Pioneers of Evolution from Thales to Huxley: With an Intermediate Chapter on the Causes of Arrest of the Movement |
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advance Alfred Russel Wallace Anaxagoras Anaximander appeared Aristotle atoms authority barbaric Bates became become belief Bible biology body born brain Buffon causes century changes Charles Darwin Christian Church creed Darwin death discoveries divine doctrine dogma earth Empedocles Epicurus Erasmus Darwin Essays Ethics evidence existence explained fact faith Genesis geology gods Greek heaven Herbert Spencer human Huxley Huxley's ideas influence inquiry intellectual Ionia Ionian Jesus knowledge known Lamarck Leucippus life-forms living Lucretius Lyell Malay Archipelago man's matter ment mental mind modern natural selection naturalist nebular theory observation organic Origin of Species pagan Pentateuch phenomena philosophy physical plants and animals principle Professor races reference religion result Roman Rome says scientific social Society soul special creation speculations spiritual story structure substance theology theory of Evolution things thought tion universe Wallace Wallace's words writings
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Page 215 - If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man - a man of restless and versatile intellect - who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.
Page 154 - Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Or else worth all the rest ; I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There's no such thing : It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes.
Page 132 - I happened to read for amusement ' Malthus on Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work...
Page 171 - My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts...
Page 131 - In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus on Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations...
Page 72 - The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire...
Page 166 - ... by art seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by Nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first few and scattered inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country.
Page 119 - Creation' appeared in 1844. In the tenth and much improved edition (1853) the anonymous author says (p. 155) : — "The proposition determined on after much consideration is, that the several series of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent...
Page 129 - I will give a proof of my zeal : one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand ; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas ! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.
Page 144 - It shows us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection ; but it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin ; and for this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit INDEX ABBOTT, Dr.