The Discovery of Natural Selection 



me whose knowledge and capacity compelled respect, and 

 who was, at the same time, a thorough- going evolutionist, 

 was Mr. Herbert Spencer. . . . Many and prolonged were 

 the battles we fought on this topic. ... I took my stand 

 upon two grounds : first, that up to that time the evidence 

 in favour of transmutation was wholly insufficient; and, 

 secondly, that no suggestions respecting the causes of the 

 transmutations assumed . . . were in any way adequate 

 to explain the phenomena. Looking back at the state of 

 knowledge at that time, I really do not see that any other 

 conclusion was justifiable.''^ 



And Prof. Raphael Meldola, in a lecture on Evolution 

 wherein he compares the impression left by each of these 

 great founders of that school upon the current of modern 

 thought, says : " Through all . . . his [Spencer's] writings 

 the underlying idea of development can be traced with in- 

 creasing depth and breadth, expanding in 1850 in his * Social 

 Statics ' to a foreshadowing of the general doctrine of Evolu- 

 tion. In 1852 his views on organic evolution had become 

 so definite that he gave public expression to them in that well- 

 known and powerful essay on ^ The Development Hypo- 

 thesis.' ... In the * Principles of Psychology,' the first 

 edition of which was published in 1855, the evolutionary 

 principle was dominant. By 1858 — the year of the an- 

 nouncement of Natural Selection by Darwin and Wallace 

 — he had conceived the great general scheme and had 

 sketched out the first draft of the prospectus of the Syn- 

 thetic Philosophy, the final and amended syllabus [being] 

 issued iji 1860. The work of Darwin and Spencer from 

 that period, although moving along independent lines, 

 was directed towards the same end, notwithstanding the 

 diversity of materials which they made use of and the 

 differences in their methods of attack; that end was 



* ** Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," ii. 188. 

 123 



