AbstractThis article first examines the way in which early developmental psychologists interpreted and modified Darwin's original insights in the direction of both recapitulation and organic selection. It then examines some of the scientific and extrascientific factors that led the young Piaget to reject Darwinism. Finally, it notices that, in spite of their fundamental differences vis‐à‐vis Darwinian evolutionary theory, the early developmental psychologists and Piaget shared a key aspect of the Darwinian legacy to the sciences of mind: a deep faith in the explanatory powers of organic r