12 DARWINIAN AND SPENCERIAN 



was published in 1864, and the second volume in 1867. 

 By that time the Origin of Species had been before the 

 pubhc for eight years, and the Darwinian principle of 

 selection had become an integral part of Spencer's 

 mechanism of organic evolution. He was, in fact, so far 

 as concerns the species question, an orthodox Darwinian 

 who gave somewhat more weight to the Lamarckian 

 factors than Darwin himself. The term 'survival of 

 the fittest ', approved by both Darwin and Wallace as 

 an alternative for ' Natural selection ', was, as is well 

 known, introduced by Herbert Spencer.^ 



Whether for acquiescence or for disagreement there is 

 no doubt that both public and scientific discussion con- 

 centrated itself mainly upon Darwin's writings, and that 

 the fame of his illustrious contemporary was, so far as he 

 handled biological questions, temporarily eclipsed by the 

 brilliant demonstrations of ' descent with modification ' 

 which the author of the Origin had marshalled in his 

 classical work. My own case is, I imagine, typical of 

 the general attitude of the younger school of naturalists 

 of that period. We had read the Origin of Species and had 

 mastered — or thought we had mastered — the views of its 

 author. With no very strong prepossession in favour 

 of the orthodox view of species formation by special 

 creation, we required but little persuasion to convert us 

 into Evolutionists. If any feeling of astonishment arose 

 it was that such simple and effective causes and such 

 conclusive reasoning as was contained in Darwin's work 

 should have given rise to any controversy at all. Herbert 

 Spencer was to most of us a name of which we had heard 

 vaguely, but which had, as we thought— I refer to the 

 late sixties and early seventies — ^no special connexion 

 with natural science. It must be frankly admitted that 

 many, if not the majority, of students of that period were 



» See ' Filiation of Ideas', p. 559. Also Wallace to Darwin, 1866, 

 More Letters, vol. i, p. 268, and Darwin to Wallace in 1866. Ibid., 

 p. 270. 



