NOTES AND LITERATURE 



EVOLUTION AND HEREDITY 



Darwinism To-day. 1 — " Charles Darwin was the foremost scien- 

 tific man of the entire nineteenth century, and I think he must 

 also be termed the greatest Knglishman of his time. Even the 

 very few persons who would assign to the famous naturalist a 

 less solitary preeminence must admit that his ability was of 

 the highest order." Such an estimate of Darwin, recently ex- 

 pressed by Professor Minot, is seldom presented in discussions 

 of Darwinism. Those using this term must explain that they 

 do not mean the origin of coral islands through subsidence of 

 the ocean floor, or the overturning of the earth by worms, or the 

 adaptations of plaids to cross-fertilization, or even organic evo- 

 lution, but that they have in mind natural and sexual selection 

 and perhaps also pangenesis. The recent book by Professor 



The first chapter introduces the reader to the "philosophic 

 turmoil and wordy strife," very little of which is said to have 

 found its way into current American literature. In the second 

 chapter it is stated that the "millions of kinds of animals and 



they have come into existence spontaneously, they have been 



scended one from the other in many-branching series by gradual 

 transformation. There is absolutely no scientific evidence for 

 either of the first two ways ; ... If such a summary disposal 



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