Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/251

Rh we have shown again and again in these pages. Mr. Spencer, therefore, undertook no illegitimate or superfluous task in devoting many years to evolutionary researches. If the work of Darwin and other biologists was not futile, the larger inquiry was imminent and lay straight in the path of progressive science. Mr. Spencer undertook it, and the language of the Nation implies that in his contributions to it there is nothing that is really honored by men of science. To this dictum we give a flat contradiction, and, if space allowed, we could weary our readers with the copious evidence that eminent men of science honor the work of Spencer by accepting his results as guides to their own investigations. Let one illustration suffice: Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, one of the independent discoverers of the principle of natural selection, in his address as President of the Anthropological Society of London, in 1872, referred to a view propounded by Mr. Spencer on biological evolution as "one of the most ingenious and remarkable theories ever put forth on a question of natural history." Nor did he stop with turning a mere compliment. He went on to say: "More than sis years ago Mr. Herbert Spencer published, in his 'Principles of Biology,' a view of the nature and origin of the Annulose type of animals, which goes to the very root of the whole question; and, if this view is a sound one, it must so materially affect the interpretation of all embryological and anatomical facts bearing on this great subject, that those who work in ignorance of it can hardly hope to arrive at true results. I propose, therefore, to lay before you a brief sketch of Mr. Spencer's theory, with the hope of calling attention to it and inducing some of you to take up what seems to me a most promising line of research." Of course there are plenty of scientific men who do not honor what Mr. Spencer has done and care little for what anybody has done outside of his own narrow specialties. Human nature works in scientific men, it must be confessed, much as it does in other people, and they often exhibit petty jealousies toward each other that are a scandal to the scientific character. That from timidity, prejudice, and lack of interest in general ideas, many of them should decline to honor a broad and independent thinker like Spencer, is not surprising. But all scientific men are not of this class.

We again affirm that the task which Mr. Spencer accepted, of investigating the general principles of evolution, was one that stood clearly in the pathway of Science, and was not to be escaped. He was the first to grasp the full breadth of its implications, the first to analyze it into its elements, the first to organize its varied facts into a coherent system, and make it the basis of a comprehensive philosophy of Nature. His "First Principles," containing the full exposition of the doctrine, has now been before the world thirteen years, and its essential positions have not yet been impugned. There has not been even an attempt to invalidate his proofs that the processes of universal change are from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. There has never been even an attempt to invalidate his universal principle of the "Instability of the Homogeneous." There has not been even an attempt to invalidate the principle of the "Multiplication of Effects;" nor have his critics ever even tried to show that these great principles are not essential and fundamental factors of evolution; and until this is done they may as well hold their peace in regard to his claims as an original explorer in this field.

Finally, in his zeal to upset Spencer, the Nation's writer throws Bacon at his head, but he sadly misses his aim. It is now well understood that Bacon's attempt to lay down the rules of scientific pursuit was a signal failure. He tried his own rules in the investigation