put the best face on matters when writing home. That the desire to relieve the fears entertained about me, was a part cause of these unduly favourable reports, I am the more led to suspect on finding no reference to the serious exacerbation of my disorder produced, when at Tréport, by reading a little too much while under the influence of quinine, joined with that of other tonic treatment, and producing a state of hot head which lasted for several days. This imprudence it was, I believe, which made permanent a morbid condition that might otherwise have been but temporary.

At the beginning of November I returned to Derby, much worse than I was when I left it early in August.

Not many years previously had settled at Nottingham, Dr. W. H. Ransom—a physician who presently became the leader of his profession in that place. My father suggested that I should consult him, and we went over together. Dr. Ransom was a specially fit adviser; for he had himself been a nervous sufferer. Attainment of the highest honours at his examination had been followed by a collapse from which it took a long time to recover.

He entered very fully into my case, telling me for my guidance various results of his own experience. I remember the shock given me by the statement that two years had elapsed before he was able to resume work: the implication being that the like might be the case with me. Ah! if I had known what the future was to bring forth, how I should have rejoiced over the prospect of a termination to my disorder—even though delayed for that interval.

Of his various suggestions I need here name only that which determined my movements for some time after. He said I ought to lead a rural life: taking up my abode in a farm-house, where, among other things, I could have the use of a horse. On naming Devonshire as a region towards which I had leanings (letters show that I had thought of crossing over from Tenby) he demurred somewhat on the ground of climate; but as he did not insist much on this objection I decided to go there.

A brief interval elapsed before an advertisement in the Devonshire papers had any result; and then the result was only a single reply. This promised fairly well, and I therefore journeyed to the south-west early in December.

The place at which I settled myself for a time, was Well House, Ideford, near Chudleigh. Besides myself there were, as inmates, an ensign from India on furlough, and his brother. Joined to the family, which included a governess, these made a sufficiently lively circle. A letter home, dated December 11, says—

And then comes a sentence illustrative of my sanguineness:—“At the present rate I shall soon be quite right; for I feel quite well, and sleep pretty nearly as well as I ordinarily do.”

Daily rides along the Devonshire lanes, now to Bishopsteignton, Teignmouth, or Dawlish, and now on the top of Haldon, passed the time pleasantly; and indoors, occasional hours were passed with the microscope, in the use of which I was trying an experiment. Thinking that in many cases greater power of penetration is the need, rather than more exact definition of such part of an object as lies in focal plane, it occurred to me that instead of the object glass having a wide aperture, the aperture should be the smallest which would admit a sufficiency of light. I therefore had made for me a movable cap to the object glass, having in its centre an opening about the size of a pin-hole; and, for illumination, I used direct sunlight passed through oiled tissue paper, to destroy the parallelism of the rays. The experiment was not without success; but I was, I believe, deterred from prosecuting it by finding that the rays diffracted by the edges of the hole interfered too much.

Let me name here an instructive fact which I observed during my stay. On Christmas Eve I thought I would amuse my host’s little daughter by showing her how a holly-berry with a pin thrust through it, will dance about in a vertical jet of air, in the same way that a ball does when placed in a jet of water. The farmer, a man of substance but of very little culture, was looking on; and I expected that he would show astonishment and curiosity on seeing for the first time so anomalous a behaviour. To my surprise he did neither; but displayed absolute indifference. Many years afterwards I was reminded of this experience by the accounts given of the comparative indifference which low savages display, when shown looking-glasses, watches, or other remarkable products of civilized life. Surprise and curiosity are not traits of the utterly ignorant, as they are commonly supposed to be, but of the partially cultured; and non-recognition of this truth vitiates the speculations of mythologists. They tacitly assume that the primitive man wonders at those great natural changes in the Heavens and on the Earth which he daily witnesses, and tries to account for them. But it is quite otherwise. He does not concern himself about them any further than as they affect satisfaction of his material deeds. If a member of the Max Müller school would cross-examine a few rustics concerning the Moon’s phases, he would see how baseless is his supposition respecting the mental states of the early races whose ideas he so definitely describes. No villager marvels at the monthly changes of the Moon; nor does he ever think of asking from an educated person how they are caused. Nay, if an explanation is volunteered he shows no interest. All through life he looks at these perpetual transformations with entire indifference: unless, indeed, in so far as he fancies they affect the weather.

Before the end of the first week in January I had become impatient with my slow progress at Ideford and decided to try Marychurch near Torquay. After two days there I concluded that, except in frosty weather, the climate of Devonshire was too relaxing; and thereupon decided to go home and find some place in the North.

A change of decision which took place while on my way, is indicated in the following letter; which I give in full because all parts of it are relevant to one or other point of interest.

Lanes Farm, Brimsfield Nr. Painswick.
22 Jany. ’56.

“My dear Potter

Your letter reached me in Devonshire—the last region to which I had wandered in search of health—just as I was leaving in consequence of finding the climate too mild. On my journey towards home it occurred to me to try the Cotswold Hills, which seemed likely enough to furnish a keen bracing air; and I have for the last ten days been seeking an abode.

I postponed replying to your letter until I had settled myself; and now that I have done so, I find the place and climate so unsuitable that I am thinking of going on Friday.

I should very much like to accept your kind invitation before going back to Derby; but I am almost afraid to do so. I am obliged to shun intellectual society: being unable to bear the excitement of it without injury. It seems beforehand very easy to avoid argument or disquisition; but in practice I find it next to impossible when the temptation arises. It will, I think, be most prudent to relinquish the various gratifications which your invitation holds out, until I can partake of them with less risk.

I am perfectly willing to try your remedy for rationalism. Indeed, marriage has been prescribed as a means of setting my brain right in quite another sense: the companionship of a wife being considered the best distraction—in the French not in the English meaning of the word. But the advice is difficult to follow. I labour under the double difficulty that my choice is very limited and that I am not easy to please. Moral and intellectual beauties do not by themselves suffice to attract me; and owing to the stupidity of our educational system it is rare to find them united to a good physique. Moreover there is the pecuniary difficulty. Literature, and especially philosophical literature, pays badly. If I married I should soon have to kill myself to get a living. So, all things considered, the chances are that I shall continue a melancholy Cœlebs to the end of my days.

Putting two and two together, I have my suspicions respecting the authorship of Laura Gay. But I will say nothing until I have internal evidence. My address has been too uncertain to admit of the copy which has been sent to me at Derby being forwarded. With kindest regards to Mrs. Potter and yourself,

I am
very sincerely yours
Herbert Spencer.”

