In minor rules of moral training, too, Spencer follows Rousseau. In his warning against the unwisdom of setting up a high standard for children, which invites the detrimental results of moral precosity; against the overregulation and constant admonition, which produces nothing but “hothouse virtue” and “a chronic domestic irritation”; in his advocacy of a due authority maintained with decision of character and consistency of judgment, and the like, we have the reverberation from “Émile.” The aim of moral discipline, according to Spencer, is not so much to turn out an obedient, well-behaved individual, as to produce “a self-governing being,” which democratic society most needs. As to its agent, he, without raising a question, intrusts the task solely to the parents. At the same time, however, he wants to impress upon them the extreme complexity and difficulty of the task, and the consequent need of knowledge and self-culture, as well as vigilance, patience, and ingenuity. Spencer was one among the prophets who proclaimed the morality of hygiene, which now has become a commonplace matter. He writes: “Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as a physical morality.... Disorders entailed by disobedience to Nature’s dictates they regard simply as grievances, not as the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their dependents and on future generations are often as great as those caused by crime; yet they do not think themselves in any degree criminal.... The fact is that all breaches of the laws of health are physical sins. When this is generally seen, then, and perhaps not till then, will the physical training of the young receive all the attention it deserves” (7: pp. 282-283). We should never forget that man is an animal. “The first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal, and to be a nation of good animals is the first condition to national prosperity” (7: p. 222). In regard to the physical care of the child, Spencer is, unlike his older compatriot Locke, an Epicurean, the scientific Epicurean, if you please. He preaches the gospel of high feeding, of ample clothing, and opposes strongly overeducation. The fundamental principle is that “in proportion as growth and organization are incomplete, much must be given and little required.” Spencer calls our present system of overeducation vicious--“vicious, as giving knowledge that will soon be forgotten; vicious, as producing a disgust for knowledge; vicious, as neglecting that organization of knowledge which is more important than its acquisition; vicious, as weakening or destroying that energy without which a trained intellect is useless; vicious, as entailing that ill-health for which even success would not compensate, and which makes failure doubly bitter” (7: p. 278).