a detailed report upon it with proposals for remedy to the town council, which was printed by that body. The summer of that year was spent in a visit at Hinton, and while there he modeled a bust of his uncle, having during the previous year given some attention to that art. He also there commenced contributing to the Nonconformist a series of letters on the proper sphere of government. These were completed in the autumn. Shortly after there was commenced in England a movement called the complete-suffrage agitation, which arose out of a pamphlet published by the editor of the Nonconformist, Mr. Miall. In this agitation Mr. Spencer took an active part, becoming the local secretary for Derby, and he was afterward delegate to a conference at Birmingham, where a futile attempt was made to cooperate with the Chartists. In the spring of 1843 he went to London, with the vague idea of getting some literary occupation, and while there he made an engineering engagement, which lasted a few months till the work was complete. Returning then to Derby, he was again occupied chiefly with inventions. The railway mania, which was rising in 1844, drew him again to engineering, and he was for some months in charge of a London office, where he had at one time about sixty men under him. That winter and the subsequent spring were spent before parliamentary committees. But the lines in which he was interested failed to be chartered, and he then had much experience in legal proceedings, helping the engineer to recover his charges.
During 1846 and the beginning of 1847 he was occupied with inventions, and took out a patent for a sawing and planing machine, but, the friend who joined him in it going to India, the business dropped through. During these years he contributed papers to the Philosophical Magazine and to the Zoöist, in one of which he propounded a view respecting the nature of sympathy, which he afterward found that Adam Smith had previously proposed. In 1848 he commenced writing "Social Statics." In the autumn of that year he was engaged as the sub-editor of the Economist, and during 1849 and 1850 while occupying that post he completed the volume, his first-considerable work, "Social Statics."
It is unnecessary to sketch here the intellectual labors of Mr. Spencer, as that has been already done with some degree of fullness in our pages.[1]
Much solicitude regarding the disturbed health of Mr. Spencer has been expressed by many who are interested in the progress of his work, and exaggerated rumors have been circulated respecting it. As we have said, his constitution was never robust, but it was sound in the earlier portions of his life. His health gave way when thirty-five years old, from intense application in writing "The Principles of Psychology," published in 1855. Since that time he has been incapable of steady mental application, and has been compelled frequently
- ↑ See Popular Science Monthly for November, 1874.
