Herndon is correct in saying that Lincoln read less and thought more than any man prominent in public life in his generation. But the few books that Lincoln read in his mature years affected him greatly; and when we know of his reading a book because he cared for it, we may well endeavor to discover that book and inquire whether it be not possible to trace its influence in the development, slow but sure, of the mental and spiritual processes of Abraham Lincoln. A highly important statement concerning the philosophical and religious views of Lincoln is found in Herndon's _Life of Lincoln_, and it is remarkable that neither Herndon nor any of the hundreds of writers who have gleaned, as all must glean, from his pages, appears to have followed further the most important of its suggestions: "For many years I subscribed for and kept on our office table the _Westminster_ and _Edinburgh Review_ and a number of other English periodicals. Besides them, I purchased the works of Spencer, Darwin, and the utterances of other English scientists, all of which I devoured with great relish. I endeavored, but with little success, in inducing Lincoln to read them. Occasionally he would snatch one up and peruse it for a little while, but he soon threw it down with the suggestion that it was entirely too heavy for an ordinary mind to digest. A gentleman in Springfield gave him a book called, I believe, _Vestiges of Creation_, which interested him so much that he read it through. The volume was published in Edinburgh, and undertook to demonstrate the doctrine of development, or evolution. The treatise interested him greatly, and he was deeply impressed with the notion of the so-called 'universal law' evolution; he did not extend greatly his researches, but by continual thinking in a single channel seemed to grow into a warm advocate of the new doctrine. Beyond what I have stated he made no further advances into the realm of philosophy. 'There are no accidents,' he said one day, 'in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the Infinite to the finite.'"--HERNDON, III, 438. I count it remarkable that neither Herndon nor any other of Lincoln's biographers appears to have made further inquiry about this book, which is not mentioned in Herndon's index, and which I have not found referred to elsewhere in connection with Lincoln. The book is not in any of the great Lincoln collections which I have visited, nor has any Lincoln student to whom I have mentioned it had it in mind, or failed to be impressed with the value of it when we have discussed the matter.