Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02

I have entitled this volume "Darwiniana" because the pieces republished in it either treat of the ancient doctrine of Evolution, rehabilitated and placed upon a sound scientific...

Questions of this kind have assuredly often arisen, but it might have been long before they received such expression as would have commanded the respect and attention of the sci...

So that the one end to which, in all living beings, the formative impulse is tending--the one scheme which the Archæus of the old speculators strives to carry out, seems to be t...

"First crosses between forms sufficiently distinct to be ranked as species, and their hybrids, are very generally, but not universally, sterile. The sterility is of all degrees,...

A contemporary of Newton and of Leibnitz, sharing therefore in the intellectual activity of the remarkable age which witnessed the birth of modern physical science, Benoît de Ma...

In the course of the present year several foreign commentaries upon Mr. Darwin's great work have made their appearance. Those who have perused that remarkable chapter of the "An...

But if this be a true statement of the nature of the process of Agamogenesis, how can it enable us to comprehend the production of new species from already existing ones? Let us...

Professor Haeckel has invented a new and convenient name "Dysteleology," for the study of the "purposelessnesses" which are observable in living organisms--such as the multitudi...

It will be observed that Mr. Mivart refers solely to Suarez's fifteenth Disputation, though he adds, "Many other references to the same effect could easily be given." I shall lo...

This is the view of the "Genesis of Species" held by Suarez to be the only one consistent with Catholic faith: it is because he holds this view to be Catholic that he does not h...

As is well known, Descartes boldly faced this dilemma, and maintained that all animals were mere machines and entirely devoid of consciousness. But he did not deny, nor can anyo...

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that a savage has more brains than seems proportioned to his wants, all that can be said is that the objection to natural selection, if it...

"Abuserois-je de la liberté de conjectures si je disois, que les Plantes et les Animaux qui existent aujourd'hui sont parvenus par une sorte d'evolution naturelle des Etres orga...

"Alii mirantur in saxis passim species videri quas vel in orbe cognito, vel saltem in vicinis locis frustra quæras. 'Ita Cornua Ammonis,' quæ ex nautilorum numero habeantur, pas...

But the causes and conditions of variation have yet to be thoroughly explored; and the importance of natural selection will not be impaired, even if further inquiries should pro...

Simply this, that, if the doctrine of evolution had not existed, palaeontologists must have invented it, so irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of the remains o...

In 1825, Dr. Darwin came to the very just conclusion that his son Charles would do no good by remaining at Shrewsbury School, and sent him to join his elder brother Erasmus, who...

The problem which was to be Darwin's chief subject of occupation for the rest of his life thus presented itself, at first, mainly under its distributional aspect. Why do species...

Considering the difficulties which surround the question of the causes of variation, it is not to be wondered at, that Darwin should have inclined, sometimes, rather more to one...

Here would be the upper part of the animal--that great mass of bones that we spoke of as the spine (_a_, Fig. 1). Here I should have the alimentary canal (_b_, Fig. 1). Here I s...

I am sure that you cannot have followed me even in this extremely elementary exposition of the structural relations of animals, without seeing what I have been driving at all th...

Well, you say, it is admitted that the lowermost bed is always the older. Very well; B, therefore, is older than A. No doubt, _as a whole_, it is so; or if any parts of the two...

I must dwell a little on this point, for I wish you to leave this room with a very clear conviction that scientific investigation is not, as many people seem to suppose, some ki...

I think, considering the organisation of these mollusca and crustacea, and looking at their very complex nature, that it does indeed require a very strong imagination to conceiv...

Sexual reproduction is quite a distinct matter. Here, in all these cases, what is required is the detachment of two portions of the parental organisms, which portions we know as...

However, these facts are best illustrated in animals, and the extent of the variation, as is well known, is very remarkable in dogs. For example, there are some dogs very much s...

Now, this is certainly a very remarkable circumstance; but I do not see myself how it tells very strongly either one way or the other. I think, in fact, that this argument in fa...

I know nothing that more appropriately expresses this, than the phrase, "the struggle for existence "; because it brings before your minds, in a vivid sort of way, some of the s...

But if, on the other hand, you look on all forms of organised beings as the results of the gradual modification of a primitive type, the facts receive a meaning, and you see tha...