FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50  
51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   >>   >|  
nd others.[8] The Rev. George Henslow, Lecturer on Botany at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, himself a pronounced evolutionist, says the theories of Lamarck and of the "Vestiges of Creation" have given place to that of Mr. Darwin; "and there are not wanting many symptoms of decay in the acceptance even of his. Not only has he considerably modified his views in later editions of the 'Origin of Species,' distinctly expressing the opinion that he attributed too great influence to natural selection, but even men of science, Owen, Huxley,--and at least in its application to man, Wallace himself,--are either opposed to it in great measure, or else give it but a qualified assent. Thus, it has been the fate of all theories of the development of living things to lapse into oblivion. _Evolution_ itself, however, will stand the same."[9] We find in the "Transactions of the Victoria Institute," a still more decided repudiation of Darwinism on the part of Mr. Henslow. He there says: "I do not believe in Darwin's theory; and have endeavored to refute it by showing its utter impossibility."[10] He defines Evolution by saying, "It supposes all animals and plants that exist now, or have ever existed, to have been produced through laws of generation from preexisting animals and plants respectively; that affinity amongst organic beings implies, or is due to community of descent; and that the degree of affinity between organisms is in proportion to their nearness of generation, or, at least, to the persistence of common characters, they being the products of originally the same parentage."[11] A man, therefore, may be an evolutionist, without being a Darwinian. It should be mentioned that Mr. Henslow expressly excludes man, both as to body and soul, from the law of evolution. Nor is the theory of natural selection the vital principle of Mr. Darwin's theory, unless the word natural be taken in a sense antithetical to supernatural. In the historical sketch just referred to, Mr. Darwin not only says that he had been anticipated in teaching the doctrine of Evolution by Lamarck and the author of the "Vestiges of Creation;" but that the theory of natural selection, as the means of accounting for evolution, was not original with him. He tells us that as early as 1813, Dr. W. C. Wells "distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection;" and that Mr. Patrick Matthew, in 1831, "gives precisely the same view of the origin of species as th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50  
51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

natural

 

selection

 

Darwin

 

theory

 

Henslow

 

Evolution

 

affinity

 

Creation

 

theories

 

distinctly


evolution

 

principle

 

evolutionist

 

generation

 

Vestiges

 

animals

 

Lamarck

 

plants

 
implies
 

Darwinian


expressly

 
community
 

beings

 

descent

 

mentioned

 

preexisting

 

characters

 

organic

 

common

 
persistence

nearness
 

excludes

 

organisms

 

products

 
degree
 
proportion
 
originally
 

parentage

 
historical
 

original


origin

 

species

 

precisely

 

recognizes

 

Patrick

 

Matthew

 

accounting

 

antithetical

 

supernatural

 

teaching