Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy. 105 



of what was conjectured or but dimly perceived, as well as 

 the wonderful powers of generalization required to classify 

 the multitude of facts and bring them together in a com- 

 prehensive unity so as to make clear and certain the princi- 

 ple underlying them. These qualifications were possessed 

 in an eminent degree by Darwin, and they enabled him to 

 prove what others had but imagined to show that natural 

 selection was a great factor in evolution, and to put or- 

 ganic evolution upon an impregnable foundation. But Dar- 

 win's work would not have been possible if the labors of 

 others had not led up to them, and the acceptance of evo- 

 lution would have remained confined to but a few if the 

 scientific mind had not been, through the work of others, 

 prepared for the change. Buffon, Lamarck, Geoffroy Saint- 

 Hilaire, Goethe, Erasmus Darwin, the author of the Ves- 

 tiges, with others, are entitled to the credit of having helped 

 to prepare the way for Darwin's work and for the adoption, 

 with comparatively little opposition, of the doctrine of de- 

 velopment in the place of belief in special creations. Yet 

 Darwin's name will be forever identified with natural selec- 

 tion. 



And as Prof. Youmans says : " The same ethical canons 

 of research . . . which gave to Copernicus the glory of the 

 heliocentric astronomy, to Newton that of the law of gravi- 

 tation, to Harvey that of the circulation of the blood, to 

 Priestley that of the discovery of oxygen, and to Darwin that 

 of natural selection, will also give to Herbert Spencer the 

 honor of having first elucidated and established the law of 

 universal evolution." 



Prof. Huxley, in his Survey of Fifty Years of Progress, 

 says : " Evolution as a philosophical doctrine applicable to 

 all phenomena, whether physical or mental, whether mani- 

 fested by material atoms or by men in society, has been 

 dealt with systematically in the Synthetic Philosophy ^ of 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer. Comment on that great undertaking 

 would not be in place here. I mention it because, so far as 

 I know, it is the first attempt to deal on scientific princi- 

 ples with modern scientific facts and speculations. For 

 the Philosophie Positive of M. Comte, with which Mr. 

 Spencer's system of philosophy is sometimes compared, al- 

 though it professes a similar object, is unfortunately per- 

 meated by a thoroughly unscientific spirit, and its author had 

 no adequate acquaintance with the physical science even of 

 his own time." 



