4 DARWINIAN AND SPENCERIAN 



occasion, the year following the Darwinian celebrations, 

 it seemed not inappropriate that I should endeavour to 

 institute a comparison between the methods of the two 

 great founders of the modern school of Evolution — to 

 trace the impression left by each upon current thought 

 and to attempt an analysis of the causes which have 

 determined their respective influences. 



At the outset, and in order to bring the subject within 

 reasonable limits, let it be understood that, having no 

 claim to have been a student of Philosophy in the special 

 sense, I propose restricting the treatment mainly to the ' 

 scientific aspect of the writings of Darwin and Spencer. 

 It may further be useful, in view of the widespread 

 popular beUef that Evolution and Darwinism are synony- 

 mous, to insist once more upon the fact that Darwin 

 and Wallace gave us a theory of organic development 

 which Spencer incorporated in that general scheme of 

 Evolution which he had independently elaborated. It is 

 perhaps scarcely necessary to add that Evolution as 

 a philosophical principle does not stand or fall with the 

 proof or disproof of Natural Selection as a theory of 

 species formation. 



Both Darwin and Spencer have, fortunately for pos- 

 terity, left a complete record of the development of the 

 evolutionary idea in their own minds, so that full details 

 of the various stages are now unnecessary. It will be 

 sufficient for the present purpose if I select a few dates 

 marking the more conspicuous phases. During the voyage 

 of the Beagle Darwin had considered the possible muta- 

 bility of species, partly as the result of his own observa- 

 tions and partly as the result of the discussion of the 

 question in Lyell's Principles of Geology. His first sys- 

 tematic note-book on this subject was opened in 1837, 

 after his return to England. In 1838 — a memorable epoch 

 for natural science — the theory of Natural Selection was 

 conceived as the result of his perusal of Malthus On Popu- 

 lation. The first rough draft of his views was prepared in 

 1842, and this, thanks to his son. Dr. Francis Darwin, 



