CHAP, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND 155 



son. These last writers, like Drummond, are con- 

 sciously dissenting from Darwin, consciously put- 

 ting forward amendments to his statement of things, 

 and not only to his statement of the basis of morals, 

 but to his scientific formulation of the process of 

 evolution itself. Morality is to be found somewhere 

 in the region of sex. Struggle for life is a fact, but 

 not the whole fact ; it is balanced by struggle for 

 the life of others. Yet those who so speak are them- 

 selves evolutionists, themselves Darwinians. They 

 accept struggle for existence as a great fact and po- 

 tent cause of progress. They deny it to be the only 

 fact ; and occasionally they are found denying that 

 it is the only cause of progress ; but that topic is very 

 lightly touched upon. Hence perhaps, in part, one's 

 perplexity, when one seeks to estimate the value of 

 this correction of Darwin's theories. 



With the wider Spencerian doctrine of evolution 

 Drummond takes little to do. Yet he seems to as- 

 sume its truth, or the truth of something of the same 

 nature. His lyrical outbursts of praise at the thought 

 of evolutionary science refer to something much more 

 extensive than any view of the origin of species. 

 Speaking of " evolution in general," he tells us that 

 " Evolution is a Vision, . . . which is revolutionising 

 the world of nature and of thought." When the 

 workers of science had whispered the name " Evolu- 

 tion," "henceforth their work was one, science was 

 one, the world was one, and mind, which had discov- 

 ered the oneness, was one." l Again somewhat later 

 we read, " Nature in vertical section offers no break 

 or pause or flaw." To study it in horizontal section 



1 Ascent of Man, p. I. 



