Talk:The Development Hypothesis

Publication history notes added by TomS TDotO

Originally published anonymously in The Leader, March 20, 1852 pages 280-281. Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition Reprinted with modifications in: Herbert Spencer, Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussion, New York: Appleton and Company, 1865, Chapter IX, pages 377-383; and in: Herbert Spencer,Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Library Edition, containing Seven Essays not before republished, and various other Additions London: Williams and Norgate, 1891, Volume 1 (=The Works of Herbert Spencer, volume 13), pages 1-7, available online at Project Gutenberg; this modified version of the essay is also online at: The Victorian Web

Spencer added this note at the beginning of this reprint:

[Originally published in The Leader, for March 20, 1852. Brief though it is, I place this essay before the rest, partly because with the exception of a similarly-brief essay on "Use and Beauty", it came first in order of time, but chiefly because it came first in order of thought, and struck the keynote of all that was to follow.]

In Spencer's Principles of Biology (London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1864; online at [1]), Part III, Chapters II and III, he noted: 'Several of the arguments used in this chapter and in that which follows it, formed parts of an essay on "the Development Hypothesis," originally published in 1852.'

Spencer quoted the beginning of this essay at some length in his essay on the Inaugural Presidential Address to the British Association, 1894, given by Lord Salisbury: "Lord Salisbury on Evolution". See Nineteenth Century, volume 38, number 225 (November 1895) = "Lord Salisbury on Evolution" in Popular Science Monthly, 48 (February 1896).

The quotation "that there is no appreciable distinction amongst them which would enable it to be determined whether a particular molecule is the germ of a Conferva or an Oak, of a Zoophyte or of a Man" is taken from page 474, Chapter XI, §469 of: William B. Carpenter, Principles of General and Comparative Physiology Intended as an Introduction to the Study of Human Physiology and as a Guide to the Philosophical Pursuit of Natural History, London: John Churchill, 1839.

This essay of Spencer's is often cited as the first use of the expression "theory of evolution" in reference to something like "transmutation of species", but it has been pointed out that the expression only appeared in the later versions of the essay. The original 1852 essay, as reproduced here, referred to "the theory of Lamarck and his followers". See: Peter J. Bowler, "Herbert Spencer and "Evolution" - An Additional Note", Journal of the History of Ideas, volume 36, number 2 (April-June 1975) page 367. Joachim Dagg has written that this change was made by December, 1857, before the public announcements in 1858 by Wallace and Darwin on evolution. 'We can therefore conclude that Spencer's careful verbal revision from "theory of Lamarck and his followers" to "Theory of Evolution" was not some premonition that Lamarckism would soon be replaced by Darwinism. Spencer simply worked on his project to generalise his own conceptions to arrive at his Synthetic Philosophy promoting a universal and progressive evolutionism.' "Those who caverlierly reject the theory of ... what?" update 19.11.2015

Darwin mentions this essay in the "Historical Sketch" in the 2nd and later editions of "Origins": "Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an Essay (originally published in the 'Leader,' March 1852, and republished in his 'Essays' in 1858), has contrasted the theories of the Creation and the Development of organic beings with remarkable skill and force. He argues from the analogy of domestic productions, from the changes which the embryos of many species undergo, from the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, and from the principle of general gradation, that species have been modified; and he attributes the modification to the change of circumstances."

Samuel Butler, Evolution, Old & New: or The Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, as Compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin, London : Hardwicke and Bogue, 1879. Chapter 18 has extended quotations from the original form of this essay. A second edition of this book is available online as part of the Darwin Online project [2], pages 330-334 covering this essay.