Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/1025

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1008

SPIELHAQEN.

of them developed/' 1851. In 1855 appeared his ** Principles of Psycho- logy " (2nd edit., 1870), an attempt to suialyse the relations between the order of the worlds of matter and mind. Its fundamental idea has been stated as follows : — " The universal law of intelligence flows directly from the co-operation of mind and nature in the genesis of our ideas. It is this : that just in proportion as there is a persistency in the order or relationship of events in nature, so will there be a persLstency in the connection which subsists be- tween two corresponding states of consciousness. ITie succession or co-existence of external phenomena produces, of course, a Hke succes- sion or co-existence in our mental perceptions ; and when any two physical states often occur together, there is at length established an internal tendency for these states always to recur in the same order. Starting therefore from this law, the author first traces the growth of the human intelligence through the lower phenomena of reflex action and instinct ; then shows how our unconscious life merges in a succes- sion of conscious phenomena; and lastly, carries us upward through the regions of memory, etc., to i£e highesb exercise of reason and the' normal development of the feel- ings." Mr. Spencer paid a visit to the United States in 1882. On May 12, 1883, he was elected a corre- spondent of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, for the section of Philosophy, in the room of Emerson. He has con- tributed extensively to periodicals, and republished a volume of his articles under the title bf " Essays, Scientific, Political, and SpeciUa- tive " (2nd series, 1858-63 ; 3 vols., 1868-74). A series of his review articles on "Education, Intellec- tual, Moral, and Physical," was re- published collectively in 1861. The later works of Mr. Spencer are : — " Education : Intellectual, Moral, and Physical/' 1861, reprinted at

New York, 1864; "First Principles/' a system of philosophy, 1862, 2iid edit. 1867; "The Classification of the Sciences ; to which are added, Reasons for dissenting from the philosophy of M. Comte/' 1864, 3rd edit. 1871; "The Principlee of Biology," 1864; "Spontaneous Generation, and the Hypothesis of Physiological Units," New York, 1870, being a reply to the North American Review ; " Recent Discus- sions in Science, Philosophy, and Morals/' New York, 1871; "The Study of Sociology," 3rd edit., 1872 ; " Descriptive Sociology ; or Groups of Sociological Facts," 1873 ; " Ce- remonial Institutions," being Part IV. of "The Principles of Soci- ology/* 1879. Mr. Spencer is an earnest advocate of the theory of Evolution or Development, which he has carried- out into systematie detail.

SPIELHAGEN, Fbisdbich, a German novelist, was born at Mag- debtirff, Feb. 20, 1829, being the son 01 a Government official. At an early age he accompanied his father to Stralsund, and on this journey the sea made a lasting im- pression on the susceptible mind of the future novelist, who has in most of his works described life and incidents at sea with remarkable force and vividness. In 1847 he entered the University of Berlin, and tiien removed to Bonn, where he applied himself to the study of the law for about six months, and then turned his attention to philo- logical and literary studies, which he pursued with great zeal at Ber- lin and Greifswald. In 1854 he settled at Leipzig, where he taught in the Gymnasium, but the sudd^i death of his father changed his cir- cumstances and prospects, and led to his adopting literature as a pro- fession. Since the year 1854, he has brought out, with ever in- creasing suocess, a series of novels, which have gained for him a fore- most place among German writers of fiction. His larger works are: