76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



seize upon certain implications of universal rearrangement. In the 

 concrete world of living organisms, equilibration becomes the relentless 

 struggle for existence, in which the weakest go to the wall. Natural 

 selection follows. It was this intensely concrete aspect that Mr. Darwin 

 saw, and intellectually mastered. 



The distinction here indicated between evolution as a universal 

 process, comprehensively described by Spencer, and Darwinism, or Mr. 

 Darwin's account of one vitally important and concrete phase of that 

 process, has often been noted, and is usually observed by careful writers. 

 It is of particular importance in any discussion of social evolution. 

 To indicate how far our theories of social origins, our philosophies of 

 history and of human institutions, have become not only evolutionist, 

 in the Spencerian sense of the word, but also Darwinian, is the purpose 

 of my lecture this afternoon. 



It was not until the publication of " The Descent of Man," in 1871, 

 when controversy over " The Origin of Species " had raged through 

 twelve years of intellectual tempest, that the full significance of natural 

 selection for the doctrine of human progress was apprehended by the 

 scientific world. Mr. Spencer saw it when " The Origin of Species " 

 appeared. Mr. Darwin himself had perceived that he must offer a 

 credible explanation of the paradox that a ruthless struggle for existence 

 yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness. But it was neither Mr. 

 Spencer, nor Mr. Darwin, who first recognized the specific phase of the 

 life struggle in which the clue to the mystery might be sought. The 

 gifted thinker who made that discovery was Walter Bagehot, editor of 

 the London Economist, whose little book on " Physics and Politics, or 

 Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of Natural Selection and 

 Inheritance to Political Society," was published, first as a series of 

 articles in The Fortnightly Review, beginning in November, 1867. 

 Mr. Darwin rightly calls these articles " remarkable." Eevised and 

 put together in book form they made a volume of only two hundred 

 and twenty-three small pages in large type, but no more original, bril- 

 liant or, as far as it goes, satisfactory examination of the deeper problems 

 of social causation has ever been offered from that day until now. It 

 anticipated much that is most valuable in later exposition. 



In the " Social Statics," Mr. Spencer had shown that primitive man, 

 subsisting upon inferior species and contending with them for standing 

 room and safety, necessarily developed a human nature adapted to the 

 task of slaughter, cruel, therefore, and unscrupulous ; but that triumph- 

 ant posterity, inheriting a subjugated world, and no longer bound to 

 kill, might become sympathetic enough to cooperate successfully in 

 peaceful activities. The exact relation, however, of this process to 

 group formation or to the collective activity of a cooperating group 

 when formed, Mr. Spencer at this time certainly did not see. For, 

 incredible though it may seem, Mr. Spencer did not at this time so much 



