Biosophy 
the succession of geological periods and their fossil 
remains; he proceeds to general and particular consi- 
derations of the origin of the various tribes of animals 
and to a hypothesis of the development of the vegetable 
;and animal kingdoms; then he gives a description of 
the affinities and geographical distribution of organisms; 
he regards man as developed from an ape-like ancestor 
and gives an account of the early history of mankind; 
there follows a section on the mental constitution of 
animals, and the book concludes with a review of the 
“purpose and general condition of the animated crea- 
tion," in which consideration of human history and 
progress predominates, He says, ^These improvements, 
then, thus partly wrought out by the exertions of the 
present race, | conceive as at once preparations for, and 
causes of, the possible development of higher types of 
humanity,—beings less strong in the impulsive parts of 
our nature, physical nature giving less matter for that 
nature to contend with and subdue to its needs, —more 
strong in the reasoning and the moral, because there 
will be less of the opposite to give these marring or 
check—more fitted for the delights of social life, because 
society will then present less to dread and more to 
love.” ; l 
4l. Chambers was an accomplished geologist, and 
has an important place as one of the founders of evolu- 
tion. A single sentence in the “Vestiges” will suffice 
to show his breadth of view:—‘“The inorganic has been 
thought to have one final comprehensive law, gravitation. 
The organic, the other great department of mundane 
things, rests in like manner on one law, and that is 
development.” 
42. “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" 
is admirably written, and is still well worth reading. 
The 1853 edition has over a hundred most excellent 
illustrations of living and fossil animals. These appear 
to be originals, as no other source is given for them, 
and so well are they chosen that they, or nearly identical 
copies, are still to be recognised in recent text-books-of 
zoology and geology. 
43. Although Chambers’ book has long been out 
of print it has left a lasting mark on the educational 
presentation of zoology and palaeontology, but I. do 
not think it has much influenced politics. — Biosophy 
could not have existed much earlier than the time of 
this publication, as it presupposes acceptance of evolu- 
tionary and dynamic principles in human affairs, an 
advance in organised science and a freedom of thought 
which were then as a whole becoming for the first time 
possible. Į think, therefore, that the “Vestiges” may 
perhaps be considered as the first handbook of Bio- 
sophy; its wide scope, its unified outlook and its clear 
treatment and. wealth of pictorial illustrations, may well 
serve to some extent as a guide for future handbooks. 
«44. Karl Marx (1818-1883), the author of “Capi- 
tal.” presents a very different picture from that of the 
writer just mentioned. This work is a combination of 
Politics and Philosophy, but it has a substratum of 
Science; Edward Bernstein refers io his scientific 
studies and says, "The great scientific achievement of 
tor 
Marx lies . in the delails and yet more in the 
method and principles of his investigations in his 
philosophy of history. Here he has, as is now generally 
admitted, broken new ground and opened new. ways and 
new outlooks. | Nobody before him had so clearly 
shown the role of the productive agencies in historical 
evolution; nobody so masterfully exhibited their great 
determining influence on the forms and ideologies of 
social organisms. ‘The passages and chapters dealing 
with this subject form, notwithstanding occasional 
exaggerations, the crowning parts of his works. If he 
has been justly compared with Darwin, it is in these 
respects that he ranks with that great genius, not through 
his value theory, ingenious though it be. With the 
great theorist of biological transformation he had also 
in common the indefatigable way in which he made 
painstaking studies of the minutest details connected 
with his researches. In the same year as Darwin's epoch- 
making work on the origin of species there appeared 
also Marx's work on the critique of political economy, 
where he explains in concise sentences in the prefacé 
that philosophy of history which has for the theory of 
the transformation or evolution of social organisms the 
same significance that the argument of Darwin had for 
the theory of the transformation of biological 
organisms." 
45. The supreme importance of Marx and his col- 
league and life-long friend, Engels, lies in the fact that 
they were virtually the founders of modern Socialism 
and the Labor Movement, of which their writings are 
still the main inspiration, and that to them is due the 
ideology of the present regime in Soviet Russia. Emile 
Burns has recently edited a “Handbook of Marxism” 
(London, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1935, 1,088 pp., 5/-); 
in this well-produced volume the most important 
writings of Marx and his followers are set out in full. 
The volume opens with the Communist Manifesto of 
1848 and closes with the 1928 Programme of the Com- 
munist International; it shows Marxism over a period 
of 80 years and as still one of the most vital factors in 
politics. 
46. Marx’s anti-clericalism is best seen in his article 
on the Crimean War in the “New York Tribune” of 
1854. Without compromising the question as to 
whether all Biosophers would or would not agree with 
all or the greater part of his views, I think Marx can 
be claimed as a Biosopher, although “Capital” is not a 
“Handbook of Biosophy.” i 
47. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) published be- 
tween the years 1862 and 1896 a “Synthetic Philosophy” 
in ten volumes. He was an evolutionist even before 
the publication of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” in 1859, 
and he coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” Tn 
“First Principles” he says that Science and Religion 
must come to recognise as the “most certain of all facts 
that the’ Power which the Universe manifests to us is 
utterly inscrutable.” Thus (quoting from an article on 
Spencer by Dr. F, C. S. Schiller), to be buried side by 
side in the Unknowable constitutes their final recon- 
ciliation, as it is the refutation of irreligion. Irreligion 
