This, said the "Spectator," is beginning "to tamper with
natural conditions," "There is no logical halting-place between the
theory that it is the duty of the State to make the poor comfortable,
and socialism."
Another factor in the thought of those days attracted but little
attention in the Press, though there is a long article in the
"Spectator" at the beginning of 1882 on "the ever-increasing wonder" of
that strange faith, "Positivism." It is difficult for the present
generation to realise how large a space in the minds of the young men of
the eighties was occupied by the religion invented by Auguste Comte. Of
this however more must be said on a later page.
But perhaps the most significant feature in the periodical literature of
the time is what it omits. April, 1882, is memorable for the death of
Charles Darwin, incomparably the greatest of nineteenth-century
Englishmen, if greatness be measured by the effects of his work on the
thought of the world. The "Spectator" printed a secondary article which
showed some appreciation of the event. But in the monthly reviews it
passed practically unnoticed. It is true that Darwin was buried in
Westminster Abbey, but even in 1882, twenty-three years after the
publication of the "Origin of Species," evolution was regarded as a
somewhat dubious theorem which respectable people were wise to ignore.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25