But the popular prejudice against Darwinism has never been overcome, so persistent are the old habits of thinking. It is still opposed by the common people. This is not surprising. A long time must yet elapse before Darwin's leading idea and its implications will be grasped and assimilated by the average men and women of intelligence. Many educated minds have never given it a fair hearing. Probably a majority of college graduates have not read his two chief books: "The Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man." There are still those who believe that the earth is not round. Here and there an advocate is found for some other system of astronomy than the Copernican. According to Jasper, the sun do move," and the teachings of Teed are at variance with the laws of Kepler. Strange as it may sound, "Koreshan Cosmogony maintains that the earth is a hollow sphere," and that the sun is within this sphere, "less than four thousand miles distant, instead of ninety-three million miles, as falsely taught!" So centuries may pass before Evolution be universally accepted.

Darwin not only furnished the unifying principle of science, he supplied the chief element of the new philosophy, the interdependence of everything in the universe, the intimate and necessary relation of every part to the whole. This is a corollary of the development theory. Men had never before so fully realized the extent of the interaction of the individual and his environment. The work of collecting and tabulating data had gone on for decades, and the time was ripe for the coming of a philosopher of broad vision to bring uniformity out of seeming diversity. In this colossal undertaking of organizing facts and finding laws, of transmuting chaos into system, one man stands easily first, a thinker of thinkers, the legitimate successor of Bacon and

Locke. Herbert Spencer (1820--) had become imbued with the scientific spirit of the age, and is perhaps its best exponent in philosophy. During many years he was busy gathering information and laying the foundations of the "Synthetic Philosophy." He was much in

debted to Darwin, yet he had the root idea of evolution before Darwin's book appeared. "It is to him," says Grant Allen, "that we owe the word evolution itself, and the general concept of evolution as a single, all-pervading natural process." He changed his views from time to time, and critics have pointed out his numerous shortcomings and inconsistencies. With more general culture, he had less of the strictly scientific method than Darwin. But his prodigious range of knowledge, his masterly style of exposition, his architectural ability shown in constructing a massive edifice of thought, extort wonder and admiration. With herculean exertion, under trying infirmities and discouragements, he toiled on for half a century and completed his self-imposed task. Rarely is it given to a single intellect to

HERBERT SPENCER

plan and execute a monumental work. To Herbert Spencer rightly belongs this honor.

One outcome of Darwinism was a strengthening of Materialism. It gave a marked impetus to materialistic speculation in the sixties and seventies. The

theory of natural selection seemed to afford a temporary show of advantage to Atheism. Undoubtedly it robs the old argument of design of some of its force. Evolution unquestionably makes for a mechanical explanation of the universe. The hypothesis of spontaneous generation was again revived and discussed. Many experiments were made, but failure attended all efforts to produce life artificially in laboratories. Spontaneous generation broke down under crucial examination.

JOHN TYNDALL, LL.D.

However, many physicists confidently believed that it once took place it might have been possible in the eons of the past under other conditions. Given matter and force, atoms combining and re-combining in endless flux, sooner or later, they argued, life would come forth. Once started, it would go on transmitting itself and appearing in an infinite variety of forms. "The fortuitous concourse of atoms" explains it all. Chance, or rather necessity, was the first cause of all things. Blind Nature once did what the chemist of to-day cannot do. According to the materialistic view, which is the old Epi

curean system revamped, matter was eternally in motion, and the vital spark was originated naturally and inevitably by the fortunate combination of circumstances. How this happened is a mystery. The biologist learnedly delares that "protoplasm is the physical basis of life," it is the result of certain contingencies, etc., but so far he has not discovered any new way of calling it into existence. Perhaps the most distinguished representative of Evolutional Materialism in Britain was

Professor Tyndall, whose Belfast address (1874) is its law and gospel. For awhile Romanes was a convert, though he afterwards abandoned the materialistic position defended in his "Candid Examination of Theism" (1876). W. K. Clifford was another. It never had a large following among Victorian thinkers, and its vogue was of short duration. The instincts of the English are too strongly set in the opposite direction. They prefer to cling to the traditional theism of the fathers, which postulates God as the First Cause and Creator of the universe. The works of Büchner, Vogt, and other Materialists of Germany and France have been translated into English and have exerted a perceptible influence on contemporary thought in England.

The invariable accompaniment of Materialism is Pessimism. The wail of despair and disappointment has been heard in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. The question was propounded anew, "Is life worth living?" It was answered in the negative by Mr. W. H. Mallock, if there be no supernatural order and no reality in religion. It was variously answered by the poets. To Browning, life is worth while because of his profound conviction of an after-life. "No," says Tennyson, "if this life be all." "Scarcely so," says Swinburne. "Yes," says Matthew Arnold, but sadly and wearily. William Morris evades the question, but the melancholy note in his verse and prose suggests that something was lacking in a life so full and rich as his. What James Thomson thought is recorded in "The City of Dreadful Night" and other "broodings on hopelessness and spiritual

desolation." There was sure to be a reaction against this cheerless pagan philosophy.

