Herbert Spencer 1820-1903

Author(s): George Sarton

Source: Isis, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer, 1921), pp. 375-390
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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 Herbert Spencer l
I820-I903

There seems to be a rhythm in history, a sort of gigantic human

ebb and flow, according to which men are periodically brought
together in closer unison or driven asunder. These tides are not
restricted to the sentimental sphere but involve as well our intellectual
activities and, in fact, they seem to pervade the whole of human life.
Thus in the XIIIth century one common faith intensified the solidarity
of a great number of peoples, and at the same time we witness an
immense effort toward synthetic knowledge and a wonderful efflores-
cence of a self-forgetting art. The xvthcentury on the contrary leaves
one the impression of a period of decomposition, of searching analysis,
of violent individual conflicts.
To all external appearances we are now crossing a period of ebb,
when the centrifugal forces far exceed the centripetal ones, when man
is more conscious of his own precious self than of the rest of humanity,
more concerned about his material than his religious needs, more
prone to assert himself than to own any deep solidarity with his
fellow men. Of course we are more keenly aware of it because of the
spasmodic union caused by the war. It would be very foolish to
mistake this war solidarity for a real increase in human cohesion, for,
as I have said, the flow does not affect simply one partof our soul but
the whole of it. A common fear and a common hatred are entirely
unable to create an all-pervading faith. Hence in spite of the many
examples of heroism and absolute devotion which the war has brought
to light, we can but feel that, then as now, human affairswere at a very
low ebb. The war may well have marked the nadir of the present
depression. Other ominous symptoms are not lacking: divergent

(1) By permissionfrom Scribner'sMagazine for June, 1920, copyright, 1920,

by CHARLESSCRIBNER'S SO11S.

Vol.. mI-3 27

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376 GEORGE SARTON

forces are everywhere more apparent than the convergent ones.

A great many men and women seem to have no higher ideal in life
than to be (( different ) and (( exclusive )). Ourartists are determined
to be original at any price. As to the scientists they shut themselves
more and more out of the world and live like clams in their little
shells. Pray, what can the wide world mean to a clam?
How shall we ever emerge from the present anarchy? Well, because
of the unity of our life, and because of the fact that this ebb and flow
interests every part of our soul, it is clear that any attempt to lift
up any part of it will help us gradually to emerge and to recover.
Of course complete recovery will only be possible when a great many
of us pull together with our whole strength. But it is not necessary
that we pull on the same ropes. One may struggle for greater
brotherhood, another for more unselfish art, another for synthetic
knowledge; their cause is the same and they actually pull together.
It cannot be denied that synthetic or encyclopaedic knowledge is
very little understood nowadays. Most people, including the majority
of the scientists themselves, look down upon it with nothing but
distrust and scepticism. This is due partly to the fact that the very
progress of science implies an ever-increasing specialization of
research, partly to the materialistic tendencies of our age - people
care more for practical results than knowledge-partly to the fact that
there is so little genuine encyclopaedic knowledge and so much
which is faked and worthless. It is easy to answer to the first
objection: no man in his senses believes that there is too much
analytic research, but simply that, however much of it there be, it
must be balanced by a corresponding amount of co-ordinating work.
The last objection is but too painfully just. We are all acquainted
with men who will argue brilliantly about everything under the sun
and yet who are unable to add anything to the total experience of
humanity. Such people are of very little account. The dullest
specialist at least knows something; they know nothing whatever.
Unfortunately, it happens but too often that their empty discourses
are mistaken for true synthetic knowledge with the result that such
knowledge is unjustly despised.
It is worth while to go a little more deeply into the matter and to
answer the two following questions: Is synthetic knowledge desirable
and should it be encouraged? And if so, is it possible for any man,
however intelligent, to acquire it?
An excellent way of approaching these two questions is to consider

