attempt of a profound egotist to
give a perfectly sincere picture of his life. Of course, I should have
read it with greater appreciation if I had studied or cared for his
books; but I take for granted that he was a great man, and accomplished
a great work, and I like to see how he achieved it.

The book is the strongest argument I have ever yet read against a
rational education. I who despair of the public-school classical
system, am reluctantly forced to confess that it can sow the seeds of
fairer flowers than ever blossomed in the soul of Herbert Spencer. He
was by no means devoid of aesthetic perception. He says that the sight
of a mountain, and music heard in a cathedral were two of the things
that moved him most. He describes a particular sunset which he saw in
Scotland, and describes the experience as the climax of his emotional
sensations. He was devoted to music, and had a somewhat contemptuous
enjoyment of pictures. But the arrogance and impenetrability of the man
rise up on every page. He cannot say frankly that he does not
understand art and literature; he dogmatises about them, and gives the
reader to understand that there is really nothing in them. He
criticises the classics from the standpoint of a fourth form boy. He
sits like a dry old spider, spinning his philosophical web, with a
dozen avenues of the soul closed to him, and denying that such avenues
exist. As a statistical and sociological expert he ought to have taken
into account the large number of people who are affected by what we may
call the beautiful, and to have allowed for its existence even if he
could not feel it. But no, he is perfectly self-satisfied, perfectly
decided. And this is the more surprising because the man was in reality
a hedonist. He protests finely in more than one place against those who
make life subsidiary to work. He is quite clear on the point that work
is only a part of life, and that to live is the object of man. Again,
he states that the pursuit of innocent pleasure is a thing to which it
is justifiable to devote some energy, and yet this does not make him
tolerant. The truth is that he was so supremely egotistical, so
entirely wrapped up in himself and his own life, that what other people
did and cared for was a matter of entire indifference to him. His
social tastes, and they were considerable, were all devoted to one and
the same purpose. He liked staying at agreeable country houses, because
it was a pleasant dis