How did Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man anticipate some ideas associated with Charles Darwin?

In his influential work Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784–91), the German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder anticipated certain ideas associated with Charles Darwin by proposing that all organic life is interconnected and evolving progressively toward human beings, whom he viewed as the highest form of life.1

Herder’s perspective suggested a unified system of laws governing nature and history, positing that a striving of forces exists within the development from the earth to mankind, aiming to generate determinate forms or individual existences. While Herder’s work was rooted in philosophical and historical inquiry rather than the biological mechanisms of natural selection later established by Darwin, his emphasis on the interconnectedness of life and the progressive nature of development provided an early conceptual framework that aligns with later evolutionary thought.21