Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And WorkMitchell, P. Chalmers (Peter Chalmers), Sir
Science
Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work
Mitchell, P. Chalmers (Peter Chalmers), Sir
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895
direction they suggested they were inclined to take as evidence that
it had so followed. Huxley made the most careful distinction between
what he called intermediate types and types with a right to be placed
in linear order,
Every fossil which takes an intermediate place between forms of
life already known may be said, so far as it is intermediate, to
be evidence in favour of evolution, inasmuch as it shews a
possible road by which evolution may have taken place. But the
mere discovery of such a form does not, in itself, prove that
evolution took place by and through it, nor does it constitute
more than a presumptive evidence in favour of evolution in
general. The fact that _Anoplotheridæ_ are intermediate between
pigs and ruminants does not tell us whether the ruminants have
come from the pigs or the pigs from the ruminants, or both from
_Anoplotheridæ_, or whether pigs, ruminants, and _Anoplotheridæ_;
alike may not have diverged from some common stock.
A familiar instance will make the point at issue plain. Everyone knows
that in many respects, in the structure of the skeleton, and the curve
of the backbone, and in the development of the brain, the man-like
monkeys, the gorilla and its allies, are intermediate between man and
the lower monkeys. In the early days of evolution it was assumed
frequently that the gorilla, etc., were therefore to be regarded as
ancestors of man, and they appear as such in more than one well-known
treatise on evolutionary biology. We now know that it is exceedingly
probable that the gorilla and its allies, although truly intermediate
types, and truly shewing a possible path of evolution from the brute
to man, are not the actual ancestors of man, but cousins, descendants
like man from some more or less remote common ancestor. And the
tendency of recent advances in knowledge is more and more to throw
stress on the value of Huxley's distinction, and to minimise confusion
between "intermediate" and truly ancestral types.
CHAPTER VI
HUXLEY AND DARWIN
Early Ideas on Evolution--Erasmus Darwin--Lamarck--Herbert
Spencer--Difference between Evolution and Natural
Selection--Huxley's Preparation for Evolution--The Novelty of
Natural Selection--The Advantage of Natural Selection as a
Working Hypothesis--Huxley's Unchanged Position with regard to
Evolution and Natural Selection from 1860 to 1894.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account