uence has often made itself
felt only in combination with other influences. The Darwinian thread is
worked into a hundred patterns along with other threads.

To deal with the problem, we must, it seems, first of all distinguish
the more general conclusions in regard to the evolution of living
beings, which are the outcome of Darwinism, from the particular
explanations it offers of the ways and means by which that evolution
is effected. That is to say, we must, as far as possible, estimate
separately the influence of Darwin as an evolutionist and Darwin as a
selectionist.

The nineteenth century, said Cournot, has witnessed a mighty effort to
"reintegrer l'homme dans la nature." From divers quarters there has been
a methodical reaction against the persistent dualism of the Cartesian
tradition, which was itself the unconscious heir of the Christian
tradition. Even the philosophy of the eighteenth century, materialistic
as were for the most part the tendencies of its leaders, seemed to
revere man as a being apart, concerning whom laws might be formulated a
priori. To bring him down from his pedestal there was needed the marked
predominance of positive researches wherein no account was taken of
the "pride of man." There can be no doubt that Darwin has done much to
familiarise us with this attitude. Take for instance the first part
of "The Descent of Man": it is an accumulation of typical facts, all
tending to diminish the distance between us and our brothers, the lower
animals. One might say that the naturalist had here taken as his motto,
"Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble
himself shall be exalted." Homologous structures, the survival in man of
certain organs of animals, the rudiments in the animal of certain
human faculties, a multitude of facts of this sort, led Darwin to the
conclusion that there is no ground for supposing that the "king of the
universe" is exempt from universal laws. Thus belief in the imperium
in imperio has been, as it were, whittled away by the progress of the
naturalistic spirit, itself continually strengthened by the conquests of
the natural sciences. The tendency may, indeed, drag the social sciences
into overstrained analogies, such, for instance, as the assimilation
of societies to organisms. But it will, at least, have had the merit of
helping sociology to shake off the pre-conception that the groups formed
by men are artificial, and that history is compl