Search Results - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

were few who had already turned to evolution with positive conviction, all scientific men must at least have known that 1 V nus Physique, contenant deux Dissertations, l'une sur l'origine des Hommes et des Animaux: Et l'autre sur l'origine des Noirs, La Haye, 1746, pp. 124 and 129. For an introduction to the writings of Maupertuis I am indebted to an article by Professor Lovejoy in Popular Sci. Monthly, 1902. 2 For the fullest account of the views of these pioneers of Evolution, see the works

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

present in the lower Old World monkeys. These characters must therefore have been present in the ancestral form common to the three groups. But here, again, it is difficult to understand why the lower Eastern monkeys should not also have inherited these characters. As this is not the case, there remains no alternative but to assume divergent evolution from an indifferent form. The lower Eastern monkeys are carrying on the evolution in one direction—I might almost say towards a blind alley—while

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

. But a deeper reason than this has been assigned for the importance of embryology in classification. It has been asserted, and is implied by Darwin in the passage quoted, that the ancestral history is repeated in a condensed form in the embryonic, and that a study of the latter enables us to form a picture of the stages of structure through which the organism has passed in its evolution. It enables us on this view to reconstruct the pedigrees of animals and so to form a genealogical tree which

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

complexity of the Bennettitean flower, the earliest known fructification to which the word flower can be applied without forcing the sense, renders it probable, as Wieland and others have pointed out, that the evolution of the flower in Angiosperms has consisted essentially in a process of reduction, and that the simplest forms of flower are not to be regarded as the most primitive. The older morphologists generally took the view that such simple flowers were to be explained as reductions from a more

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

organic life advances step by step. This idea—the idea of the struggle for life—implied that nothing could persist, if it had no power to maintain itself under the given conditions. Inner value alone does not decide. Idealism was here put to its hardest trial. In continuous evolution it could perhaps still find an analogy to the inner evolution of ideas in the mind; but in the demand for power in order to struggle with outward conditions Realism seemed to announce itself in its most brutal form

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

evolution. And we might take another example, at the other end of the series of sociological systems. G. Tarde is a sociologist with the most pronounced anti-naturalistic views. He has attempted to show that all application of the laws of natural science to society is misleading. In his Opposition Universelle he has directly combatted all forms of sociological Darwinism. According to him the idea that the evolution of society can be traced on the same plan as the evolution of species is chimerical

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

—interesting as it is and even useful, as in Huxley's correspondence with the Duke of Argyll and others in 18921—in order to consider without complication the permanent elements of Christian thought brought into question by the teaching of evolution. Such permanent elements are the doctrine of God as Creator of the universe, and the doctrine of man as spiritual and unique. Upon both the doctrine of evolution seemed to fall with crushing force. With regard to Man I leave out, acknowledging a

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

the evolution and classification of languages the same features as in the evolution and classification of organic species. The various groups of languages that are distinguished in philology as primitive, fundamental, parent, and daughter languages, dialects, etc., correspond entirely in their development to the different categories which we classify in zoology and botany as stems, classes, orders, families, genera, species and varieties. The relation of these groups, partly coordinate and

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

evolution by general principles encouraged sociologists to hope that social evolution could be explained on general principles also. The idea of Condorcet, Buckle, and others, that history could be assimilated to the natural sciences was powerfully reinforced, and the notion that the actual historical process, and every social movement involved in it, can be accounted for by sociological generalisations, so-called laws, is still entertained by many, in one form or another. Dissentients from

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A162 Book: Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Text Image PDF

inferences drawn from several sources. We have first to rely on the general principles of stability, according to which we are to look for a series of families of forms, each terminating in an unstable form, which itself becomes the starting-point of the next family of stable forms. Secondly we have as a guide the analogy of the successive changes in the evolution of ideal liquid stars; and thirdly we already possess some slender knowledge as to the equilibrium of gaseous stars. From these

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A288 Pamphlet: Hovey, Edmund Otis ed. 1909. Darwin memorial celebration. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 19, no. 1, Part 1 (31 July): 1-40. Text

others, the fairness with which he acknowledged the value of their results, and his concluding passages, in which he indicated the important bearing that the theories of descent had upon the social problems of the day, render his address a fit conclusion of a distinct epoch in the history of American science. Since 1876, practically every zo logical worker has sought to make some contribution that might strengthen his faith in a rational evolution of organic life and activities. It may be that

