II 



THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION : ITS SCOPE 

 AND PURPORT 1 



IT was not strange that among the younger men 

 whose opinions were moulded between 1830 and 

 1840 there should have been one of organizing 

 genius, with a mind inexhaustibly fertile in sugges 

 tions, who should undertake to elaborate a general 

 doctrine of evolution, to embrace in one grand co 

 herent system of generalizations all the minor gen 

 eralizations which workers in different departments 

 of science were establishing. It is this prodigious 

 work of construction that we owe to Herbert Spen 

 cer. He is the originator and author of what we 

 know to-day as the doctrine of evolution, the doc 

 trine which undertakes to formulate and put into 

 scientific shape the conception of evolution toward 

 which scientific investigation had so long been tend 

 ing. In the mind of the general public there seems 

 to be dire confusion with regard to Mr. Spencer 



1 Part of an address before the Brooklyn Ethical Association, 

 May 31, 1891. 



