go HERBERT SPENCER

Humour.—Prof. Hudson speaks of Spencer's capital
sense of humour, but it is difficult for a reader of the
Autobiography to believe this. The ponderous way
in which he analyses his own little jokes, for instance,
is too quaint to be consistent with much sense of
humour. Thus he tells us that it was only the
sudden access of moderately good health that enabled
him to remark to G. H. Lewes, on a little tour they
had, that the Isle of Wight produced very large
chops for so small an island. The fact is that he
always took himself and other people very seriously
in little things as well as great. With what physio-
logical seriousness does he discuss the experience he
had coming down Ben Nevis after some wine on the
top of whisky :' " I found myself possessed of a quite
unusual amount of agility; being able to leap from
rock to rock with rapidity, ease, and safety ; so that
I quite astonished myself. There was evidently an
exaltation of the perceptive and motor powers." . . .
** Long-continued exertion having caused unusually
great action of the lungs, the exaltation produced by
stimulation of the brain was not cancelled by the
diminished oxygenation of the blood. The oxygena-
tion had been so much in excess, that deduction from
it did not appreciably diminish the vital activities."

Callousness.—-In his extreme sang-froid, Spencer
sometimes did violence to the unity of the human
spirit. We venture to give one example. In re-
ferring to a ramble in France (Autobiography, ii. p.
236), he wrote as follows: " We passed a wayside
shrine, at the foot of which were numerous offerings,
each formed of two bits of lath nailed one across the
other. The sight suggested to me the behaviour of
no smaller names, are held. Subject is not dissociated