The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope

We must not underestimate the many difficulties to be encountered, for the field before us is a vast territory of complex human life and of manifold human relations. Without pro...

At the lower end of the animal scale are organisms which consist of one cell and nothing more. _Amoeba_, to which we must refer again and again, is an example of this group whic...

We come now to the second element of the whole process of evolution, namely, what we may call overproduction or excessive multiplication. Like variation and so many other phenom...

But even as a preliminary definition, the statement that organic evolution means _natural change_ does not satisfy us. We need a fuller statement of what it is and what it invol...

Only within recent years have systematic attempts been made to classify religions on the basis of impersonal objective study. Throughout all times men have instinctively set up...

Much light upon the evolution of language is obtained when we treat the speech of various races as we did the skeletal structures of cats and seals and whales. When we compare t...

The black slaves of America were all descended from typical negros brought from the western part of Africa, and they provide us with adequate illustrations of Ethiopians as a gr...

We have dealt mainly with _Amoeba_, _Hydra_, and the ant-community which exemplify three somewhat distinct types of organic individuality. Some of the transitional forms have be...

The complex lives of communal insects like ants and bees bring us to the level of mentality where an understanding of causes and effects seems to be the guide for conduct. Never...

It is best to look at the whole question in a very simple and common-sense way before undertaking an extended examination of the details of human diversity. The most casual surv...

The further question as to the nature of the connection is interesting, but it relates to matters of far less consequence to the naturalist than the central fact of the invariab...

If human ethics is truly unrelated to beginnings found in lower nature, something that has arisen by itself from supernature, then we must not use the terms in question except b...

The biologist employs the identical methods used by the geologist in working out the past history of the earth's crust. The latter observes the forces at work to-day, and compar...

Like the fundamental principle of comparative anatomy in its sphere, the Law of Recapitulation, formulated as a summary description of the foregoing and similar facts, is one th...

Are we to forget all of these things when we try to put in order our ideas belonging to the categories of higher thought? Can we hope to find the truth if we fail to employ the...

Finally, we find almost always in protoplasm other substances composed of carbon and hydrogen and oxygen which are called hydrocarbons, distinguished from carbohydrates by the f...

Confining our attention to the large vertebrate classes, the testimony of the rocks proves, as we have said, that fishes appeared first in what are called the Silurian and Devon...

Extending our survey so as to include the other tribes of flesh-eaters, identical principles come to light. One is compelled to regard the polar and grizzly bears as obvious blo...

The last form among the apes, the gorilla, is one that brings us to a realization of our own human physical degeneracy. The animal lives in West Equatorial Africa, and it is a v...

What, now, are the reasons why the palæontological evidence is not complete and why it cannot be? In the first place the seeker after fossil remains finds about three fifths of...

Darwin was particularly impressed by the way mankind has dealt with the various species of domesticated animals, and he was the first naturalist to point out the correspondence...

When we take up science and philosophy, or knowledge as a whole, after religion, it may seem that we have reversed the proper sequence. There are many reasons for following this...

The present volume consists of a series of eight addresses delivered as the Hewitt Lectures of Columbia University at Cooper Union in New York City during the months of February...

Variation, 110; causes of, 111; among individuals, 112, 113; fact of difference, phenomenon of, 114; 115, 118, 119, 121, 129; congenital, 138; human, 174; racial, 177; laws of,...