176 DR. H. B. FANTHAM 



Species " the fundamental conceptions and the aims of 

 the students of living Nature have been completely 



changed But the impulse thus given to scientific 



thought rapidly spread beyond the ordinarily recognised 

 limits of I^iology. Psychology, Ethics, Cosmology were 

 stirred to their foundations, and ''The Origin of Species'^ 

 proved itself to be the fixed point which the general 

 doctrine needed in order to move the world." In this 

 connction, I would like to refer you to the Darwiu 

 Centenary Memorial volume, published under the title of 

 " Darwin and Modern Science," by the Cambridge Uni- 

 versity Press in 1909. 



Thus, Professor Hoffding writes, regarding the in- 

 fluence of Darwin on philosophy: — '"The theory of evo- 

 lution has influenced philosophy in a variety of forms. 

 It has made idealistic thinkers revise their relation to the 

 real world ; it has led positivistic thinkers to find a 

 closer connection between the facts on which they based 

 their views; it has made us all open our eyes for new 

 possibilities to arise through the prima facie inexplicable 

 ^' spontaneous " variations which are the condition of all 

 evolution. This last point is one of peculiar interest. 

 Deeper than speculative philosophy and mechanical 

 science saw in the days of their triumph, we catch sight 

 of new streams, whose sources and laws we have still to 

 discover. Most sharply does this appear in the theory of 

 mutation, which is only a stronger accentuation of a 

 main point in DarAvinism. It is interesting to see that 

 an analogous problem comes into the foreground in 

 physics through the discovery of radio-active phenomena, 

 and in psychology through the assumption of psychical 

 new formations (as held by Boutroux, William James 

 and Bergson). From this side, Darwin's ideas, as well 

 as the analogous ideas in other domains, incite us to a 

 renewed examination of our first principles, their ration- 

 ality and their value. On the other hand, his theory of 

 the struggle for existence challenges us to examine the 



