The origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life / by Charles Darwin.

  • Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life / by Charles Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    de sa destinde dans l’ordre do choaes dont il fait partie. C’est cette puissance qui harmonise chaquo membre h 1’enseVnble cn l’appro- priant a la fonction qu’il doit remplir dans l’organisme gdndral de la nature, fonction qui est pour lui sa raison d’etre.” * In 1853 a celebrated geologist, Count Kcyserling (‘Bulletin de la Soc. Geolog.,’ 2nd Scr., tom. x. p. 357), suggested that as new diseases, supposed to have been caused by some miasma, have arisen and spread over the world, so at certain periods the germs of existing species may have been chemically affected by circum- ambient molecules of a particular nature, and thus have given rise to new forms. In this same year, 1853, Dr. Schaaffhausen published an ex- cellent pamphlet (‘ Verhand. des Naturhist. Yereins der Preuss. Pheinlands,’ &c.), in which he maintains the progressive develop- ment of organic forms on the earth. He infers that many species have kept true for long periods, whereas a few have become modi- fied. The distinction of species he explains by the destruction of intermediate graduated forms. “ Thus living plants and animals are not separated from the extinct by new creations, but are to be regarded as their descendants through continued reproduction.” A well-known French botanist, M. Lecoq, writes in 1854 (‘ Etudes sur Geograph. Bot.,’ tom. i. p. 250), “ On voit que nos reckerches sur la fixite ou la variation de l’espece, nous conduisent directement aux idees emises, par deux hommes justement celebres, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire et Goethe.” Some other passages scattered through M. Lecoq’s large work, make it a little doubtful how far he extends his views on the modification of species. The * Philosophy of Creation ’ has been treated in a masterly manner by the Bev. Baden Powell, in his ‘ Essays on the Unity of Worlds,’ 1S55. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that the introduction of new species is “ a regular, * From references in Bronn’s ‘ Untersuchungen fiber die Entwidkelungs- Gesetze,’ it appears that the celebrated botanist and paleontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and modifi- cation. D’Alton, likewise, in Pander and Dalton’s work on Fossil Sloths, expressed, in 1821, a similar belief. Similar views have, as is well known, been maintained by Oken in his mystical ‘ Natur-Philosophie.’ From other references in Godron’s work ‘ Sur l’Espbce,’ it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continu- ally being produced. I may add, that of the thirty-four authors named in this Historical Sketch, who believe in the modification of species, or at least disbelieve in separate acts of creation, twenty-seven have written on special branches of natural history or geology.