From the Greeks to Darwin: an Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea

Abstract

THE object of this most interesting and useful work is to survey the last twenty-four centuries and bring together the thoughts—true and false—upon evolution. Examining and comparing the material which he has collected, the author concludes “that the influences of early upon later thought are greater than has been believed, that Darwin owes more even to the Greeks than we have ever recognised.” In supporting this conclusion the author desires to give due credit to the earlier writers, but not to lower in any way the transcendant position occupied by Darwin. Indeed, so scrupulously fair is the treatment that the materials are thoroughly available to those who do not altogether follow the author in his conclusion. And many objections to the conclusion are most prominently brought forward. Thus the great interval between the beginning and the middle of the present century, when all continuity in evolutionary thought seemed to be broken, is described again and again. We read on page 12: “Perhaps the sharpest transition was at the close of the third period, in which a distinct anti-evolution school had sprung up and succeeded in firmly entrenching itself, so that Darwin and Wallace began the present era with some abruptness.” Again, on pages 227 and 228, the strong prejudice against evolution which marks this peiiod is illustrated in many ways, and the section concludes: “… all the progress which had been made in the long centuries we have been considering was, for the time, a latent force. The Evolution idea, with the numerous truths which had accumulated about it, was again almost wholly subordinate to the Special Creation idea.”

From the Greeks to Darwin: an Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea.

By Henry Fairfield Osborn, Da Costa Professor of Biology in Columbia College, &c. (New York: Macmillan and Co.)