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

CHARLES DARWIN AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES ADDRESSES, ETC., IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND IN THE YEAR OF THE TWO ANNIVERSARIES BY EDWARD BAGNALL POULTON, D.Sc., M.A. HON. LL.D. PRINCETON, F.R.S., V-P.L.S., F.Z.S., F.G.S., F.E.S. HOPE PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD MEMB. HON. SOC. ENT. BELG.; SOC. HON. REAL SOC. ESPAN. HIST. NAT. CORRESP. MEMB. ACAD. SCI., NEW YORK, AND SOC. NAT. HIST. BOSTON AUTHOR OF' ESSAYS ON EVOLUTION', ETC. PUBLISHED NOV. 24, 1909

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

carefully examined,1 we may feel confident that the belief in an evolution founded on large mutations will vanish, and we shall then come back to mutations identical in every respect with the small variations which were for Darwin the steps of evolution. A humorist has suggested that the Homer controversy should be settled by a general agreement that the Iliad was written not by Homer but by another man with the same name. Those who have heralded with such a flourish of trumpets the profound

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A297 Book: Darwin, Francis & E. Hamilton Acton. 1909. Practical physiology of plants. Cambridge: University Press. Text Image PDF

., formaldehyde. 40. Leucoplasts.....pp. 21- -34. Section B. Evolution of oxygen. 41. Bubbles of gas. 42. Light of varying intensity. 43. Dependence on presence of C02. 44. Temperature and gas evolution. 45. Chloroform. 46. Coloured lights. 47. Collection of gas evolved. 48. Engelmann's blood method. 48 a. Farmer's experiment. 49. Phosphorus method. 50. Gas analysis, Pfeffer's method. 51. Gas analysis, Winkler-Hempel apparatus. 52. Timiriazeff's Eudiometer. 53. Engelmann's bacterial method. 54

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

underlying form of matter must leave the inexorable question 'whence?' still unanswered. Therefore if in the end the question must be given up, we may as well, he argued, admit the mystery of creation in the later stages as in the earlier. Thus he arrived at the belief in a world formed instantaneously, ready-made and complete, with its fossils, marks of denudation, and evidences of evolution—a going concern. Aubrey Moore, the clergyman who more than any other man was responsible for breaking

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

'mutations', as supplying the material for evolution. Writing to Asa Gray as early as August 11, 1860, he said of great and sudden variation:— 'I have, of course, no objection to this, indeed it would be a great aid, but I did not allude to the subject, for, after much labour, I could find nothing which satisfied me of the probability of such occurrences, There seems to me in almost every case too much, too complex, and too beautiful adaptation, in every structure to believe in its sudden production.1'

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

When did Darwin acknowledge his debt in this way? It was on Aug. 29th, 1844. In 1842 he had written the first brief account of his theory of evolution—that sketch which will now be for the first time in the hands of the public—that sketch of which, thanks to your generosity, a gift has been made to every guest whom you are welcoming to Cambridge, a work which I for my part look forward to reading with greater pleasure and greater interest than any book I have ever possessed. In 1844 Darwin had

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

APPENDIX B DARWIN AND EVOLUTION BY MUTATION I HAVE spoken on pages 43 and 44 of the frequency with which Darwin, between 1860 and 1880, was brought back by others to a motive cause of evolution based on 'sudden jumps', or 'monstrosities', on 'large', 'extreme', and 'great and sudden' variations. Such views were continually urged upon him by' his correspondents, and by reviews and criticisms of his work'. It is I think of interest, in relation to the biological fashions of the day, to show by

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

Fluctuations are, according to de Vries, unable, however rigidly and however long selected, to lead to progressive evolution. The following passages in which this belief is expressed, assert perfectly clearly that these limitations—rashly assumed to be permanent—are revealed by means of heredity. They also plainly show that de Vries, in maintaining the uselessness of 'fluctuations' as the material for progressive evolution, is merely availing himself of a principle established much earlier and

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A331 Book: Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1909. Charles Darwin and the Origin of species: addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Text Image

will endeavour to express as clearly as possible, may do something to b1ing within reasonable limits those unduly exaggerated estimates of recent achievement which tend in the long run to diminish rather than to exalt the fame of an investigator. CHARLES DARWIN. It has been shown on many pages of this book that Darwin recognized large variations transitional into individual differences, but that, with A. R. Wallace, he believed the onward steps of evolution were supplied by the latter and not by