THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA 



mind of the child, the savage, and the lower ani 

 mals. The same is true of sociology and ethics; 

 so that it would be to lack any adequate apprecia 

 tion of the facts to suppose that Spencer merely 

 took the scientific knowledge of his time and built 

 upon that. He did, indeed, build upon the knowl 

 edge of his time ; but he had first to remake much 

 of it. No mere study of the recognized text 

 books of the various sciences could have yielded 

 the generalization which is now the master-key 

 to all our thinking. 



Probably the germ of the idea lay in the word 

 progress, inherited by Spencer from his liberal tu 

 tors. It w r as when he came to analyze the idea and 

 nature of progress that he caught a first glimpse of 

 principles which, as he came to see, applied, not 

 merely to human societies, but to aggregates of 

 all kinds. Only after many years (though he had 

 long ceased to use the old word) did he acid to the 

 formula of evolution a further formula to express 

 the correlative process of dissolution. But this 

 will be discussed later. 



This chapter on the genesis of the idea of evolu 

 tion may fitly be concluded by consideration of the 

 power of a phrase. Tennyson somewhere has a 

 saying about the coming of a great thought which 

 flashes through the brain and brings the blood to 

 the cheeks. We need not doubt that this was an 

 authentic reminiscence; but perhaps one may be 

 permitted to question whether the experience is a 

 common one among the authors of the world s 



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