It is here that Herbert Spencer comes in
logically, though not chronologically; also that much more interesting
man, Auberon Herbert. Spencer has no special place as a man of letters;
and a vastly exaggerated place as a philosopher. His real importance was
that he was very nearly an Anarchist. The indefinable greatness there is
about him after all, in spite of the silliest and smuggest limitations,
is in a certain consistency and completeness from his own point of
view. There is something mediaeval, and therefore manful, about writing a
book about everything in the world. Now this simplicity expressed itself
in politics in carrying the Victorian worship of liberty to the most
ridiculous lengths; almost to the length of voluntary taxes and
voluntary insurance against murder. He tried, in short, to solve the
problem of the State by eliminating the State from it. He was resisted
in this by the powerful good sense of Huxley; but his books became
sacred books for a rising generation of rather bewildered rebels, who
thought we might perhaps get out of the mess if everybody did as he
liked.
Thus the Anarchists and Socialists fought a battle over the death-bed of
Victorian Industrialism; in which the Socialists (that is, those who
stood for increasing instead of diminishing the power of Government) won
a complete victory and have almost exterminated their enemy.
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