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social and his logical development; so that Spencer was only one of many who were following out lines of research which have resulted in giving to the idea evolution a government over all our opinions to an extent that it never had before.
Spencer certainly took up this line of thought before anybody else did.
It was as throughtly original with him, as any thought ever is with anybody, and his works certainly did in the beginning influence a collection of men as remarkable for their intellect as for their great numbers, and influenced.
Then to such degree that all their subsequent opinio were built upon that basis.