Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- DATES OF THE PUBLICATION OF CHARLES DARWIN'S BOOKS AND OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN HIS LIFE
- I Introductory Letter to the Editor from SIR
- II Darwin's Predecessors
- III The Selection Theory
- IV Variation
- V Heredity and Variation in Modern Lights
- VI The Minute Structure of Cells in Relation to Heredity
- VII “The Descent of Man”
- VIII Charles Darwin as an Anthropologist
- IX Some Primitive Theories of the Origin of Man
- X The Influence of Darwin on the Study of Animal Embryology
- XI The Palaeontological Record. I. Animals
- XII The Palaeontological Record. II. Plants
- XIII The Influence of Environment on the Forms of Plants
- XIV Experimental Study of the Influence of Environment on Animals
- XV The Value of Colour in the Struggle for Life
- XVI Geographical Distribution of Plants
- XVII Geographical Distribution of Animals
- XVIII Darwin and Geology
- XIX Darwin's work on the Movements of Plants
- XX The Biology of Flowers
- XXI Mental Factors in Evolution
- XXII The Influence of the Conception of Evolution on Modern Philosophy
- XXIII Darwinism and Sociology
- XXIV The Influence of Darwin upon Religious Thought
- XXV The Influence of Darwinism on the Study of Religions
- XXVI Evolution and the Science of Language
- XXVII Darwinism and History
- XXVIII The Genesis of Double Stars
- XXIX The Evolution of Matter
- INDEX
V - Heredity and Variation in Modern Lights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- DATES OF THE PUBLICATION OF CHARLES DARWIN'S BOOKS AND OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN HIS LIFE
- I Introductory Letter to the Editor from SIR
- II Darwin's Predecessors
- III The Selection Theory
- IV Variation
- V Heredity and Variation in Modern Lights
- VI The Minute Structure of Cells in Relation to Heredity
- VII “The Descent of Man”
- VIII Charles Darwin as an Anthropologist
- IX Some Primitive Theories of the Origin of Man
- X The Influence of Darwin on the Study of Animal Embryology
- XI The Palaeontological Record. I. Animals
- XII The Palaeontological Record. II. Plants
- XIII The Influence of Environment on the Forms of Plants
- XIV Experimental Study of the Influence of Environment on Animals
- XV The Value of Colour in the Struggle for Life
- XVI Geographical Distribution of Plants
- XVII Geographical Distribution of Animals
- XVIII Darwin and Geology
- XIX Darwin's work on the Movements of Plants
- XX The Biology of Flowers
- XXI Mental Factors in Evolution
- XXII The Influence of the Conception of Evolution on Modern Philosophy
- XXIII Darwinism and Sociology
- XXIV The Influence of Darwin upon Religious Thought
- XXV The Influence of Darwinism on the Study of Religions
- XXVI Evolution and the Science of Language
- XXVII Darwinism and History
- XXVIII The Genesis of Double Stars
- XXIX The Evolution of Matter
- INDEX
Summary
Darwin's work has the property of greatness in that it may be admired from more aspects than one. For some the perception of the principle of Natural Selection stands out as his most wonderful achievement to which all the rest is subordinate. Others, among whom I would range myself, look up to him rather as the first who plainly distinguished, collected, and comprehensively studied that new class of evidence from which hereafter a true understanding of the process of Evolution may be developed. We each prefer our own standpoint of admiration; but I think that it will be in their wider aspect that his labours will most command the veneration of posterity.
A treatise written to advance knowledge may be read in two moods. The reader may keep his mind passive, willing merely to receive the impress of the writer 's thought; or he may read with his attention strained and alert, asking at every instant how the new knowledge can be used in a further advance, watching continually for fresh footholds by which to climb higher still. Of Shelley it has been said that he was a poet for poets: so Darwin was a naturalist for naturalists. It is when his writings are used in the critical and more exacting spirit with which we test the outfit for our own enterprise that we learn their full value and strength. Whether we glance back and compare his performance with the efforts of his predecessors, or look forward along the course which modern research is disclosing, we shall honour most in him not the rounded merit of finite accomplishment, but the creative power by which he inaugurated a line of discovery endless in variety and extension.
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- Darwin and Modern ScienceEssays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Charles Darwin and of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of The Origin of Species, pp. 85 - 101Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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