Herbert Spencer and the Doctrine of Evolution. 519 



of years, from Plato to Hamilton, the world's ablest 

 thinkers had been engaged in the effort to elucidate the 

 phenomena of mind ; Herbert Spencer took up the ques- 

 tion by a method first rendered possible by modern sci- 

 ence, and made a new epoch in its progress. From this 

 time forward, mental philosophy, so called, could not con- 

 fine itself simply to introspection of the adult human con- 

 sciousness. The philosophy of mind must deal with the 

 whole range of psychical phenomena, must deal with them 

 as manifestations of organic life, must deal with them 

 genetically, and show how mind is constituted in connec- 

 tion with the experience of the past. In short, as it now 

 begins to be widely recognized, Mr. Spencer has placed the 

 science of mind firmly upon the ground of Evolution. 

 Like all productions that are at the same time new and 

 profound, and go athwart the course of long tradition, 

 there were but few that appreciated his book, a single small 

 edition more than sufficing to meet the wants of the public 

 for a dozen years.* But it began at once to tell upon ad- 

 vanced thinkers, and its influence was soon widely dis- 

 cerned in the best literature of the subject. The man who 

 stood, perhaps, highest in England as a Psychologist, Mr. 

 John Stuart Mill, remarked in one of his books, that it is 

 " one of the finest examples we possess of the psychological 

 method in its full power " ; and, as I am aware, after care- 

 fully rereading it some years later, he declared that his al- 

 ready high opinion of the work had been raised still more — 

 which he recognized as due to the progress of his own mind.f 



Owen's College, Manchester, Mr. W. Stanley Jevons, in his recer*^ treatise 

 entitled The Principles of Science : A Treatise on Togic and Scientific 

 Method, says : " I question whether any scientific works which have ap- 

 peared since the Principia of Newton are comparable in importance 

 with those of Darwin and Spencer, revolutionizing as they do all our 

 views of the origin of bodily, mental, moral, and social phenomena." 

 * See Note C. t See Note D. 



