Herbert Spencer and the Doctrine of Evolution, 523 



atmosphere has since been also verified by spectrum analy- 

 sis. 



In October, 1858, he published in the Medico-Chirur- 

 gical Review a criticism on Prof. Owen's Archetype and 

 Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, which was written 

 in furtherance of the doctrine of Evolution, and to show 

 that the structural peculiarities which are not accounted 

 for on the theory of an archetypal vertebra are accounted 

 for on the hypothesis of development. In January of the 

 next year there appeared in the same review a paper on 

 The Laws of Organic form, already referred to (the germ 

 of which dated back to 185 1), and which was a further elu- 

 cidation of the doctrine of Evolution, by showing the direct 

 action of incident forces in modifying the forms of organ- 

 isms and their parts. In April, 1859, appeared in the Brit- 

 ish Quarterly Review an article on Physical Education, in 

 which the bearing of biological principles upon the man- 

 agement of children in respect to their bodily development 

 is considered. It insists upon the normal course of unfold- 

 ing, versus those hindrances to it which ordinary school regu- 

 lations impose; it asserts the worth of the bodily appetites 

 and impulses in children, which are commonly so much 

 thwarted; and contends that during this earlier portion of 

 life, in which the main thing to be done is to grow and de- 

 velop, our educational system is too exacting — " it makes 

 the juvenile life far more like the adult life than it should 

 be." The essay What Knowledge is of most Worth was 

 printed in the Westminster Review for July, 1859. This 

 argument is familiar to the public, as it has been many 

 times republished ; but what is here most worthy of note 

 is that, in criticising the current study of history, it def'.nes 

 with great distinctness the plan of the Descriptive Sociology 

 (the first divisions of which are now just published), and 

 which will give the comprehensive and systematic data 

 upon which the Principles of Sociology are to be based. 



