Ludovic Halevy - "L'Abbe Constantin, v2"

Plato - "Laws"

Jane Austen - "Persuasion"

James E. Seaver - "A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: On the Origin of Species

C >> Charles Darwin >> On the Origin of Species




Glancing at instincts, marvellous as some are, they offer no greater
difficulty than does corporeal structure on the theory of the natural
selection of successive, slight, but profitable modifications. We can
thus understand why nature moves by graduated steps in endowing
different animals of the same class with their several instincts. I
have attempted to show how much light the principle of gradation
throws on the admirable architectural powers of the hive-bee. Habit no
doubt sometimes comes into play in modifying instincts; but it
certainly is not indispensable, as we see, in the case of neuter
insects, which leave no progeny to inherit the effects of
long-continued habit. On the view of all the species of the same genus
having descended from a common parent, and having inherited much in
common, we can understand how it is that allied species, when placed
under considerably different conditions of life, yet should follow
nearly the same instincts; why the thrush of South America, for
instance, lines her nest with mud like our British species. On the
view of instincts having been slowly acquired through natural
selection we need not marvel at some instincts being apparently not
perfect and liable to mistakes, and at many instincts causing other
animals to suffer.

If species be only well-marked and permanent varieties, we can at once
see why their crossed offspring should follow the same complex laws in
their degrees and kinds of resemblance to their parents,--in being
absorbed into each other by successive crosses, and in other such
points,--as do the crossed offspring of acknowledged varieties. On the
other hand, these would be strange facts if species have been
independently created, and varieties have been produced by secondary
laws.

If we admit that the geological record is imperfect in an extreme
degree, then such facts as the record gives, support the theory of
descent with modification. New species have come on the stage slowly
and at successive intervals; and the amount of change, after equal
intervals of time, is widely different in different groups. The
extinction of species and of whole groups of species, which has played
so conspicuous a part in the history of the organic world, almost
inevitably follows on the principle of natural selection; for old
forms will be supplanted by new and improved forms. Neither single
species nor groups of species reappear when the chain of ordinary
generation has once been broken. The gradual diffusion of dominant
forms, with the slow modification of their descendants, causes the
forms of life, after long intervals of time, to appear as if they had
changed simultaneously throughout the world. The fact of the fossil
remains of each formation being in some degree intermediate in
character between the fossils in the formations above and below, is
simply explained by their intermediate position in the chain of
descent. The grand fact that all extinct organic beings belong to the
same system with recent beings, falling either into the same or into
intermediate groups, follows from the living and the extinct being the
offspring of common parents. As the groups which have descended from
an ancient progenitor have generally diverged in character, the
progenitor with its early descendants will often be intermediate in
character in comparison with its later descendants; and thus we can
see why the more ancient a fossil is, the oftener it stands in some
degree intermediate between existing and allied groups. Recent forms
are generally looked at as being, in some vague sense, higher than
ancient and extinct forms; and they are in so far higher as the later
and more improved forms have conquered the older and less improved
organic beings in the struggle for life. Lastly, the law of the long
endurance of allied forms on the same continent,--of marsupials in
Australia, of edentata in America, and other such cases,--is
intelligible, for within a confined country, the recent and the
extinct will naturally be allied by descent.

Looking to geographical distribution, if we admit that there has been
during the long course of ages much migration from one part of the
world to another, owing to former climatal and geographical changes
and to the many occasional and unknown means of dispersal, then we can
understand, on the theory of descent with modification, most of the
great leading facts in Distribution. We can see why there should be so
striking a parallelism in the distribution of organic beings
throughout space, and in their geological succession throughout time;
for in both cases the beings have been connected by the bond of
ordinary generation, and the means of modification have been the same.
We see the full meaning of the wonderful fact, which must have struck
every traveller, namely, that on the same continent, under the most
diverse conditions, under heat and cold, on mountain and lowland, on
deserts and marshes, most of the inhabitants within each great class
are plainly related; for they will generally be descendants of the
same progenitors and early colonists. On this same principle of former
migration, combined in most cases with modification, we can
understand, by the aid of the Glacial period, the identity of some few
plants, and the close alliance of many others, on the most distant
mountains, under the most different climates; and likewise the close
alliance of some of the inhabitants of the sea in the northern and
southern temperate zones, though separated by the whole intertropical
ocean. Although two areas may present the same physical conditions of
life, we need feel no surprise at their inhabitants being widely
different, if they have been for a long period completely separated
from each other; for as the relation of organism to organism is the
most important of all relations, and as the two areas will have
received colonists from some third source or from each other, at
various periods and in different proportions, the course of
modification in the two areas will inevitably be different.

