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:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

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 Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF TUE PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES PREVIOUSLY TO THE PUBLICATIOK OP THE FIRST EDITION OP THIS WORK. I WILL here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. Passing over allusions to the sub- ject in the classical writers,* the first author who in • Aristotle, in his ' Physics Auscultationes' (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the com grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer's corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organisation; and adds (as translated by Mr. Olair Grace, who first pointed out the passage to me), So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in nature ? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Whereso- ever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of some- thing, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted