THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. 593 



"by slow gradations, and the special interpretations of reflex action, 

 instinct, memory, reason, emotion, and will are such as to make the 

 Principles of Psychology indubitably the most suggestive book 

 upon mental phenomena that was ever written. 



Toward the end of the first edition of The Origin of Species, 

 published in 1859, Mr. Darwin looked forward to a distant fu- 

 ture when the conception of gradual development might be ap- 

 plied to the phenomena of intelligence. But the first edition of 

 the Principles of Psychology, in which this was so successfully 

 done, had already been published four years before in 1855 so 

 that Mr. Darwin in later editions was obliged to modify his state- 

 ment and confess that, instead of looking so far forward, he had 

 better have looked about him. I remember hearing Mr. Darwin 

 laugh merrily over this at his own expense. 



This extension of the doctrine of evolution to psychical phe- 

 nomena was what made it a universal doctrine, an account of the 

 way in which the world, as we know it, has come to be. There is 

 no subject great or small that has not come to be affected by the 

 doctrine, and, whether men realize it or not, there is no nook or 

 corner in speculative science where they can get away from the 

 sweep of Mr. Spencer's thought. 



This extension of the doctrine to psychical phenomena is by 

 many people misunderstood. The Principles of Psychology is a 

 marvel of straightforward and lucid statement; but, from its 

 immense reach and from the abstruseness of the subject, it is not 

 easy reading. It requires a sustained attention such as few 

 people can command except on subjects with which they are 

 already familiar. Hence few people read it in comparison with 

 the number who have somehow got it into their heads that Mr. 

 Spencer tries to explain mind as evolved out of matter, and is 

 therefore a materialist. How many worthy critics have been 

 heard to object to the doctrine of evolution that you can not 

 deduce mind from the primeval nebula unless the germs of mind 

 were present already ! But that is just what Mr. Spencer says 

 himself. I have heard him say it more than once, and his books 

 contain many passages of equivalent import.* He never misses 

 an opportunity for attacking the doctrine that mind can be 

 explained as evolved from matter. But, in spite of this, a great 

 many people suppose that the gradual evolution of mind must 

 mean its evolution out of matter, and are deaf to arguments of 

 which they do not perceive the bearing. Hence Mr. Spencer is 

 so commonly accredited with the doctrine which he so earnestly 

 repudiates. 



But there is another reason why people are apt to suppose 



* See, for example, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii, pp. 145-162. 

 vol. xxxix. 42 



