EVOLUTION

ISBN: 9780267417056 Géneros: PSAJ Sinópsis: Excerpt from Evolution Darwinian and Spencerian the Herbert Spencer Lecture Delivered at the Museum 8 December 1910During the Darwinian celebration here last year it was claimed that through Lyell who was a pupil of Bucklands Oxford had some influence in moulding the career of Charles Darwin whose indebtedness to the illustrious pioneer of modern Geology is notorious Such influence as Buckland had in forming Lyells geological views was however of a negative rather than of a positive character for the pupils reputation was ultimately made by overthrowing the teaching of his master In a similarly indirect way and also through Lyell Oxford may be said to have influenced Herbert Spencer since he first read the Principles of Geology in 1840 when twenty years old and the arguments advanced in the early editions of that work against Lamarcks theory of animal development led him as he has told us in his Autobiography to a partial acceptance of Lamarcks views In a more direct way may Oxford claim also to have influenced Spencer since Dean Mansel the author of those wellknown Bampton Lectures so freely quoted in the First Principles was a distinguished member of this University Whether Spencers early acceptance of Lamarckism is responsible for his later tenacity in combating the views of that school of biologists founded by Weismann is a point which might serve for academic discussion but whateverSee also the Filiation of Ideas in Duncans Life and Letters p 536View may be held concerning his attitude with respect to this question there can be no doubt that his mind was given a bias towards development as a principle at this early stage in his career Through all his subsequent writings the underlying idea of development can be traced with increasing depth and breadth expanding in 1850 in his Social Statics to a foreshadowing of the general doctrine of Evolution1 In 1852 his views on organic evolution had become s