Lectures and Essays

What are those inductions and deductions, and how have you got at this hypothesis? You have observed, in the first place, that the window is open; but by a train of reasoning in...

But this would by no means satisfy the conditions of a scientific hypothesis. No man who is cautious would dream of trusting to an explanation of this kind simply because it exp...

It clearly follows from this that mud gives us a chronology; for it is evident that supposing this, which I now sketch, to be the sea bottom, and supposing this to be a coast-li...

Having understood thus far the general nature of these polypes, which are the fabricators both of the red and white coral, let us consider a little more particularly how the ske...

Now we come next to the question of the analysis of the products, of that which is produced during the process of fermentation. So far back as the beginning of the 16th century,...

Of the great thinkers of the nineteenth century, Thomas Henry Huxley, son of an Ealing schoolmaster, was undoubtedly the most noteworthy. His researches in biology, his contribu...

Such is the scope of zoology. But if I were to content myself with the enunciation of these dry definitions, I should ill exemplify that method of teaching this branch of physic...

I wonder if any historian would for a moment admit the objection, that it is preposterous to trouble ourselves about the history of the Roman Empire, because we do not know anyt...

I said just now that the Horse eventually died and became converted into the same inorganic substances from whence all but an inappreciable fraction of its substance demonstrabl...

But now let us turn to a nobler and more characteristic organ--that by which the human frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly distinguished from all others,--I mean the s...

Although the Orang resides mostly amid the boughs of great trees, during the daytime, he is very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch, as other apes, and particularly the Gib...

When a variety has arisen, the CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE are such as to exercise an influence which is exactly comparable to that of artificial selection. By Conditions of Existen...

The remains of the yelk, which have not yet been applied to the nutrition and growth of the young animal, are contained in a sac attached to the rudimentary intestine, and terme...

Surely, there is nothing in these explanations which is not fully borne out by the facts? Surely, the principles involved in them are now admitted among the fixed beliefs of all...

M. Flourens cannot imagine an unconscious selection--it is for him a contradiction in terms. Did M. Flourens ever visit one of the prettiest watering-places of "la belle France,...

Harvey, by the diversity, the variety, and the thoroughness of his investigations, was enabled to give an entirely new direction to at least two branches--and two of the most im...

Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was published, the skeleton of the Gorilla has been investigated by Professor Owen and by the late Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Pla...

"HEAD.--The prominent features of the head are, the great width and elongation of the face, the depth of the molar region, the branches of the lower jaw being very deep and exte...

Even so the earlier observers were moved with wonder at the seeming contrast between the ancient and the present order of nature. The elemental forces seemed to have been grande...

The name of "Chimpanzee," by which one of the African Apes is now so well known, appears to have come into use in the first half of the eighteenth century, but the only importan...

But, if the doctrine of final causes will not help us to comprehend the anomalies of living structure, the principle of adaptation must surely lead us to understand why certain...

Our next business is to look at the general character of these fossil remains, and it is a subject which it will be requisite to consider carefully; and the first point for us i...

That would, speaking generally, be my plan. But I have undertaken to explain to you the best mode of acquiring and communicating a knowledge of zoology, and you may therefore fa...

Secondly, there is a variation, to a certain extent--though, in all probability, the influence of this cause has been very much exaggerated--but there is no doubt that variation...

"But the human bones and cranium from the Neanderthal exceed all the rest in those peculiarities of conformation which lead to the conclusion of their belonging to a barbarous a...

It is worthy of notice that the regions of the antipodal races are antipodal in climate, the greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being that between the damp, hot, stea...

As the essay in which this passage stands had no less ambitious an aim than the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia, its author might be supposed to have written u...

This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and doubtless will one day help to furnish an explanation of the great gulf which intervenes between the lowest man and the highest ape i...

Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, and of the long flexor of the great toe, when they reach the sole of the foot, do not remain distinct from one another, as the...

In anatomy, where such correspondence of position has constantly to be spoken of, it is denoted by the word "homology" and its derivatives; and for Geology (which after all is o...

If a variation which approaches the nature of a monstrosity can strive thus forcibly to reproduce itself, it is not wonderful that less aberrant modifications should tend to be...

As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of the cranium, consisting of the frontal, parietal,...

Such being the general ferment in the minds of naturalists, it is no wonder that they mustered strong in the rooms of the Linnaean Society, on the 1st of July of the year 1858,...

Turning to the Vertebrata, the only Paleozoic Elasmobranch Fish of which we have any complete knowledge is the Devonian and Carboniferous 'Pleuracanthus', which differs no more...

The other, the so-called "transmutation" hypothesis, considers that all existing species are the result of the modification of pre-existing species, and those of their predecess...

He then turned his attention to the mercury bath, and found on examination that the surface of the mercury was almost always covered with a very fine dust. He found that even th...

In the first place, as regards structural characteristics, I endeavoured to show you, by the skeletons which I had upon the table, and by reference to a great many well-ascertai...

There is a wide gulf between the thing you cannot explain and the thing that upsets you altogether. There is hardly any hypothesis in this world which has not some fact in conne...

But it is one thing to say, Darwinically, that every detail observed in an animal's structure is of use to it, or has been of use to its ancestors; and quite another to affirm,...

Nor has the discussion of the subject been restrained within the limits of conversation. When the public is eager and interested, reviewers must minister to its wants; and the g...

If anybody wants to understand what Harvey's great desert really was, I would suggest to him that he devote himself to a course of reading, which I cannot promise shall be very...