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

Date:
1895
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 the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    In 1853 a celebrated geologist, Count Keyserling (‘Bulletin de la Soc. Geolog.,’ 2nd Ser., 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 excel- lent pamphlet (‘Yerhand. des Naturhist. Vereins der Preuss. Rheinlands,’ Ac.), in which he maintains the development of organic forms on the earth. He infers that many species have kept true for long periods, whereas a few have become modified. The distinction of species he explains by the destruction of inter- mediate 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 recherches sur la fixite ou la variation de l’espece, nous conduisent directement aux idees emises, par deux homines justement celbbres, 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,’ 1855. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that the introduction of new species is “a regular, not a casual phenomenon,” or, as Sir John Herschel expresses it, “a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process.” The third volume of the ‘ Journal of the Linnean Society ’ con- tains papers, read July 1st, 1858, by Mr. Wallace and myself, in which, as stated in the introductory remarks to this volume, the theory of Natural Selection is promulgated by Mr. Wallace with admirable force and clearness. Von Baer, towards whom all zoologists feel so profound a respect, expressed about the year 1859 (see Prof. Rudolph Wagner, ‘ Zoologisch-Anthropologische Untersuchungen,’ 1861, s. 51) his conviction, chiefly grounded on the laws of geographical distribu- references in Godron’s work ‘ Sur 1'Espfcce,’ it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually 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.