SPENCER AND EVOLUTION. 2? 



caine to be what they are. Starting from the point of view made 

 probable by the astronomers, and demonstrated by the geologists, 

 that, in the mighty past, Nature has conformed to one system of 

 laws ; and assuming that the existing order, at any time, is to be re- 

 garded as growing out of a preexisting order, Mr. Spencer saw that 

 nothing remained for science but to consider all the contents of Na- 

 ture from the same point of view. It was, therefore, apparent that 

 life, mind, man, science, art, language, morality, society, government, 

 and institutions, are things that have undergone a gradual and contin- 

 uous unfolding, and can be explained in no other way than by a theory 

 of growth and derivation. It is not claimed that Mr. Spencer was the 

 first to adopt this mode of inquiry in relation to special subjects, but 

 that he was the first to grasp it as a general method, the first to see 

 that it must give us a new view of human nature, a new science of 

 mind, a new theory of society all as parts of one coherert body of 

 thought, and that he was, moreover, the first to work out a compre- 

 hensive philosophical system from this point of inquiry, or on the 

 basis of the principle of Evolution. In a word, I maintain Spencer's 

 position as a thinker to be this : taking a view of Nature that was not 

 only generally discredited, but was virtually foreclosed to research, he 

 has done more than any other man to make it the starting-point of a 

 new era of knowledge. 



For the proof of this I now appeal to his works. Let us trace the 

 rise and development of the conception of Evolution in his own mind, 

 observe how he was led to it, and how he pursued it, and see how 

 completely it pervades and unifies his entire intellectual career. Va- 

 rious explanatory details that follow, I have obtained from conversa- 

 tions with Mr. Spencer himself; but the essential facts of the state- 

 ment are derived from his works, and may be easily verified by any 

 who choose to take the trouble of doing so. 



Mr. Spencer is uot a scholar in the current acceptation of the 

 term ; that is, he has not mastered the curriculum of any university. 

 Unbiassed by the traditions of culture, his early studies were in the 

 sciences. Born in a sphere of life which made a vocation necessary, 

 he was educated as a civil-engineer, and up to 1842, when he was 

 twenty-two years of age, he had written nothing but professional pa- 

 pers published in the Civil Engineer and Architects' Journal. But 

 he had always been keenly interested in political and social questions, 

 which he had almost daily heard discussed by his father and uncles. 

 In the summer of 1842 he began to contribute a series of letters to a 

 weekly newspaper, the Nonconformist, under the title of "The 

 Proper Sphere of Government." It was the main object of these let- 

 ters to show that the functions of government should be limited to 

 the protection of life, property, and social order, leaving all other 

 social ends to be achieved by individual activities. But, beyond this 

 main conception, it was implied throughout that there are such things 