In response to a letter from Mrs. Potter, received a few days later, re-inforcing the advice given in the letter replied to as above, I wrote—

The unsuitableness of the Brimsfield climate I had prematurely inferred from the fact that the high land of the Cotswolds was frequently wrapt in low-lying clouds at a time when the Severn valley was clear; and I supposed that this kind of dampness was enervating. But it proved not to have the same effect as the warm dampness of Devonshire. My eventual return home about the second week in February, was chiefly due to the departure of another invalid who had been staying at Lanes Farm. This left me companionless: a state of things I always found injurious. Less than three weeks at Derby sufficed. The impatience which I suppose was one result of my disorder sent me back to Brimsfield; and I find a letter dated 1 March, the day after my arrival there, in which occurs the paragraph—“I have just had my first bout of hard work and my first doze. I feel well and strong and tolerably stupid.”

Now exploring the neighbouring country and visiting on one occasion the remains of a Roman villa, now sauntering along the hedge-sides with gun in hand, now splitting up tree-stumps (which occupation, as having some little interest, proved the best exercise I tried) and now riding quietly along the lanes, I passed another three weeks at Brimsfield. Neither there nor in Devonshire did riding seem to be of much service; and I suppose for the reason that I never rode hard enough. I habitually brought back my horse without a hair turned. Having always myself had an intolerance of strenuous effort, and especially effort under coercion, my sympathy is aroused by any creature making strenuous effort under coercion; and the result has ever been a dislike to seeing either a man or an animal over-pressed, and still more to over-pressing one myself. It is curious how special the sympathies are. Mine are by no means as active in most directions as they are in this.

Reports written home from Brimsfield are as usual favourable, and on the whole it seems with reason; for I describe myself as having read “more than a third of the last volume” of a novel “in one day without any injury.” Of course I did this third by instalments; but it was a feat for me in those days. Insomnia persisted; and I frequently adopted heroic measures. In the middle of the night I got up and took a shower bath: the reaction serving to induce sleep. The most effectual method I discovered (not then, however, but afterwards) was a kind of mild hydropathic pack.

One morning there arrived at the door a groom on horseback. He came from Standish, which was less than ten miles off, bearing a letter again asking me to visit my friends there. Though doubting my ability to bear the social excitement that would be entailed, I assented, and bid good-bye to Brimsfield on the 22nd of March.

On the evening of my arrival at Standish, Mrs. Potter made an announcement which would have tried the nerves of many people in full health. She quietly told me that she was about to put me into a haunted room—a room in which one of her brothers had seen a ghost, and from which he had hurriedly departed next morning, almost without stopping to say good-bye, and had never been induced to sleep in the house since. I suppose she desired to put my disbelief to the test; but it was rather a sharp test for one labouring under a nervous disorder, whose nights were always broken by long waking intervals. Moreover, the failure to withstand such a test would have proved but little; for absolute as is the disbelief, early associations may so perturb the imagination as to throw judgment off its balance. Just as the eating of a dish of frogs or snails is to the ordinary Englishman rendered impossible by consciousness of its nature, though he may admit that his prejudice is absurd; so, in spite of himself, one who with entire confidence rejects the belief in ghosts may, in places where they are supposed to appear, be unable to expel the dread that was instilled by nursemaids and strengthened by stories of the supernatural afterwards read. However, in my case, early associations failed to have any such influence. I slept in the room for three weeks and saw nothing: sometimes occupying my waking intervals in speculating about the possible origin of the illusion.

Here, as at Brimsfield, I followed the policy of occupying myself in ways which, while involving exercise, absorbed the attention. I am reminded of some of these ways by passages in a letter to my mother written on March 29.

A letter home dated 9 April, explaining my continued presence at Standish as due to the kind pressure of my friends, names the 12th as my last day there.

A sojourn in London followed. To maintain the continuity of the narrative I give a few extracts from letters written while there. One of April 13 says—

Under date 21 April, I wrote to my uncle William—

To my father on 28th April, I said—

As I had printed 750, and as the chief sales of a book usually take place soon after its publication, this sale of only 200 copies during the first nine months, implied that a heavy loss was coming upon me. It showed, too, how pecuniarily wise had been the publishers who declined to undertake the risk, or any considerable part of it. A letter home dated 2 May contains the paragraph:—

On May 17, I wrote:—

The next letter to my father, dated 30 May, contains a paragraph which, on looking through my letters, I reread with special interest; since it refers to what proved to be the initiation of a long series of pleasures.

During my many years of London life this was the only loss by theft which I ever suffered; and I should not have suffered this had I been led to expect that we might go into a crowd.

The suspicion, indicated at the beginning of this chapter, that my letters home habitually gave too favourable an account of my health, is confirmed by finding in the series of them just quoted from, no mention of the serious relapse I experienced while in London. Mr. Fraser, now Professor Fraser, of Edinburgh, was a candidate for the chair then vacated by the death of Sir W. Hamilton, and wrote to me for a testimonial. I had read nothing of his, and was unfitted to express any opinion; but I did not like to give this as a reason for declining. I thought I might be able to read as much as was requisite, and I did so; but the result was a break-down, and an undoing of what good had been done during some previous months. I have often described myself as having an unusual ability to say “No;” but on now having recalled to me the events of past years, I find that lack of the nerve required to say “No” has been a cause of numerous disasters.

Our yachting excursion was made in fulfilment of the arrangement indicated above, and my next letter home is dated Marshall’s Royal Yacht Hotel, Guernsey, 5 June. It says—

There was nothing particularly impressive in Victor Hugo’s appearance or manner. My inability to follow French conversation with any facility, prevented me from appreciating what he said during dinner, or what he said afterwards, when we were occupied in playing some kind of game in his garden. Two things only I remember. He coupled the names of Bacon and Comte; and when he came down to see the yacht, the cabin, quite ordinarily fitted up, drew from him the words—rêve d’un poète: a phrase characteristic of his style. Madame Hugo was a much more striking person; answering completely to one’s idea of an old Roman dame. The two sons, also, were fine young fellows. The elder, whose name I did not hear, favoured the mother; while the younger, François Victor, was more of his father’s type. He was then busy with his translation of Shakespeare.

The rest of our cruise, carried out according to programme, brought no events of interest. It was prosperous: gentle breezes and sunny seas attending us throughout. The result was that we reached Portsmouth at the appointed time, and I was back in London on the 11th.

