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10306 results in History of science: general interest

Page 448 of 516

  • CHAP. IX - Darwin and Wallace: The Theory of Natural Selection

  • John W. Judd
  • Book:
    The Coming of Evolution
    Published online:
    07 September 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009, pp 95-114
    First published in:
    1910

  • Summary

    Charles Darwin was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, who, as we have seen, arrived independently at conclusions concerning the origin of species very similar to those of Lamarck, and embodied his views in poems, which, at the time of their publication, achieved a considerable popularity. In the younger philosopher, however, imagination was always kept in subjection by a determination to ‘prove all things’ and ‘to hold fast that which is good’ though, in other respects, there were not wanting indications of the existence of hereditary characteristics in the grandson.

    Born at Shrewsbury and educated in the public school of that town, Charles Darwin from the first exhibited signs of individuality in his ideas and his tastes. The rigid classical teaching of his school did not touch him, but, with the aid of his elder brother, he surreptitiously started a chemical laboratory in a garden tool-house. From his earliest infancy, he was a collector, first of trifles, like seals and franks, but later of stones, minerals and beetles.

    At the outset, only the desire to possess new things animated him, then a wish to put names to them, but, at a very early period, a passion arose for learning all he could about them.

  • CHAP. VIII - Early Attempts to establish the Doctrine of Evolution for the Organic World

  • John W. Judd
  • Book:
    The Coming of Evolution
    Published online:
    07 September 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009, pp 82-94
    First published in:
    1910

  • Summary

    In studying the history of Evolutionary ideas, it is necessary to keep in mind that there are two perfectly distinct lines of thought, the origin and development of which have to be considered.

    First. The conviction that species are not immutable, but that, by some means or other, new forms of life are derived from pre-existing ones.

    Secondly. The conception of some process or processes, by which this change of old forms into new ones may be explained.

    Buffon, Kant, Goethe, and many other philosophic thinkers, have been more or less firmly persuaded of the truth of the first of these propositions ; and even Linnaeus himself was ready to make admissions in this direction. It was impossible for anyone who was convinced of the truth of the doctrine of continuity or evolution in the inorganic world, to avoid the speculation that the same arguments by which the truth of that doctrine was maintained must apply also to the organic world.

    Hence we find that directly the Principles of Geology was published, thinkers, like Sedgwick and Whewell, at once taxed Lyell with holding that ‘the creation of new species is going on at the present day,’ and Lyell replied to the latter:—

    ‘It was impossible, I think, for anyone to read my work and not to perceive that my notion of uniformity in the existing causes of change always implied that they must for ever produce an endless variety of effects, both in the animate and inanimate world.’

Page 448 of 516