Mr. Spencer took intense interest in mechanical devices. When he visited our works with me the new appliances impressed him, and in after years he sometimes referred to these and said his estimate of American invention and push had been fully realized. He was naturally pleased with the deference and attention paid him in America. I seldom if ever visited England without going to see him, even after he had removed to Brighton that he might live looking out upon the sea, which appealed to and soothed him. I never met a man who seemed to weigh so carefully every action, every word--even the pettiest--and so completely to find guidance through his own conscience. He was no scoffer in religious matters. In the domain of theology, however, he had little regard for decorum. It was to him a very faulty system hindering true growth, and the idea of rewards and punishments struck him as an appeal to very low natures indeed. Still he never went to such lengths as Tennyson did upon an occasion when some of the old ideas were under discussion. Knowles[74] told me that Tennyson lost control of himself. Knowles said he was greatly disappointed with the son's life of the poet as giving no true picture of his father in his revolt against stern theology. [Footnote 74: James Knowles, founder of _Nineteenth Century_.] Spencer was always the calm philosopher. I believe that from childhood to old age--when the race was run--he never was guilty of an immoral act or did an injustice to any human being. He was certainly one of the most conscientious men in all his doings that ever was born. Few men have wished to know another man more strongly than I to know Herbert Spencer, for seldom has one been more deeply indebted than I to him and to Darwin. Reaction against the theology of past days comes to many who have been surrounded in youth by church people entirely satisfied that the truth and faith indispensable to future happiness were derived only through strictest Calvinistic creeds. The thoughtful youth is naturally carried along and disposed to concur in this. He cannot but think, up to a certain period of development, that what is believed by the best and the highest educated around him--those to whom he looks for example and instruction--must be true. He resists doubt as inspired by the Evil One seeking his soul, and sure to get it unless faith comes to the rescue. Unfortunately he soon finds that faith is not exactly at his beck and call. Original sin he thinks must be at the root of this inability to see as he wishes to see, to believe as he wishes to believe. It seems clear to him that already he is little better than one of the lost. Of the elect he surely cannot be, for these must be ministers, elders, and strictly orthodox men.