OCR Text |
Show VI. THE ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS TOWARD DARWINISM. 1 (THE NATION, October 16, 1873.) h 1 adage "What is one man's meat is THAT orne Y ' . another man , s pO.l son, , co. mes to mmd when1 'w te 1c onk- . . h h t different eyes different natura IS s oo s1der w1t w a . · · · f t 1 upon the hypothesis of the derr;ati ve or:gt m o ac a:ad . specific forms, sm. ce Mr. Darwm gave 1 vogue . t d s Sevants depuis deux Siecles, suivie . I " Histoire des Scten~~:t: sci:ntifiques, en particulier sur la Selecd'autres etudes sur des s. J D Candolle." Geneve: H. tion dans l'Espece Humame, par Alphonse e Geo"rg A. dd1r8e7ss3e. s of George B en tha m, President' read at the anniversary h 1 . Society 1862-1873." · meetings oft e mnea~ . 'H. t ry and Geographical Distribution "Notes on the ClassificatiOn, IS o ' . f· the Journal of Compost.t re. B Y Geor()'e Bentham." Separate Issue rom b L d 1873 . S . t Vol XIII. on on. . . of the Lmnean oci~ y. . . f Gradual Modification of Awmal " Ori Palreontologwal Evidence 0 B · • A il 25 1873 t th Ro al Institution of Great ritam, pr ' . Forms, read a e ~' (Jc rnal of the Royal Institution, pp. 11.) by Prof. W. H. Flower. o.u . f B'rds Memoir presented to "The Distribution and Mtgratwn; 1 .1865 abstracted in the the National Academy o: Scienc~, h a~a?, 186~ etc. By Spencer American Journal of Sctence an t e r s. ' F. Baird." B J. w. Dawson, LL.D., "The Story of the Earth an~ M~~· ~or of McGill University, F.R.S., F. G. S., Principal and &VI~:- ::o~. New York: Harper & Montreal. London : Hodder oug ' Brothers. 1873. Pp. 403, 12mo. ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 231 vigor and a raison dJe&re for the present day. This latter he did, not only by bringing forward a vera eatttsa in the survilval of the fittest under changing circumstances- abou~ which the question among naturalists mainly is how much it will explain, some allowing it a restricted, others an unlimited operation-but also by showing that the theory may be made to do work, may shape and direct investigations, the results of which must in time tell us whether th~ theory is likely to hold good or not. If the hypothesis of natural selection and the things thereto appertaining had not been capable of being put to useful work, although, like the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," it might have made no little noise in the world, it would hardly have engaged the attention of working naturalists as it has done. We have no idea even of opening the question as to what work the Darwinian theory has incited, and in what way the work done has reacted upon the theory; and least of all do we like to meddle with the polemical literature of the subject, already so voluminous that the German bibliographers and booksellers make a separate class of it. But two or three treatises before us, of a minor or incidental sort, suggest a remark or two upon the attitude of mind toward evolutionary theories taken by some of the working naturalists. Mr. Darwin's own expectation, that his new presentation of the subject would have little or no effect upon those who had already reached middle-age, has -out of Paris-not been fulfilled. There are, indeed, one or two who have thought it their duty to denounce the theory as morally dangerous, as well as scienti:fi· 11 |