TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Introduction 5 



The idea of evolution. — Its application to in- 

 organic things, to organisms, to the origin of man 

 and to man's psychical life. — Its bearing upon 

 ethics and social science. — Its special province : 

 natural science. 



CHAPTER I 

 The Idea of Evolution before Darwin . . M 23 



The dawn of the evolutionist idea. — The revival 

 of natural sciences in the seventeenth and eight- 

 eenth centuries. — Linnaeus, Cuvier. — The first 

 transmutationists : Goethe, Erasmus Darwin, La- 

 marck, the originator of the transmutation theory. — 

 Ernest Geoffroi Saint-Hilaire versus Cuvier. — The 

 nature-philosophers: Oken. — A period of stag- 

 nancy. — Modern transmutation theories. Lyell ; 

 geological and paleontological discoveries. Herbert 

 Spencer. The publication of Darwin's book. 



CHAPTER II 

 Darwin and "The Origin of Species" ... 35 



A double element in the Darwinian theories: 

 Transmutation and natural selection. — How the 

 idea of transmutation first entered Darwin's mind; 

 the journey of the Beagle. — The Malthusian 



13 



