make the most painstaking contributions to it. But his grasp of its general principles and the universal sweep he gave to its applications in thought challenged the attention of thinkers throughout the intellectual world. He became the high priest of the doctrine, as it were, and gained for himself both the love and the hatred which belong to high priests everywhere. He made no mean contributions to the theory itself. In the field of the general philosophy of evolution-as set forth in his First Principles-his is the first great name; for his predecessors, such as Lyell and Darwin, had worked in special fields, and largely with the simple inductive method, rather than with general synthetic conclusions. In the special field of sociology his contributions to the theory of evolution far outshone those of any other writer of his time. In respect to the volume of his contributions in this field, he has scarcely yet been surpassed; but naturally such men as Hobhouse, Frazer, and Westermarck, with a generation of scientific investigation to their advantage, have done more careful work, and have in many respects arrived at better tested results.

What he did in popularizing the theory of evolution is closeiy comparable with what he accomplished in the way of making inductive generalization from scientifically collected and tested data respectable. It has become the habit of many present day commentators to dismiss Spencer with the statement that he was a deductivist. Even in the periods of his greatest productivity Spencer, to his great chagrin and irritation, met this accusation. In a large measure it is true, but to be content with such a self-righteous reflection is to miss the full significance of the conditions-historic, intellectual and personalunder which he worked. We must not forget that Spencer was an intellectual pioneer, one of the greatest in the history of thought. His tremendous intellectual urge carried him on to generalizations far beyond the well-traveled ways With all the ardor which characterized our own Boones and Carsons and Kentons, in a different field, his spirit led him to blaze new trails in the world of knowledge. If at times-perhaps often he was misled in his way by intellectual mirages, or if he miscalculated the distance of his objectives in an unfamiliar atmosphere, or mistook objects on his mental horizon,

such mistakes do not necessarily constitute a proof of his lack of greatness. Only a great intellectual adventurer could have made such errors, for only a great one would have ventured so far. Smaller men coming after may easily correct his misinterpretations

But with all his limitations arising from his practice of thinking ahead of his time, his inability to read and to collect data for himself, with his nervous incapacity for sustained monotonous effort, such as Darwin was habituated to, he was an uncompromising advocate of the virtues of the inductive method. He inspired others with his passion, and in large measure he led in the application of sociology and ethics of the method of collecting great masses of data for generalization, which had already been established in the biological sciences. His stupendous collection of materials known as the Descriptive Sociology, which he personally financed, and which is still much used, affords a strong testimonial to his devotion to inductive generalization. The fact that the inductive method, especially as based on anthropological materials, was applied so much earlier to sociology than to economics, or political science, is largely, if not mainly, due to the influence of Herbert Spencer. At a time when economic theory was still floundering in the meshes of metaphysical speculation and formal logic, Spencer and his followers were giving social theory a background of definite concrete data. That circumstances sometimes led him to unwarranted conclusions from his incomplete or imperfect data is much less significant than that he made the attempt when it was by no means the prevailing practice, and preached the doctrine when a priori speculation still enjoyed great prestige in both the sociological and theological worlds of thought. But more important still for the growth of the social sciences is the fact that he lent the tremendous carrying power of his name to the creation of popular respect for scientific methods of thinking, just as for the theory of evolution.

Thus, in spite of some errors of method and, at points, his weakness of knowledge, Spncer must remain a unique intellectual figure of the age. It would be too easy in our hurry and strain of further transition to forget him. As a

man he was greater than his philosophy, although the fame of that long filled the world and its major contentions have done so much to transform our thinking for the better. The experiment of his education is worth repeating, if some other parent as intelligent and as self-sacrificing as his father can be found to conduct it. It might be improved upon by exercising greater care in the training of the will of future social theorists. in objective attitudes. It was an accident-a disastrous onethat a nervous breakdown early cut Spencer off from the major sources of his data by denying him the power to read. But for this his contribution of content might have equalled his fame. The crying need of our complex social world is for the detached and intellectually untrammeled interpreter who can take our sadly jumbled mass of accumulated social data and tell us what it all means. Perhaps Spencer came a little too early to sense fully the direction of events, and the accident to his health destroyed half his tools. But at least the memory of Spencer may be kept green as an inspiration to the men who emulate his intellectual ardor and sincerity in the future.