On the 16th I went home for a week; and then, leaving Derby for Coventry, spent a few days with the Brays at Rosehill. These visits were made on my way north. The friends with whom I was to spend part of the autumn in Argyllshire had not yet left town; but as I had seen enough of town, I decided to go to Scotland in advance, and there spend the time in rambling about and fishing until I received an intimation that they were expecting me.

I believe I had intended to go direct to Oban; but a fellow-traveller on the Glasgow and South Western line, seeing my fishing gear, and inquiring my intentions, recommended to me as a fishing place, Loch Doon, the head water of the River Doon, famed in song. Forthwith acting on his advice, I left the railway at New Cumnock, and made my way across country to Dalmellington. From there, in pursuance of information, I made my way to a farm-house on the shores of the Loch, where I obtained accommodation. The house was called Beoch; and thence I wrote home on the 10th July in the usual sanguine strain.

My constitutional tendency to call in question current opinions, was manifested when fishing, as on other occasions. While in Wales the year before, occupied in writing on Psychology and occasionally casting a fly over stream or llyn, it occurred to me that considering how low is the nervous organization of fishes, it is unlikely that they should be able to discriminate so nicely as the current ideas respecting artificial flies imply—unlikely, too, that they should have such erratic fancies as to be taken by combinations of differently coloured feathers, like no living creature ever seen. I acted upon my scepticism, and ignored the local traditions. Hearing me vent my heresies, the farmer, tenant of Beoch, challenged me to a competition. It was scarcely a fair one; for my flies, made by myself without practice, were of course ill-made, and the bungling make of them introduced an irrelevant factor into the competition. Notwithstanding this, however, fishing from the same boat we came back ties; showing that the local flies had no advantage. I may add here that in subsequent years I systematically tested this current belief in local flies; and on various lochs and four different rivers found it baseless. This experience furnished me with a good illustration of the uncritical habits of thought characteristic not of the common people only but of those who have received University educations. For in every case I have found highly cultivated men—professors and others such—accepting without hesitation the dogmas of keepers and gillies concerning the flies of the river. Always their assigned reason is that these dogmas express the results of experience. But inquiry would show that those who utter them have never established them by comparisons of numerical results. They simply repeat, and act upon, what they have been told by their predecessors; never dreaming of methodically testing their predecessor’s statements by trying whether, all other things being equal, other colours and mixtures of colours would not answer as well. The delusion results from pursuing what, in inductive logic, is called the method of agreement, and not checking its results by the method of difference.

Another incident which occurred during my stay at Beoch, was impressed on my memory by certain implications to which it awakened my attention. While out fishing one breezy morning, I got my line into a tangle, which I could not unravel; and at length, losing all patience, I vented an oath. The man in the boat with me, who, as I afterwards learned, was precentor at some neighbouring village kirk or chapel, reproved me: perhaps thinking himself called upon to do so by his semi-ecclesiastical function. I suppose it was the oddity of this incident which drew my attention to the fact that, being then thirty-six years of age, I had never before been betrayed into intemperate speech of such kind: thus making me more fully aware than before of the irritability produced by my nervous disorder.

And here let me pause to make some general remarks suggested by this incident—remarks intended to convey a warning to those who are in the habit of greatly taxing their brains. That I may the better do this, let me ignore for a moment the order of events.

I will begin by extracts from letters; the first of which, written to a friend thirty years later, during the worst phase of my nervous disorder, refers to the frequent relapses which I was undergoing.

The second extract is from the reply made by my friend, himself suffering under a long-established nervous disorder, who had recently passed through a severe crisis.

These two testimonies, so curiously coincident, illustrate the truth that under a lowered condition of the nervous system, failure is first manifest in the highest intellectual co-ordinations and in the highest emotional co-ordinations. Speaking generally, each step in mental evolution results in a faculty by which the simpler pre-existing faculties have their respective actions so combined that each aids in regulating or controlling the others, and the actions of all are harmonized. Each higher judgment differs from lower judgments in that it takes account of more numerous factors, or more correctly estimates their degrees of relative importance; and is thus a more complex mental act. And similarly, among the higher feelings, all relatively complex, the highest are those which stand related to lower ones as moderators: their moderating function being effected by combining within themselves representations of these lower feelings, no one of which is allowed to occupy more than its due share of consciousness, and therefore is not allowed unduly to sway the conduct. Manifestly, by their very natures as thus understood, these highest intellectual and emotional powers, by which well-balanced judgments are reached and well-balanced feelings maintained, require more than all others, a full flow of nervous energy—a flow sufficient to simultaneously supply all the numerous structures called into action. Consequently, they, before all others, fail when the tide of nervous energy ebbs. Defect of co-ordination is shown intellectually in erroneous judgments concerning matters where sundry circumstances have to be taken into account, and emotionally in the ill-controlled feelings which lead to impulsive expressions and deeds. The primitive and deeply-rooted self-regarding faculties, which tend ever to initiate antagonisms, are scarcely weakened during states of prostration; while the other-regarding faculties, relatively modern and superficial, and soon paralyzed by innutrition, fail to check them. And then beyond the direct evils which the nervous subject brings on himself by such failures, there are the indirect evils that result from misinterpretation of his character. The irritabilities and perversities of those who are visibly ill, are duly allowed for: they are understood as temporary consequences of the temporary state. But those who, not being visibly deranged in health, suffer from these chronic nervous disorders, have no allowances made for them. I am the more impressed by this fact on remembering the case of my father, and the constructions which I myself put upon his ideas and actions. His not infrequent aberrations of judgment, and his often-displayed peculiarities of temper, I regarded as traits of his original nature. But of late years it has become manifest to me that they were the results of that debility of brain which he brought on himself during my childhood, and that I never knew his true character.

The last fortnight of July was spent at Oban; and, waiting as I was for promised pleasures, the time passed heavily. There were explorings of Dunolly and Dunstaffnage castles; a walk to Taynuilt, and a return next day. There was a little trout fishing in a loch among the hills a few miles off; and there was a little sea fishing in Loch Linnhe, outside the island of Kerrera. But I was glad when, at the close of the month, the looked-for letter arrived, and I departed for Achranich.

Anyone leaving Oban by steamer for the West, enters, after crossing Loch Linnhe, the Sound of Mull, flanked on the left by the Mull mountains and on the right by the precipitous shores of the mainland. These last are the Ardtornish cliffs. Over them in rainy weather fall several small streams, in such wise that, during violent south-westerly gales, they are blown back and dispersed in great clouds of spray: producing, at a distance, the impression that fires at the edge of the cliff are sending forth volumes of smoke.

