12 A GREAT CONFESSION CHAP. 



dominion Mr. Spencer has plucked up 

 courage to dispute. He will never suc- 

 ceed in shaking its dictatorship by such 

 a small rebellion. His little contention 

 is like some bit of Bumbledom setting 

 up for Home Rule some parochial 

 vestry claiming independence of a uni- 

 versal empire. It pretends to set up for 

 itself in some fragment of an idea. But 

 here is not even a fragment to boast of 

 or to stand up for. His new factor in 

 organic evolution has neither independ- 

 ence nor novelty. Mr. Spencer is able 

 to quote himself as having mentioned it 

 in his Principles of Biology published 

 some twenty years ago ; and by a careful 

 ransacking of Darwin he shows that the 

 idea was familiar to and admitted by him 

 at least in his last edition of the Origin 

 of Species. Mr. Spencer insists that this 

 fact is evidence of a " reaction" in Dar- 

 win's mind against the sole factorship of 



