The Origin of Species: A Variorum Text

HISTORICAL SKETCH

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE RECENT PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. I: [Note: This section first appears in c.] I:/ AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, PREVIOUSLY TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS WORK. 2 I WILL here attempt to give a brief, but imperfect sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. ztd here give z:e brief sketch 3 The great majority of naturalists believe that species are immutable productions, and have been separately created. 3:e Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. 4 This view has been ably maintained by many authors. 5 Some few naturalists, on the other hand, believe that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life have descended by true generation from pre-existing forms. 5:d life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing 5:e hand, have believed that species 6 Passing over authors from the classical period to that of Buffon, with whose writings I am not familiar, Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on this subject excited much attention. 6.x:d over allusions to the subject in the classical writers," the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon. 6.x.:If: .I-4: d :If:Aristotle, in his 'Physice Auscultationes' (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer's corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organisation ; and adds (as translated by Mr. Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), "So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. 2 And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. 3 Wheresoever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity; and whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished, and still perish." 4 We here see the principle of 59 natural selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth. 6.X.I:d But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details. 6.y:d[~] Lamarck 7 This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801, and he much enlarged them in 1809 in his 'Philosophie Zoologique ,' and subsequently, in 1815, in his Introduction to his 'Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertebres.' 7:d 1801; he/lS15, in the Introduction 8 In these works he upholds the doctrine that all species, including man, are descended from other species. 9 He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic as well as in the inorganic world being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition . 9:d organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being 10 Lamarck seems to have been chiefly led to his conclusion on the gradual change of species, by the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, by the almost perfect gradation of forms in certain organic groups, and by the analogy of domestic productions. rotd certain groups 11 With respect to the means of modification, he attributed something to the direct action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects of habit. 12 To this latter agency he seems to attribute all the beautiful adaptations in nature;-such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on the branches of trees. 13 But he likewise believed in a law of progressive development; and as all the forms of life thus tended to progress...