Abstract
THE fascinating hypothesis of Darwinism has, within the last few years, so completely taken hold of the scientific mind, both in this country and in Germany, that almost the whole of our rising men of science may be classed as belonging to this school of thought. Probably since the time of Newton no man has had so great an influence over the development of scientific thought as Mr. Darwin; and no one can over-estimate the debt which Science owes to his patient researches and his clear insight into some of the hidden ways of Nature. The advocates of Darwinism have, however, almost invariably failed to recognise that the theory consists of two essentially distinct portions, one of which may be admitted while the other is denied. The first portion is that with which the name of Darwin is popularly associated, although its origination is by no means due to him, namely, the probable ancestry of all forms of living organism from a single or a few original germs; the other portion, and that which we especially owe to his genius, is the theory that the infinite modifications of existing forms owe their origin to a process of Natural Selection from spontaneous variations. These two perfectly distinct hypotheses have generally been so confounded together that those who have attacked or defended the one have also attacked or defended the other. My object in the present paper is to show that, while the former hypothesis may be considered as established, as nearly as it is possible to establish a theory which requires thousands or millions of years for its complete development, the arguments in support of the second hypothesis are far less satisfactory.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
BENNETT, A. The Theory of Natural Selection from a Mathematical Point of View * . Nature 3, 30–33 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/003030a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/003030a0
This article is cited by
-
Evolution as Fact, Theory, and Path
Evolution: Education and Outreach (2008)