A star of the first magnitude went out of the firmament of original thought by the death of Herbert Spencer. His was the most distinctive personality that remained with us after the death of Mr. Gladstone. Spencer was as great in the kingdom of science as Mr. Gladstone was in that of politics and ecclesiasticism. Men have to go back to Aristotle to find Spencer's compeer in range of thought, and to Gibbon for a parallel to his protracted persistence in accomplishing his great design of creating a philosophy of evolution. Mr. Spencer's distinction was that he laid down new landmarks of evolutionary guidance in all the dominions of human knowledge. Gibbon lived to relinquish his pen in triumph at the end of years of devotion to his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire "—Mr. Spencer planned the history of the rise and growth of a mightier, a more magnificent, and more beneficent Empire—that of Universal Law—and for forty years he pursued his mighty story in every vicissitude of strength with unfaltering purpose, and lived to complete it amid the applause of the world and the gratitude of all who have the grand passion to understand Nature, and advance the lofty destiny of humanity. Herbert Spencer was born April 27, 1820, in the town of Derby, and died in his eighty-fourth year, December 8, 1903, at 5, Percival Terrace, Brighton, next door to his friend, Sir James Knowles, the editor of the Nineteenth Century. At the time of his birth, Derby was emerging from the sleepy, dreamy, stagnant, obfuscated condition in which it had lain since the days of the Romans.
It is difficult to write of Spencer without wondering how a thinker of his quality should have been born in Derby—a town which had a determined objection to individuality in ideas. It has a Charter—its first act of enterprise in a thousand years—obtained by the solicitations of the inhabitants from Richard I., which gave them the power of expelling every Jew who resided in the town, or ever after should approach it. Centuries later, in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I., not a Roman Catholic, an Independent, a Baptist, an Israelite, nor even an un-molesting Quaker could be found in Derby.
There still remains one lineal descendant of the stagnant race which procured the Charter of Darkness from Richard I.—Mr. Alderman W. Winter, who opposed in the Town Council a resolution of honour in memory of Spencer, who had given Derby its great distinction, because his views contradicted the antediluvian Scriptural account of the Creation, when there was no man present to observe what took place, and no man of science existed capable of verifying the Mosaic tradition. The only recorded instance of independency of opinion was that of a humble Derby girl, who was born blind, yet could see, like others, into the nature of things. She doubted the Real Presence. What could it matter what the poor, helpless thing thought of that? But the town burned her alive. The brave, unchanging girl, whose convictions were torment-proof, was only twenty-two years old.
The only Derby man of free thought who preceded Herbert Spencer was William Hutton, a silk weaver, who became the historian of Derby and Birmingham. In sagacity, boldness and veracity he excelled. The wisdom of his opinions was a century in advance of his time (1770-1830).
There were no photographs in the time of Mr. Spencer's parents, and their lineaments are little known. Mr. Spencer's uncle I knew, the Rev. Thomas Spencer, a clergyman of middle stature, slender, with a paternal Evangelical expression. But his sympathies were with Social Reform, in which field he was an insurgent worker for projects then unregarded or derided.
When I first knew Mr. Herbert Spencer, he was one of the writers on the Leader newspaper. We dined at times at the Whittington Club, then recently founded by Douglas Jerrold. At this period Mr. Spencer had a half-rustic look. He was ruddy, and gave the impression of being a young country gentleman of the sporting farmer type, looking as unlike a philosopher as Thomas Henry Buckle looked like a historian, as he appeared to me on my first interview with him. Mr. Spencer at that time would take part in discussions in a determined tone, and was persistent in definite statement In that he resembled William Chambers, with whom I was present at a deputation to Lord Derby on the question of the Paper Duty. Lord Derby could not bow him out, nor bow him into silence, until he had stated his case.
In those days Mr. Spencer spoke with misgivings of his health. Mr. Edward Pigott, chief proprietor of the Leader (afterwards Public Examiner of Plays) asked me to try to disabuse Mr. Spencer of his apprehensiveness, which was constitutional and never left his mind all his life, and I learned never to greet him in terms which implied that he was, or could be well. Coleridge complained of ailments of which no physical sign was apparent, and he was thought, like Mr. Spencer, to be an imaginary invalid. But after his death Coleridge was found to have a real cause of suffering, and the wonder was that he did not complain more.
