10 DARWINIAN AND SPENCERIAN 



everywhere go on — why there must arise multitudinous 

 differences of species otherwise inexplicable.' ^ 



Again, referring to the state of his belief prior to the 

 enunciation of the theory of Natural Selection, he states 

 that before that period he was wholly Lamarckian :— 



' I held that the sole cause of organic evolution is the 

 inheritance of functionally produced modifi.ca.tions. The 

 Origin of Species made it clear to me that I was wrong, 

 and that the larger part of the facts cannot be due to any 

 such cause.' ^ 



He goes on to say that any annoyance he may have 

 felt at having missed this great principle in 1852 was 

 overwhelmed by his satisfaction at having the theory of 

 organic evolution so completely justified, and thus giving 

 support to that more general doctrine which he was 

 advocating. 



The effect of the Darwinian factor upon Spencer's views 

 is amply set forth in the foregoing extracts. There is 

 a touch of the true scientific spirit about these admissions 

 which cannot but add lustre to the personality of the 

 author of the Synthetic Philosophy, of whom Huxley said 

 that outside the rank of biologists he (Spencer) was the 

 only man known to him ' whose knowledge and capacity 

 compelled respect, and who was, at the same time, a 

 thorough-going Evolutionist ' when Darwin's great work 

 was published.* Whether Spencer's writings, without the 

 impetus given to evolutionary thought by' Darwin and 

 Wallace, would have converted the scientific world is a 

 question upon which we, who have become Evolutionists 

 in post-Darwinian times, can hardly form a just opinion. 

 Judging from the storm of opposition which Darwin's 

 views at first met with among scientific men, it may, 



1 Op. cit., vol. i, p. 388 et seq. 



^ Ibid., vol. ii, p. 49. Also ' Filiation of Ideas ' in Duncan's Life 

 and Letters, p. 540. In a letter to Sir Edward Fry written in 1894, 

 he again admits that in his pre-Darwinian writings he ascribed too much 

 to the inheritance of ' functionally produced modifications ' ; Duncan, 

 ibid., p. 351. 



^ Darwin's Life and Letters, vol. ii, p. 188. 



