Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species; Addresses, &c., in America and England in the Year of the Two Anniversaries

Abstract

ON November 24, 1859, appeared the first edition of that immortal work—the outcome of twenty years' research—which was destined to revolutionise scientific thought, first in the domain of organic nature, and ultimately in every department of intellectual activity. The celebrations of the jubilee of this publication and of the centenary of the birth of its illustrious author, held at Baltimore in January, at Oxford in February, and at Cambridge in June of the present year, have been the means of directing public attention in such detail and in such forcible terms to the magnitude of Darwin's achievements and to the far-reaching consequences of his labours that it may well be doubted whether any further tribute can be paid to the memory of our great countryman. Nevertheless, on the present occasion, practically coincident with the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the “Origin,” it is only appropriate that we should direct attention in these columns to the latest contribution to Darwinian literature, the above work by Prof. Poulton, which the author has happily contrived to issue on the exact date of the anniversary. The readers of NATURE may be reminded that in these pages, to which Darwin himself was a rare contributor, some of the greatest questions raised by the publication of the “Origin” have been fought out by the leaders of science in that field of natural knowledge which, at the touch of what Helmholtz designated the “new creative thought,” became reduced from a state of chaos to one of scientific order.

Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species; Addresses, &c., in America and England in the Year of the Two Anniversaries.

By Prof. E. B. Poulton, Pp. xvi + 280 and index. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909.)