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 HERBERT SPENCER 377

the concrete case which the life of HERBERT SPENCER -- the latest
synthetic philosopher - offers to us. He was born just a hundred
years ago. It occurred to me that while returning to him with
reverence on the occasion of his centenary, we might take advantageof
our pilgrimage to examine whether the ideal to which he devoted his
life was a sensible one and how far he succeeded in attaining it. We
are less anxious to know the results he arrived at than to test the value
of his method. The problem is then: ((Was SPENCER right in trying
to do what he did ? Is it worth trying again ?)) Of course, from this
new angle, his failure becomes just as interesting as his success,
because they help us equally to solve the next practical problem:
c(How can we again do what he did, and do it better?))
The life of a philosopher is generally less exciting than that of a
war correspondent or a prima donna. SPENCER'S life is a very plain
one indeed. If one does not insist on quoting the titles of the books
and essays, which are the most conspicuous mile-stones of his career,
it can be told in a few words. He was born in Derby on April 27,
1820, a thoroughbred Englishman. His father, GEORGE SPENCER, was
a teacher, a man of small means and little imagination, but honest to
the core and of an unbending type. His mother, who does not seem
to have influenced him to any extent, was very different from her
husband, as patient and gentle as he was irritable and aggressively
independent. They do not seem to have been very happy together,
and their union was not blessed with many children who survived;
although nine were born to them, only one, HERBERT,the eldest,
passed the stage of infancy. It is as if already the parents had been
obliged to pay the heavy ransom of genius. The boy was left a great
deal to himself, and he followed his bent toward scientific information,
learning also a little English and arithmetic. At the age of thirteen,
he was sent to his uncle, the Reverend THOMAS
SPENCER, but the
discipline of this new home seemed at first so hard to him that he ran
away to his father's, walking one hundred and fifteen miles in three
days with hardly any sleep or food. However, after a while he
returned to his uncle and stayed with him, being tutored by him,
chiefly in mathematics, for the next three years. This was the end of
his systematic education, which certainly was very incomplete. When
he began to earn his living at sixteen, he knew probably less than the
average well-to-do boy of his age. It is true he knew considerably
more in other ways, and he had also exercised to a greater extent his
mother-wit. Then he worked successively as an assistant school-

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378 GEORGE SARTON

master (for three months), as an engineer, and, after a vain attempt

to earn a living as a literary man, he finally became in 1848 sub-editor
of the Economist. This last position had the advantage of bringing
him into touch with many eminent men of his day; men like HUXLEY,
TYNDALL, and LEWES. During all these years, he had carried on desul-
tory reading, he had made quite a number of trivial inventions, he had
done some writing and a considerable amount of solitary thinking.
The editing of the Economist left him time enough to complete his
first book, (( Social Statics)), which appeared early in 1851. In 1853,
having inherited five hundred pounds from his uncle, he abandoned
this position and determined to support himself by his own literary
work. Such is always a very hazardous decision, never more,
however, than in the case of a man who is less a writer than a thinker,
a slow and hard thinker, whose ability to express himself is con-
stantly inhibited by the fear of error. Shortly afterward, after a
holiday in Switzerland, his health began to break down. Yet he
resolutely pursued the self-imposed task of which he became more
and more conscious, and after many years of work and meditation, of
suffering and disappointment, on March 27, 1860, he published the
programme of (( A System of Philosophy ), the outline of the work
to which the best part of his life was to be devoted. This is to me the
culminating date in SPENCER'S life. It is then that he reveals for the
first time his dominant personality.
Think of it! Here we have a man, whose systematic knowledge is
rather small, whom many scientists (not the greatest, however) would
have regardedas ignorant-and such he was in many respects -, a man
handicapped by lack of means and of health, but one who has been
thinking hard and fast for a number of years, who has measured the
world around him and himself, who knows exactly what he must do,
who calmly estimates the immensity of the undertaking and the
frailty of the means, who knows that his decision practically involves
the surrender of his liberty for the rest of his days and makes of him
a slave to his ideal - yet his faith is so great that he does not hesitate.
No handicap will stop him and he sends his programme to the
world; a programme to the fulfilment of which the rest of his life
was faithfully and unrestrictedly given. One should keep in mind
that at that time SPENCER was already a nervous invalid; he could
only work a few hours a day and had to use all sorts of tricks to do
so without suffering; in the afternoon he had to forsake not simply
work but any excitement or he would lose his night's rest. Yet he

