THE INFLUENCE OF DARWINISM 

 ON PHILOSOPHY 1 



fllHAT the publication of the &quot;Origin of 

 A Species &quot; marked an epoch in the develop 

 ment of the natural sciences is well known to the 

 layman. That the combination of the very words 

 origin and species embodied an intellectual revolt 

 and introduced a new intellectual temper is easily 

 overlooked by the expert. The conceptions that 

 - had reigned in the philosophy of nature and knowl 

 edge for two thousand years, the conceptions that 

 had become the familiar furniture of the mind, 

 rested on the assumption of the superiority of the 

 fixed and final; they rested upon treating change 

 and origin as signs of defect and unreality. In 

 laying hands upon the sacred ark of absolute 

 permanency, in treating the forms that had been 

 regarded as types of fixity and perfection as 



1 A lecture in a course of public lectures on &quot; Charles 

 Darwin and His Influence on Science,&quot; given at Columbia 

 University in the winter and spring of 1909. Reprinted 

 from the Popular Science Monthly for July, 1909. 



