CUL-DAR134.3    Printed:    1886   'Charles Darwin' [Edinburgh, Brown (Round Table Series no 5)]: 32pp   Text   Image

anthropomorphic if it is found when completely analysed to rest upon a belief in the persistence of force which is derived from our own consciousness of muscular effort. But this is a general and philosophical anthropomorphism, while Darwin's is particular and empirical. When we have reached a real comprehension of organic evolution, we shall explain the modification of organisms by human cultivation as a particular instance of the general laws of modification and not vice-versa. In an

A76    Book:     Cunningham, Joseph Thomas. 1886. Charles Darwin, naturalist. The Round Table series. Edinburgh: William Brown.   Text   Image

the Origin of Species, was waged for years the keenest phase of the contest between the followers of science and the adherents of tradition. More than one generation of naturalists have drawn the inspiration of their best work from their enthusiasm for Darwinism. From Darwin's books evolutionary ideas have permeated into all streams of thought, until natural selection, and the struggle for existence are discerned in operation in all the manifestations of life. The theory of the evolution of

A76    Book:     Cunningham, Joseph Thomas. 1886. Charles Darwin, naturalist. The Round Table series. Edinburgh: William Brown.   Text   Image

modification is as follows: the environment affects the habits of the animal, and the habits or functions affect the organs, and thus in the course of generations modifications of any extent are produced. Charles Darwin was early acquainted with the works of Buffon, Dr. Darwin and Lamarck, and thus his mind was ready as soon as his interest in living beings was excited, to consider their relation to the doctrine of evolution. At the same time it is evident that Darwin had more respect for the

A76    Book:     Cunningham, Joseph Thomas. 1886. Charles Darwin, naturalist. The Round Table series. Edinburgh: William Brown.   Text   Image

inherited, and are variable; hence they are liable to be improved and specialized by natural selection. Another great objection to the acceptance of the theory of evolution is the absence of intermediate links among fossil forms, but Darwin shows that the geological record is necessarily very imperfect, and the intermediate links, which do exist among fossil forms, [page] 1

A76    Book:     Cunningham, Joseph Thomas. 1886. Charles Darwin, naturalist. The Round Table series. Edinburgh: William Brown.   Text   Image

Thus the great naturalist's contribution to the general theory of organic evolution ends with the Animals and Plants under Domestication, and we return to the study of the arguments and conclusions which have played so important a part in the history of modern thought. It cannot be maintained that those arguments are always formulated with perfect logical consistency. Examined closely, the conception of natural selection comes to this: An organism usually possesses the same structure as its

A76    Book:     Cunningham, Joseph Thomas. 1886. Charles Darwin, naturalist. The Round Table series. Edinburgh: William Brown.   Text   Image

have a curious anomaly. In other classes of phenomena, and in the transmutation of species, we can point to processes actually going on in the present condition of things as similar to the processes which must have caused the changes of which we find records in former periods of the earth's evolution. Marine fossils of former epochs are now found on hill-tops, and beaches are actually being raised by gradual elevation at the present day above the level of the sea. The phenomena of the glacial

CUL-DAR134.3    Printed:    1886   'Charles Darwin' [Edinburgh, Brown (Round Table Series no 5)]: 32pp   Text   Image

his own theory of organic evolution in the Origin of Species, he referred to the erroneous views and grounds of opinion of Lamarck. But whatever the young naturalist thought of Lamarck's system, his remarks on the Tucutuco afford only one of the many evidences that his interest in the question of modification versus constancy in organic structure was thoroughly aroused during his years of travel. His celebrated chapter on the Galapagos Islands shows us that the probability of mutability in

CUL-DAR134.3    Printed:    1886   'Charles Darwin' [Edinburgh, Brown (Round Table Series no 5)]: 32pp   Text   Image

present movement, that of circumnutation, and that each particular motion could thus be produced by natural selection acting on variations of circumnutation. Different Forms of Flowers is a contribution to the subject of adaptations for cross-fertilization in plants. In his last work Darwin returned to a geological subject which has no direct connection with the evolution of organic beings, but is a study of one of the most minute and obscure among geological agencies. [page]  2

CUL-DAR134.3    Printed:    1886   'Charles Darwin' [Edinburgh, Brown (Round Table Series no 5)]: 32pp   Text   Image

selection; and training is in great measure the application of stimuli to act upon function in the belief that function will modify structure. It is not intended to suggest here that Darwin denied the effect of increased or diminished function; but although he confesses that a complete theory of evolution would include a knowledge of the cause of every variation, he does not devote much attention to the analysis of those causes which he mentions. In considering the process by which Madeira beetles have

A76    Book:     Cunningham, Joseph Thomas. 1886. Charles Darwin, naturalist. The Round Table series. Edinburgh: William Brown.   Text   Image

the evolution of living beings through descent with modification, he was not satisfied with believing in the truth of the theory, and supporting it by the facts of embryology, geographical distribution, geological succession, and the analogy of domestic productions. What he required was a cause. Darwin had his own peculiar view of the nature of a cause. He sought some one universal principle which would explain all the details; at least he wanted to have some idea of how the divergence at