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 HERBERT SPENCER 379

went ahead and henceforth his life was one of single-hearted devotion
to his self-imposed trust. The first volume of the (( Synthetic Philo-
sophy)) appeared in 1862, the tenth and last in 1896. It took him
thirty-seven years to go over the top.
It is not part of my present purpose to analyze, even briefly, SPEN-
CER'S works. I will simply limit myself to a few remarks wich may
refresh the reader's memory and help him to appreciate SPENCER'S
undertaking. Let us remember that his fundamental ideas are the
following: First, an earnest belief in the value of philosophy as com-
pletely unified knowledge. Of course, without such belief, he could
not have carried on his life's work. Secondly, the modern concept
of evolution both in its biological and its universal import. Thirdly,
the ideal of freedom - the core of his political thought.
I need not consider the first point because my whole essay is really
devoted to it. It is remarkable that SPENCER'S first paper on evolution,
one entitled ((The Development Hypothesis, )) appeared as early as
1852, and his system of philosophy, which was essentially based upon
the law of progress, was drafted by him for the first time in the early
days of 4858. It is in the middle of the same year that DARWIN and
WALLACE announced their theory of natural selection to the Linnaean
Society of London. SPENCER'S merit as a precursor cannot be denied;
at the same time it must be said that if his general theory of evolu-
tion was right, his conception of its mechanism was wrong. He
believed that biologic progress was chiefly determined by the inheri-
tance of characteristics gained by each individual during his lifetime,
and although he later admitted the validity of DARWIN'S explanation,
that is, natural selection (it is SPENCER, by the way, who coined the
popular phrase ccstruggle for life))), he remained a Lamarckian to
the end of his life. Biologists are now generally agreed that acquired
characters are not inherited, but their agreement on this subject is
so recent that it would hardly be fair to blame SPENCER on this score.
Moreover, he was the first to extend this theory to a general concep-
tion of the universe and to retrace in the development not simply of
living organisms but of everything an evolution or a progress (( from
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the simple to the com-
plex, from the incoherent to the coherent, from the indefinite to the
definite ). Matter-of-factpeople may object that such a generalization
is equally uncontrollable and useless, but that is to take a very crude
view of the subject. SPENCER'S generalization, his insistence, was a
powerful factor in the success of the evolutionary point of view. It

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380 GEORGE SARTON

helped mightily to create a new scientific and philosophic atmosphere.

Is not that very much indeed, and what more could you expect a phi-
losopher to do ?
The (( Synthetic Philosophy ) did not embrace all the sciences.
Feeling the necessity of restricting his field, chiefly on account of his
insufficient scientific training, he made a systematic study only of
those branches of knowledge to which the application of scientific
methods was relatively new, to wit: biology, ethics, sociology.
Biological facts had inspired his theory of evolution, and his biology
in turn was dominated by it. On the other hand, in his ethical and
social studies he was chiefly guided by the conception that liberty is
the greatest good. The industrial and legal development of the last
half-century seems to have proceeded in the opposite direction; yet
the main difficulties of our moral and social life cannot be solved by
artificial regulations, and now, even more than in SPENCER'S time,
the greatest political problem to be solved is the one involved in the
antinomy: freedom versus red tape, or initiative versus automatism,
or life versus stagnation. Of course we all realize that a great many
more regulations and social restrictions are needed than SPENCER was
prepared to admit, but the wise do not believe that these regulations
are real factors of progress. The best that they can do is to prevent
us from sliding backward; they cannot help us to go onward. They
impede a certain amount of evil and they oblige another amount of
it to assume a secret form, which may be on the whole less perni-
cious. They cannot create any parcel of positive good. SPENCER'S
searching analysis of these subjects is of permanent value, and even
if one assents to the temporary necessity of compulsory measures,
there is no doubt that social progress lies mainly in the direction
which he pointed out, the increase of voluntary co-operation.
SPENCERhas often been reproached that his system is based far
more upon preconceived ideas than upon the observation of reality.
Yet it must be admitted that he managed to marshal an enormous
mass of facts to support his theories. If it be true that the latter
were generally ahead of his experience, is not the same true to a
certain extent of every scientific hypothesis? Never mind where
a man gets his theories if he can establish them on experimental
grounds. And SPENCER, however biassed and ignorant he may have
been, took enormous pains to gather the experimental facts which he
needed. Think only of the descriptive sociology whose publication
under his direction began in 1873 and is not yet completed. Although