On this view of migration, with subsequent modification, we can see
why oceanic islands should be inhabited by few species, but of these,
that many should be peculiar. We can clearly see why those animals
which cannot cross wide spaces of ocean, as frogs and terrestrial
mammals, should not inhabit oceanic islands; and why, on the other
hand, new and peculiar species of bats, which can traverse the ocean,
should so often be found on islands far distant from any continent.
Such facts as the presence of peculiar species of bats, and the
absence of all other mammals, on oceanic islands, are utterly
inexplicable on the theory of independent acts of creation.

The existence of closely allied or representative species in any two
areas, implies, on the theory of descent with modification, that the
same parents formerly inhabited both areas; and we almost invariably
find that wherever many closely allied species inhabit two areas, some
identical species common to both still exist. Wherever many closely
allied yet distinct species occur, many doubtful forms and varieties
of the same species likewise occur. It is a rule of high generality
that the inhabitants of each area are related to the inhabitants of
the nearest source whence immigrants might have been derived. We see
this in nearly all the plants and animals of the Galapagos
archipelago, of Juan Fernandez, and of the other American islands
being related in the most striking manner to the plants and animals of
the neighbouring American mainland; and those of the Cape de Verde
archipelago and other African islands to the African mainland. It must
be admitted that these facts receive no explanation on the theory of
creation.

The fact, as we have seen, that all past and present organic beings
constitute one grand natural system, with group subordinate to group,
and with extinct groups often falling in between recent groups, is
intelligible on the theory of natural selection with its contingencies
of extinction and divergence of character. On these same principles we
see how it is, that the mutual affinities of the species and genera
within each class are so complex and circuitous. We see why certain
characters are far more serviceable than others for
classification;--why adaptive characters, though of paramount
importance to the being, are of hardly any importance in
classification; why characters derived from rudimentary parts, though
of no service to the being, are often of high classificatory value;
and why embryological characters are the most valuable of all. The
real affinities of all organic beings are due to inheritance or
community of descent. The natural system is a genealogical
arrangement, in which we have to discover the lines of descent by the
most permanent characters, however slight their vital importance may
be.

The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a
bat, fin of the porpoise, and leg of the horse,--the same number of
vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant,--and
innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory
of descent with slow and slight successive modifications. The
similarity of pattern in the wing and leg of a bat, though used for
such different purpose,--in the jaws and legs of a crab,--in the
petals, stamens, and pistils of a flower, is likewise intelligible on
the view of the gradual modification of parts or organs, which were
alike in the early progenitor of each class. On the principle of
successive variations not always supervening at an early age, and
being inherited at a corresponding not early period of life, we can
clearly see why the embryos of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes
should be so closely alike, and should be so unlike the adult forms.
We may cease marvelling at the embryo of an air-breathing mammal or
bird having branchial slits and arteries running in loops, like those
in a fish which has to breathe the air dissolved in water, by the aid
of well-developed branchiae.

