Search Results - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

opposition which they aroused, and undoubtedly did much to prepare continental Europe for the coming of evolution. Inasmuch as Lamarck was the foremost evolutionist to precede Darwin, it is worth while to know what influence he may have exerted, and what his ideas were. In the first place, he saw clearly that species were not distinct units, as the earlier naturalist has supposed. Instead, they were more or less artificial definitions, applied to animals and plants that constantly varied, and among

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

the idea of evolution, some time in 1836 or early in 1837, for he opened his first notebook in July of the latter year. Concerning his method he says, I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by conversation with skillful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

own work, asking my opinion on various points. I saw no more of him till noon, when I heard his mellow ringing voice calling my name under my window this was to join him in his daily forenoon walk round the sand-walk.* our conversation usually ran on foreign lands and seas, old friends, old books, and things far off to both mind and eye. Even after writing out his conclusions on the development of life, and the conditions underlying evolution, Darwin was not ready to publish. There were more

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

strikes me as bad, and his zoology far worse, while the general tone of the book was far from philosophic. Yet it did expound an idea of evolution, even though a poor one, and had a very large sale. Even Darwin, devotee to accuracy and caution, admitted that the book did great service in calling attention to the subject, in removing a great deal of prejudice, and in preparing the popular mind for other and more accurate information in the same field. Finally in 1856, Lyell persuaded Darwin to

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

evolution appeared. Of it Darwin says, It was a big book, and cost me four years and two months hard labour. It gives all my observations and an immense number of facts collected from various sources, about our domestic productions. In the second volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, etc., are discussed as far as our present state of our knowledge permits. Towards the end of the work I give my well abused hypothesis of Pangenesis. This, briefly stated, supposes that the countless

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

injurious to the success of the book to have paraded, without giving any evidence, my convinction with respect to his origin. But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the doctrine of the evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable to work up such notes as I possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin of man. I was the more glad to do so, as it gave me an opportunity of fully discussing sexual selection a subject which had always greatly interested me. This

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

readily the defects of a piece of work, and resented unfair treatment at the hands of those who had little right to pass judgment. Thus when the Bishop of Oxford made a brilliant but intolerant address against evolution, and published an article containing the substance of his speech, Darwin wrote, These very clever men think they can write a review with a very slight knowledge of the book reviewed or the subject in question ; another and favorable review he characterized as a well-done hash

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A260 Book: Fenton, Carroll Lane. [1924]. Darwin and the theory of evolution. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius. Text Image

scientific friends, so far as their connection with evolution was concerned. The estimate changed in time, for ten years later another notation was made on the letter, reading, Hooker by far best man to edit my species volume. August, 1854. Fortunately Darwin's ill health, though painful and hampering in the extreme, did not seriously threaten his life, and there was no need [page] 1

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F2753 Book contribution: Darwin, C. R. 1924. [Correspondence with Francis Galton]. In Karl Pearson ed. The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton. vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 156-202. Text PDF

germinal selection on the origin of species, or his 'class representation' on the origin of somatic variations. He did not press it himself to its legitimate conclusions, and probably did not see its full bearings on evolution. His general scheme from 'structureless elements' of parent to those of offspring is as follows: Structureless Elements of Parent through 'Class Representation' afford Embryonic Elements which by a development become Adult Elements which by a Second Selection contribute

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F2753 Book contribution: Darwin, C. R. 1924. [Correspondence with Francis Galton]. In Karl Pearson ed. The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton. vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 156-202. Text PDF

diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature that demonstrate to us that the whole is one family of one parent. There is not a doubt, I think, that Erasmus Darwin anticipated Lamarck in propounding a doctrine of evolution based upon the inheritance of acquired characters, and that he recognised a unity of origin for all forms of life. It was with this impression strong upon him that Galton made his first draft for the Lichfield

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F2753 Book contribution: Darwin, C. R. 1924. [Correspondence with Francis Galton]. In Karl Pearson ed. The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton. vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 156-202. Text PDF

It was, perhaps, too generous an idea to expect in 1882 that an 'evolution' window could, even in Westminster Abbey, replace the old 'creation' window based upon its neolithic myth. But the time may yet come when the national mausoleum shall contain not only the ashes of the nation's great dead, but some appropriate witness to those living embers of the mind which entitled them to their final resting-place. Galton strongly believed in and generously supported all projects of perpetuating the

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