Essays of a Biologist

First, then, the coastal plain of Louisiana; a pond, made and kept as a sanctuary by that public-spirited bird-lover Mr. E. A. McIlhenny, filled with noisy crowds of Egrets and...

But at last a philosopher arose. He was not satisfied with the current explanation, although this had been held for so long that it had acquired the odour and force of a religio...

While the _main_ direction of the inorganic has been towards degradation of energy, it has shown another subsidiary direction towards the production of more and more complex for...

The most widespread of all the objections raised may, I think, be fairly put as follows: “The fundamental attribute of living beings is adaptation to environment. A man is not b...

We are now, I think, owing to our taking this broad biological view, in a better position to make up our minds as to some at least of the difficulties which beset us to-day in a...

It is immaterial whether the human mind comes to have these values _because_ they make for progress in evolution, or whether things which make for evolutionary progress become s...

Once this harmony has been achieved, it is for one thing so precious in itself that it will be sought for again; the knowledge that we have once reached the stage at which diffi...

The commonest form of play in birds is flying play. Any one who has kept his eyes open at the seaside will have seen the Herring Gulls congregate in soaring intersecting spirals...

I do not propose to follow the example of many rather hasty philosophers and biologists, who have thought that, whenever the study of lower organisms permitted the promulgation...

In trying to analyse these facts further, we are brought up against new depths of complication. It is becoming ever clearer that the gonads do not operate as independent organs,...

Now this view, or any view of God as a personal being, is becoming frankly untenable. The difficulty of understanding the functions of a personal ruler in a universe which the m...

Parts of experience or of inherited tendencies may fail to become organically connected with the main parts of our minds, simply because attention has never been focussed on the...

A brief description of the results of recent research into the physiology and functions of the ductless glands and the application of this knowledge to the prevention and cure o...

The qualitative difference between man and other organisms is a cardinal fact with orthodox biology has tended to slur over or to neglect, whereas philosophy has too often tried...

It will, I hope, have been clear, even from the few examples which I have given, that there has been a main direction in evolution. At the close of the paper I shall try to poin...

To the savage, all is spirit. The meanest objects are charged with influence, the commonest actions fraught with spiritual possibilities, the operations of nature one and all ar...

He put the lever to its limit: the rhythm of the cosmos altered again in relation to his own. He had an extraordinary sense of being on the verge of a revelation. The universe--...

Thus co-operation, for still fresh reasons, is biologically important for the higher groups. The problem is becoming increasingly pressing for the human race, since the time is...

There remains public worship and community-religion. It is clear that whereas a Church in the Middle Ages was not only Church but also Museum of curiosities, Art-gallery and The...