V. 



HERBERT SPENCER AND THE DOCTRINE 

 OF EVOLUTION. 



THE change that has taken place in the world of 

 thought within our own time, regarding the doctrine of 

 Evolution, is something quite unprecedented in the history 

 of progressive ideas. Twenty years ago that doctrine was 

 almost universally scouted as a groundless and absurd 

 speculation ; now, it is admitted as an established principle 

 by many of the ablest men of science, and is almost univer- 

 sally conceded to have a basis of truth, whatever form it 

 may ultimately take. It is, moreover, beginning to exert 

 a powerful influence in the investigation and mode of con- 

 sidering many subjects ; while those who avow their belief 

 in it are no longer pointed at as graceless reprobates or in- 

 corrigible fools. 



With this general reversal of judgment regarding the 

 doctrine, and from the prominence it has assumed as a 

 matter of public criticism and discussion, there is naturally 

 an increasing interest in the question of its origin and 

 authorship ; and also, as we might expect, a good deal of 

 misapprehension about it. The name of Herbert Spencer 

 has been long associated in the public mind with the idea 

 of Evolution. And while that idea was passing through 

 what may be called its stage of execration, there was no 

 hesitancy in according to him all the infamy of its pater- 

 nity ; but when the infamy is to be changed to honour, by 

 a kind of perverse consistency of injustice there turns out 

 to be a good deal less alacrity in making the revised award. 



(502) 



