40 Social Environment 



expression, as may be seen by reference to 

 the works of both Emerson and Goethe. It 

 was not, therefore, the concept of evolution, 

 but rather a scientific demonstration of a par- 

 ticular method of evolution, that gave such a 

 prestige to the works of Darwin. The idea 

 of the survival of the fittest — an idea that 

 seems so much at home in nineteenth-century 

 England — is Darwin's essential contribution. 

 And that there existed an affinity between the 

 Darwinian point of view and the dominant 

 spirit of commercialism is indicated both by 

 the fact that Darwin found his idea already 

 half stated in the social studies of Malthus, 

 and also by the application of the evolutionary 

 hypothesis which was quickly made to the 

 social questions of the day. 



Darwin's scientific work was in the field of 

 biology; it is to Spencer that the honor be- 

 longs of rounding the theory out into the full 

 proportions of a world philosophy. Spencer 

 found in all the departments of concrete knowl- 

 edge, from astronomy to human society, a 

 "process of development toward equilibra- 

 tion" And in accordance with the spirit of 

 his age he arrived at laissez faire as the scien- 

 tific principle that should determine govern- 



