46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more to the popular confusion of the subject than the notion that 

 "Darwinism " and Evolution are the same thing. Mr. Darwin's fame 

 rests chiefly upon the skill and perseverance with which he has worked 

 out a single principle in its bearing upon the progressive diversity of 

 organic life. The competitions of Nature leading to a struggle for 

 existence, and that consequent winnowing which Mr. Darwin calls 

 " Natural Selection," and Mr. Spencer calls " Survival of the Fittest," 

 were recognized before Mr. Darwin's time : what he did, as I have 

 before explained, was to show how this principle may aid in giving 

 rise to new species from preexisting species. But this principle is 

 secondary and derivative, and its operation may be traced, as Mr. 

 Darwin has traced it, without going back to those primary forces, 

 the resolution of which constitutes the radical problem of Evolution. 



The principle which Mr. Darwin promulgated is a part of the great 

 theory, and it has a philosophic importance, exactly in proportion to 

 the validity of that larger system of doctrine to which it is tributary 

 as an element. Not only has Mr. Darwin never taken up the question 

 of Evolution from a scientific point of view, but it was not his aim to 

 explain even the evolution of species in terms of ultimate principles, 

 as a part of the universal transformation that is, in terms of the re- 

 distribution of matter and motion ; for it is in this way that all proxi- 

 mate principles, including Natural Selection, have to be expressed 

 before the final interpretation is reached. This mode of dealing with 

 the subject, the only thoroughly scientific method of its treatment, 

 belongs to Mr. Spencer alone. As to his following Mr. Darwin, we 

 have already seen that, two years before the " Origin of Species " 

 was published, Mr. Spencer had reached the proof of Evolution as a 

 universal law ; had traced its dependence upon the principle of the 

 Conservation of Force ; had resolved it into its ultimate dynamical 

 factors ; had worked out many of its important features ; had made 

 it the basis of a system of Philosophy ; and had shown that it fur- 

 nishes a new starting-point for the scientific interpretation of human 

 affairs. 



Colonel Higginson imputes to Mr. Spencer, as a weakness, the 

 propensity to write on a great number of subjects ; I have shown, on 

 the contrary, that he has been compelled to write upon many subjects 

 from logical necessity, and has done so in unswerving devotion to the 

 development of one class of ideas. It will be seen that he is now upon 

 the same identical track of thought which .he opened in his youth, to 

 which he has consecrated his life, and which he has made his own. 

 Thirty-two years ago he began to study the social condition and rela- 

 tions of men from the scientific point of view, and to treat of human 

 society as a sphere of natural law. After eight years he published a 

 treatise upon the question, which, although in advance of the times, 

 only served to convince its author that the investigation was barely 

 begun, and that, before any adequate social science was possible, the 