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 HERBERT SPENCER 381

he was very poor in the first half of his life and never reached more
than a small competence, he spent more than three thousand pounds
on this great undertaking. It is a pity, by the way, that the frame of
these descriptions is so rigid and their size so awkward, but as they
are, the published volumes contain an enormous amount of material
and deserve greater recognition than they have ever received.
SPENCER'Smain shortcoming was his dogmatism, his inability to
consider the opinions of others. This dogmatism, which naturally
increased as he grew older, arose partly from his initial ignorance,
partly from his chronic neurasthenia, partly also from his lack of
imagination, the singleness of his purpose, the exclusiveness of his
thought. He was temperamentally a non-conformist, and although
later in life he seemed to become more and more anxious to comply
with the external conventions of society, I suppose he did so chiefly
to eschew the criticism of fools and to protect his inner freedom.
There is no justification whatever for the statement that SPENCER
was (( all brains and no heart)). He was not sentimental, but very
sensitive. Of course the accomplishment of his life's work did
absorb the greatest part of his energy, including his emotional energy,
and a man carrying such a burden on his shoulders could not be
expected to run errands for others.
DA VINCI, the predominance of his intel-
As in the case of LEONARDO
lectual concerns partly explains his sexual indifference, which over-
whelming interests of another sort could but aggravate, as they
became more engrossed in their work. At any rate, SPENCER does
not seem to have ever experienced love. When he was twenty, he
came nearer to it than ever before or afterward, but this little
encounter seems very shadowy indeed and would not even be quoted
in the biography of a more normal person. Later, while he was edi-
ting the Economist, he often took to the theatre, to share his free tickets,
a young girl (she was a year older than he) who then enjoyed some
small notoriety for her translation of STlAUSS'S(( Life of JEsus)). They
saw a great deal of one another, but although there is no woman for
whom SPENCER ever had a higher esteem, there is no warrant for the
statement that they ever were in love. Leaving temperament aside,
maybe if SPENCERhad had a little more imagination and pluck, they
would have married. And just try to imagine what would have hap-
pened if HERBERT and GEORGE
SPENCER ELIOThad been man and wife!
Pity that such experiments are impossible and that each life is defini-
tive. Anyhow, I do not think, as far as I know them both, that

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382 GEORGE SARTON

SPENCER would have made her happy; at least he could not have
inspired her as deeply as did, later, GEORGE HENRY LEWES.
It is very interesting to compare SPENCER and COMTE, and I love to
bring them together in the field of my memory. SPENCER did not like
allusions to COMTE apropos of himself, and he refused to own any
indebtedness to his illustrious predecessor. It is true that he never
made a formal study of COMTE'S works, yet he knew more of them than
he was himself conscious of, as the result of his conversations with
his friends, chiefly GEORGE ELIOTand GEORGE LEWES,who were at
one time enthusiastic followers of the French philosopher. They
certainly had many opportunities of imparting to SPENCER, willy-
nilly, the gist of COMTE'S ideas.
However different the great Frenchman and the great Englishman
were, they had very much in common. First of all their encyclo-
paedic ideal, then their heroic faith and tenacity amidst untoward
circumstances, their intolerance and dogmatism, their independence,
their lack of those softening qualities which make men lovable.
They attached a paramount importance to the study of sociology and
positive polity, but they clearly saw that no real advance can be made
which is not preceded by a moral transformation. They both asserted
themselves in a similar way. AUGUSTE COMTE wrote the first sketch of
his (( Course of Positive Philosophy ) in 1826, and the course itself
was the labor of the next sixteen years; SPENCER launched his
manifesto in 1860, and working far more slowly, it took him more
than double this time to produce the whole of his own synthesis.
Although both saw the importance of historical methods, they still
have in common an extraordinary lack of historical sense. I am
thinking of COMTE, the philosopher-not of the prophet of his latter
days, who, jumping to the other extreme, made of history a sort of
religion. Before that, he does not seem to have grasped any
more clearly than SPENCER that genuine synthetic knowledge must
comprehend the whole past of knowledge as well as its latest stages.
Knowledge indeed is not something fixed and rigid, neither is it
perfect; it is an ever-progressing organism whose meaning can only
be understood by him who knows its origin and its inner life. COMTE
saw well enough that the history of intellectual development is the
key to social evolution, but he did not see that it is also a master-key
to synthetic knowledge. SPENCER generously spent considerable sums
for the elaboration of his (( Descriptive Sociology ), wherein the
chronological sequence of events is faithfully abided by; yet what

