France
Fouillee, in Italy Ardigo--took, each in his own manner, their
starting-point in psychical evolution as an original fact and as a
type of all evolution, the hypothesis of Darwin coming in as a
corroboration and as a special example. They maintain the continuity
of evolution; they find this character most prominent in psychical
evolution, and this is for them a motive to demand a corresponding
continuity in the material, especially in the organic domain.

To Wundt and Fouillee the concept of will is prominent. They see the
type of all evolution in the transformation of the life of will from
blind impulse to conscious choice; the theories of Lamarck and Darwin
are used to support the view that there is in nature a tendency to
evolution in steady reciprocity with external conditions. The struggle
for life is here only a secondary fact. Its apparent prominence is
explained by the circumstance that the influence of external
conditions is easily made out, while inner conditions can be verified
only through their effects. For Ardigo the evolution of thought was
the starting-point and the type: in the evolution of a scientific
hypothesis we see a progress from the indefinite (_indistinto_) to the
definite (_distinto_), and this is a characteristic of all evolution,
as Ardigo has pointed out in a series of works. The opposition between
_indistinto_ and _distinto_ corresponds to Spencer's opposition
between homogeneity and heterogeneity. The hypothesis of the origin of
differences of species from more simple forms is a special example of
the general law of evolution.

In the views of Wundt and Fouillee we find the fundamental idea of
idealism psychical phenomena as expressions of the innermost nature of
existence. They differ from the older Idealism in the great stress
which they lay on evolution as a real, historical process which is
going on through steady conflict with external conditions. The
Romantic dread of reality is broken. It is beyond doubt that Darwin's
emphasis on the struggle for life as a necessary condition of
evolution has been a very important factor in carrying philosophy back
to reality from the heaven of pure ideas. The philosophy of Ardigo, on
the other side, appears more as a continuation and deepening of
positivism, though the Italian thinker arrived at his point of view
independently of French-English positivism. The idea of continuous
evolution is here maintained in opposition to Comte's and Mi