A passing phase of recent thought, that need not be long dwelt on, is Agnosticism. It may be called the culmination or advanced stage of the scepticism of the thirties and forties. The relation of Hamilton and Mansel to it has been pointed out. They prepared the ground for Huxley, who had much of the challenging temper then rife in England, but mingled with scientific caution and reserve. A new attitude of mind was the result, the outcome of these two tendencies. With much of the iconoclastic mood, he did not countenance sweeping criticism. He would not deny the possibility of life after death or the existence of a Supreme Being. He assumed the position of one who is non-committal. Intellectual honesty compelled him to take some such position. In the absence of positive proof respecting certain theological and metaphysical conceptions, he preferred not to affirm dogmatically whether they are true or not. Recognizing that the boundaries of the knowable and unknowable (so-called) are forever shifting, he maintained a suspense of judgment. To express his mental attitude toward matters that he regarded as uncertain and unverifiable, he coined the new term agnostic from the Greek word agnosco "I do not know." It was merely one of the details of Positivism brought into clearer relief, Huxley's position being substantially that of Mill and Spencer. The doctrine was at first misconstrued, denounced, and laughed at. Later, its distinctive features were seen to be not so very objectionable after all, aside from the weakness of negation. In time, it received the qualified approval of philosophers and theologians. For awhile Agnosticism gave rise to heated polemics, but its discussion soon ceased.

JOHN STUART MILL

results. To the Monist of to-day, the dualism of Descartes is unthinkable, mind and matter being different aspects of one substance. Literature and science have both contributed to this result. Idealistic Monism owes much to Spinoza, Hegel, and Goethe. Materialistic Monism owes much to the Evolutionists of our time. There is a strong pantheistic tinge in the poetry of Wordsworth and of Shelley. There is a slight infusion of Pantheism in Tennyson. It is more pronounced in Emerson and Matthew Arnold. The effect of Darwin's teaching has been to reinforce the monistic position. In the "Origin of Species," pages 298-9, he says: "I believe that animals are descended from, at most, only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number." From this it is not a long step to the derivation of all living beings from one germ a view more guardedly expressed on page 484 of the first edition : "Therefore, I

The latest phase of Victorian philosophy is Monism. It is a compound of ingredients old and new. The problem of soul and body has been threshed over in the light of physical science with varying

should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed." Thus, Darwinism has paved the way for the Monism of Haeckel and Hartmann. The trend of latter-day thought in England is toward

T

the acceptance of "a unitary principle of the universe." It has not yet settled just what this is, but its drift has been more and more in the direction of Idealism. This opens a new chapter in the history of British philosophy during the last quarter-century or more. EUGENE PARSONS.

HE phrase self-realization embodies a philosophy of life which is profound and yet practical as well. It has received the stamp of the Hegelian die, and has become inseparably associated with the maxim of the Hegelian ethic, "Be a person." Though we may not be able to appreciate the "Secret of Hegel" and lighten the obscurities of his philosophy, we may at least comprehend the significance of that simple statement into which he has compressed the essence of his ethical teaching. Be a person is a command which implies an ideal. The person which each should become is that personality which realizes most completely the possibilities of the individual. It is a pregnant expression. Man must be a person, not a thing; his activities must be regarded as an end and not merely as a means; he must develop the higher self and not the lower; he must realize the fully-rounded self, and not be content with the partial fostering of single pow

ers.

As thus construed, the idea of selfrealization sets a standard of being and of conduct which is many-sided. As an ideal of life, however, it has been criticised as inadequate, and yet it is an idea which has so many affinities as to attract to it, as a nucleus, the various essentials of a complete ethic. It is rich in its implications.

In the development of philosophical thought, the insistence upon the self, the ego, as the proper point of view for the solution of the great world-problems, has characterized two philosophical epochs, one in the ancient, and one in the modern, world. Socrates turned the minds of the vague thinkers of his day from their dreamy speculations as to the origin and underlying unity of the world without, to the study of the microcosm, the nature of man within, his ideals and duties. His teaching marked an early renaissance

which gave an ethical impulse to thought and conduct.

And in modern times, a return to the study of self was brought about by the great Kant, concerning whom Goethe said that "to read Kant was like entering a lighted room." The light of his teaching radiated from the focus of the self. He insisted upon a new beginning in the midst of the confused mazes of modern philosophy. That beginning was the analysis of the ego and the principles underlying the processes of reason. A new direction was given to thought, both speculative and practical. On its practical side, especially, there was an ethical revival in the emphasis placed upon the sovereign commands of duty and the inherent divinity of the right.

