ot only for its
initiation, but for its sustentation also.

This argument was set forth with great minuteness, and it was shown how
many most distinguished thinkers, while admitting its general truth,
were constantly obscuring it by formulae which were, in effect, denials
of it. Among the writers thus referred to was Mr. Herbert Spencer, who
in one passage described the Napoleonic wars as an incident in the
process of evolution and in another passage cited them as examples of
the results of the solitary wickedness of one super-capable man. With
regard to these issues I received some interesting letters from Mr.
Spencer himself. His contention was that I had quite misrepresented his
meaning. Economically, at all events, the functions of the super-capable
man were in his opinion as important as they possibly could be in mine.
I replied that if such were his opinion he very often obscured it, but
that I hoped he would acquit me of any conscious unfairness to himself.
His first letters were not without a touch of acerbity, but he ended
with amicably stating what his actual views were, and saying that if I
only amended certain passages relating to himself, he was in entire
agreement with my whole argument otherwise.

[Illustration: HERBERT SPENCER]

I never met Mr. Spencer, and of what he may have been in conversation I
have not the least conception; but a story is told of him which shows
that he must have had a vein of humor in him which his writings do not
suggest. His favorite relaxation was billiards. This game he played with
more than average skill, but on one occasion, much to his own chagrin,
he found himself hopelessly beaten by a very immature young man. "Skill
in billiards, up to a certain point, is a sign," he said, "of sound
self-training. Too much skill is a sign of a wasted life."

To go back to _Aristocracy and Evolution_, though its sale was equal to
some of the works of Herbert Spencer himself, it was by no means
comparable to that of the treatise of Mr. Kidd, to which it was designed
as a counterblast. Of this the main reason was, I may venture to say,
not that it was inferior in point of style or of pertinence, or of
logical strength of argument, but that, while appealing, like Mr. Kidd's
work, to serious readers only, it appealed to the sentimentalism of a
very much smaller number of them--if, indeed, it can be said to have
appealed to sentimentalities at all; whereas Mr. Kidd had a
semi-Socialist aud