30 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



The reading of Lyell's Principles of Geology when twenty years 

 of age marked a crisis in Spencer^s life, for it turned his attention 

 to the theory of evolution as against creationism as a method of 

 explaining the origin of species. Lyell's attempt to refute 

 Lamarck, however, made him a believer in Lamarck's hypothesis. 



Professor Royce thus summarizes the development of Spencer's 

 thought as revealed in his autobiography: — 



First, came a love for tracing the causes of things, a love which early led to 

 the notion that nature permitted no miracles, that all processes of nature 

 are unbroken and continuous, and that all which is beyond the realm of dis- 

 coverable law is altogether unknowable. Second, came an assurance that, 

 even as he himself was of an independent spirit, so no man's liberty ought to 

 be hindered, so long as such a man did not interfere with his neighbor's 

 liberty. Third came, slowly growing in his mind, the assurance that the 

 " development theory " must account for living things, by means of a natural 

 process, just as causation in general was needed to account for every other 

 natural event and product. Next came the notion that, in particular, the 

 life of the mind must be understood as a development, determined by natural 

 causes, and connected with the development of all the phenomena of Kfe. 

 Finally came the conviction that a full and coherent theory of nature, in 

 which the organic and inorganic worlds were united by the working of uni- 

 versal laws, not only would explain, so far as that was possible, the growth of 

 things, but also would furnish a systematic and complete foundation for his 

 own never changing individualistic ethics, and for his sturdy, old-fashioned 

 British liberalism. In this way, the main work of Spencer's life came to be 

 an effort to bring into synthesis an organic theory of the unity of the evolu- 

 tionary process, with a doctrine regarding the freedom and the rights of the 

 individual which had come down to him from an age when evolution and the 

 organic unity of things had indeed interested Enghshmen but little. This 

 particular synthesis of organic evolution with individual independence re- 

 mains one of the most paradoxical, and consequently most instructive, fea- 

 tures of Spencer's teaching.^ 



Turning to a consideration of the teachings of Spencer which 

 bear directly on our subject we find the following: — 



I. Society an Organism. — Spencer's method in this discussion 

 is analogical. He mentions four similarities and four dissimilari- 

 ties between society and a biological organism. The former are 

 continuous growth, increasing complexity, increasing dependence of 

 parts, and possible independent life of organism and member. The 

 four dissimilarities are lack of specific external form in the case of 

 society, units discreet and dispersed instead of continuous, w<7- 



* Herbert Spencer, pp. 63-64. 



