The life and letters of Herbert Spencer / by David Duncan.

  • Duncan, David, 1839-1923.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life and letters of Herbert Spencer / by David Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    460/692 (page 412)
    To Wilfrid Scawkn Blunt. 23 June, 1899. I rejoice to hear that the poem is finished, and that its publication is not far off. Of course 1 feel honoured by your proposal to preface some words of dedication to me, and accept with pleasure. Please do not, however, in any introductory words, indicate the origin of the idea which the poem elaborates. You will perhaps be surprised by this request until you understand my reason. Already my general views, touching as they do in many places upon religious opinions, have from time to time ex- posed me to vilification both here and in America, and have, in consequence, raised impediments to the wider diffusion of the general philosophical views which I have set forth, and have in various ways diminished both the circulation and the influence of the books. Such being the case I do not want to again rouse, even more strongly than hitherto, the odium theologicum and to give it a further handle for attacks, not only upon my declared religious opinions, but also upon the system of .thought associated with them, but which is in reality inde- pendent of them. It is this contemplation not of the personal, but of the impersonal effects, which makes me wish not to arouse still greater antagonism than I have already done. A further obstacle to the spread of evolutionary views would, I think, be a greater evil than any benefit to be gained. On receiving a copy of the poem, he wrote in haste to beg Mr. Blunt to omit a passage on the first page. The description of the ante-chamber of heaven “savours too much of the earth earthy, . . . and puts the poem in too low a key.’’ To Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. 28 October, 1899. Let me first apologize for my brusquely-expressed letter written immediately on receipt of Salmi Absolved. . . . I did not at first recognize the fact that, by calling the poem a “ Victorian Mystery,” you intended to suggest some analogy to the mysteries of Medieval days, and that you had adopted a mode of treatment implied by this analogy. Hence that assimilation of the divine and the human, which characterized the mystery-plays, had not been understood by me as sequent upon the adoption of the earlier mode of thought, and as a result gave me a sense of incongruity. Though 1 now see that the adoption of this ancient mode of thought gives consistency to the work, yet it seems to me that we (or at least cultured people) have so far travelled away from that mode of thought