Herbert Spencer

Abstract

BY the death of Herbert Spencer England has lost the most widely celebrated and influential of her sons. He has passed away in the fulness of years and honours, having lived to complete the great work that he designed and took in hand half a century ago. Spencer was not without honour in his own country, yet our national indifference to philosophy and to all systematic thinking, and the subserviency of a great part of our professed philosophers to the great German metaphysicians, have undoubtedly prevented his receiving from his countrymen during his lifetime the full measure of recognition that is due to his splendid services to science and philosophy. And, indeed, the enthusiastic and unstinted eulogy of our great dead, voiced by the Press of every civilised country during the past week, has brought home to many of us for the first time the greatness of the man who by sheer force of intellect and character has won the tribute of the world. For in Spencer's work there was nothing designed to attract the attention of the crowd, there was no attempt to write down to the level of the multitude; it was one long and steady effort of a great intellect systematically grappling with the great problems. Yet his books have been translated into a score of languages, have been studied by hundreds of thousands of serious men, and in no small number of them have aroused admiring and enthusiastic gratitude.