Miscellaneous Papers. 165 



(P. 374 :) The last twenty years is the brightest chapter in the history, for 

 the spirit of Darwin is once more abroad. . . . Before his time evolu- 

 tion was a general idea, but one of profound significance. After Darwin 

 evolution rested its claims upon a definite body of information relating to 

 variations and their inheritance. It is these data that first convinced his 

 greatest contemporaries of the truth of evolution and finally convinced the 

 rank and file of thinking men. Darwin also opened the doors into unexplored 

 territory, and the rewards in these new fields have been and continue very 

 great." 



The bearings of Darwin's discovery upon man and human insti- 

 tutions were most important and revolutionary. Concerning this 

 Mr. Benjamin Kid, in his "Social Evolution" says: 



"One of the most remarkable epochs in the history of human thought is 

 that through which we have passed in the last half of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. The revolution beginning with the publication of the "Origin of 

 Species" has gradually extended until it has affected the entire intellectual 

 life of our Western civilization. The sciences dealing with man in society 

 have naturally been the last to be affected, but the changes therein promise 

 to be more startling in character. The whole plan of life is being revealed 

 to us in a new light, and we are beginning to perceive that it presents a 

 single majestic unity, throughout every part of which prevail the conditions 

 of law and orderly progress. We have lived through a period when the veiy 

 foundations of human thought have been rebuilt. . . . The great triumph 

 of science in the nineteenth century has been the tracing of steps in the 

 evolution of life up to human society." 



Prof. F. H. Giddings, in an address upon "Darwinism and Social 

 Evolution," said; "Revolutionizing as the life work of Darwin 

 was in the fields of biology, it is doubtful if his writings were felt 

 anywhere more profoundly than in pre-Darwinian social philo- 

 sophy." (Pop. Sci., July, 1909, p. 72.) "It was not until the 

 publication of the 'Descent of Man' in 1871, twelve years after 

 the 'Origin of Species,' with its intellectual tempest, that the full 

 significance of natural selection for the doctrine of human progress 

 was apprehended by the scientific world. Mr. Spencer saw it 

 when the 'Origin of Species' was published, and Darwin perceived 

 that he must offer a credible explanation of the paradox that a 

 ruthless struggle for existence could yield the fruits of righteous- 

 ness. But it was neither of these great thinkers, but a gifted man, 

 Mr. Walter Bageot, who made the brilliant discovery of the final 

 solution, in his 'Physics and Politics.' Mr. Spencer had worked 

 out the idea of savage conflict and the survival of the fittest as ap- 

 plied to individuals in the struggle for existence; but it remained 

 for Mr. Bageot to conceive the idea of group solidarity and collec- 

 tive conflict in distinction from a mere individual struggle for 

 existence. He said: 'The progress of mof/i requires the coopera- 



