CHAPTER XV 



REACTION FROM DARWINISM DRUMMOND's 

 "ASCENT OF MAN" 



His precursors His sympathy for Spencer His Comtist terminology Seeks a 

 biological basis for altruism Corrects Darwin Not like Miss Cobbe 

 Largely like Huxley But seeks a fairer statement of the facts Brings in 

 a second biological function (out of three !), viz. reproduction Wallace on 

 the selection of reason Leads up to doctrine of "Arrest of the Body" 

 Cf. Clelland on the human skull Emphasis on maternity and weakness of 

 human infant Criticism ; " egoism " and its struggle purely evil ? Or 

 male sex with its justice ? Is domesticity = sociality ? Has Drummond 

 shown a factor in progress ? A better philosophy claims all nature for 

 God. 



I HAVE chosen the Ascent of Man to represent the more 

 conscious and definite reaction from unmodified or un- 

 balanced theories of natural selection, not because its 

 author was the first or the only writer to champion such 

 a reaction, but because he has given us its fullest state- 

 ment, and because everything of Drummond' s com- 

 manded at once a very wide popularity. For another 

 reason he interests us, because he speaks as a Christian 

 believer and thinker, almost as a Christian apologist. 

 He himself confesses obligations to many predecessors ; 

 first, perhaps, to John Fiske, as we shall note in due 

 course ; most largely and definitely to The Evolution of 

 Sex by Professor Geddes and Professor J. A. Thomson. 

 These last writers, like Drummond, are consciously 

 dissenting from Darwin, consciously putting forward 

 amendments to his statement of things, and not only 



