Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/572

558 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. rhetorician. Not often indeed has such a combination of gifts been seen in one writer; and. now that he has gone from us, it is a supreme satisfaction to reflect how nobly these gifts were used, how sincerely and courageously and untiringly they were devoted to the good of mankind. The world is poorer by the death of Huxley; but the greatest must pass sooner or later from the stage of existence, and, as they pass, the lesson of their lives comes out with greater distinctness. Of Huxley we may truly say that he enriched the life of our time by his thought and by his example, and that the forces which to-day make for progress in the world are better organized for victory, and move forward with steadier hope, through the help and inspiration which he afforded.

it was announced a short time ago that the Emperor of Germany had bestowed a knighthood of the "Ordre pour le Mérite" upon Mr. Herbert Spencer, many of the friends and admirers of the philosopher thought that possibly this had been done with his concurrence, and that in this case he had made an exception to his general practice of declining all such decorations. It seems, however, that such is not the fact. Mr. Spencer was not aware that any such recognition of his eminence as a thinker and writer was in contemplation; and when the offer was made to him he courteously and respectfully declined it. The question has sometimes been asked by persons of a shallow way of thinking how it is, if Mr. Spencer is really a philosopher of mark, that the title-pages of his books do not show the academic and other distinctions that he has received. The answer has been given more than once; but we may as well take advantage of the present incident to give it once more: that such distinctions have over and over again been offered to Mr. Spencer, but that he has made an invariable rule of declining them. Whether he has been altogether wise in this is a matter on which opinions may differ; but his motive, so far as we understand it, seems to be unquestionably sound. He does not wish to appeal to the world with any prestige borrowed from the approval of universities, academies, or constituted authorities of any kind. He wishes his works to be judged on their own merits, pure and simple, quite apart from the glamour which the possession of honorary degrees and membership in so-called learned societies is prone to shed. In the case of the German "Ordre pour le Mérite" it is stated, and we believe with truth, that Mr. Spencer had a special objection to the idea of receiving distinction from the hand of the autocratic head of the most military nation of modern times. In his mind militarism is associated with all that is retrograde and tyrannical; he holds it to be the chief influence which to-day retards the development of society; and we can well understand therefore that, apart from his general objection to official decorations of all kinds, he would feel compelled, on grounds of consistency, to decline an honor which would have brought him into a kind of personal relation with a system of government he totally disapproved.

To sum up Mr. Spencer's position, he writes for mankind at large, not for powers or principalities, for courts or for coteries. If his labors bring him the honor of his fellow-men, that is the highest reward he craves; to honors as commonly understood he is indifferent. He is the "Great