224 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



KE EAKLY AMEKICAN EVOLUTIONIST. 



By CHARLES MINOR BLACKFORD, Jr., M. D., 



PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 



AS a general rule, the influence of the theory of evolution as a 

 J^- potent factor in the biological sciences is considered to date 

 from the publication of the Origin of Species in November, 1859. 

 It is true that the theory did not originate with Mr. Darwin. It may 

 be traced in more or less definite shape through the whole history 

 of philosophy, and in our own century Lamarck * formulated a doc- 

 trine of development as fully as could be done with the data at hand 

 in his day. The Origin of Species was fortunate in finding an 

 expositor so simple and clear in style, so accurate and full in scien- 

 tific knowledge as Mr. Huxley. Equally at home before the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science or a Workingmen's 

 Lyceum, he brought to his subject the same conviction of right, the 

 same strong, vigorous English, and the same rigorous logic that had 

 enabled him at the age of thirty-five to face the Bishop of Oxford, 

 and Owen, the foremost anatomist of his time, and vanquish each 

 in turn before the greatest assembly of scientific students that gath- 

 ers in Great Britain. With such a disciple and apostle it is not 

 wonderful that the name and fame of Darwin should have been 

 indissolubly connected with evolution, although his chief work in 

 relation to it was an effort to determine the precise means by which 

 variation was perpetuated and increased. 



How the religious world rose in arms at the suggestion of such 

 a hypothesis is well known. From the College of the Propaganda 

 to the most extreme of the dissenting churches, all shades of re- 

 ligious opinion united to denounce the theory and those who upheld 

 it, and the echoes of the conflict have not died away even now. Un- 

 der these circumstances it is with a curious interest that we examine 

 a work that was issued a few months before the Origin of Species 

 saw the light, and, after seeing how fully it foreshadowed the later 

 work, compare the approbation with which religious leaders hailed 

 it with the denunciation heaped on the other by the same writers. 



The title-page reads: The Testimony of Modern Science to the 

 Unity of Mankind, being a Summary of the Conclusions announced 

 by the Highest Authorities in the Several Departments of Physi- 

 ology, Zoology, and Comparative Philology in Favor of the Spe- 

 cific Unity and Common Origin of all the Varieties of Man. By 

 J. L. Cabell, M. D., Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physi- 

 ology in the University of Virginia. With an Introductory Notice 



* Philosophic Zoologique. Par J. Lamarck. Paris, 1809. 



