Evolution / by Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson.

  • Patrick Geddes
Date:
[1911?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evolution / by Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    BIBLIOGRAPHY This list of books has been made longer than in most of the volumes of the series, and for three reasons. (1) The scientific study of organic evolution is still very young. There are many uncertainties, there is rapid progress along diverse lines, there are not a few moot and controversial points. We wish to recognize this by giving a representative set of refer¬ ences, indicative of various schools of evolutionists. (2) We have met, personally and in correspondence, a large number of able-minded workers—face to face with evolution problems, e. g. as breeders or as gardeners, as medical practitioners or travellers—who had thought long, and sometimes carefully, over particular sets of facts, but remained entirely unaware that these had been threshed out, not once or twice, but many times over. Not that this refuses value to any new observation or thought, but it suggests that some literary research may be reasonably expected from those who have reached what they feel sure is an upsetting conclusion. We hope that this little book and this list will facilitate that research. (3) The problem of Becoming is not particular to any one science. It is social as well as cosmic and organic. Therefore in our list we have not forgotten that Darwinism touches the Humanities. * Those marked with one asterisk may be the best books for a student to begin with. But the best beginning is always where the personal tendril fixes. ** Those marked with two asterisks record important post- Darwinian investigations. It is too difficult to affix marks to suggestive thoughts— shall we say of Bergson, for instance—which may turn out to be of much more value than many concrete studies. The idea of confining “ research ” to the objective is grotesque. *** Those marked with three asterisks are “ classics.” Bailey, L. H.—“Plant-breeding.” 3rd Edition, 1904. [A valuable and practical study of variation and selection in cultivated plants. ] See also ‘ ‘ The Survival of the Unlike.” 1896.
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