II 



THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION : ITS SCOPE 

 AND PURPORT 1 



IT was not strange that among the younger men 

 whose opinions were moulded between 1830 and 

 1840 there should have been one of organizing 

 genius, with a mind inexhaustibly fertile in sugges- 

 tions, who should undertake to elaborate a general 

 doctrine of evolution, to embrace in one grand co- 

 herent system of generalizations all the minor gen- 

 eralizations which workers in different departments 

 of science were establishing. It is this prodigious 

 work of construction that we owe to Herbert Spen- 

 cer. He is the originator and author of what we 

 know to-day as the doctrine of evolution, the doc- 

 trine which undertakes to formulate and put into 

 scientific shape the conception of evolution toward 

 which scientific investigation had so long been tend- 

 ing. In the mind of the general public there seems 

 to be dire confusion with regard to Mr. Spencer 



1 Part of an address before the Brooklyn Ethical Association, 

 May 31, 1891. 



