It’s his merit that he has placed Darwin himself clearly in the foreground as originator of the debate on social evolution in the second half of the nineteenth century. Against this there is the drawback that Mr Hermans has not resisted the temptation to walk every side-road he encountered in his long trail of study. He needs quite a lot of space to both distinguish and connect all the diverse currents. (…) In spite of these critical remarks, in my final verdict appreciation for this clever piece of work of Mr Hermans takes precedence.

It was a motley collection, these social Darwinists, and Mr Hermans has enough on his plate to find the common denominator. The risk appears of a portrait gallery of eminent Victorians, however ably painted; therefore the author at regular intervals takes up stock to determine what can really be called social Darwinistic. (…) Mr Hermans makes us notice a number of important personalities, with their theories, who for a long time have been in everyone’s black book.