THE INFLUENCE OF DARWIN ON THE MENTAL AND 

 MORAL SCIENCES. 



By GEORGE STUART FULLERTON. 



It is my pleasant task this evening to dwell upon the influence 

 which the life-work of Charles Darwin has had upon the develop- 

 ment of a group of sciences with which men do not usually very 

 closely associate his name. Darwin was a naturalist — his life was 

 devoted in large measure to the investigation of certain of the phe- 

 nomena of the material world, a world to which the highest of 

 organisms as unequivocally belong as do the simplest forms of inor- 

 ganic matter. But it was impossible that the eager and impartial 

 curiosity of so great an observer should overlook anything so sig- 

 nificant in the scheme of nature as is mind — the mind of the brute 

 and the mind of man. We find in his works, as might be expected, 

 profoundly suggestive thoughts on instinct and reason, on the ethical 

 and the aesthetic emotions, on the social nature of man and the 

 development of human society. These thoughts have, directly and 

 indirectly, exercised an enormous influence in fields of investigation 

 which, in the nature of the case, it was impossible that he should 

 subject to systematic cultivation. 



Darwin's opinions upon the topics to which I have alluded have 

 been the subject of endless discussion. Heredity and environment, 

 variation and adaptation, the struggle for existence and the survival 

 of the fittest have become household words to those who study man, 

 individual or social, as well as to those who occupy themselves with 

 natural science in the usual acceptance of the term. The nature of 

 my theme, and the time at my disposal, preclude the possibility of 

 my setting before you in detail the views which Darwin has ex- 

 pressed on matters which lie within the field of the mental and moral 

 sciences. His influence is not to be ascribed to the fact that he left 

 behind him a certain collection of opinions, which are to be accepted 

 or rejected individually. It has its main source, rather, in a certain 



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