Some two miles or more down the Sound, on the right hand, juts out a promontory which bears on its brow the ruins of Ardtornish Castle, the scene of the Lord of the Isles; in which poem, however, this castle is greatly idealized, for it could never have been of considerable size. A mile further along the same shore is the narrow opening of a small sea loch: on one side of it a ferry-house, and on the other a village bearing the same name as the loch—Loch Aline. Visible only for a minute as the steamer passes its mouth, Loch Aline is seen to have on its two sides cliffs clothed with trees up to their summits. Closing the loch, about two and a half miles from its mouth, rise partially wooded hills, and beyond these, mountains. In 1856 no sign of human habitation was visible on its shores. At the far end where, in later years, might be discerned a building peeping through the trees, there then existed only the foundations of one. The house which gave the name to the place, concealed in the mouth of a valley at the head of the loch, was a farm-house which Mr. Octavius Smith had enlarged; and which, with new offices intended to be permanent, gave accommodation to the family and guests while the new house was being built.

Here I joined a domestic circle already increased by two lady-friends—a circle which was rendered none the less charming by the comparative unconventionality resulting from temporary arrangements. Already in a preceding chapter I have briefly characterized my host, and will here add only that to his larger kindnesses were often added smaller ones; as, for instance, when from the dog-kennel a hundred yards from the house there came one night the baying of pointers and setters, which he knew would keep me awake, he got up and went out to try and silence them. Of my hostess, however, I have as yet said nothing; and she must not be passed over. I should think that in her early days she answered in large measure to one of Shakspeare’s portraits—“pretty and witty, wild and yet, too, gentle”: wildness being the only trait of which there was no trace. In the days of which I speak, griefs from domestic afflictions—losses and illnesses of children—had left obscuring marks; but there survived the never-failing amiability, and her sympathies with those around frequently made her contribute a little humour to conversation. The only fault I can recall was that of undue self-sacrifice—a fault on which I sometimes commented; for my compliments, rarely uttered in any form, were apt to take the form of criticisms. When I add that the sons and daughters furnished no evidence against the general principle of heredity, I have described a group in which life could not but pass delightfully. A letter written home on the 16th August says—

During my stay there were picnics on the Table of Lorne (a flat-topped mountain visible from Oban) and at the Ullin waterfalls; ascents of Ben Yahten and Shean, whence there are fine views of Rum and Skye; drives to the village, to Ardtornish, to Glen Dhu, &c.; a boating excursion round to Loch Linnhe, with a picnic on its rocky wood-clothed shore; a sketching trip to Killoonden Castle; and many days on the banks of the river Aline, or Aline water, and on Loch Arienas, during which I justified my heresy by catching great numbers of sea trout. In these ways six weeks rapidly went by. A letter to my father dated 9 September contains the paragraphs:—

Intimating that I should probably not remain more than another week, the letter continues:—

Every one now and then has presentiments. They sometimes force themselves on one in spite of one’s consciousness of their absurdity. I have had many; but never yet found one verified. A day or two before leaving Achranich the daughter of the house, an accomplished musician, had been singing a song of Tennyson’s, then recently set to music, “The Brook,” of which the burden is—

• “No more by thee my steps shall be,
• For ever and for ever.”

While pacing along the banks of the Aline, somewhat saddened by the prospect of farewell to pleasant scenes, I applied these lines to myself: believing I should not see the place again. Never was presentiment more conspicuously falsified. My visits there during many subsequent years, numbered more than twelve if less than twenty; and varying in duration as they did from a month to six weeks and even two months, they would, if added together, make between one and two years—a portion of my life which I would gladly live over again just as it was.

My departure from Achranich was followed by another interval of restless wandering. The next letter home was dated Edinburgh, 15 September, and intimated that I was about to take Derby on my way to Brighton. Subsequent dates imply that I spent a fortnight at home; for the next letter is dated Brighton, 7 October. This letter says—

In pursuance of this intention I left in a few days, and took London on my way. Two incidents resulting from this detour claim mention. One is that during the few days it occupied I went down to spend an afternoon and evening with the Leweses at Park Shot, Richmond; and when, during the evening, I was once more suggesting to Miss Evans that she should write fiction, was told by her that she had commenced, and had then in hand “The Sad Story of the Rev. Amos Barton”: this confession being made under promise on my part of absolute secrecy. The other is that while in London I called on Chapman, and that he, learning where I was about to go, gave me a commission to execute. He explained that when he published Miss Martineau’s abridged translation of the Philosophie Positive, it was agreed that a certain share of the profits, if any accrued, should be paid over to Comte. Two years had now elapsed, and the sales had been sufficient to make this agreement operative: something was due to him. The sum was under twenty pounds I think; and this I willingly undertook to pay over to the philosopher—willingly, of course, for the introduction was a good one, and naturally I was curious to see him.

In my first letter home from Paris, written to my mother on October 20, and giving the address 17 Rue de la Croix, Passy, there is a not very flattering description of him. Certainly his appearance was not in the least impressive, either in figure or face. One could say of his face only that, unattractive though it was, it was strongly marked; and in this way distinguished from the multitudes of meaningless faces one daily sees. Of our conversation I remember only that, hearing of my nervous disorder, he advised me to marry; saying that the sympathetic companionship of a wife would have a curative influence. This, by the way, was a point of agreement between him and one who differed from him in most things—Professor Huxley; who in after years suggested that I should try what he facetiously termed gynœopathy: admitting, however, that the remedy had the serious inconvenience that it could not be left off if it proved unsuitable.

As before, the glitter of Paris soon palled upon me; and, as before, I soon felt the depressing effect of remoteness from friends, made greater by the restless state of mind due, I suppose, to my nervous disorder. These causes soon raised my discontent to moving point. Hence the following passages in a letter to my father.

In pursuance of the intention named, I left Paris about a week later, and after staying a week in London returned home. There I shortly found that, under conditions something like those intended, smoke would not behave as I expected it to do: it “ended in smoke” instead of carbonic acid. The remainder of November and nearly the whole of December were passed at Derby.

I suppose this interval at Derby was partly occupied in pondering the question—What must be done? Nearly a year and a half had now passed since I did any work, and I was still far from recovery. Though, as the above given series of extracts from letters show, I was continually expecting to be very soon well, I was continually disappointed. The progress is from time to time reported, but there is evidently not an adequate reporting of the regress. And here let me briefly describe my condition at that time and afterwards.

