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ARGUMENTS FOR EVOLUTION 143

and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice ceases—
the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the
weakening of those habitually curbed—the development of
every faculty, bodily, moral, or intellectual according to the
use made of it—are ail explicable on this same principle.
And thus,they can show that throughout all organic nature
there is at work a modifying influence of the kind they
assign as the cause of these specific differences; an influence
which, though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circum-
stances demand it, produce marked changes—an influence
which, to all appearance, would produce in the millions of
years, and under the great varieties of condition which
geological records imply, any amount of change. "

While Spencer did not discern the modifying in-
fluence of Natural Selection, which it was reserved for
Darwin and Wallace to disclose, his clear presentation
of the general doctrine of evolution seven years before
the publication of the " Origin of Species" (1859)
should not be forgotten.

In other essays before 1858 and in his Principles of
Psychology (1855), Spencer championed the evolutionist
position, and the first programme of his ^4£ Synthetic
Philosophy" was drawn up in January 1858.

Arguments for the Evolution-Doctrine. — The idea
that the present is the child of the past and the
parent of the future, that what we see around us is
the long result of time, that there has been age-long
progress from relatively simple beginnings — the
evolution-formula in short—is now part of the in-
tellectual framework of most educated men with a
free mind. We no longer trouble to argue about it;
like wisdom it is justified of its children. It has
afforded a modal interpretation of the world's history,
an interpretation that works well, which no facts are
known to contradict. It has been the most effective



	ARGUMENTS FOR EVOLUTION 143 and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice ceases— the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the weakening of those habitually curbed—the development of every faculty, bodily, moral, or intellectual according to the use made of it—are ail explicable on this same principle. And thus,they can show that throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind they assign as the cause of these specific differences; an influence which, though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circum- stances demand it, produce marked changes—an influence which, to all appearance, would produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of condition which geological records imply, any amount of change. " While Spencer did not discern the modifying in- fluence of Natural Selection, which it was reserved for Darwin and Wallace to disclose, his clear presentation of the general doctrine of evolution seven years before the publication of the " Origin of Species" (1859) should not be forgotten. In other essays before 1858 and in his Principles of Psychology (1855), Spencer championed the evolutionist position, and the first programme of his ^4£ Synthetic Philosophy" was drawn up in January 1858. Arguments for the Evolution-Doctrine. — The idea that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the future, that what we see around us is the long result of time, that there has been age-long progress from relatively simple beginnings — the evolution-formula in short—is now part of the in- tellectual framework of most educated men with a free mind. We no longer trouble to argue about it; like wisdom it is justified of its children. It has afforded a modal interpretation of the world's history, an interpretation that works well, which no facts are known to contradict. It has been the most effective