COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY BIOLOGICAL SERIES. 



DESIGNED FOR INDEPENDENT READING AND AS TEXT-BOOKS 



FOR LECTURE AND LABORATORY COURSES 



OF INSTRUCTION. 



EDITED BY 



HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, 



De Costa Professor of Zoology in Columbia University. 



VOL. L FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIR 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EVOLUTION IDEA. 



By HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D. 

 Cloth. 8vo. 259 pages. Illustrated. Price, $2.00. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



" Professor Henry Fairfield Osbom has rendered 

 an important service by the preparation of a concise 

 history of the growth of the idea of Evolution. The 

 chief contributions of the different thinkers from 

 Thales to Darwin are brought into clear perspective, 

 and a just estimate of the methods and results of each 

 one is reached. The work is extremely well done, 

 and it has an added value of great importance in the 

 fact that the author is a trained biologist. Dr. Os- 

 bom is himself one of the authorities in the science 

 of Evolution, to which he has made important con- 

 tributions. He is therefore in a position to estimate 

 the value of scientific theories more justly than would 

 be possible to one who approached the subject from 

 the standpoint of metaphysics or that of literature." 

 — President David Starr Jordan, 



in The Dial, Chicago. 



" A somewhat new and very interesting field of in- 

 quiry is opened in this work, which is devoted to 

 demonstrating that the doctrine of Evolution, far 

 from being a child of the middle of the nineteenth 

 century, of sudden birth and phenomenally rapid 

 growth, as it is by many supposed to be, has really 

 been in men's minds for ages. It appears in the 

 germ in the earliest Greek philosophy; in vigorous 

 childhood in the works of Aristotle ; in adolescence 

 at the closing period of the last century; and reaches 

 full-grown manhood in our own age of scientific 

 thought and indefatigable research." 



— Neiu Science Review. 



" This is a timely book. For it is time that both 

 the special student and general public should know 

 that the doctrine of Evolution has cropped out of the 

 surface of human thought from the period of the 

 Greek philosophers, and that it did not originate 

 with Darwin, and that natural selection is not a 

 synonym of Evolution. . . . The book should be 



widely read, not only by science teachers, by biologi- 

 cal students, but we hope that historians, students of 

 social science, and theologians will acquaint them- 

 selves with this clear, candid, and catholic statement 

 of the origin and early history of a theory, which not 

 only explains the origin of life-forms, but has trans- 

 formed the methods of the historian, placed philoso- 

 phy on a higher plane, and immeasurably widened 

 our views of nature and of the Infinite Power work- 

 ing in and through the universe." 



— Professor A. S. Packard, 



in Science, New York. 



" This is an attempt to determine the history of 

 Evolution, its development and that of its elements, 

 and the indebtedness of modern to earlier investi- 

 gators. The book is a valuable contribution; it will 

 do a great deal of good in disseminating more accu- 

 rate ideas of the accomplishments of the present as 

 compared with the past, and in broadening the views 

 of such as have confined themselves too closely to 

 the recent or to specialties. ... As a whole the 

 book is admirable. The author has been more im- 

 partial than any of those who have in part anticipated 

 him in the same line of work." — TAe Nation. 



" But whether the thread be broken or continuous, 

 the history of thought upon this all-important subject 

 is of the deepest interest, and Professor Osbom's 

 work will be welcomed by all who take an intelligent 

 interest in Evolution. Up to the present, the pre- 

 Darwinian evolutionists have been for the most part 

 considered singly, the claims of particular naturalists 

 being urged often with too warm an enthusiasm. 

 Professor Osbom has undertaken a more compre- 

 hensive work, and with well-balanced judgment 

 assigns a place to each writer." 



— Professor Edward B. Poulton, 



in Nature, London. 