John G. De Brahm

A. J. MORRISON

Washington, D. C.

Plowden C. J. Weston, of South Carolina, who in 1856 printed at London a hundred and twenty-one copies of a book he called Documents Relating to the History of South Carolina, including De Brahm's Philosophico-Historico-Hydrogeography of South Carolina, said in his advertisement: "The original of the following treatise by De Brahm is, I believe, in the library of Harvard University, accompanied by many maps and plans which I have not in my copy. More than one transcript is in existence; mine was purchased at a sale in New York three years back. Beyond the particulars of the author's advertisement I know nothing of Dr Brahm's life, but he lived within the memory of persons now alive, much addicted to alchemy and wearing a long beard."

At Mr. Weston's suggestion we will turn to what De Brahm said in that advertisement composed in the year 1772. "The author," wrote De Brahm in his slightly dislocated English, "The author begins his remarks in the year 1751 when with a number of 160 German colonists reinforced in eleven months after by a like number (the relations and acquaintances of the former) he established the flourishing settlement of Bethany in Georgia during the reign of his majesty of most glorious memory King George the Second, and made a survey of the frontier or eastern part of that province, to which joining the surveys of William Bull, Esq., Lieut. Governor of South Carolina, he delivered to the public the first map of South Carolina and Georgia [published by Jefferys, Oct. 20, 1757]. In the year 1755 he fortified Charlestown in South Carolina. In 1756 he erected Fort Loudoun on the west side of the Apalachian Mountains on Tanessee, one of the Mississipi branches. In 1757 he fortified Savannah and erected a fort at Ebenezer in Georgia. In 1761 he directed the construction of Fort George on Coxpur Island in the Sound of Savannah river. From 1765 to the present time he is employed in measuring the western Atlantic Coast, the Martyrs at Cape Florida, and the East

ern Coast of the Gulf of Mexico." It is to be supposed that during these years De Brahm kept his beard rather short and found little time for alchemy. His description of his work at Fort Loudoun shows him to have been a first-rate military engineer. Government thought so and made him Surveyor General for the Southern District of North America in 1764.

De Brahm's Georgia material was printed in 1849 in fortynine copies quarto by Mr. Wymberley Jones, of Wormsloe, near Savannah,1 from transcripts most carefully superintended by John Langdon Sibley, then assistant librarian at Harvard.

In these Georgia chapters De Brahm tells something more of himself and his work, to-wit, in his dedication to the King: "By your Majesty's commission, dated the 26th of June, 1764, I had the honour to be appointed Surveyor for the Southern District of North America and was ordered to make general surveys both of the inlands and sea coasts, with the soundings as well on the coast as within the harbours, to obtain their latitudes and longitudes, and make such remarks as might conduce to the security and information of your Majesty's subjects who may navigate those seas.

"These observations and remarks, as well as every other which can tend to convey a precise knowledge of the actual state and limits of the country, the quantity of acres, the principal rivers and harbours, the nature and produce of the soil, and in what points capable of improvement, I was ordered to report in maps and separate descriptions. And since the history of Georgia takes its origin from that of South Carolina; and that of East Florida, though the eldest in discovery yet the youngest in English possession, joins with great affinity to the history both of South Carolina and Georgia, I could not make my reports to your Majesty with precision were I, by beginning with East Florida, [for which surveys had been especially ordered], to reverse the materials of which the roots are in those ancient provinces and the branches only reach to East Florida. I therefore most humbly beg leave to commence my Historical Report from South Carolina.. And I

1 The Wymberley Jones De Renne Georgia Library, at "Wormsloe," established by the son of the editor of De Brahm, and maintained by his grandson. [See Georgia Historical Quarterly, June 1918, photograph of the Library and description of manuscript contents.]