Appearances gave the impression that I was in fair health. Appetite and digestion were both good; and my bodily strength, seemingly not less than it had been, as tested by walking, was equal to that of most men who lead town lives. This continued to be my state for many years.

Both then and afterwards, my sleeping remained quite abnormal. A night of sound sleep was, and has ever continued to be, unknown to me: my best nights being such as would commonly be called bad ones. Save when leading a rural life with nothing but out-door sports to occupy attention, I probably averaged between four and five hours of unconsciousness. But it was never continuous. The four or five hours were made up of bits; and if one of the bits was two hours long, it was something unusual. Ordinarily my night had from a dozen to a score wakings. Moreover at that time and for five and twenty years after, the sensation of drowsiness was never experienced. I went to sleep unawares; and when I awoke was instantly broad awake.

Along with the state of brain thus implied, there went that inability to work without presently bringing on abnormal sensations, with which my disorder set in. Neither then, nor at any subsequent time, was there either disinclination or incapacity for thinking or writing. It was simply that continuous application produced this feeling in the head which gave warning that something was going wrong. During these eighteen months above described, this symptom soon came on; and though in after years I could, when at my best, do three hours’ work without mischief, I never got beyond this. A disastrous relapse soon followed if I tried to do more.

At that time and always afterwards, reading had the same effect as working; no matter what the nature of the reading. During periods of relapse a column of a newspaper would suffice to put my head wrong; and when at my best I could not, after my morning’s work, read even a novel for long without suffering. When I treated myself to one, which happened perhaps once in a year or two, I had to get through it by a dozen instalments. Ordinarily my habit was that of taking up a book or periodical for half or three-quarters of an hour in the afternoon. Reading in the evening for that length of that time destroyed part of the rest I ordinarily got. The implied cutting off from nearly all literature save that which I could utilize, and from a large part of this, was one of the heaviest of my deprivations.

As indicated in sundry of the above extracts, social excitement habitually proved injurious. Though, afterwards, I was able to bear a moderate amount of it without mischief, yet much animated talk, especially if it verged into discussion, brought on me the penalty of an unusually bad night. Going to a theatre, though sometimes not detrimental, and occasionally even beneficial, frequently did me harm. Music was perhaps the only thing which I could enjoy in full measure with impunity. But one could not always be going to concerts; and good domestic music was rarely to be had. Of course these various incapacities made it difficult to spend leisure time with any satisfaction. Much of it had to be passed in a state of mere passivity; and the having to live through many vacant hours was injurious in various ways.

But to return from this partially digressive description to the immediate question which pressed upon me—What must be done. Longer entire idleness did not promise much benefit. Moreover, two years and a half had elapsed since my pen had brought me any money. Clearly it was needful to try and do something; and with this conviction I left for London the day after Christmas Day.

CHAPTER XXIX.

SOME SIGNIFICANT ESSAYS.

1856—7. Æt. 36—37.

During my consultation with him, Dr. Ransom advised me never in future to live alone. He thought, and no doubt rightly thought, that my solitary days in lodgings had been largely instrumental in bringing on the physiological disaster which had already cost me so much of life and of work, and was thereafter to cost me far more. Probably he inferred that in the absence of distractions my brain had been active during times which were nominally times of rest; and he doubtless recognized the truth that besides this positive mischief, there had been the negative mischief which lack of society and its enlivenments entails.

I willingly yielded to his suggestion; and, on arriving in town at the close of December, 1856, took steps to find a family with which to reside. My requirements were fairly well met at No. 7, Marlborough Gardens, St. John’s Wood, then occupied by a solicitor, whose business, as I gathered, had been ruined by his negligence, and whose wife was endeavouring to eke out their diminished means by taking an inmate. Ordinarily the presence of children is regarded by one who wishes accommodation of this kind as an objection; but it was not so by me. As I was at an age when, in the normal order of things, I should have had a growing-up family of my own, there was, I suppose, some natural desire to be surrounded by boys and girls—or rather, I should say, by girls. Perhaps actual paternity would have changed my feelings in the matter; but otherwise I fear the daughters would have come in for undue shares of affection. Here, two little girls of five and seven were just fitted to serve as vicarious objects of the philoprogenitive instinct; and, with the rest of the circle, supplied that liveliness of which I was in search in a greater degree than a party of adults would have done.

I may remark in passing that I take some little time to establish friendly relations with children; because, in the treatment of them, I ever feel inclined to respect their individualities. Very commonly strangers begin to caress them forthwith without considering whether they may or may not like to have liberties taken. Children often rebel internally, if not externally, against this disregard of their dignity; and, where they are allowed full freedom, and themselves left to make the advances, they sometimes show preferences for those who so treat them.

The family afforded facilities for observations and experiments which afterwards proved useful when treating of education. Surprise has not unfrequently been expressed to me that, being a bachelor, I should have interested myself in questions concerning the management of children, and should have written on them with some success. But in common with most bachelors, I had various opportunities of watching children, and watching the conduct adopted towards them, and watching also the effects. The remark that bystanders often see most of the game, is applicable to domestic life as to many other things. Though it is true that actual members of the domestic circle must have experiences the outsider cannot have, yet the outsider’s views have their value, and are indeed almost indispensable. Being free from the emotions of parenthood, and in many cases thereby incapacitated for judging, he is in other cases enabled to judge more fairly.

Among the advantages of the house was that it stood within five minutes’ walk of Huxley’s house; and one of the remembrances connected with my return to town, is that I was in time to join a New Year’s Day dinner Huxley gave. I name the fact, because it was the first of a long series of such dinners at which I had the pleasure of being a guest. For more than twenty years I failed to be present but once only: being on that occasion detained at Derby. In later years ill-health sometimes, and at other times absence abroad, broke the custom.

Of course the first thing to be done in the way of work, was to fulfil the engagement made in the autumn of 1854, to write for the Westminster the article on “Progress: its Law and Cause.” Suspended for more than two years, this undertaking had, I suppose, been the subject of thought in the interval; and, I suppose, also the subject of some anxiety. Regarding the generalization I wished to set forth as important, I must have been occasionally irritated by my prolonged inability. Still, I was it seems content to let the months slip by without making any effort; and so far as I can remember was without any great feeling of restlessness. Dr. Ransom, indeed, urged me not to worry myself about loss of time; but I suspect that his advice would have weighed but little with one who was constitutionally more energetic.

