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Its Basis and Its Scope
Author: Henry Edward Crampton
Release Date: August 5, 2005 [EBook #16442]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION ***
Columbia University Lectures
THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION
THE HEWITT LECTURES
1906-1907
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON:
HUMPHREY MILFORD
AMEN CORNER, E.C.
_COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LECTURES_
THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION
ITS BASIS AND ITS SCOPE
BY
HENRY EDWARD CRAMPTON, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF ZO LOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
COPYRIGHT, 1911,
By THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1911.
Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
The present volume consists of a series of eight addresses delivered as
the Hewitt Lectures of Columbia University at Cooper Union in New York
City during the months of February and March, 1907. The purpose of these
lectures was to describe in concise outline the Doctrine of Evolution, its
basis in the facts of natural history, and its wide and universal scope.
They fall naturally into two groups. Those of the first part deal with
matters of definition, with the essential characteristics of living
things, and, at greater length, with the evidences of organic evolution.
The lectures of the second group take up the various aspects of human
evolution as a special instance of the general organic process. In this
latter part of the series, the subject of physical evolution is first
considered, and this is followed by an analysis of human mental evolution;
the chapter on social evolution extends the fundamental principles to a
field which is not usually considered by biologists, and its purpose is to
demonstrate the efficiency of the genetic method in this department as in
all others; finally, the principles are extended to what is called "the
higher human life," the realm, namely, of ethical, religious, and
theological ideas and ideals.
Naturally, so broad a survey of knowledge could not include any extensive
array of specific details in any one of its divisions; it was possible
only to set forth some of the more striking and significant facts which
would demonstrate the nature and meaning of that department from which
they were selected. The illustrations were usually made concrete through
the use of photographs, which must naturally be lacking in the present
volume. In preparing the addresses for publication, the verbal form of
The choice of materials and the mode of their presentations were
determined by the general purpose of the whole course. The audiences were
made up almost exclusively of mature persons of cultivated minds, but who
were on the whole quite unfamiliar with the technical facts of natural
history. It was necessary to disregard most of the problematical elements
of the doctrine so as to bring out only the basic and thoroughly
substantiated principles of evolution. The course was, in a word, a simple
message to the unscientific; and while it may seem at first that the
discussions of the latter chapters lead to somewhat insecure positions, it
should be remembered that their purpose was to bring forward the proof
that even the so-called higher elements of human life are subject to
classification and analysis, like the facts of the lower organic world.
It may seem that the biologist is straying beyond his subject when he
undertakes to extend the principles of organic evolution to those
possessions of mankind that seem to be unique. The task was undertaken in
the Hewitt Lectures because the writer holds the deeply grounded
conviction that evolution has been continuous throughout, and that the
study of lower organic forms where laws reveal themselves in more
fundamental simplicity must lead the investigator to employ and apply
those laws in the study of the highest natural phenomena that can be
found. Another motive was equally strong. Too frequently men of science
are accused of restricting the application of their results to their own
particular fields of inquiry. As individuals they use their knowledge for
the development of world conceptions, which they are usually reluctant to
display before the world. It is because I believe that the accusation is
often only too well merited that I have endeavored to show as well as
circumstances permit how universal is the scope of the doctrine based upon
the facts of biology, and how supreme are its practical and dynamic
values.
It remains only to state that the present volume contains nothing new,
either in fact or in principle; the particular form and mode of presenting
the evolutionary history of nature may be considered as the author's
personal contribution to the subject. Nothing has been stated that has not
the sanction of high authority as well as of the writer's own conviction;
but it will be clear that the believers in the truth of the analysis as
made in the later chapters may become progressively fewer, as the various
aspects of human life and of human nature are severally treated.
Nevertheless, I believe that this volume presents a consistent reasonable
view that will not be essentially different from the conceptions of all
men of science who believe in evolution.
1 II. THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMALS AS EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION 35 III. THE EVIDENCE OF FOSSIL REMAINS
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