Page:The Herbert Spencer lecture.djvu/14

 more entirely fulfilled the maxim of the French poet, which another philosopher took for his favourite device: ''&apos;What is it that makes a great life? It is the ideal of youth carried out in mature age.&apos;'' It is thus that, almost alone of modern philosophers, Herbert Spencer achieved all that he purposed, and perhaps all that he was capable of completing.

This abnormal power of philosophic detachment from the vulgar interests and pursuits of ordinary life enabled Spencer to achieve his end in spite of the unremitting pressure of physical ailments. It would be difficult to find another example of vast intellectual performance carried through against incessant recurrence of prostrating ill-health. The posthumous Autobiography, with its diaries, letters, and memoranda, reveals what, even to his intimate friends was not fully known, the degree to which the philosopher was perpetually incapacitated from all mental work. His physique was good and his health sufficient in early life. But at thirty-five he suffered from a break-down which left him a permanent invalid, so far as continuous mental attention was concerned. Dyspepsia, insomnia, nervous irritability dogged him for the rest of his life. His labour was continually interrupted for weeks and even for months together. At no period after middle life was he ever capable of more than three hours of reading or dictation in each day. The effort of composition was seldom continued for more than half an hour, or even ten minutes, without a pause to rest. After a few hours of work he was unable, during the rest of the day, even to read a novel or to engage in general conversation. The slightest mental effort, or the most ordinary excitement, brought on that cerebral congestion which cut him off from