January, February and two-thirds of March were occupied in preparing the article. Writing home on February 4th, I remark—“On the average I get on with my MS. at the rate of about a closely written page of post-paper per day, which takes me from two to three hours; and though it usually congests my head more or less before I have got half through, I do not find I permanently suffer.” I succeeded, but only just succeeded, in completing the MS. in time; and I remember that my face bore clear traces of the strain. As the essay occupies but 41 pages, giving an average of some half-page per day, it may be imagined what was still my state after eighteen months’ rest. However, no mischief was done. Contrariwise, the effort proved beneficial.

Of the article itself, which formed the initial instalment of the Synthetic Philosophy, I may remark that its title shows the side from which the generalizations set forth in it had been approached. The use of the word “progress” implies that its originating thought concerned human affairs and human nature; for the ordinary connotations of the word refer almost exclusively to man and his doings. The doctrine had been at the outset anthropocentric. Such vague foreshadowings of it as occurred in The Proper Sphere of Government and in Social Statics, were obviously of this character. Though in “The Development Hypothesis” there was shown the presence of a conception not directly relevant to human progress; yet in the subsequent essays “A Theory of Population,” “The Art of Education,” “The Genesis of Science,” &c., the idea of progress shows itself chiefly in relation to humanity and its products: being recognized, however, as not restricted to these. And then in the Principles of Psychology, while mental development is treated of as exhibited throughout the animal kingdom at large; yet the obvious purpose of the general survey made, is to find a key to the mental development of man. Doubtless the implied belief that mental progress in man is part of a general mental progress, tended to subordinate the anthropocentric view. Nevertheless, as I have said, this essay on “Progress: its Law and Cause” betrayed by its title the course of its genesis. Though it began by pointing out that the word progress is commonly used in too narrow a sense; yet the fact that I continued to use the word shows that I had not then recognized the need for a word which has no teleological implications.

On reconsidering the general ideas set forth in the article, I am struck by the fact that there failed to appear among them certain general ideas previously reached, and which should, in their developed forms, have occupied important positions. Already in the essays on the “Genesis of Science,” and the “Art of Education,” as well as in the Principles of Psychology, increase of definiteness had been recognized as a characteristic of advancing development; and already, in each of these, there had also been recognized as characterizing one or other kind of development, a growing integration. Yet in this essay on “Progress: its Law and Cause,” there is no recognition of these traits as holding of things in general. The sole trait of progress alleged and illustrated throughout all its stages, is the transition from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous; and the sole cause assigned is the multiplication of effects. Traits which had been previously alleged as accompanying this transition in sundry particular classes of phenomena, seem to have dropped out of sight. Only at subsequent periods were they re-recognized and presented in their places as characters of the universal transformation.

Something should be said concerning the way in which the genesis of organic forms is interpreted. In the first or inductive part, multiplication of the varieties of them throughout geologic time, is one of the assigned illustrations of the change from homogeneity to heterogeneity. In the second or deductive part, this change, in common with all the other changes instanced, is interpreted as consequent on the multiplication of effects. Every species is represented as continually forced, alike by its normal multiplication and by occasional geologic or climatic alterations in its habitat, to spread into other habitats—not in one direction only, but in many directions: the result being to produce numerous divergences and re-divergences of structures, and occasionally higher structures. But while in this view there was nothing incongruous with views since enunciated—while the old conception that successively higher organic beings form a series or chain was tacitly repudiated, and there was tacitly implied the conception of perpetual branching and re-branching of species; yet the causation indicated was inadequate. At that time I ascribed all modifications to direct adaptation to changing conditions; and was unconscious that in the absence of that indirect adaptation effected by the natural selection of favourable variations, the explanation left the larger part of the facts unaccounted for.

The article drew some attention: not, of course, from the reading world in general, but from a scattered few of the more thoughtful. Little comment, however, was made; and that which was made was not particularly helpful. The only remark I now recall was that the second half of the article, which had for its purpose to give a rationale of the universal change described in the first part, was not of much value: the implication being that the induction might properly remain without any search for a deductive interpretation of it. Happening to know, as I did, that the criticism came from a University man specially distinguished in formal logic, I was struck with the strangeness of his implied belief that the empirical stage of a generalization may be contentedly accepted as its final stage.

“Now we have got to the top and shall have a view all round,” is often the remark accompanying the last few steps when ascending an eminence. And then, notwithstanding past experiences, there is a feeling of surprise on discovering further on a more elevated peak previously hidden. Such incidents are recalled to me by repeated similar mistakes in mental ascents. With the completion of the article on “Progress: its Law and Cause,” I supposed that no further height had to be reached; but very shortly the lifting of the mist disclosed near at hand a point considerably above that on which I was resting. A survey all round made it manifest that there was another general cause for the change from homogeneity to heterogeneity—a cause which, in order of time, takes precedence of the multiplication of effects. This further conclusion must have been promptly reached; since the article enunciating it was written in the interval between the beginning of April and the latter part of June.

There then existed, and had existed for some years before, a quarterly called the National Review. It had been established by adherents of the Rev. James Martineau in opposition to the Westminster Review, which had ceased to be adequately representative of their views. The editors of this new quarterly were Mr. Walter Bagehot and Mr. R. H. Hutton. I offered, and Mr. Hutton accepted, an article embodying, along with some less important generalizations, the generalization just indicated.

I proposed for it the title “Transcendental Physiology:” wishing to imply that it was concerned with those physiological truths which, not taking note of divisions among species, genera, orders, classes, or even kingdoms, hold of all organisms—truths of which the familiar one that like produces like, may be taken as typical. One section had for its purpose to show that with advance in the forms of life there is an increasing differentiation of them from their environments. There was also set forth the general truth that with the differentiations which become increasingly marked during the developments of individual organisms, there simultaneously go on integrations, which it was contended should be recognized as part of the developmental process. But the leading conception which the essay contained, was the above-indicated further cause of progress—the instability of the homogeneous. This was dwelt upon as being, like the multiplication of effects, a principle holding not among organic phenomena only, but among inorganic and super-organic phenomena. And with this further step I erroneously supposed that the interpretation of progress was complete. I say progress, but I ought to say evolution; for now the word is introduced and begins to be used in place of progress. The only further fact of significance is that I recurred to the analogy recognized in Social Statics, between individual organisms and social organisms; and that, especially in connexion with the process of integration exemplified in both, urged that comparisons between the two sets of phenomena should be made with a view to mutual elucidations.

