19 DECEMBER 1903, Page 16

MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

[To Tnr. EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your article on Mr. Herbert Spencer in the Spectator of December 12th is, to my feeling, very fair and appreciative; but in one sentence you do him an accidental injustice. You say : "By a happy accident, he began his career at a time when the great thesis of Darwin was being propounded, and a new world seemed to open for scientific discovery." This sentence represents the Spencerian philosophy as posterior in its publication to Darwin's " Origin of Species " ; it really was anterior, and the comprehensive truth lying in that kind of process which is known as " evolution " was discerned and stated by Spencer before Darwin convinced the world of that most signal instance of it, the derivation of species from a common stock. Spencer, of course, did not anticipate Darwin as regards that famous theory.—I am, Sir, &c.,

J. R. M.