Darwinism and Human Life: The South African Lectures for 1909Henry Holt, 1910 - 245 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
acquired characters adaptations Alfred Russel Wallace animals Arthur Thomson Beagle become biological birds blue body breeding brown rat cells Charles Darwin colour correlation of organs Darwin's day Darwin's services Darwinian depends direction earthworms egg-cell eggs elimination endeavour environment evidence evolution formula experimental factors facts fertilised forms Galton gametes germ-cells germinal variations hereditary heredity heritable human Huxley idea illustration important individual influence inheritance insects instance intellectual interpretation Karl Pearson larvæ living creatures London mating mean Mendel Mendelian Mendelian inheritance method mice mind modifications mutations natural selection naturalists normal nurture occur offspring organic evolution Origin of Species ovum owe to Darwin pair parents peculiarities plants Prof progress qualities question race raw material realise recognise regard says scientific mood sense social spermatozoon struggle for existence suggested surroundings survival T. H. Morgan theory things tion transmission unit characters variability
Popular passages
Page 47 - Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult — at least I have found it so — than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood.
Page 139 - I happened to read for amusement ' Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances • favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work...
Page 28 - Therefore, my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have been — the love of science — unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject — industry in observing and collecting facts — and a fair share of invention as well as of common-sense. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced...
Page 42 - It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.
Page 37 - Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bees, believes that " more than two-thirds of them are thus destroyed all over England.
Page 3 - ... greatly alter (as indeed I have observed in parts of South America) the vegetation: this again would largely affect the insects ; and this, as we...
Page 25 - I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.
Page 26 - I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by 69 experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones.
Page 106 - It must be clearly understood that there is nothing in these statements to invalidate the general doctrine that the children of a gifted pair are much more likely to be gifted than the children of a mediocre pair. They merely express the fact that the ablest of all the children of a few gifted pairs is not likely to be as gifted as the ablest of all the children of a very great many mediocre pairs
Page 37 - I have also found that the visits of bees are necessary for the fertilisation of some kinds of clover; for instance...