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 HERBERT SPENCER 383

one might call his historical blindness was appalling. Nothing is

more pitiful, nothing more calculated to make one doubt of his
genius, than the meagre notes he wrote while travelling in Egypt and
Italy; to him the past was dead.
In my sketch of SPENCER'S life, I hope I have made it clear how ill
prepared he was for the great undertaking upon which he had set his
heart. At first view it seems unbelievable that he could do as much
as he did with such inadequate equipment. In fact, he was not by
any means as ignorant as one would expect such a poor student to
be. If he had but few opportunities of systematic research or set
studies, he had plenty, in his miscellaneous readings and his talks at
the Athenaeumor in the streets with the most distinguished of his
contemporaries, to gather in a substantial amount of first class
information. His sharp and ready mind could make the most of the
vaguest hint. Being endowed with a real genius for synthesis and
possessing a complete system of knowledge, he could at the same time
keep out all superfluous information, and let in, and classify at once,
all that which was pertinent to his purpose.
In short, SPENCER'S mind was a genuine encyclopaedic mind. The
relative smallness of his knowledge was largely compensated by its
congruity. The contemplation of such a mind helps one better than
any explanation to understand what synthetic or encyclopaedic
knowledge actually is. It is not a mere accumulation of disconnected
facts and theories. There are men who know thousands of facts, but
have no skill in ordering them, no hooks in their brains to hang them
on. The disintegrated knowledge of these men, of whom good people
often speak as being very learned, is as remote from synthetic
knowledge as crass ignorance. Knowledge is synthetic to the extent
that it is unified, congruous, and the result of an organic growth.
It cannot be obtained by mere juxtaposition of odd bits, but only by
a slow digestion and re-elaboration of all the materials which the
mind selects and absorbs.
Nevertheless, the lack of a systematic training at the outset of his
life was to SPENCER a considerable and, to a large extent, an
irretrievable handicap. Genius cannot entirely make up for the
absence of the fundamental technique which can only be properly
acquired when one is young. It is astounding that, barring such as
were unavoidable at the time of his writing, there are not more errors
in SPENCER'S philosophy, and that there is so much truth- truth ot
his day and prophetic truth - in a system resting on such a fragile

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384 GEORGESARTON

foundation. Indeed the amount of active substance which his works

contain is unusually great; an excellent proof of this is afforded by
the extraordinaryinfluence they exerted upon the intellectual develop-
ment of the end of the XIxthcentury.
The unification of knowledge is the more necessary as knowledge
becomes more complex and specialized. If nobody had the courage
to attempt it, the scientific world would soon become a new Tower of
Babel. There are already too many specialists who know what they
are doing hardly more than bees do. They work faithfully in their
little corner, and their work is very useful. But science is far more
than the sum of their fragmentary efforts. The growth of science is
essentially an organic growth. That means that at least a few people
must take the trouble to digest and assimilate the whole of it, in order
to co-ordinate and to unify it. They may err; nay, they are bound
to err ever and anon; but where one will err, the next one will go
straight. It is so that everything progresses.
If encyclopaedic efforts were abandoned, the amount of scientific
facts and little theories might go on increasing indefinitely, but
science would perish. The same is equally true of every human
activity. Everywhere synthetic and centripetal endeavors must coun-
terbalance the more special and centrifugal ones, lest the whole fabric
of life be ruined and fall to pieces. Business men, for instance, have
a very clear notion of this, and in proportion as they standardize and
specialize their industries, they are careful to provide co-ordinating
agencies to keep the complete body together.
But many will hasten to object: (( Encyclopaedic knowledge,
however desirable it may be, has become impossible. Science is
becoming vaster every day and men do not seem to grow bigger.
Indeed they seem smaller than they were in the past. There are no
more ARISTOTLES, and if one of these giants were to come back, the
immensity of accumulated knowledge would make him feel like a
pigmy. However narrow be the field one has chosen, one finds it
impossible to encompass and to exhaust it. How then could it be
possible to know the whole of science? ) Their argument seems
peremptory. Yet it is a fallacy based on the assumption that the
whole of science is greater than any one of its parts. This is wrong,
for when the parts and the whole are infinite, they are of equal size.
It is just as difficult to know the history of France, or say the history
of Paris, as the history of the world, because both undertakings are
equally endless.

