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CHAPTER III

PERIOD OF PRACTICAL WORK

Engineering—Many Inventions—Glimpse of Evolution-
Idea—A Resting Period—Beginning to Write—-Ex-
perimenting ivith Life

HERBERT SPENCER'S life after boyhood may be con-
veniently divided into four periods :—

1. For about ten years he was engaged in varied
practical work—surveying, plan-making, engineering,
secretarial business, and superintendence (1837-1846).

2. After an unattached couple of years, during
which he continued his self-education, experimented,
invented, and meditated, there began a period of
miscellaneous literary work, of journalism, and essay-
writing, during which he wrote his Principles of
Psychology and felt his way to his System (1848-1860).

3. At the age of forty, he settled down to some-
thing like unity of occupation — developing and
writing The Synthetic Philosophy (1860-1882).

4. Finally, during a prolonged period of pronounced
invalidism, he withdrew almost completely from
social life, husbanding his meagre supply of mental
energy for the completion of his System, the revision
of his works, and his Autobiography (1882-1003).

Engineering.—For about ten years (1837-46)Herbert
Spencer had a varied experience of practical life. He
began as assistant, at £80 a year, to Mr Charles Fox,
B ^I?



	CHAPTER III PERIOD OF PRACTICAL WORK Engineering—Many Inventions—Glimpse of Evolution- Idea—A Resting Period—Beginning to Write—-Ex- perimenting ivith Life HERBERT SPENCER'S life after boyhood may be con- veniently divided into four periods :— 1. For about ten years he was engaged in varied practical work—surveying, plan-making, engineering, secretarial business, and superintendence (1837-1846). 2. After an unattached couple of years, during which he continued his self-education, experimented, invented, and meditated, there began a period of miscellaneous literary work, of journalism, and essay- writing, during which he wrote his Principles of Psychology and felt his way to his System (1848-1860). 3. At the age of forty, he settled down to some- thing like unity of occupation — developing and writing The Synthetic Philosophy (1860-1882). 4. Finally, during a prolonged period of pronounced invalidism, he withdrew almost completely from social life, husbanding his meagre supply of mental energy for the completion of his System, the revision of his works, and his Autobiography (1882-1003). Engineering.—For about ten years (1837-46)Herbert Spencer had a varied experience of practical life. He began as assistant, at £80 a year, to Mr Charles Fox, B ^I?