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After the early reactions of the scientific community to Origin of the species, Darwin's hypothesis was widely discussed by a growing number of professional historians and philosophers as well. This paper provides a short survey of historical research into the pre-Darwinian scenery of biological transformist intuitions of the so-called "forerunners". This is an essential link to the following outline devoted to the divergent views of five relevant philosophical interpreters of the evolutionary theory: Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel, Nietzsche and Bergson. The intricacies of the Darwin-Spencer relationship are a necessary prelude to Huxley's well-known Darwinian orthodoxy. In a way, Spencer's monistic metaphysics was a no man's land for friends and foes of Darwin's Darwinism. Haeckel, naturalist and philosopher, translated Evolution into a systematic speculative Weltanschauung, while Nietzsche was first influenced by Darwinism and Spencerism and later rejected both. His Uebermensch myth was accompanied by an attempt to develop a biological-speculative basis for psychology. Bergson's general critique of the experimental method and of the system of Spencer introduced his reinterpretation of evolution as a creative élan vital exclusively known through the inner perceptions of time, self-consciousness and intuition.

DOI: 10.1007/978-88-470-1974-4_4

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