-/ 



448 Evolution and Modern Philosophy 



defined boundaries. The problem has become more precise, both as 

 to variation and as to heredity. The inner conditions of life have in 

 both respects shown a greater independence than Darwin had supposed 

 in his theory, though he always admitted that the cause of variation 

 was to him a great enigma, " a most perplexing problem," and that 

 the struggle for life could only occur where variation existed. But, 

 at any rate, it Avas of the greatest importance that Darwin gave a 

 living impression of the struggle for life which is everywhere going 

 on, and to which even the highest forms of existence must be 

 amenable. The philosophical importance of these ideas does not 

 stand or fall with the answer to the question, whether natural 

 selection is a sufficient explanation of the origin of species or not: 

 it has an independent, positive value for everyone who will observe 

 life and reality with an unbiassed mind. 



In accentuating the struggle for life Darwin stands as a character- 

 istically English thinker: he continues a train of ideas which Hobbes 

 and Malthus had already begun. Moreover in his critical views as to 

 the conception of species he had English forerunners ; in the middle 

 ages Occam and Duns Scotus, in the eighteenth century Berkeley and 

 Hume. In his moral philosophy, as we shall see later, he is an 

 adherent of the school which is represented by Hutcheson, Hume 

 and Adam Smith. Because he is no philosopher in the stricter sense 

 of the term, it is of great interest to see that his attitude of mind is 

 that of the great thinkers of his nation. 



In considering Darwin's influence on philosophy we will begin 

 with an examination of the attitude of philosophy to the conception 

 of evolution at the time when TJie Origin of Species appeared. We 

 will then examine the effects which the theory of evolution, and 

 especially the idea of the struggle for life, has had, and naturally 

 must have, on the discussion of philosophical problems. 



II. 



When The Origin of Species appeared fifty years ago Romantic 

 speculation, Schelling s and Hegel's philosophy, still reigned on the 

 continent, while in England Positivism, the philosophy of Comte and 

 Stuart Mill, represented the most important trend of thought. 

 German si)eculation had much to say on evolution, it even pretended 

 to be a philosophy of evolution. But then the word "evolution'* 

 was to be taken in an ideal, not in a real, sense. To speculative 

 thought the forms and types of nature formed a system of ideas, 

 within which any form could lead us by continuous transitions to 

 any other. It was a classificatory system which was regarded as a 

 divine world of thought or images, within which metamorphoses 



