Herbert Spencer's epigenetic epistemology / C.U.M. Smith.
Abstract:
"The most important general idea in Spencer's biology was von Baer's concept of epigenesis: that development proceeded from the general to the special, that the chick ... begins as a vertebrate, differentiates first into a gallinaceous bird and finally into a domestic fowl ... It is my intention, in what follows, to examine the influence of this epigenetic paradigm in Spencer's theory of knowledge."
Studies in history and philosophy of science Vol. 14 (1983), p. 1-22