EVOLUTION THEORIES 217 



There is a time for everything, and since 

 philosophy, or any portion of it worth calling 

 generalized science is (or at least should be) 

 the ripened fruit of experience, the retire- 

 ment of the student and philosopher from the 

 noise and turmoil, the daily, hourly pressure 

 of the world, is as necessary and as legitimate 

 a process as is setting apart the milkpan to 

 let the cream rise. The mistake arises when 

 we begin to think of this isolation as the sole 

 essential, and overlook that all the cream we 

 get comes from the cow, and from such pasture 

 as we can give her. The qualities and defects 

 of the retiring biological philosopher thus 

 become apparent. Take Mr. Spencer for 

 choice. After an education unusually scien- 

 tific, an experience unusually practical, in- 

 cluding participation in the greatest con- 

 structive activities of his day, both as railway 

 engineer, as mechanical inventor, and in its 

 theoretic discussions also, as editor and as 

 economist, he takes more and more general 

 views, first as leader-writer, then as essayist, 

 and thence abstracts himself into his long and 

 devoted cloistered life as philosopher. But 

 after all, how little in essential thought does 

 his reasoned philosophy get beyond its initial 

 statement in his sporadic essays ? and how 

 largely are these, in qualities and in limitations 



