The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its ScopeCrampton, Henry Edward
Science
The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope
Crampton, Henry Edward
Evolution
the production of their final forms, it is an independent study.
Nevertheless we shall learn how intimate are the relations of these two
divisions of zooelogy and how the evolutionary teachings of each body of
fact support and supplement those of the other.
Palaeontology searches everywhere among the deposits of earlier ages for
links to be fitted into their proper sequence of time, from which it
constructs the chain of diverse types leading down to the species of the
present. A cat of to-day is therefore viewed in an entirely different
connection, as the last term in a consecutive series of species. Forming
alliances with geology, and even with physics and chemistry, this
department of zooelogy endeavors to reconstruct the past from what it
learns to-day about organisms and the conditions under which they live.
Finally the observations that cats of various kinds do not occur
everywhere in the world, but only in certain more or less restricted
localities, belong to the subject of geographical distribution, and
illustrate its nature.
Our task is to learn the teachings of these several divisions by recalling
and putting together what we know already about the commonest animals, or
noting what can be observed in a visit to a zooelogical garden and
aquarium. On account of the present limitations of time, the subject of
classification will be combined with comparative anatomy; embryology will
be taken up together with these subjects; palaeontology will be the main
subject of the next discussion, which will include also a brief statement
of the meaning of distribution. Then we will be prepared to study nature
to see how evolution works.
II
THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMALS AS EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION
In order to become acquainted with the way the structures of animals
provide evidences of evolution, it is by no means necessary to review the
entire range of their forms, because research has discovered that the
principles of relationship are universal among animals, and that any group
of examples will demonstrate what is taught by comparative anatomy as a
whole. The commonest creatures may serve us best in order that we may come
to view evolution as a process that involves each and every living thing
that we know, and not as something which belongs only to the remote and
unknown past.
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