22 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



18. 



Biology and 

 the history 

 of origins. 



led the way, through his ethical and political essays, to 

 the study of history.^ 



We have met with a similar tendency towards 

 historical treatment and the study of origins in that 

 great region of scientific thought comprised under the 

 term Biology : the science of life. After the futility of 

 all attempts to grasp the essence of life itself by a direct 

 analysis had become apparent, the more extensive descrip- 

 tion and observation of living things themselves, of their 

 forms, their habits, and their environment, infused new 

 hope into the sciences of nature ; and, latterly, all these 

 studies have converged in the direction of the study of 

 origins,^ whether these be found in the embryological 

 beginnings of individual life (ontogenesis), or in the 

 historical beginnings of genera and species (phylogenesis). 

 Instead of trying to grasp the meaning of life through 

 philosophical definitions, natural science has taken the 

 more promising course of studying life in the great world 

 of living things and their properties. Similarly the study 

 of mind, after having met with much discouragement 

 from the side of philosophical sceptics, as well as through 

 the endless controversies peculiar to the introspective 

 schools, has latterly gained new hope by turning to the 

 external manifestations of mental life in the phenomena 

 of society, religion, language, &c. The reality of mental 

 life, which had gradually evaporated under the hands of 



^ See supra, vol. i. p. 47, and the 

 passages there quoted from LesHe 

 Stephen's ' English Thought in the 

 Eighteenth Century.' 



'-' I am indebted to Prof. J. 

 Arthur Thomson, in his Review of 

 tlie first part of this History (see 



' Ilibbert Journal,' vol. iii. p. 395), 

 for the remark that it is not .so 

 much a study of genesis and origin- 

 as of genealogies and descent that 

 the Darwinian view has introduced 

 into biology. 