Disuse, aided sometimes by natural selection, will often tend to
reduce an organ, when it has become useless by changed habits or under
changed conditions of life; and we can clearly understand on this view
the meaning of rudimentary organs. But disuse and selection will
generally act on each creature, when it has come to maturity and has
to play its full part in the struggle for existence, and will thus
have little power of acting on an organ during early life; hence the
organ will not be much reduced or rendered rudimentary at this early
age. The calf, for instance, has inherited teeth, which never cut
through the gums of the upper jaw, from an early progenitor having
well-developed teeth; and we may believe, that the teeth in the mature
animal were reduced, during successive generations, by disuse or by
the tongue and palate having been fitted by natural selection to
browse without their aid; whereas in the calf, the teeth have been
left untouched by selection or disuse, and on the principle of
inheritance at corresponding ages have been inherited from a remote
period to the present day. On the view of each organic being and each
separate organ having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable
it is that parts, like the teeth in the embryonic calf or like the
shrivelled wings under the soldered wing-covers of some beetles,
should thus so frequently bear the plain stamp of inutility! Nature
may be said to have taken pains to reveal, by rudimentary organs and
by homologous structures, her scheme of modification, which it seems
that we wilfully will not understand.

I have now recapitulated the chief facts and considerations which have
thoroughly convinced me that species have changed, and are still
slowly changing by the preservation and accumulation of successive
slight favourable variations. Why, it may be asked, have all the most
eminent living naturalists and geologists rejected this view of the
mutability of species? It cannot be asserted that organic beings in a
state of nature are subject to no variation; it cannot be proved that
the amount of variation in the course of long ages is a limited
quantity; no clear distinction has been, or can be, drawn between
species and well-marked varieties. It cannot be maintained that
species when intercrossed are invariably sterile, and varieties
invariably fertile; or that sterility is a special endowment and sign
of creation. The belief that species were immutable productions was
almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to
be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the
lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the
geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain
evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.

But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one
species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are
always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the
intermediate steps. The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many
geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs
had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the slow action of
the coast-waves. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of
the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the
full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost
infinite number of generations.

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this
volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince
experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of
facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view
directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under
such expressions as the "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc.,
and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact.
Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to
unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number
of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed
with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on
the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I
look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists,
who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality.
Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good
service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus
can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be
removed.

Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a
multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but
that other species are real, that is, have been independently created.
This seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a
multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were
special creations, and which are still thus looked at by the majority
of naturalists, and which consequently have every external
characteristic feature of true species,--they admit that these have
been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to
other and very slightly different forms. Nevertheless they do not
pretend that they can define, or even conjecture, which are the
created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws.
They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily
reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two
cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious
illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion. These authors
seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an
ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods
in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded
suddenly to flash into living tissues? Do they believe that at each
supposed act of creation one individual or many were produced? Were
all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as
eggs or seed, or as full grown? and in the case of mammals, were they
created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb?
Although naturalists very properly demand a full explanation of every
difficulty from those who believe in the mutability of species, on
their own side they ignore the whole subject of the first appearance
of species in what they consider reverent silence.

It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of
species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more
distinct the forms are which we may consider, by so much the arguments
fall away in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend
very far. All the members of whole classes can be connected together
by chains of affinities, and all can be classified on the same
principle, in groups subordinate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes
tend to fill up very wide intervals between existing orders. Organs in
a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor had the
organ in a fully developed state; and this in some instances
necessarily implies an enormous amount of modification in the
descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on
the same pattern, and at an embryonic age the species closely resemble
each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with
modification embraces all the members of the same class. I believe
that animals have descended from at most only four or five
progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all
animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy
may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in
common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their
cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see
this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often
similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by
the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree.
Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic
beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some
one primordial form, into which life was first breathed. When the
views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when
analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that
there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.
Systematists will be able to pursue their labours as at present; but
they will not be incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this
or that form be in essence a species. This I feel sure, and I speak
after experience, will be no slight relief. The endless disputes
whether or not some fifty species of British brambles are true species
will cease. Systematists will have only to decide (not that this will
be easy) whether any form be sufficiently constant and distinct from
other forms, to be capable of definition; and if definable, whether
the differences be sufficiently important to deserve a specific name.
This latter point will become a far more essential consideration than
it is at present; for differences, however slight, between any two
forms, if not blended by intermediate gradations, are looked at by
most naturalists as sufficient to raise both forms to the rank of
species. Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only
distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the
latter are known, or believed, to be connected at the present day by
intermediate gradations, whereas species were formerly thus connected.
Hence, without quite rejecting the consideration of the present
existence of intermediate gradations between any two forms, we shall
be led to weigh more carefully and to value higher the actual amount
of difference between them. It is quite possible that forms now
generally acknowledged to be merely varieties may hereafter be thought
worthy of specific names, as with the primrose and cowslip; and in
this case scientific and common language will come into accordance. In
short, we shall have to treat species in the same manner as those
naturalists treat genera, who admit that genera are merely artificial
combinations made for convenience. This may not be a cheering
prospect; but we shall at least be freed from the vain search for the
undiscovered and undiscoverable essence of the term species.

