[Footnote 52: Spencer's debt to Professor Youmans has been well known in America. He was not only instrumental in securing the publication of his works here, but even more so in popularizing them through the _Popular Science Monthly_, of which he was the editorial founder. He had other distinction as a chemist and published a "Class Book of Chemistry" in 1852, and an "Atlas of Chemistry," in 1854.] VI WHY HE NEVER MARRIED[53] Thus, if I leave out altruistic considerations and include egoistic considerations only, I may still look back from these declining days of life with content. One drawback indeed there has been, and that a great one. All through those years in which work should have had the accompaniment of wife and children, my means were such as to render marriage impossible: I could barely support myself, much less others. And when, at length, there came adequate means the fit time had passed by. Even in this matter, however, it may be that fortune has favored me. Frequently when prospects are promising, dissatisfaction follows marriage rather than satisfaction; and in my own case the prospects would not have been promising. I am not by nature adapted to a relation in which perpetual compromise and great forbearance are needful. That extreme critical tendency which I have above described, joined with a lack of reticence no less pronounced, would, I fear, have caused perpetual domestic differences. After all, my celibate life has probably been the best for me, as well as the best for some unknown other. [Footnote 53: From Part XII of the "Autobiography." Copyright 1904, by D. Appleton & Co.] HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE Born in 1821, died in 1862; his father a wealthy ship owner in London; published the first volume of his "History of Civilization" in 1857, second volume appearing in 1861; his death occurred in Syria, where he was traveling for his health; his last words "Oh, my book; I shall never finish my book." I THE ISOLATION OF SPAIN[54]