These words were spoken in slow, solemn tones.  I do not remember ever having noticed more depth of feeling; evidently they came from a grateful debtor.  Mr. Spencer was touched by the words.  They gave rise to considerable remark, and shortly afterwards Mr. Beecher preached a course of sermons, giving his views upon Evolution.  The conclusion of the series was anxiously looked for, because his acknowledgment of debt to Spencer as his teacher had created alarm in church circles.  In the concluding article, as in his speech, if I remember rightly, Mr. Beecher said that, although he believed in evolution (Darwinism) up to a certain point, yet when man had reached his highest human level his Creator then invested him (and man alone of all living things) with the Holy Spirit, thereby bringing him into the circle of the godlike.  Thus he answered his critics.

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.