2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In the first place, then, we have to review the growth and solidi- 

 fication of Mr. Spencer's thought-in other words, the elaboration, 

 as exhibited in his earlier writings, of that conception of evolution 

 which was to find its definite expression in the majestic series of 

 works of which the Synthetic Philosophy is composed. Let us 



rin by making ourselves acquainted with the starting-point of 

 his mental development that is, with the general theory of things 

 which was current during his early years, and under the influ- 

 ence of which, in common with all his contemporaries, he grew to 



man's estate. 



The period of Spencer's youth and ripening manhood was a 

 period of transition in scientific and philosophic thought. On the 

 ushering in of the present century the old cosmology still held 

 sway with unabated vigor, along with all those time-worn dogmas 

 concerning human life and destiny which had grown up with it 

 during ages of ignorance and superstition, and with which its own 

 existence was now inextricably bound up. What that cosmology 

 and what those dogmas meant is a matter of such common his- 

 tory that we need not linger over them here. Suffice it to say 

 that the unquestioned doctrines of special creation, fixed types, 

 and a recent origin of the universe, lay at the bottom of them all, 

 and that it was in the light of those doctrines that the world and 

 life and man were one and all interpreted. 



But before the century had got far upon its way, signs began 

 to manifest themselves of an approaching change in the higher 

 regions of thought. The special-creation hypothesis and the post- 

 ulate of the world's recent origin and rapid manufacture had 

 served well enough so long as their field had remained uninvaded 

 by the results of investigation so long as they had not been con- 

 fronted with definite facts. In perfect keeping with the little that 

 had been known of the universe in the darkness of the middle ages, 

 they required that no jot or tittle should be added to that knowl- 

 <'<lge, to hold their place secure. But this could no longer be. 

 The time came when investigation grew active, and definite facts 

 angular, awkward, unpleasant facts, which (after their repre- 

 hensible manner) were irreverent enough to refuse to fit into the 

 most sacred and deeply cherished theory began to accumulate 

 witli startling rapidity. The result was that the old conception 

 of things began, little by little, to fall into disrepute, and the 

 theological edifice of ages was shaken at its very foundations. 

 Science showed, with a conclusiveness which remained untouched 

 by all the special pleading with which her arguments and revela- 

 3 were assailed, that the popular assumptions about the age of 

 the world were absolutely untenable ; that the commencement of 

 life, and even of human life upon our globe, so far from taking us 

 back only a few paltry thousands of years, lay countless millions 