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 HERBERT SPENCER 385

It is true that science is becoming more complex every day, but it is

also becoming simpler and more harmonious in proportion that
synthetic knowledge increases, that is, that more general rela-
tions are discovered. It is this very fact which makes encyclopaedic
efforts still possible. In some respects one might even say that such
efforts are easier now than they were before, because the very progress
of science enables one to contemplate its development from a higher
point of view. The synthetic philosopher who has taken the pains to
understand the most difficult parts of science and to climb, so to say,
to its summit, enjoys the same advantage as a traveller who can view
a whole country from the top of a mountain. No longer do the
fantastically shaped hills, the crooked valleys, the deep and mysterious
forests delude him; he sees them all from above in their correct
relations. Of course he does not know every plant of every nook as
does the plant-hunter, nor every insect as the zoologist, nor every
stone of the rocks as the prospector. His knowledge is different.
This suggests another reason for the possibility of encyclopedic
knowledge. Such knowledge indeed is not necessarily vaster than
any specialized knowledge, because he who undertakes to master it
does not attempt to know, or at least to store in his memory, facts of
the same kind. Many of the generalizations which the special
investigator has reached at the cost of enormous pains are only ele-
mentary facts to the encyclopaedist. It is easy enough for the map-
maker to draw on his map a new river, to discover the true course of
which many men have spent their lives; it is not more difficult for
the encyclopaedistto register new scientific facts and ideas, each of
which is the fruit of considerable ingenuity and endless toil.
Yet most men prefer to stand on the solid ground of immediate
experience. Their habits of work increase their timidity, and before
long the most circumspect endeavors to organize empirical know-
ledge seem to them adventurous. It is perhaps chiefly as a contrast
with this timidity that undertakings like SPENCER'S take heroic pro-
portions.
There is a touch of heroism in them, because there is indeed a
touch of adventure. Special research is generally less disappointing,
for it brings immediate results and moral comfort. The astronomer
who sets our clocks right and the chemist who prepares our dyes are
just as conscious of their usefulness as the baker is; no doubts will
prey on their minds. Again, to put neatly written cards in a drawer,
or to classify endless rows of insects or shells, and then to write long

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386 GEORGE SARTON

memoirs in which every one of them is fastidiously described, will

bring peace and happiness to many people. They well know that
they are working for eternity, because it is they who bring together
the materials of which any scientific synthesis is made. In the course
of time many an edifice will be built with these materials; the build-
ings will pass, the materials will remain. Most scientists do not go
beyond this; they prepare and collect material; they do not build.
I suppose they obey a true instinct. They are quickly troubled with
giddiness. They are right in refusing to go farther; they are wrong
when they say that everybody is dizzy when they are.
The proof that synthetic studies are not necessarily more difficult
than others, for one who has the proper constitution, is that SPENCER,
whose systematic training was so poor and who could not work more
than two or three hours a day, succeeded so well. He succeeded
because of the synthetic power of his mind, but also because of his
indomitable will, of his tenacity, of his faith.
And SPENCER'S
relative success gives one much hope, for it is easy
to conceive a man having his synthetic grasp, his faith, and far more
systematic knowledge and physical endurance. One has only to
think. of a SPENCER endowed with a greater reserve of health and a
competence which would have enabled him in his youth to pursue
long university studies and to master the rudiments and the technique
of many sciences. One may object that SPENCER'S audacity was partly
the result of his ignorance. That is plausible. Ignorance has been
more than once a source of inspiration; on the other hand, know-
ledge is always a heavy burden to bear. Many are so overburdened
that they can hardly move. But again we may conceive a man strong
enough to accumulate a great deal of experience, and yet to remain
imaginative and young and keep a clear vision of his purpose.
In this centenary of SPENCER'S birthday, let us think of him with
gratefulness, not so much for the knowledge which he added to ours,
as for the example of moral courage and of faith which he gave us.
He helped us to understand the nature and the desirability of synthetic
science, to realize its possibility and to keep alive the need and the
love of it.
As long as there are men who care not simply for material results,
but yearn for unified and harmonious knowledge, the memory of
HERBERT SPENCER will be revered.
GEORGE SARTON.
Washington D. C, March 1920.

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 HERBERT SPENCER 387

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND ICONOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

