THE name of Herbert Spencer seems to recall all the memories of the mausive intellectualism of the Victorian age, so remote from tho temper of tho post-war world ; and it is true that Spencer was born over a century ago. Yet he died so recently as in 1903 (his career overrunning tho reign of Victoria at both extremes) and, though his ' Social Statics ' appeared in 1850, his great ' Synthetic Philosophy ' was only finished in 1890, and Spencer was still in the full vigour of his powers within the lifetime of most of us. Mrs. Sidney Webb , who gives this talk, is well known as an economist and an authority on social history.