00000061.htm

CHAPTER VI

CHARACTERISTICS I—PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL

The Autobiography-—Physical Characteristics— Intellectual
Characteristics — Limitations — Development of
Spencer's Mind—Methods of Work—Genius?*

SPENCER was much given to summing up what he
called the " traits" of the men he met, and he ex-
tended the process to himself in his Autobiography
which is an elaborate piece of self-portraiture,

The Autobiography, —• Some one has called auto-
biography the least credible form of fiction, but that
is not the impression which Spencer's gives, His
self-analysis is candid and continuous j he is always
revealing his feet of clay, and that with a self-com-
placency which is unintelligible to those who do not
understand the impersonal scientific mood which had
become habitual to Spencer. He almost achieved
the impossible, of looking at himself from the outside.

Huxley wrote an autobiography in a score of pages,
and he never wrote anything better j Spencer occupied
over a thousand pages with his account of himself,
and he never wrote anything worse* Dictated in
outline in l875> *^c ^was elaborated piecemeal, in small
daily instalments, after the most serious of the many
breakdowns in health had precluded more difficult
work. Naturally enough, therefore, the Autabio*



	CHAPTER VI CHARACTERISTICS I—PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL The Autobiography-—Physical Characteristics— Intellectual Characteristics — Limitations — Development of Spencer's Mind—Methods of Work—Genius?* SPENCER was much given to summing up what he called the " traits" of the men he met, and he ex- tended the process to himself in his Autobiography which is an elaborate piece of self-portraiture, The Autobiography, —• Some one has called auto- biography the least credible form of fiction, but that is not the impression which Spencer's gives, His self-analysis is candid and continuous j he is always revealing his feet of clay, and that with a self-com- placency which is unintelligible to those who do not understand the impersonal scientific mood which had become habitual to Spencer. He almost achieved the impossible, of looking at himself from the outside. Huxley wrote an autobiography in a score of pages, and he never wrote anything better j Spencer occupied over a thousand pages with his account of himself, and he never wrote anything worse* Dictated in outline in l875> ^c ^was elaborated piecemeal, in small daily instalments, after the most serious of the many breakdowns in health had precluded more difficult work. Naturally enough, therefore, the Autabio