The causes and course of organic evolution : a study of bioenergics / by John Muirhead Macfarlane.

  • John Muirhead Macfarlane
Date:
1918
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The causes and course of organic evolution : a study of bioenergics / by John Muirhead Macfarlane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/906
    sented in succeeding chapters of this work, and though the writer’s conclusions are at variance with past current opinion, he trusts that the facts advanced will be weighed in that spirit of fairness and impartiality that should characterize all scientific method. But, as has often been emphasized during the past quarter century, it is impossible to 'bring together a book like the pre¬ sent, with pretension at the same time on the part of the author to the knowledge of a specialist in every department of biological inquiry. The facts of Botany and Zoology are now so detailed and elaborated that few can hope to cover more than a very limited field with the knowledge and dis¬ cerning keenness of an extreme specialist. This need not militate however against the making of an effort to link to¬ gether isolated facts or groups of facts, if thereby the bounds of biological knowledge can be extended. But in saying this the writer is deeply conscious that not a few shortcomings or mistakes may be revealed in the succeeding pages, when these are perused by the specialist. For, as a specialist himself in some departments of botanical science, he has ever found the above to be true of the efforts even of the most distinguished investigator. He would therefore ask a degree of considera¬ tion on the ground that his whole aim has been to advance truth and knowledge, even though at the cost of cherished opinions or convictions, of the past. During the progress of his investigations he has been in¬ creasingly impressed by three outstanding characteristics of organisms. First and of extreme importance is the principle of continuity as traced from the simplest organized body to the highest expressions of moral and religious organization in man. Second, as the subtitle of this work and practically every chapter of it emphasize, the outstanding phenomenon of organic existence is not passive inert matter but energy, that continuous but ever transformable and subtle agency that starts and effects all cosmic changes. So energy, continu¬ ity, evolution may be said to constitute the triune basis of ex¬ istence, and together form the keynote to this volume. i -) ] \ , ! » 1 . '• , •L , . c u i , ■■!i •
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3