The article was issued in the October number of the National Review under the title of “The Ultimate Laws of Physiology,” which I adopted in deference to editorial wishes: restoring the original title, however, when the essay was republished along with others in a permanent form.

My life at this time was somewhat monotonous. A letter to my mother of March 31st, however, shows that a few distractions occurred.

Doubtless Lewes had made this suggestion on learning from me that there was very little sale of the Psychology, and on thinking that some use might be made of it by distribution if not otherwise.

How did I pass my leisure hours? In those days I was not a member of a club; and now that I have been for many years habituated to one, I am at a loss to understand what I did in the latter part of the day. Then, as always after my nervous breakdown, reading, even of the lightest kind, told upon my brain just as much as working. So far as I can remember, a walk into town, half-an-hour at a public news-room, and a walk back served to fill part of the afternoon; and the rest was spent in such miscellaneous ways of killing time as might offer themselves.

Mention of these returns from town in the afternoon, reminds me that I sometimes called at the Museum in Jermyn Street at the hour when Huxley usually left, that we might walk back together. Involved as the hypothesis of organic evolution was in most of my thinking, it not unfrequently cropped up in our talk, and led to animated discussions in which, having a knowledge of the facts immensely greater than mine, he habitually demolished now this and now that argument which I used. But though continually knocked down, I continually got up again. The principle which he acted upon was that of keeping judgment in suspense in the absence of adequate evidence. But acknowledging, though I did, the propriety of his course, I found myself in this case unable to adopt it. There were, as it seemed to me, but two imaginable possibilities—special creation and progressive development; and since the doctrine of special creation, unsupported by evidence, was also intrinsically incredible, because incongruous with all we know of the order of Nature, the doctrine of development was accepted by me as the only alternative. Hence, fallacious as proved this or the other special reason assigned in support of it, my belief in it perpetually revived.

Returning from this digression to the account of my daily routine, I have to add that the evening usually brought whist, into which I was initiated by my hosts. Up to that time I had never played any game of cards. Neither then nor after did I become a tolerable player. I have not a memory of the required kind. To me it has ever been a marvel that after a hand people should be able to remember all that has been done.

My stay in town came to an end somewhat prematurely. Disappointed in their hopes of adequately adding to a failing income, my hosts were obliged to give up the house. The result was that I had to remove before midsummer. After a short time at home I started for a fishing expedition to the north.

Fishing had proved so good a sedative, by uniting moderate exercise with pleasurable occupation of mind, that it became then and afterwards a deliberately chosen pursuit; and one to which, indeed, it would have been well had I devoted myself more frequently and for longer intervals than I did. The western lowlands held out temptations. There was the riven Ken, said to contain salmon; and there were lochs, to the owner of some of which I had an introduction. Rail to Dumfries, coach to Castle Douglas (for there was then no railway) and on foot to Dalry brought me to the ground. The excursion was planned as a pedestrian one, with no impedimenta but rod and fishing basket, and such small selection of needful things as the fishing basket would contain. I had a great dislike to the annoyances entailed by baggage; and it was always with some feeling of elation that I cut myself free from everything but what I could carry about me. Like children, portmanteaus and trunks are hostages to fortune. For many years I tended, not only when moving but when stationary, to minimize my belongings as much as possible: my love of freedom showing itself, among other ways, in aversion to that passive tyranny which material possessions exercise over one. I wonder how I should have tolerated travelling with a wife’s half-dozen boxes to look after!

“’Tis distance lends” sport to the river, as well as “enchantment to the view.” Wherever the rumour of good angling takes one, the habitual experience is that, not just there but a little further away, is the great success to be had. So it proved with the Ken at Dalry; and after a few days I gave up hope from it. An expedition in search of something better to a loch in the neighbourhood, was followed by an experience characteristic of the locality. On returning to Dalry after a night’s absence, I found the place alive with people brought together by what proved to be an annual hiring fair. On entering the inn I had been staying at, I found all the rooms below crowded with men smoking and drinking; and after looking in vain for some quiet place, decided to take refuge in my bedroom. To my dismay, on going upstairs, I found my bedroom also full of men smoking and drinking. Had I been prone to study human nature in the concrete as well as in the abstract, I might have utilized the occasion. But a retreat and a protest below stairs came much more naturally to me: the result being eventually advantageous, for they found me comfortable accommodation in an adjacent house.

A week or so was passed at Andarroch, a farmhouse a few miles to the north of Dalry, and a short distance from the banks of the river. Spending leisure time, now in rambling over the moors, now in trying with one or other lure to tempt some salmon which were lying below the falls of the Ken, I spent the mornings in writing part of the essay on the “Origin and Function of Music.” I forgot to say that before leaving town, an engagement for this essay had been made with the editor of Fraser’s Magazine. As usual, the leading thought was evolutionary. The inquiry which had arisen in my mind was—How has music naturally originated? An obvious corollary from the doctrine set forth in the Principles of Psychology, was that the musical faculty, in common with all faculties, must have arisen by degrees through complications of pre-existing elements in human nature. Clearly music excites one or other emotion, and does this because it expresses one or other emotion. How comes it to express one or other emotion? Feeling of every kind, sensational or emotional, tends to discharge itself in muscular contractions. Among muscular contractions produced by the discharge are those which strain the vocal organs. Emotion consequently expresses itself not only in visible movements, but in sounds: the one, like the other, being violent in proportion as the emotion is strong. Not in loudness only, but in pitch and in timbre do the sounds emitted vary with the kind and intensity of the emotion; and not in these respects only, but also in the range of tones which the emotion produces, as also in the rapidity with which the tones succeed one another. Here, then, were certain physio-psychological phenomena which evidently in sundry ways linked the natural expression of emotion with musical expression. Added to which there was the familiar fact that the cadences used in ordinary speech are expressive of feeling, and vary as feelings vary. Hence came the question—Is not music a development of this natural language of the emotions? The article aimed to show in detail that it is.

