4 HERBERT SPENCER AND 



It is well known that the school of ' Natural Philo- 

 sophers ', of whom Oken and Treviranus were the leaders, 

 were Platonists and disciples of Kant, and that their 

 avowed aim was to explain natural phenomena on 

 philosophic principles. Working with such biological 

 evidence as the knowledge of their day afforded, they 

 hazarded some wonderfully shrewd guesses, and exercised 

 a considerable influence on the thought of their time, 

 an influence not altogether baneful, as some writers would 

 lead us to suppose. But they laboured under this great 

 disadvantage, that the objective evidence at their dis- 

 posal was altogether insufficient to sustain the bold and 

 sweeping generalizations that they founded on it, and 

 arguing deductively from these generalizations they were 

 soon involved in absurdities and contradictions which 

 were easily exposed and turned into ridicule by the more 

 practical and sober-minded scientific workers of the day. 



Cuvier, whose reputation as an exact and wide student 

 of comparative anatomy and palaeontology has lost none 

 of its lustre to this day, was a bitter opponent of the 

 natural philosophers, and a strong advocate of the doctrine 

 of the fixity of species, and he had the support of such 

 eminent zoologists as Johannes MiiUer, von Baer, Milne 

 Edwards, and others. It is curious to note how much 

 evidence these noted investigators collected in favour of 

 the doctrine of organic evolution, and yet how obstinately 

 they set their faces against its acceptance. 



But, although they appeared to have routed evolution 

 and to have fairly driven it, as a guiding principle, from 

 the scientific field ; there remained a not inconsiderable 

 body of scientific thinkers who could not rest content 

 with the dogmatic assertions of the Cuvierian and 

 Linnaean schools. 



We have had evidence enough, during the present year, 

 of the early period at which Charles Darwin's thoughts 

 were turned towards an evolutionary interpretation of 

 organic phenomena. We have not heard so much of the 



