INTRODUCTION 



in the works of the spirit ; and even if they 

 always remain rather disciples than originators, 

 they help to lead the thought that they accept 

 to a truer expression. They force it beyond its 

 earlier and cruder stages of development. 



Now Fiske was a disciple of evolution in this 

 second sense. And he was so because there was 

 an interest of his own, which from the first was 

 prominent, even in boyhood, in his mind, and 

 which later developed as his years increased, and 

 which was not due to Spencer. This was Fiske's 

 interest in human life and in human history, 

 when one takes the latter term in its widest 

 sense. Already as a boy, still more as young 

 man, he read enormously in the direction of what 

 are called the humanities. He read general liter- 

 ature, annals, studies of the history of institu- 

 tions, studies of the history of religion. To learn 

 about the larger aspects of human life was his 

 passion. He early planned great works upon the 

 history of religion or of civilization in general. 

 He was always fond of comparative philology, 

 of folk-lore, of ethnology, — of whatever threw 

 light upon man's nature and destiny. Now had 

 there never been Darwin or Spencer, and had the 

 modern generalizations about the Origin of Spe- 

 cies and the Descent of Man been postponed for 

 another half century, Fiske would still have felt, 

 from the start, this boundless curiosity about 

 xxxix 



