NATURE'S EVOLUTION. ] 



Darwinism is by no means identical with 

 Evolution, which had been announced long be- 

 fore the time of Darwin and was more or less 

 secretly fermenting in the spirit of the age. 

 Still it is more profoundly intergrown with 

 his name than with that of any other man. 

 He popularized it, injecting it into the deep- 

 est current of the folk-souf of his century. 

 In the introduction to his book on the Origin 

 of the Species, he has given a brief account 

 of some anticipations of his view, which puts 

 stress upon Evolution of a certain kind, 

 namely, by Natural Selection, the Darwinian 

 kind. 



The Nineteenth Century, as we look back 

 at it, shows its own peculiar mental bent, its 

 psychical trend, which it has over and over 

 again in diverse ways expressed as a cate- 

 gory of thought. This category is the afore- 

 said Evolution, which is strictly a philo- 

 sophical term, even when ejected from the 

 mouth of a philosophy-hating scientist. The 

 Nineteenth Century (of course there is no 

 need of adhering strictly to its yearly bounds) 

 was evolutionary in its highest spiritual ac- 

 tivity as well as in its supreme self-expres- 

 sion. In Philosophy, in Poetry, as well as in 

 Science, it has found utterance through the 

 greatest masterpieces of the century. Of this 

 fact we may take a short note. 



