vi THE DARWIN CENTENARY. [April 23. 



tive. But the specific doctrine of evolution, as applied to history, is 

 not a new thing. In history it is a very old thing. All thoughtful 

 and penetrating historians have always seen and recognized that 

 there was constant progress and growth in human affairs, not 

 necessarily permanent and perpetual progress, but at any rate 

 change. They have recognized that there has been a process of flux 

 and a ceaseless development always going on through human society. 

 The process of change in ideas takes place by the action of what may 

 be called the critical spirit — that is to say, the meaning and the 

 effect, the scope and the limitations of all our ideas and all our con- 

 ceptions are constantly being played upon by an analytic and specu- 

 lative mind. The whole mind of the community — that is to say, all 

 the thinking part of the community — is incessantly dealing with the 

 conceptions and ideas which it has received from its predecessors, 

 and these are thus being always imperceptibly altered under the 

 influence of this examination and of the speculation which accom- 

 panies it, so that each succeeding generation hands on to the next 

 something different from what it had received. That is what 

 " evolution " substantially means in the sphere of philosophical 

 thought, and that has long been practically recognized and under- 

 stood. The process has in it something which is analogous to the 

 process by which change and differentiation go on in the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. But it is not the same thing, and instead of 

 requiring the long and careful observation which modern naturalists 

 have applied to determine how it goes on in the animal and vegetable 

 kingdoms, it was a thing that was in a certain sense so obvious that 

 great historians have perceived it from comparatively early times. 

 For instance, the development of the civilized races of mankind out 

 of a very low and brutish state had been recognized as far back as 

 the philosophers of Greece. You remember the familiar lines of 

 Horace 



Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris 



Mutum et turpe pecus. 



And in the sphere of institutions, historians and political thinkers 

 have always recognized that man is largely the creation of the 

 conditions that surround him, and is profoundly influenced by them. 

 They have always seen that institutions grow through being de- 



