The coming of evolution : the story of a great revolution in science / by John W. Judd.

  • Judd, John W. (John Wesley), 1840-1916.
Date:
1910
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The coming of evolution : the story of a great revolution in science / by John W. Judd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    human race, Darwin was led to propound his views concerning Sexual selection, the results of the pre- ferences shown by males and females, respectively, not only among mankind, but in various other animals. It was with respect to some of the conclusions con- tained in this work that Wallace found himself unable to follow Darwin. Wallace maintained that while man’s body could have been developed by Natural Selection, his intellectual and moral nature must have had a different origin. He also declined to adopt the theory of sexual selection, so far as it depends on preferences exhibited by females for beauty in the males. Wallace, however, in some respects has always been disposed to attach more importance to Natural Selection, as the greatest, if not the only factor in evolution, than Darwin himself. It will be seen that although Darwin had in all probability thought out all his important theoretical conclusions before 1869, when he reached the ‘fatal age/ yet, owing to various delays, the books, in which he embodied his views, had not all appeared till more than four years later. Lyell, who was a convinced evolutionist before the publication of the Principles of Geology, as is shown by his letters,—and the fact is strongly insisted on both by Huxley and Haeckel141,—was slow in coming into complete agreement with Darwin concerning the theory of Natural Selection. While he followed his