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• Herbert Spencer’s Works.
• Part VII.: 1856—1860.
• Chapter XXX.: A System of Philosophy Projected. 1857—8. Æt. 37—38.
• Chapter XXXI.: Plans For Executing It. 1858—59. Æt. 38—39.
• Chapter XXXII.: A Plan Fixed Upon. 1859—60. Æt. 39—40.
• Part VIII.: 1860—1867.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Writing First Principles. 1860—62. Æt. 40—42.
• Chapter XXXIV.: An Autumn’s Relaxations. 1862. Æt. 42.
• Chapter XXXV.: A Volume of the Biology. 1862—64. Æt. 42—44.
• Chapter XXXVI.: A Digression. 1864. Æt. 43.
• Chapter XXXVII.: Another Volume of the Biology. 1864—67. Æt. 44—47.
• Chapter XXXVIII.: Impending Cessation. 1866. Æt. 46.
• Chapter XXXIX.: Sad Events. 1866—67. Æt. 46—47.
• Part IX.: 1867—1874.
• Chapter Xl.: Re-casting First Principles. 1867. Æt. 47.
• Chapter Xli.: an Imprudence and Its Consequences. 1867. Æt. 47.
• Chapter Xlii.: a Tour In Italy. 1868. Æt. 47.
• Chapter Xliii.: Developing the Psychology. 1867—70. Æt. 47—50.
• Chapter Xliv.: Finishing the Psychology. 1870—72. Æt. 50—52.
• Chapter Xlv.: an Extra Book. 1872—73. Æt. 52—53.
• Chapter Xlvi.: Some Minor Incidents. 1873. Æt. 53.
• Chapter Xlvii.: the Descriptive Sociology. 1867—74. Æt. 47—54.
• Part X.: 1874—1879.
• Chapter Xlviii.: a Retrospective Glance. 1874. Æt. 54.
• Chapter Xlix.: Vol. I. Of the Sociology. 1874—77. Æt. 54—57.
• Chapter L.: a Series of Articles. 1877—78. Æt. 57—58.
• Chapter Li.: the Data of Ethics. 1878—79. Æt. 58—59.
• Chapter Lii.: Ceremonial Institutions. 1879. Æt. 59.
• Part XI.: 1879—1889.
• Chapter Liii.: Up the Nile. 1879—80. Æt. 59.
• Chapter Liv.: Ending of the Descriptive Sociology. 1874—81. Æt. 54—61.
• Chapter Lv.: Political Institutions. 1880—82. Æt. 60—62.
• Chapter Lvi.: a Grievous Mistake. 1881—82. Æt. 61.
• Chapter Lvii.: Coming Events. 1881—82. Æt. 61—62.
• Chapter Lviii.: a Visit to America. 1882. Æt. 62.
• Chapter Lix.: Conclusion. 1882—89. Æt. 62—69.
• Part XII.
• Chapter Lx.: Reflections
• Appendices.
• A Note: Concerning the Life and Letters of T.h. Huxley.
• Appendix A.: Programme of the Synthetic Philosophy
• Appendix B.: Letter to Mr. G. H. Lewes
• Appendix C.: Documents Concerning the Cessation of the Issue of the Philosophy
• Appendix D.: A New Invalid-bed
• Appendix E.: English Feeling About the American Civil War
• Appendix F.: a New Fishing-rod Joint
• Appendix G.: Obituary Notice of J. S. Mill
• Appendix H.: Herbert Spencer and His American Friends.

A NOTE: Concerning the Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley.

[Where to place the following two letters has been a question not easily answered, for no place seems quite appropriate. After much consideration I have decided that they should be inserted here rather than elsewhere.]

5 Percival Terrace,
Brighton,
Nov. 21, 1900.

Dear Mr. Huxley,

On further reading your very interesting Life of your father, I find some statements of personal concern which will cause much misapprehension.

Through inadvertence, passages on pages 333 of vol. I. and 266 and 68 of vol. II. convey the impression that the criticism of my proofs by your father extended to my writings at large; and a phrase of yours on page 133 of vol. II. implies that you have yourself derived this impression. It is an erroneous one. Beyond First Principles your father read in proof The Principles of Biology, a biological essay, and some chapters concerning the nervous system. There was peremptory need for expert criticisms on these, and he very kindly gave me his; but I did not ask his critical aid when writing the seven volumes dealing with Sociology, Psychology, and Ethics, or the six volumes of my miscellaneous works, save the 15 pages of “diabolical dialectics” (ii. 185), and a chapter entitled “Religious Retrospect and Prospect.” This is in a measure implied by my letter accompanying the proofs of the essay on “The Factors of Organic Evolution”—a letter in which I spoke of habitually submitting “my biological writing to your [his] castigation” (ii. 127); for had the practice been general I evidently should not have limited the statement to biological writing.

A word concerning the unpublished Autobiography. Reading of proofs by friends (your father being one) was to be a check on errors of taste. The parts your father saw amounted to about a third.

When saying, à propos of his rôle of “devil’s advocate,” that “there is no telling how many brilliant speculations I have been the means of choking in an embryonic state,” your father was venting one of his facetious exaggerations. A comparison between the original MSS. and the printed books, made by my secretary to whom I dictate this letter, shows that in the three volumes above named there are four passages of a speculative kind in the MS. which have disappeared from the printed text. [Let me add that of the two omitted from The Principles of Biology one concerned the derivation of the vertebrate type from the ascidian type—a speculation which not long after received support from the discoveries of Kowalewsky. I afterwards gave it a place in Appendix D of vol. II.]

As shown by a letter you have partly quoted, I have expressed my grateful sense of your father’s “invaluable critical aid,” but naturally I do not wish this to be understood as having been far greater than it was.

Whatever changes you may make in future editions for the purpose of preventing misapprehensions, cannot of course be known to readers of the current edition. Yet I am not content that they should remain in error. What should be done?

Yours truly,
Herbert Spencer.

In response to this appeal Mr. Huxley published the following letter in The Athenæum for December 8, 1900.

HUXLEY’S LIFE.

November 28, 1900.

It has been suggested to me by Mr. Herbert Spencer that a phrase of mine in the Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley (vol. II. p. 133) might give rise to a false impression touching the extent to which my father used to criticize the proofs of Mr. Spencer’s published writings. The words “from whom [viz., Mr. Spencer] he had, according to custom, received some proofs to read,” refer, of course, to the “biological writings” mentioned in Mr. Spencer’s letter quoted on p. 127. Besides such biological writings, my father read in proof only First Principles and two small fragments amounting to thirty-two pages. I do not suppose that those who have any knowledge of the subject will imagine that he criticized the proofs of Mr. Spencer’s writings at large; but I should be sorry to think that I had possibly suggested a false notion to others.

But the period assigned to this “devil’s advocacy,” going back “thirty odd years” from 1884 to the beginning of my father’s acquaintance with Mr. Spencer, indicates that the playful allusion must be as much to the informal dialectics of conversation as to serious written work, for the reading of proofs referred to above only began with the Synthetic Philosophy in 1860.

L. Huxley.

It is manifestly needful that I should give a permanent place to these letters. Were they to disappear, the one privately and the other in an ephemeral publication, the first edition of Professor Huxley’s Life and Letters would establish everywhere the belief that my writings at large had had the benefit of his criticisms, and that had it not been for his restraints I should have set forth numerous ill-based speculations in the thirteen volumes treating of Psychology, Sociology, Ethics, and miscellaneous subjects.