IV 



THE DARWIN CENTENARY. [April 23. 



Ladies and gentlemen, a few words may be said upon some of 

 the general aspects of this subject, which will be dealt with more 

 completely by the third of the speakers who is to address you 

 to-night. 



When I was first invited to attend the meeting I was asked to 

 say something regarding the influence of the Darwinian theory, and 

 in particular to what is called the Doctrine of Evolution upon his- 

 tory and the political and economic sciences. I felt obliged to 

 decline so great a task as that, partly because it required a wider 

 knowledge than I possess, and partly also because I have never been 

 able to feel sure that the influence — that is to say, the direct influence 

 — of the doctrines contained in Mr. Darwin's writings upon the his- 

 torical and political sciences is so great as has sometimes been sup- 

 posed. Upon this subject my mind is quite open, and I shall be 

 very glad to be convinced by the third of the speakers, that it is 

 greater than I have been hitherto led to believe, but it seems proper 

 to say a few words to you on the subject in order to state the views 

 which some at least of the students of history hold and to invite an 

 answer to them from the subsequent speakers. 



Now, there is no doubt at all about this, that great changes have 

 passed within the last two generations upon the study of historical, 

 political and economic science. That, I suppose, we are all agreed 

 upon. They are studied more scientifically ; that is to say, they 

 are studied with more exactitude and more precision than formerly. 

 But it may be doubted whether this change in the method of study- 

 ing historical and economic science is due to the influence of the 

 physical sciences. If you examine the matter chronologically, it 

 will appear that instead of being due to the recent growth of those 

 sciences, it is due to causes which produced the rapid contempo- 

 raneous advance of the sciences of nature as well as the progress of 

 historical and economic science. In other words, the more exact 

 character of the human sciences has had an independent origin and 

 source. 



Let me say in passing that the influence upon history of some 

 writers, who have dealt both with natural science and with history 

 and tried to handle both subjects together, attempting a sort of 

 synthesis, appears to me to have been greatly exaggerated. It is, 



