Historian Cor Hermans has written a fascinating and highly readable, though rather sizeable, book on social Darwinian thought as it developed from the second half of the nineteenth century onward, mainly under the influence of the work of Darwin himself.

Mr Hermans not only demonstrates that utilitarianism is much more interesting and wide ranging than is commonly assumed, he also shows that it is not justified to criticise Mill for being an ‘unsystematic’ thinker. (…) The Mill that Mr Hermans presents in his erudite and excellently written book made great demands on himself, such as ordinary mortals could never satisfy; however, he also was a very prolific and stimulating philosopher, who but little resembled the wooden Victorian schoolmaster looking down on us in photographs and paintings.