How strong becomes the craving for companionship after a period of solitude! Before leaving Derby I had persuaded my artist-friend Deacon to join me in Scotland; and after a fortnight, during which I held speech with none save strangers (and I am a long time in breaking the ice with strangers), I got very impatient for his arrival—so impatient, that I walked some ten miles to the railway-station at Minnihive to meet him at the appointed time. He disappointed me, however; and after having at Minnihive an experience like that above described, consequent upon a hiring fair, I had next day to walk back disconsolately alone. When a few days after my friend joined me, we made our way across country to Beoch on Loch Doon—my abode for a week the year before. There, now in rambling, now in fishing, now in writing, a pleasant fortnight was passed: talking to the old farmer and his wife being occasionally among the distractions. For me, and I suspect for most southrons, a small amount of conversation with those who talk broad Scotch suffices; since the degree of attention required to follow speech much divergent from one’s own in its words and pronunciation, soon becomes fatiguing. How entirely relative to the desires and to the mental state is the idea of beauty, was, I remember, interestingly shown on some of these occasions. Enlarging, as Beoch did (he was sometimes called by the name of the place), on the beauty of England, into which he had once made a journey, he meant, I found on inquiry, the beauty of its rich pastures and fine fields of corn; and to him the barrenness of the adjacent hills and moors was equivalent to ugliness. So little interest was felt in the picturesque, that to my surprise I found the wife, although she had lived there twenty years, had never been to the top of an adjacent hill some 1,000 feet high, which I climbed within a few days of our arrival. If there exists among mountain-bred peoples that strong love of home which is alleged of the Swiss (though considering how much they have had to expatriate themselves, it may simply be that the occasions for displaying home-sickness have been more frequent among them), it is probably less because they love the beauties of their land than because its multitudinous striking features afford holds for early associations which cannot arise in a flat country, where every locality is like every other.

The improvement in health achieved during the season in London, was increased in Scotland by the fresh air, exercise, fishing, and—I was going to say—quiet. But I am arrested by the remembrance that to nervous subjects country places often prove the reverse of quiet. The early chirping of sparrows and, still worse, the clucking and crowing of fowls, are dreadful inflictions to them. I have often entertained sanguinary feelings towards a vociferous cock, which, after I had passed the first part of the night in tossing from side to side, began crowing just as I was beginning to get a little sleep, and kept me awake during the ensuing hours. At Beoch a droll incident was associated with this experience. My bedroom faced the farm-yard, and to get sufficient air in a small room I had to keep the window partially open. The result was that the early crowing of the cock was a great torment to me. To remedy the evil, the good people shut up the cock in a barn on the oposite side of the yard. But as the bottom of the barn-door was worn away and the pavement hollow, the space sufficed both for the light of the dawn to advertize the cock that it was time to begin crowing, and to allow the sound to be heard almost as clearly as before. The device they then hit upon, which proved quite effectual, was to place him under an inverted bucket, and there keep him until I was getting up. It was amusing to observe how, when released, he endeavoured to make up for lost time by crowing with immense energy and rapidity.

The appetite for fishing having been pretty well satisfied, my article finished, and Deacon’s vacation nearly ended, we turned our faces southward and travelled together as far as Penrith. Not having seen anything of the English lakes, I there left him and made a détour: walking to Ulswater and along its banks to Patterdale; next afternoon ascending the Kirkstone Pass, and getting so drenched that I had to stop at the little inn at the top, which boasts itself as the highest inhabitated house in England; descending thence to Windermere and by railway to Derby.

I have omitted to name an engagement which was made before I left London in the early summer. A letter to my father, written apparently in May, contains the following passage:—

This article I commenced on my return home from Scotland, and completed it during a visit I paid to my friends at Standish in September.

I may remark of it that, in addition to the political aspect indicated in the above extract, it has aspects of a more general kind. Beyond a further development of the doctrine of limitation of duties, and a further bringing to bear of biological truths on Sociology, there was involved in it the general theory of evolution in so far as it implies that specialization of structures in adaptation to special functions, is an advance in organization. Unfortunately the resulting conceptions were then, as they are now, “caviare to the general.” That inferences drawn from the laws of organization have a practical bearing on politics, seemed thirty years ago, as it seems at present, an absurd fancy. There still continues the tacitly-implied belief, alike among statesmen and people, that there are no laws of organization. The conception of natural law, which does not exist in the savage, is as yet but rudimentary in the civilized.

Leaving Standish towards the close of September, and spending on my way a few days in town, where nothing nothing tempted me then to settle down for the winter, I went on to Brighton.

I had for some time contemplated a republication of the various essays I had written for quarterly reviews and other periodicals. Not being essays in criticism, or discussions of passing topics, or papers written for those who seek to kill a vacant hour, but being the vehicles of ideas which, as it seemed to me, were of permanent value, and on the elaboration of which I had spent much trouble, I, from the outset, looked forward to a time when they would be gathered together and issued in the form of a volume. They had now become sufficiently numerous; and while at Brighton I prepared them for republication. The preparation consisted not in any modifications of substance, either by additions or subtractions or alterations; but simply in improvements of expression. Whether or not I inherit the liking for revision from my father, who was much given to correcting both his own writing, and that of others, I do not know. But all through my life I have had a pleasure in doing that which to many authors gives pain. Matter which has been revised in manuscript, and again revised in proof, always presents itself to me as needing revision when I have decided to republish it; and even on a second republication the need to go carefully through it again is peremptory with me. When revising print, or even re-revising it, the sight of a page on which there does not occur a sprinkling of erasures and marginal alterations, gives me a vague feeling that I have not done my duty by it; and not unfrequently I go over it again to see whether anywhere a briefer expression can be substituted or a superfluous word omitted. It is surprising how difficult it is to write in succession any considerable number of sentences which are in all respects proof against criticism—surprising, too, to discover, after the lapse of years, how many imperfections had been on previous occasions overlooked.

One of the Members of Parliament from Brighton in those days, Mr. Conyngham, was an acquaintance of mine; and when I one day called upon him, he suggested that I should accompany him to call on Buckle (recently made famous by the first volume of his History of Civilization in England), who had taken a house in Sussex Square for the autumn. On being introduced to Buckle, I was a little startled to see a face and head not unfamiliar to me. Presently I remembered that I had often seen him at the cigar-divan in the Strand, some ten years before, at a time when I frequently spent the Sunday evening there. He was a chess-player of note; and in those days the cigar-divan was one of the chief places of meeting for men given to chess. He must have become bald very early; for the absence of hair, pretty much as marked in 1846 as in 1857, was one of the traits by which I remembered him. I cannot recall anything that passed; but existing between us as there did, some sympathy of feeling, though not much community of idea, the introduction initiated an acquaintanceship.

Towards the close of October or beginning of November, I had completed all the work that was practicable at Brighton, and went back to London.