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94 HERBERT SPENCER

sciously or unconsciously we are now, as it were,

standing on Spencer's shoulders, but this should not

blind us to the magnitude of Spencer's achievement.

The book was more than a careful balance-sheet of

the facts of life at a time when that was much needed;

it meant orientation and systematisation ; it was the

introduction of order, clearness, and breadth of view.

It gave biology a fresh start by displaying the facts

of life and the inductions from these for the first

time clearly in the light of evolution. For if the

evolution idea is an adequate modal formula of the

great process of Becoming, then we need to think

of growth, development, differentiation, integration,

reproduction, heredity, death—all the big facts—in

the light of this. And this is what the Principles of

Biology helps us to do. It is of course saturated with

the theory of the transmissibility of acquired characters

—an idea integral to much of Spencer's thinking—

which had hardly begun to be questioned when the

work was published, which is now, however, a very

moot point indeed. For this and other reasons, we

doubt whether Spencer was wise in making a re-edition

of what might well have remained as a historical

document, especially as the re-edition is not so

satisfactory for 1898 as the original was for 1864.

The chief purpose of The Principles of Biology was
to interpret the general facts of organic life as results
of evolution. Manifestly, as a preliminary step, " it
was needful to specify and illustrate these general
facts j and needful also to set forth those physical
and chemical properties of organic matter which are
implied in the interpretation." "What are the
antecedent truths taken for granted in Biology, and



	94 HERBERT SPENCER sciously or unconsciously we are now, as it were, standing on Spencer's shoulders, but this should not blind us to the magnitude of Spencer's achievement. The book was more than a careful balance-sheet of the facts of life at a time when that was much needed; it meant orientation and systematisation ; it was the introduction of order, clearness, and breadth of view. It gave biology a fresh start by displaying the facts of life and the inductions from these for the first time clearly in the light of evolution. For if the evolution idea is an adequate modal formula of the great process of Becoming, then we need to think of growth, development, differentiation, integration, reproduction, heredity, death—all the big facts—in the light of this. And this is what the Principles of Biology helps us to do. It is of course saturated with the theory of the transmissibility of acquired characters —an idea integral to much of Spencer's thinking— which had hardly begun to be questioned when the work was published, which is now, however, a very moot point indeed. For this and other reasons, we doubt whether Spencer was wise in making a re-edition of what might well have remained as a historical document, especially as the re-edition is not so satisfactory for 1898 as the original was for 1864. The chief purpose of The Principles of Biology was to interpret the general facts of organic life as results of evolution. Manifestly, as a preliminary step, " it was needful to specify and illustrate these general facts j and needful also to set forth those physical and chemical properties of organic matter which are implied in the interpretation." "What are the antecedent truths taken for granted in Biology, and