1. The present essay on SPENCER has been reprinted from Scribner's
Magazine, June 1920, as an editorial of Isis, for two reasons : in the
first place to commemorate the centenary of his birth; in the second
place to emphasize the necessity and the possibility of synthetic
knowledge. The second reason is of especial importance because
I believe that knowledge limited to the present, without historical
background, can not be really synthetic. Such static knowledge can
but be superficial; precious as it may be for practical and material
purposes it is philosophically worthless. On the .other hand, histo-
rical research conducted without any regard to synthetic knowledge,
without any interest in the growth of modern science, is bound to
degenerate into mere antiquarianism.
2. SPENCER'S main publications. His first paper (( Crystallization )),
appeared in 1836 in the Bath and West of England Magazine for
January. His eleventh publication was the first of importance,
namely letters ( on the proper sphere of government)) which appeared
in the Nonconformist from June to December 1842.
1851. Social statics or the conditions essential to human happiness
specified and the first of them developed. London, CHAPMAN.
This was SPENCER'Sfirst book. The Preface is dated
December 1850 and the book appeared early in 1851. An
abridged and revised edition of it appeared in 1892 together
with a reprint of (( Man versus the State )).
1852. The Development Hypothesis. Leader, March 20 (Essays, I, 1).
1855. Principles of Psychology (in one vol.).
1858. Essays (first series).
1860. A System of Philosophy. Prospectus distributedin March 1860
by the publisher GEORGE MANWARING, London, giving the
programme of the synthetic philosophy, that is the programme
of SPENCER'S life for the next forty years. Reproduced in the
preface to the First Principles, also in the Autobiography II,
557-563.
1860-1862. First Principles. First part of the Synthetic philosophy.
Issued in six numbers from October 1860 to June 1862. The
annual subscription (4 parts) was 10 shillings. There is a
copy of this edition in the Harvard Library, with the original
blue covers. The four first parts were published by MAN-
WARING, the two last and the complete book by WILIAMs and
NORGATE,London (1). The title page of the whole book is
dated 1862, and the preface containing the programme is
dated London, June 5th 1862.

(1) WILLIAMS and NORGATE have been the publishers of almost all of
SPENCER'S books; the American publishers being D. APPLETON& Co.,
New York.

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 388 GEORGE SARTON

Sixth and final ed. of First Principles, 1900.

1861. Education: intellectual, moral and physical. London. MAN-
WARING. Collection of four essays published from 1854 to 1859.
1863. Essays (second series.)
1864-1867. Principles of Biology (2 vol.). Revised ed., 1898-1899.
Second part of the synthetic philosophy.
1870-1872. Principles of Psychology (2 vol.). Third part of the
synthetic philosophy. This is a second ed. of the work in one
vol. published in 1855. Fourth ed., 1899.
1873. The Study of Sociology. (International Scientific Series.)
London, PAUL.
1873- Descriptive Sociology, or groups of sociological facts
classified and arranged by HERBERT SPENCER. Compiled and
abstracted by DAVID DUNCAN,RICHARDSCHEPPIG,JAMESCOLLIER.
Eight of these enormous volumes (royal folio) appeared during
SPENCER'S lifetime (1873-1881). Two more have appeared in
1910, published at the cost of SPENCER'S estate and edited by
H. R. TEDDER: IX.Chinese by E. T. C. WERNER and X. Greeks,
Hellenic Era by J. P. MAHAFFY and W. A. GOLIGHER; others
are in preparation. It is doubtful whether these books
compiled upon SPENcER's plans and for his own needs will ever
be as useful to other scholars as they would have been to him;
it is even doubtful whether their utility will ever be commen-
surate to their cost in time and money.
1874. Essays (third series.)
1876-1896. Principles of Sociology. Fourth part of the synthetic
philosophy.
1879-1893. Principles of Ethics. Fifth part of the synthetic philo-
sophy. This part was started after the fourth one but
completed before. The whole system was completed in 1896,
but SPENCER then began to prepare new editions of the earlier
parts, until 1900.
1884. The Man versus the State. Reprinted 1892 with Social Statics.
1897. Various fragments.
1902 Facts and comments.
A complete list of SPENCER'Swritings will be found in D. DUNCAN. ((Life
and Letters of H. SPENCERB. London 1908. Appendix C. Some of the
dates quoted by Duncan are not correct (at least in the American
edition, vol. II, p. 366-367).

3. Main publications about SPENCER.- The main source of informa-

tion is SPENCER'SAutobiography which appeared posthumously
in 1904 (2 vol). This is a very minute account of his life up to 1882.
SPENCER lived until 1903, but the balance of his life was far less inter-
esting. The biography is completed by DAVID DUNCAN'S Life and
Letters of HER:EIRT SPENCER, 1908. (London, METHUEN, 1 vol.; New
2 vol.).
York, APPLETON, Additional biographical information will be

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 HERBERT SPENCER 389

found in : JOSIAH ROYCE. H. SPENCER, an estimate and review;

together with a chapter of personal reminiscences by JAMESCOLLIER
New York, Fox, 1904; FREDERIC HARRISON. The HERBERT SPENCER
[first] lecture. Oxford, CLARENDONPress, 1905. See also: F. HOWARD
COLLINS. An epitome of the synthetic philosophy with a preface by
HERBERT SPENCER, New York 1889. The preface is a condensation of
Spencerian philosophy in less than two pages. The book is a reduction
of the synthetic philosophy, section by section, to one tenth- WIL-
LIAM HENRY HUDSON. An introduction to the philosophy of HERBERT
SPENCER, New York 1894; 2d ed. 1900. EDMOND PARISOT. H. SPENCER.
Choix de textes et etude du systeme philosophique. Paris [1912], with
French bibliography. The latest study of SPENCER'S life and work,
and perhaps the best one is : HUGH S. R. ELLIOT. HERBERT SPENCER
(Makers of the XIXth century). London, CONSTABLE,1917; also with
a bibliography.

