COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY BIOLOGICAL SERIES. 
DESIGNED FOR INDEPENDENT READING AND AS TEXT- BOOKS — 
FOR LECTURE AND LABORATORY COURSES 
OF INSTRUCTION. 
EDITED BY 
HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D., LL.D., 
De Costa Professor of Zovlogy, Columbia University, 
AND 
EDMUND B. WILSON, Ph.D., LL.D., 
Professor of Zoslogy, Columbia University. 
VOL. I. 
FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN. 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EVOLUTION IDEA. 
By HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D., LL.D. 
Cloth. 8vo. 259 pages. 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
“ Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn 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- 
born 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 dr that of literature.” 
— President Davip 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.” 
— New 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 
Illustrated. Price, $2.00 net. 
a 
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 Sczence, 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.” — The 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 Osborn’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 Osborn has undertaken a more compre- 
hensive work, and with well-balanced judgment 
assigns a place to each writer.” 
— Professor Epwarp B. Poutton, 
in Nature, London, 
