66 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN K!DD PART n 



regarding the origin of species among the wasteful 

 and unprofitable inquiries which the human provi- 

 dence will discourage and put down. So unfit are 

 even the learned to play the part of providence. So 

 liable are they to misjudge doctrines which, even if 

 destined at last to be regarded as one-sided and more 

 or less fallacious, have yet shown themselves im- 

 mensely fruitful in suggestions bearing upon every 

 branch of human knowledge. 4 It is now admitted by 

 able adherents of Comte's system l that the doctrine 

 of evolution supplies a background or basis for Comte's 

 unification of knowledge. In such a statement Spen- 

 cer's form of evolutionary doctrine seems to be most 

 directly contemplated, and Spencer is perhaps the 

 least thoroughly biological of all the evolutionary 

 thinkers, whether moralists or sociologists, whom we 

 shall have to pass in review.' Yet the great move- 

 ment of our day was in connection with a biological 

 doctrine which Spencer will certainly not repudiate. 

 And it falls to us rather to argue for a difference 

 than for a kinship between Spencer and Darwin. 

 The kinship is claimed, asserted, conceded. 2 We do 

 not deny it; but we believe that the differences 

 reach deep down. Before we go further we must 

 take a hurried view of evolution as conceived by 

 both these influential writers and first, as conceived 

 by Darwin. 



Darwin's problem, vast as it was, and bold as was 



1 e.g. Mr. J. C. Oliphant in Chambers^ Encyclopaedia, gth edition. 



2 Mr. C. W. Williams, of whom Mr. Spencer complains, certainly 

 seems to underrate Spencer's originality (in comparison with Darwin) 

 upon p. 2 of his Evolutional Ethics ; but he makes concessions on the 

 other side upon p. 28. Our desire is to show that the two great men 

 moved on different lines. 