Moreover, in the sphere of religion, the rise of Protestantism may be traced to a similar beginning. It was the insistence again upon the supreme dignity and worth of the individual self, and the protest that no institution, however sacred and powerful, should assume the responsibilities of the individual, either for thought or practice. Hence the birth of civil and religious liberty, and the increasing sanctity attached to the individual and his rights. Again, in the passage from the Greek to the Christian ethic, there was a transition from metaphysical speculations to an investigation of the psychological basis of morality—that is, the study of the phenomena of mental activity as exhibited in man's impulses, desires, appetencies, the reason and the will, in order to ascertain the norm of character and the laws of practice. It was essentially an analysis of the various manifestations of the self. It will be seen, therefore, that the idea of self-realization is of a philosophical lineage, both ancient and honorable.

Self-realization, regarded as an ideal comprehensively interpreted, and allowed to become an active principle in the life,

will serve the ends of healthful growth and attainment both for the individual and for society. It will prove a counter-tendency to certain forces specially dominant in our modern life. One of these forces is the prevailing material considerations of the day, resulting in a creed of utility as the rule of life; another, the tendency to extreme specialization which, while it deepens, yet narrows the channels of one's being; and the third is the growing spirit of unrest and of anarchy which threatens the disintegration of society through the disruption and the deterioration of its several parts.

As to the first, a proper conception of self-realization must at once raise the individual above the considerations of mere utility as a guide to conduct. In this connection the idea of self-realization must be sharply differentiated from that of selfsatisfaction. To satisfy self is to minister to the needs and desires of the self as it is. To realize self is to so minister to the self that is as to foster the growth of the self that ought to be. In the former, maxims of utility will naturally prevail; in the latter, an ideal of character and conduct. There is, therefore, a marked antithesis between the momentary gratification of the immediate desire and that activity of the self which is characterized by permanent acquisition, insuring continuous development. The ideal of self-satisfaction must be expressed largely in terms of the material and the transitory; the ideal of self-realization in terms of the spiritual and the enduring. As one or the other of these ideals has sway in the life, so will one's estimates of value be in terms of the material or of the spiritual, of utility or of duty. A man's worth to himself and to others will be his productive power assessed in material units, or it will be his value as represented by character. Pleasure, happiness, and all that these words imply, must therefore in no wise be the main or direct goal of living, if man purposes to realize rather than satisfy self. To be rather than to have, to grow rather than to enjoy, to minister rather than be ministered unto, to lose one's life rather than save it-this is the law of selfrealization. This is the Ewigkeitgeist that must ever rise superior to the Zeitgeist which may strive to suppress it. As Socrates divined, centuries ago, "The best man is he who most tries to perfect himself, and the happiest man is he who most

feels that he is perfecting himself." And the man who is perfecting himself is, after all, the most useful man in society. He best conserves its real interests. From the standpoint of utility alone, the expanding personality is always of superior worth.

Moreover, the purpose staunchly maintained of realizing oneself counteracts the tendency towards partial development through excessive specialization. The ideal development must provide for the rounding out of the complete self into a manifold personality. In the exacting competition of modern life, and with the vast enlargement of the area of knowledge, one must choose a small plot for his workfield, or pay the penalty in scant productiveness. There is a danger, however, in the concentration of thought and energy within a limited sphere, to the exclusion of the widespread interests of life about us. He who is bent upon developing the whole man acquires a wider horizon. Neither his tastes nor his pursuits are circumscribed. His sympathies are manifold. He touches humanity on all sides. While productive in his own specialty, he has time and thought for the humanities, for art, for music, for literature, for the discharge of his duties to society, and the fulfillment of his obligations to God. Life for him is ever increasing in breadth as well as depth. For such a man, culture has a meaning and is prized. It is not a selfish gratification of æsthetic taste. It is the reaching forth to grasp the fulness of life, to wrest its meaning, and rise through growing knowledge to planes of more widely extending vision. And with every extension of faculty and additional acquisition there is a corresponding increase of that productive power which makes for the conservation of the social health and welfare. But as a man's interests become restricted, the sphere of his helpfulness is likewise limited, so that he touches humanity at fewer points. It is urged on the other hand, however, that he best serves humanity who concentrates his efforts in producing to the best of his capability in some definitely bounded field of labor. To be effective, one must concentrate; to concentrate means a focusing of thought and activity, and the focus point is necessarily a limited area. This is doubtless true. A too great diffusion of one's powers results in dearth both of acquisition and attainment as well. However, inasmuch as the tendency of the day sets wholly in the one