THE EVOLUTION OF MIND 



work written for the unskilled reader. The book 

 was mainly written in the open air, near Dieppe 

 and in Wales, without works of reference. If the 

 adjective original can fairly be applied to any 

 philosophical work, it is to this invaluable book 

 in which was founded the study of psychogenesis, 

 or the origin of mind. When one reads of Spencer s 

 plan for two volumes, and his intention to deal 

 with the whole subject, ere he had devoted any 

 systematic study whatever to any of his predeces 

 sors, and at a time when he must have been ignorant 

 of even the accepted terminology, one is inclined 

 to ask, &quot;What on earth did he think he had to 

 say?&quot; But to that question there is an abiding 

 answer. He had accepted the theory of organic 

 evolution in 1840 very shortly after Darwin had 

 opened his first note-book for facts bearing on the 

 origin of species and it was his destiny to apply 

 the leading idea of universal and ordered change 

 to the highest entity of which we have any knowl 

 edge. 



I do not here propose to discuss in detail, or, 

 indeed, with any measure of completeness, the 

 general or special doctrines of the evolutionary 

 psychology; but, in accordance with the design 

 of the present volume, I must consider three topics 

 which may serve to justify the contention that 

 evolution is the master-key, and which may serve 

 to show that its revelations are as vital and real 

 in this present year as they were half a century 

 ago, when the first instalment of the synthetic 