4. Portraits of Spencer. - The following list is not complete but

more than sufficient. The portraits are quoted in chronological order.
The A. L. A. Index, Washington 1906, p. 1371, refers to many other
portraits published in periodicals and illustrated books. Probably
most of these portraits would be found to duplicate those enumerated
below, but some would be new. Of these, some would be dated, some
not. It would be easy to date the undated portraits by comparing
them to the dated portraits quoted below.
1839, Ae. 19. Head and shoulder, profile to the left. Sketch. (DUN-
CAN'SLife, I, frontispiece.)
1855, Ae. 35. Seated figure to the knees, facing spectator. From a
photograph. (DUNCAN'SLife, I, p. 100). Earnest but sad-
looking face.
1858, Ae. 38. Bust facing spectator. From a photograph (Autobio-
graphy, I, frontispiece). Signed (( HERBERTSPENCERwhen 38 ).
Beautiful portrait,
Ab. 1865, Ae. 45. Bust facing spectator, the right hand supporting the
head. Very beautiful photograph by JOHN WATKINS (see
World's Work, 5, p. 3107, 1903). An engraving by GEO.
E. PERRINE,New York, was based on this photograph and
published in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign literature,
science and art, vol. XV, New York, March 1872, as an
((embellishment)) to an essay on SPENCERby E. L. YOUMANS.
This engraving is reproduced in the present number of Isis.
I have chosen it because it is excellent, little known and repre-
sents SPENCER at the most critical and glorious period of his
life.
1866, Ae. 46. Head and shoulders, face three quarters to the right.
From a photograph (DUNCAN'SLife, I, p. 166).
1872, Ae. 52. Painted by JOHN BAGNOLDBURGESS. Seated figure to
the knees, body turned to the left, facing spectator. Dimen-

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390 GEORGE SARTON

sions : 46 in. by 37 1/2 in. National Portrait Gallery, No. 1358

Bequeathed to it by SPENCER Very beautiful portrait, perhaps
the best portrait that we have.
1882, Ae. 62. In 1882, SPENCER made a visit to America and of course
was photographed on that occasion. I have before me two
photographs of that time, both from the E. J. WENDELL
bequest, HARVARD Library : 1. by JOHN BEARDSHAW, New
York. Bust, face three quarters to the left; 2. by W. G. MAR-
TIN,Montreal. Head and shoulders, facing spectator. A third
photograph from the same collection made by ELLIOTTand
FRY, London; bust, face three quarters to the left, is a little
posterior.
1884, Ae. 64. Photograph by BARRAUDS. Bust facing spectator.
(World's Work, V, p. 3107, 1903.)
1893, Ae. 73. Bust facing spectator. Hair and whiskers white.
Photograph (DUNCAN,II, frontispiece). Beautiful portrait often
reproduced.
1898, Ae. 78. From a painting by Sir HUBERT VONHERKOMER(DUNCAN,
II, 112). Bust, face three quarters to the right. DUNCAN
relates the history of this portrait made after the completion
of the synthetic philosophy. (DUNCAN,II, ch. 24.)
Idem. Bust facing spectator. Photograph signed (( HERBERT SPENCER
when 78 ). Very good portrait. SPENCER is now an old man,
yet vigorous.
1901, Ae. 81. Two very good photographs in World's Work, 5, p 3109
and 3110. New York 1903 : 1. Seated, to the waist, face three
quarters to the right, reading; 2. Seated, full length, at home
(Brighton! overlooking the sea. Both photographs copy-
righted by ERNEST H. MILLS, London.
There is also at the National Portrait Gallery (No. 1359) a
marble bust by Sir JOSEPH EDGARD B(EHM, bequathed by
SPENCER. I have not seen it and hence cannot date it.

Cambridge, Mass. Sept. 1920. G. S.

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