There must be a distinct susceptibility of the nerves—which Sir Michael Foster could explain—peculiar to some persons. I have had two or three friends of some literary distinction, whom I made it a rule never to accost, or even to know when I met them, until they had recovered from the inevitable shock of meeting some unexpected person, when they would spontaneously become genial.
Mr. Spencer's high spirit was shown in this. Though he often had to abandon his thinking, he resumed it on his recovery. The continuity of his thought never ceased. One form of trouble was recurring depression, so difficult to sustain, which James Thompson, who oft experienced it, described—when a man has to endure—
     "The same old solid hills and leas;
     The same old stupid, patient trees;
     The same old ocean, blue and green;
     The same sky, cloudy or serene;
     The old two dozen hours to run
     Between the settings of the sun."
Mr. Spencer was first known to London thinkers by being found the associate of economists like Bagot; philosophers with a turn for enterprise in the kingdom of speculation—as George Henry Lewes, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall; and of great novelists like George Eliot. In those days the house of John Chapman, the publisher, was the meeting ground of French, Italian, German and other Continental thinkers. There, also, congregated illustrious Americans like Ralph Waldo Emerson, and other unlicensed explorers in the new world of thought. There Mr. Spencer became known to men of mark in America, who made his fame before his countrymen recognised him. If it was England who "raised" Mr. Spencer, it was America that discovered him. Mr. George lies, a distinguished American friend of Mr. Spencer, sends me information of the validity of American admiration of him, on the authority of the Daily Witness: "Mr. Spencer's income is mainly drawn from the sale of his books in America, his copyrights there having yielded him 4,730 dollars in the last six months. A firm of publishers have paid in the last six months royalties amounting nearly to ten thousand dollars to Mr. Herbert Spencer and the heirs or executors of Darwin, Huxley and Tyndall. The sales of Spencer's and Darwin's books lead those of Huxley and Tyndall."
During the earlier publication of his famous volumes, his expenditure in printing and in employing assistants in gathering facts for his arguments, exhausted all his means. Lord Stanley, of that day, was understood to have offered him an appointment, which included leisure for his investigations. But he declined the thoughtful offer, deeming the office to be of the nature of a sinecure. Wordsworth accepted such an appointment, and repaid the State in song, as Spencer would have repaid it in philosophy.
I had the honour to be Mr. Spencer's outdoor friend. He asked me to make known the publication of his work to persons whom I knew to be friendly to enterprise in thought. For years I assiduously sought to be of service in this way.
One day in 1885, being the guest, in Preston, of the Rev. William Sharman, he showed me a passage in one of Mr. Spencer's volumes, published in 1874, which I had not seen, and which surprised me much, in which it appeared Secularists were below Christians in their sense of fiduciary integrity. Mr. Sharman said, "Defective as we are supposed to be, you will see that Secularists are one degree lower in morality than the clergy." Mr. Spencer had given instances which, in his opinion, "showed that the cultivation of the intellect does not advance morality." If that were so, it would follow that it was better to remain ignorant—if ignorance better develops the ethical sense. The instance Mr. Spencer gives occurs in the "Study of Sociology" (pp. 418-19), "Written to show how little operative on conduct is mere teaching. Let me give, says Mr. Spencer, a striking fact falling under my observation:
"Some twelve years ago was commenced a serial publication, limited in its circulation to the well educated. It was issued to subscribers, from each of whom was due a small sum for every four numbers. The notification periodically made of another subscription due received from some prompt attention, from others an attention less tardy than before, and from others no attention at all. After a lapse of ten years, a digest was made of the original list, when it was found that those who finally declined paying for what they had year after year received, constituted, among others, the following percentages:
Christian defaulters............. 31 per cent.
Secularist defaulters............ 32 per cent."
I wrote to Mr. Spencer as follows:
"Eastern Lodge, Brighton,
"December 1, 1885.
"My dear Mr. Spencer,—I am like the sailor who knocked down the Jew, and when he was remonstrated with said, 'He did it because he had crucified his Lord and Saviour.' When told that that occurred 2,000 years ago he answered, 'But I only heard of it last night.'
"It was but a few days ago that your notice of Secularist fraudulency, made in 1874, became known to me.
"From so dispassionate an............