INTRODUCTION 



pies of Psychology.* " Hereby one sees how fully 

 and how early he had grasped the spirit of his 

 master. The theories in question in this chap- 

 ter belong amongst the most discussed topics of 

 evolutionary psychology in recent years. The 

 question of " race-experience," the problem 

 whether " acquired characters," especially when 

 they are " psychical characters," can become he- 

 reditary, the issue as to whether instincts are the 

 remains of once-conscious habits from which con- 

 sciousness has fallen away in the course of evo- 

 lution, — these are matters still more vital in 

 present theoretical inquiry than they were when 

 Fiske wrote. He would therefore certainly have 

 added much to the argument of this chapter had 

 he rewritten it. How much he would have found 

 to change in the light of more recent research, 

 it is impossible to say. For the issue in question 

 is still undecided. 



22. Chapter xvii., on " Sociology and Free 

 Will," begins the series of chapters which in the 

 " Cosmic Philosophy " more directly represent 

 Fiske's personal point of view, and which con- 

 tain, along with a general and sometimes a close 

 agreement with Spencer, Fiske's principal con- 

 tributions to the theory which he is expounding. 

 At the time when Fiske prepared the " Cosmic 

 Philosophy " for the press, Spencer's book on 

 " The Study of Sociology " had indeed already 

 Ixvii 



