40 A Century of Science 



and his relations to evolution and to Darwinism. 

 Sometimes, I believe, lie is even supposed to be 

 chiefly a follower and expounder of Mr. Darwin ! 

 No doubt this is because so many people mix up 

 Darwinism with the doctrine of evolution, and have 

 but the vaguest and haziest notions as to what it is 

 all about. As I explained above, Mr. Darwin s 

 great work was the discovery of natural selection, 

 and the demonstration of its agency in effecting 

 specific changes in plants and animals ; and in 

 that work he was completely original. But plants 

 and animals are only a part of the universe, though 

 an important part, and with regard to universal 

 evolution or any universal formula for evolution 

 Darwinism had nothing to say. Such problems 

 were beyond its scope. 



The discovery of a universal formula for evolu 

 tion, and the application of this formula to many 

 diverse groups of phenomena, have been the great 

 work of Mr. Spencer, and in this he has had no 

 predecessor. His wealth of originality is immense, 

 and it is unquestionable. But as the most original 

 thinker must take his start from the general stock 

 of ideas accumulated at his epoch, and more often 

 than not begins by following a clue given him by 

 somebody else, so it was with Mr. Spencer when, 

 about forty years ago, he was working out his doc- 



