Edward Livingston Youmans 83 



1859 by the Darwinian theory ; the doctrine of the 

 correlation of forces and the consequent unity of 

 nature ; the extension and reformation of chemical 

 theory ; the simultaneous advance made in socio 

 logical inquiry, and in the conception of the true 

 aims and proper methods of education, all this 

 made the period a most fruitful one for the pe 

 culiar work of such a teacher as Youmans. The 

 intellectual atmosphere was charged with concep 

 tions of evolution. Youmans had arrived at such 

 conceptions in the course of his study of the sepa 

 rate lines of scientific speculation which were now 

 about to be summed up and organized by Her 

 bert Spencer into that system of philosophy which 

 marks the highest point to which the progressive 

 intelligence of mankind has yet attained. In the 

 field of scientific generalization upon this great 

 scale, Youmans was not an originator ; but his 

 broadly sympathetic and luminous mind moved 

 on a plane so near to that of the originators 

 that he seized at once upon the grand scheme of 

 thought as it was developed, made it his own, and 

 brought to its interpretation and diffusion such a 

 happy combination of qualities as one seldom meets 

 with. The ordinary popularizer of great and novel 

 truths is a man who comprehends them but par 

 tially, and illustrates them in a lame and frag- 



