The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope

Henry Edward Crampton

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• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
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• Langue: English

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Henry Edward Crampton
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Title: The Doctrine of Evolution Its Basis and Its
Scope
Author: Henry Edward Crampton
Release Date: August 5, 2005 [EBook #16442]
Language: English
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Columbia University Lectures
THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION
THE HEWITT LECTURES
1906-1907
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES
AGENTS
NEW YORK:
LEMCKE & BUECHNER
30-32 WEST 27TH STREET
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD AMEN
CORNER, E.C.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LECTURESTHE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION
ITS BASIS AND ITS SCOPE
BY
HENRY EDWARD CRAMPTON, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF ZOÖLOGY, COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY
New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1916
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1911,
By THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Set up and electrotyped. Published June,
1911.
Reprinted December, 1912; September,
1916.
Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith
Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.PREFACE
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 each evening's discussion has been
somewhat changed, but there has been no
substantial alteration of the subjects actually
discussed.
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 coursewas, 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.CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EVOLUTION. THE LIVING ORGANISM AND
ITS NATURAL HISTORY 1
II. THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF
ANIMALS AS EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION 35
III. THE EVIDENCE OF FOSSIL REMAINS 73
IV. EVOLUTION AS A NATURAL PROCESS 106
V. THE PHYSICAL EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN
SPECIES AND OF HUMAN RACES 150
VI. THE MENTAL EVOLUTION OF MAN 197
VII. SOCIAL EVOLUTION AS A BIOLOGICAL
PROCESS 241
VIII. EVOLUTION AND THE HIGHER HUMAN
LIFE 278
INDEX 313I
EVOLUTION. THE LIVING ORGANISM AND ITS
NATURAL HISTORY
The Doctrine of Evolution is a body of principles
and facts concerning the present condition and
past history of the living and lifeless things that
make up the universe. It teaches that natural
processes have gone on in the earlier ages of the
world as they do to-day, and that natural forces
have ordered the production of all things about
which we know.
It is difficult to find the right words with which to
begin the discussion of so vast a subject. As a
general statement the doctrine is perhaps the
simplest formula of natural science, although the
facts and processes which it summarizes are the
most complex that the human intellect can
contemplate. Nothing in natural history seems to
be surer than evolution, and yet the final solution of
evolutionary problems defies the most subtle skill
of the trained analyst of nature's order. No single
human mind can contain all the facts of a single
small department of natural science, nor can one
mind comprehend fully the relations of all the
various departments of knowledge, but
nevertheless evolution seems to describe the
history of all facts and their relations throughout
the entire field of knowledge. Were it possible for a
man to live a hundred years, he could only begin
the exploration of the vast domains of science, and
were his life prolonged indefinitely, his task would
remain forever unaccomplished, for progress in
any direction would bring him inevitably to newer
and still unexplored regions of thought.
Therefore it would seem that we are attempting an
impossible task when we undertake in the brief
time before us the study of this universal principle
and its fundamental concepts and applications. But
are the difficulties insuperable? Truly our efforts
would be foredoomed to failure were it not that the
materials of knowledge are grouped in classes and
departments which may be illustrated by a few
representative data. And it is also true that every
one has thought more or less widely and deeply
about human nature, about the living world to
which we belong, and about the circumstances that
control our own lives and those of our fellow
creatures. Many times we withdraw from the world
of strenuous endeavor to think about the "meaning
of things," and upon the "why" and "wherefore&quo