EVOLUTION 37 



Spencer's treatment of Evolution was philosophical in 

 itsgeneraUty — in being broader than the widest generaliza- 

 tions of any particular science. His generaUzations were 

 based upon a foundation of such breadth that they had 

 to be expressed in the most general and therefore the most 

 highly abstract terms. The function of Philosophy — ^if 

 Philosophy is assigned any function in the development 

 of human thought — ^is to work up available knowledge as 

 rapidly as possible into abstract formulae or principles of 

 sufficient generahty to cover all possible applications to 

 particular classes of cases, /from this point of view 

 Spencer's method was sound in principle, even if the very 

 generahty of his treatment led to the ahenation of his 

 generaUzations in one or another of their apphcations 

 from the more restricted but safer generaUzations of the 

 special sciences. This extreme breadth of treatment is 

 no doubt one of the reasons why he failed to impress the 

 scientific world to the same extent as Darwin. The 

 philosophical method is a dangerous weapon in unskilled 

 hands ; scientific men knew it then and know it now. 

 The broader the generaUzation and the more diverse the 

 various classes of phenomena which it attempts to 

 embrace, the greater the UabiUty to error — ^the more 

 unsafe does the method become. 'It is a method which 

 may result in generaUties too vague to have any imme- 

 diate bearing upon scientific method, or which, in its 

 haste to arrive at an abstract formula,maybase conclusions 

 upon imperfect knowledge and lead to generaUzations 

 altogether erroneous. The passage from philosophy to 

 nonsense is a short one, as may be seen from the voluminous 

 Uterature suppUed by the paradoxers and faddists of aU 

 ages. 



Philosophy the Doctrine." 'Philosophy has no distinct province of 

 knowledge : it embraces the whole world Of thought ; it stands in 

 relation to the various sciences as Geography stands to Topography. AU 

 the sciences subserve its purpose, furnish its life-blood. It systematizes 

 their results, co-ordinating their truths into a body of Doctrine.' 

 — Science and Speculation, chap, i, § 4. From the Prolegomena to the 

 3rd ed. of the History of Philosophy. 



