190 CHARLES DARWIN 



rightly hit upon the central element in the Darwinian 

 conception which more than any other has caused its 

 fruitful and wonderful expansion through every fertile 

 field of human enquiry. 



In short, it was Darwin's task in life to draw down 

 evolution from heaven to earth, and to bring within the 

 scope of its luminous method all that is most interesting 

 to the uninstructed and unsophisticated heart of the 

 natural man. 



The application of the evolutionary principle to the 

 world of life, human or animal, thus presents itself as 

 the chief philosophic and scientific achievement of the 

 nineteenth century. Throughout the whole middle 

 decades of the present age, the human mind in all its 

 highest embodiments was eagerly searching, groping, and 

 enquiring after a naturalistic explanation of the origin 

 and progress of organic life. In the vast scheme for 

 the System of Synthetic Philosophy which Herbert 

 Spencer set forth as an anticipatory synopsis of his 

 projected work, the philosopher of development leapt at 

 once from the First Principles of evolution as a whole to 

 the Principles of Biology, Psychology, and Sociology, 

 omitting all reference to the application of evolution to 

 the vast field of inorganic nature ; and he did so on the 

 distinctly stated ground that its application to organic 

 nature was then and there more important and interest- 

 ing. That suggestive expression of belief aptly sums 

 up the general attitude of scientific and philosophic 

 minds at the precise moment of the advent of Darwinism. 

 Kant and Laplace and Lyell had already applied the 

 evolutionary method to suns and systems, to planets and 

 continents j what was needed next was that some 



