to have been left for non-Christians almost alone in a professedly Christian community to take the advance in inculcating and disseminating one of the central ideas of the Christian religion; as now, in the United States, with the orthodox church people almost unanimous in supporting war and the wildest schemes of aggression, it has been left for a few New England Unitarians first to dare to speak in protest against an iniquitous and perilous crusade for foreign dominion. Mr. Spencer has never neglected an opportunity to express in unmistakable terms his aversion to militancy, and has been at great pains to demonstrate, as in his Sociology, that the true road to all higher development of society is through encouraging the growth of its industrial factors.
A disposition manifested among English legislators to favor the passage of acts embodying some of the ideas of the socialists led to the publication of a series of magazine articles showing the demoralizing tendencies of measures of paternalism and foreshadowing the disastrous ultimate results that would ensue from the unnecessary interference of the state. These were afterward collected and published under the title of The Man versus the State, and are now bound up with the revised Social Statics.
From the spring of 1886 till 1889, when conditions of health compelled entire suspension of the work on the Philosophy, and it was even doubtful whether it could ever be continued, Mr. Spencer dictated the larger part of his autobiography. This has since been completed and put in print, but will not be published during his lifetime. It will comprise two considerable volumes.
Not finding life in a boarding house in all respects suited to his wishes, Mr. Spencer for many years entertained the idea of establishing himself in a home of his own in the suburbs of London, but had been deterred from so doing by the prospective troubles of housekeeping. In the summer of 1889, however, after making such arrangements as promised to relieve him in great measure of these cares, he finally carried out the idea by taking a house in the neighborhood of Regent's Park. But though for some years the bachelor household was a success, we understand it eventually ceased to be so, though it was continued until Mr. Spencer changed his residence to Brighton two years ago. There was wanting in those who had immediate charge of details that feeling of identity of interests and that disposition to co-operate which belong to the ordinary family, and as a consequence differences grew up that could not be permanently composed, and that on the whole did not conduce to domestic tranquillity.
About the time his housekeeping experience was entered upon, Mr. Spencer found himself well enough to go on with the com-