The other and more general departments of natural history will rise
greatly in interest. The terms used by naturalists of affinity,
relationship, community of type, paternity, morphology, adaptive
characters, rudimentary and aborted organs, etc., will cease to be
metaphorical, and will have a plain signification. When we no longer
look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something
wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of
nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every
complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances,
each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look
at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labour, the
experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen;
when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I
speak from experience, will the study of natural history become!

A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the
causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects
of use and disuse, on the direct action of external conditions, and so
forth. The study of domestic productions will rise immensely in value.
A new variety raised by man will be a far more important and
interesting subject for study than one more species added to the
infinitude of already recorded species. Our classifications will come
to be, as far as they can be so made, genealogies; and will then truly
give what may be called the plan of creation. The rules for
classifying will no doubt become simpler when we have a definite
object in view. We possess no pedigrees or armorial bearings; and we
have to discover and trace the many diverging lines of descent in our
natural genealogies, by characters of any kind which have long been
inherited. Rudimentary organs will speak infallibly with respect to
the nature of long-lost structures. Species and groups of species,
which are called aberrant, and which may fancifully be called living
fossils, will aid us in forming a picture of the ancient forms of
life. Embryology will reveal to us the structure, in some degree
obscured, of the prototypes of each great class.

When we can feel assured that all the individuals of the same species,
and all the closely allied species of most genera, have within a not
very remote period descended from one parent, and have migrated from
some one birthplace; and when we better know the many means of
migration, then, by the light which geology now throws, and will
continue to throw, on former changes of climate and of the level of
the land, we shall surely be enabled to trace in an admirable manner
the former migrations of the inhabitants of the whole world. Even at
present, by comparing the differences of the inhabitants of the sea on
the opposite sides of a continent, and the nature of the various
inhabitants of that continent in relation to their apparent means of
immigration, some light can be thrown on ancient geography.

The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection
of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded remains must
not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection
made at hazard and at rare intervals. The accumulation of each great
fossiliferous formation will be recognised as having depended on an
unusual concurrence of circumstances, and the blank intervals between
the successive stages as having been of vast duration. But we shall be
able to gauge with some security the duration of these intervals by a
comparison of the preceding and succeeding organic forms. We must be
cautious in attempting to correlate as strictly contemporaneous two
formations, which include few identical species, by the general
succession of their forms of life. As species are produced and
exterminated by slowly acting and still existing causes, and not by
miraculous acts of creation and by catastrophes; and as the most
important of all causes of organic change is one which is almost
independent of altered and perhaps suddenly altered physical
conditions, namely, the mutual relation of organism to organism,--the
improvement of one being entailing the improvement or the
extermination of others; it follows, that the amount of organic change
in the fossils of consecutive formations probably serves as a fair
measure of the lapse of actual time. A number of species, however,
keeping in a body might remain for a long period unchanged, whilst
within this same period, several of these species, by migrating into
new countries and coming into competition with foreign associates,
might become modified; so that we must not overrate the accuracy of
organic change as a measure of time. During early periods of the
earth's history, when the forms of life were probably fewer and
simpler, the rate of change was probably slower; and at the first dawn
of life, when very few forms of the simplest structure existed, the
rate of change may have been slow in an extreme degree. The whole
history of the world, as at present known, although of a length quite
incomprehensible by us, will hereafter be recognised as a mere
fragment of time, compared with the ages which have elapsed since the
first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living
descendants, was created.