| AN EARLY AMERICAN EVOLUTIONIST. |
By CHARLES MINOR BLACKFORD, Jr., M. D.,
PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA.
AS a general rule, the influence of the theory of evolution as a potent factor in the biological sciences is considered to date from the publication of the Origin of Species in November, 1859. It is true that the theory did not originate with Mr. Darwin. It may be traced in more or less definite shape through the whole history of philosophy, and in our own century Lamarck[1] formulated a doctrine of development as fully as could be done with the data at hand in his day. The Origin of Species was fortunate in finding an expositor so simple and clear in style, so accurate and full in scientific knowledge as Mr. Huxley. Equally at home before the British Association for the Advancement of Science or a Workingmen's Lyceum, he brought to his subject the same conviction of right, the same strong, vigorous English, and the same rigorous logic that had enabled him at the age of thirty-five to face the Bishop of Oxford, and Owen, the foremost anatomist of his time, and vanquish each in turn before the greatest assembly of scientific students that gathers in Great Britain. With such a disciple and apostle it is not wonderful that the name and fame of Darwin should have been indissolubly connected with evolution, although his chief work in relation to it was an effort to determine the precise means by which variation was perpetuated and increased.
How the religious world rose in arms at the suggestion of such a hypothesis is well known. From the College of the Propaganda to the most extreme of the dissenting churches, all shades of religious opinion united to denounce the theory and those who upheld it, and the echoes of the conflict have not died away even now. Under these circumstances it is with a curious interest that we examine a work that was issued a few months before the Origin of Species saw the light, and, after seeing how fully it foreshadowed the later work, compare the approbation with which religious leaders hailed it with the denunciation heaped on the other by the same writers.
The title-page reads: The Testimony of Modern Science to the Unity of Mankind, being a Summary of the Conclusions announced by the Highest Authorities in the Several Departments of Physiology, Zoölogy, and Comparative Philology in Favor of the Specific Unity and Common Origin of all the Varieties of Man. By J. L. Cabell, M. D., Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the University of Virginia. With an Introductory Notice
- ↑ Philosophic Zoologique. Par J. Lamarck. Paris, 1809.
