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LIMITATIONS 61

realise all the difficulties and subtleties of a problem—
a failure which sometimes involved nothing short of
amateurishness. A skilful naturalist has said that
in tackling an unsolved problem there are only two
commendable methods,—one to read everything bear-
ing cm the question, the other to read nothing. It
"was the second method that Spencer habitually
practised. He gathered facts, but took little stock
in opinions or previous deliverances.

Thus in beginning to plan out his Social Statics
he ** paid little attention to what had been written
either upon ethics or politics. The books I did read
wtre those "which promised to furnish illustrative
material.'* He \vrote his First Principles with a
minimal knowledge of the philosophical classics, and
his Psychology as if he had been living before the in-
vention of printing. Some one thought certain parts
of his JSdttcation savoured of Rousseau, but he had not
heard of Emite when he wrote. He was greatly
indebted to von Baer for a formula, but there is no
evidence that he ever read any part of the great
embryologist's works. The suggestion that he was
Indebted to Comte for some sociological ideas might
have been dismissed at once on a priori grounds as
absurd. And in point of fact when Spencer wrote
hi* Social Statics he knew no more of Comte than that
he was a French philosophical writer, and it was not
till 1853 that he began to nibble at Comte's works,
to which Lewes and George Eliot had repeatedly
directed his attention, He adopted two of Comte's
words-—*'altruism" and "sociology"—but beyond
that his indebtedness was little. We may take his own
ward for it ; '« The only indebtedness I recognise is



	LIMITATIONS 61 realise all the difficulties and subtleties of a problem— a failure which sometimes involved nothing short of amateurishness. A skilful naturalist has said that in tackling an unsolved problem there are only two commendable methods,—one to read everything bear- ing cm the question, the other to read nothing. It "was the second method that Spencer habitually practised. He gathered facts, but took little stock in opinions or previous deliverances. Thus in beginning to plan out his Social Statics he ** paid little attention to what had been written either upon ethics or politics. The books I did read wtre those "which promised to furnish illustrative material.'* He \vrote his First Principles with a minimal knowledge of the philosophical classics, and his Psychology as if he had been living before the in- vention of printing. Some one thought certain parts of his JSdttcation savoured of Rousseau, but he had not heard of Emite when he wrote. He was greatly indebted to von Baer for a formula, but there is no evidence that he ever read any part of the great embryologist's works. The suggestion that he was Indebted to Comte for some sociological ideas might have been dismissed at once on a priori grounds as absurd. And in point of fact when Spencer wrote hi* Social Statics he knew no more of Comte than that he was a French philosophical writer, and it was not till 1853 that he began to nibble at Comte's works, to which Lewes and George Eliot had repeatedly directed his attention, He adopted two of Comte's words-—*'altruism" and "sociology"—but beyond that his indebtedness was little. We may take his own ward for it ; '« The only indebtedness I recognise is