37 



If now, in conclusion, we may carry our argument against 

 the universal sway claimed for the principle of Natural 

 Selection, a little beyond the sphere of the moral principles 

 with which we have been dealing, we may perhaps see that 

 even within the spheres of life in which that sway has been 

 acknowledged in the past, it is not always possible to apply it. 



Darwin himself has shown us that the more primitive 

 moral ideas, such as prudence, courage, and obedience, are 

 products, not of natural, but of purposive selection, where, in 

 discussing the influence of praise and blame on primeval man, 

 he says that "as the reasoning powers and foresight of the 

 members became improved, each man would soon learn that 

 if he aided his fellowmen he would commonly receive aid in 

 return." But, going further back in the history of the race, 

 we may still see, in the capability of that vast number of 

 animals below the human, of profiting by experience, the 

 operation of this principle of conscious or purposive selection. 

 In the introduction of such purposive selection, is there not 

 already, in the words of Sorley, "the beginning of the end of 

 the reign of Natural Selection, 1 because in it for the purely 

 objective or external factor there is substituted an internal 

 subjective factor; instead of the process of cutting off unsuit- 

 able individuals among chance varieties there appears the 

 process of selecting that variety which pleases or attracts." 2 



V. ASSOCIATION PSYCHOLOGY POST-DARWINIAN. 



Now let us turn our attention to one of Darwin's con- 

 temporaries, Herbert Spencer, one of the few out-and-out 

 evolutionists prior to the publication of the works we have 

 just been considering. 



1. HERBERT SPENCER. 



Spencer first published 'The Principles of Psychology' in 

 1855, four years before the publication of Darwin's 'Origin of 

 Species'. This first edition, however, appears to have met 

 with very little success. Spencer, in his 'Autobiography' 

 makes reference to it in speaking of his 'Social Statics': "As 

 I have been for many years deterred by the consciousness of 

 its 3 defects from issuing new editions of the work, it is difficult 

 of access. Similarly with 'The Principles of Psychology'. 

 Save in a few public libraries, no one can now find a copy of 

 the first edition." 4 At the end of the year 1867 Spencer began 



x That is, as described by Darwin. See p. 26. 

 2 \V. R. Sorley, "Recent Tendencies in Ethics", p. 66. 

 3 i.e., the "Social Statics". 



4 Herbert Spencer, "An Autobiography", Williams and Norgate, London, 

 1904, Vol. 11, p. 74. 



