H. W. MAGOUN 19 



Reciprocal comments on Darwin and his work, by Spencer, were made 

 primarily from the point of view of their relations to Spencer's own ideas 

 and niterests. With publication of the Orioiii of Species, Spencer wrote 

 (1904) : 'That reading it gave me great satisfaction may be safely inferred. 

 Whether there was any set-oft to this, I cannot now say; for I have quite 

 forgotten the ideas and feelings I had. Up to that time, I held that the sole 

 cause of organic evolution is the inheritance of functionally-produced 

 moditications. The Ori^Ui of Species made it clear to me that I was wrong; 

 and that the larger part of the facts cannot be due to any such cause. 

 Whether proof that what I had supposed to be the sole cause, could be at 

 best but a part cause, gave me any annoyance, I cannot remember; nor 

 can I remember whether I was vexed by the thought that, in 1852, I had 

 fiiled to carry further the idea then expressed that, among human beings, 

 the survival of those who are the select of their generation is a cause of 

 development. But I doubt not that any such feelings, if they arose, were 

 overwhelmed in the gratification I felt at seeing the theory of organic 

 evolution justified. 



'To have the theory of organic evolution justified was, of course, to get 

 further support for that theory of evolution at large, with which, as we 

 have seen, all my conceptions were bound up. Believing as I did, too, that 

 right guidance, individual and social, depends upon acceptance of 

 evolutionary views of mind and of society, I was hopeful that its effects 

 wouki presently be seen on educational methods, political opinions and 

 men's ideas about human life. Obviously, these hopes that beneficial 

 results would presently be wrought, were too sanguine. My confidence in 

 the rationality of mankind was much greater then than it is now.' 



On the revision of his Principles of Psycholooy, in 1870, Spencer wrote, in 

 a similar vein: 'Several feelings united in making me enjoy the resumption 

 of this topic, which I dealt with in 1854-55. At that date, an evolutionary 

 view of Mind was foreign to the ideas of the time, and voted absurd: the 

 result of setting it forth brought pecuniary loss and a good cieal of reproba- 

 tion. Naturally, therefore, after the publication of the Ori(^iii of Species 

 had caused the current oi public opinion to set the other way, a more 

 sympathetic reception was to be counted upon for the doctrine of mental 

 evolution in its elaborated form.' 



In 1872, Spencer acknowledged a copy of Darwin's work on The 

 Expression of the Emotions as follows: "Dear Darwin: I have delayed some- 

 what longer than I intended acknowledging the copy of your new 

 volume which you have been kind enough to send me. I delayed partly in 

 the hope of being able to read more of it before writing to you; but my 



c 



