groups of men, shielded by
circumstances from external antagonisms, have been moulded into forms of
moral nature so superior to our own that the account of their goodness
almost savors of romance; and it is reasonable to infer that what has
even now happened on a small scale may, under kindred conditions,
ultimately happen on a large scale. Prolonged studies, showing among
other things the need for certain qualifications above indicated, but
also revealing facts like that just named, have not caused our author to
recede from the belief expressed nearly fifty years ago that "the
ultimate man will be one whose private requirements coincide with public
ones. He will be that manner of man who, in spontaneously fulfilling his
own nature, incidentally performs the functions of a social unit; and
yet is only enabled so to fulfil his own nature by all others doing
the like."

Before taking leave of the "Principles of Sociology," we should caution
the reader against a misconception that might seem, at first sight, to
find some warrant in the following remark of a sympathetic reviewer:
"Like Aristotle, he [Mr. Spencer] has had to delegate large portions of
his work to be done for him by others." As our author has himself
pointed out in "Facts and Comments," the reviewer's reference will be
rightly interpreted by those who know that the work delegated by
Aristotle to others was simply the _collection_ of materials for his
Natural History, not the classification of those materials, much less
the drawing of inductions from them. As not one reader in ten knows
this, however, wrong impressions are likely to be made by the reviewer's
remark. Mr. Spencer's name being especially associated with the
"Synthetic Philosophy," the sentence quoted will suggest to many the
thought that large portions of that work were written by deputy. This,
of course, the reviewer did not mean to say. The work to which he
referred is entitled "Descriptive Sociology, or groups of sociological
facts, classified and arranged by Herbert Spencer, compiled and
abstracted by David Duncan, Richard Scheppig and James Collier," eight
parts of which have thus far appeared. Knowing that he should be unable
to read all the works of travel and history containing the facts he
should need when dealing with the science of society, Mr. Spencer
engaged these gentlemen--first one, then two, then three--to read up for
him and arrange the extracts they made in a manner prescribed.