Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/272

 Charles's example by declaring himself a republican. This led to a scene of great disorder, and the latter part of his speech was inaudible (, third series, vol. 210). He took a leading part in the passing of the Wild Birds' Protection Act, 1872 (, third series, vol. 211). At all points an advanced radical, he was an ardent supporter of Joseph Arch and spoke at the mass meeting at Leamington on Good Friday 1872, when the Warwickshire Agricultural Labourers' Union was formed (, The Story of his Life, told by himself, 1898). At the dissolution of 1874 he retired from parliamentary life, but he took an active part in the agitation caused by the Bulgarian atrocities, organised in 1878 the great 'anti-Jingo' demonstration in Hyde Park against the expected war with Russia, and in 1880 championed the cause of Charles Bradlaugh [q. v.], speaking at some of the stormy Hyde Park meetings.

Meanwhile Herbert had become an ardent but independent disciple of Herbert Spencer's philosophy. His creed developed a variant of Spencerian individualism which he described as voluntaryism. But his devotion to Spencer's great doctrine was life-long, and Spencer made him, at his death in 1903, one of his three trustees ( Autob. 1904, preliminary note). In 1884 Herbert published his best-known book, 'A Politician in Trouble about his Soul,' a reprint with alterations and additions from the 'Fortnightly Review.' In the first chapters the objections to the party system are discussed, and in the last chapter Spencerian principles are expounded and the doctrine of Laissez-faire is pushed to the extreme point of advocating 'voluntary taxation.'

In 1890 Herbert started a small weekly paper, 'Free Life,' which first appeared under the same cover as his friend St. George Lane Fox's 'Political World,' but 'Free Life,? later called 'The Free Life,' soon became a small separate monthly paper, the 'Organ of Voluntary Taxation and the Voluntary State.' The last number was printed on 13 August 1901. In 1906 he summarised his views in the Herbert Spencer lecture which he delivered at Oxford. In 1889 he edited 'The sacrifice of education to examination. Letters from all sorts and conditions of men,' a result of the influentially signed 'Protest' against examinations in the 'Nineteenth Century,' Nov. 1888. He explained his view of the capital and labour problem in 'The True Line of Deliverance,' a criticism of trade unionism, which appeared in a volume of essays called 'A Plea for Liberty' (1891). In an article 'Assuming the Foundations' (Nineteenth Century and After,' Aug., Sept. 1901), he expounded his agnostic position towards religion.

On leaving parliament he took to farming, purchasing Ashley Arnewood farm near Lymington, where he lived till his wife's death in 1886. He then moved to the neighbourhood of Burley in the New Forest, and built, after a pre-existing building, 'The Old House,' which was his home till death. At the same time he travelled much, re-visited America in 1902-3, and often wintered abroad. At first at Ashley Arnewood Farm on a small scale, and subsequently at 'The Old House' on a large scale, Herbert once every summer entertained at tea all comers, without distinction of class, to the ultimate number of several thousands, the gypsies clearing off the remains.

Herbert, a man of singular charm, always scrupulously anxious to distinguish the system he attacked from the men who upheld or lived under it, was penetrated by the belief that the law of equal freedom is the supreme moral law. A keen sportsman and a fine rider in his youth, he gave up sport in later life on account of his objection to taking life, and for the same reason became a vegetarian. But his interests outside his philosophic propagandism were varied. He was one of the first to take to bicycling, and was very fond of adventurous sailing in a small boat. An ardent climber he was a member of the Alpine Club from 1863 to 1872. He was interested in prehistoric remains and made a fine collection of flint implements. He followed with sympathy the investigations of psychic research and made vigorous efforts to preserve the historic character of the New Forest (cf. art. 'The Last Bit of Natural Woodland' in Nineteenth Century, Sept. 1891). He has been compared to Tolstoi, but he always repudiated the gospel of non-resistance, meeting it with his favourite formula 'Use force only to restrain force and fraud.'

He died at 'The Old House' on 5 Nov. 1906, and was buried at his desire in a grave in the grounds.

Herbert, who was a voluminous writer of letters to 'The Times' and other journals, published, besides the books cited already: 1. 'The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State,' 1885. 2. 'Bad Air and Bad Health,' 1894. 3. 'Windf all and Waterdrift,' a small volume of verses, 1894. 4. 'The Voluntaryist Creed,' 1908,