A History of Evolution/Foreword
FOREWORD
Nothing can be more nearly a truism than the statement that everything in the known universe is the product of some sort of evolution. At the same time, there is hardly a doctrine in the civilized world that has aroused more enthusiasm, interest, and enmity, than the doctrine of organic evolution. And yet I have found, to my great surprise, that few of us are accustomed to thinking of that doctrine itself as a product of a long process of evolution, covering more than twenty-six centuries. We are all too apt to think of the doctrine of organic evolution as beginning with Darwin and ending with Huxley and Haeckel; as a matter of fact, it began (so far as we can tell) with Thales, and shall not end so long as human beings inhabit this planet.
It is with the idea of presenting, in a condensed form, the essentials of this "evolution of evolution: that I have prepared this book. It is neither detailed nor technical; it does not assume to be a complete history of the subject under consideration. But it does give a convenient, readable account of the most important stages in that history, and at the same time a slight glimpse of the major characters who made it possible. This latter, unfortunately, is difficult for two reasons. The space of this booklet is limited, and only brief sketches can be given, where they can be given at all. But more important than that is the lack of material. No scientist has been a Shakespeare, to be written about by Goethe and Frank Harris, nor yet a Cromwell, to receive the attention of Carlyle. And yet the personality and fortunes of a scientist are just as important in judging his place in the world as are those of a poet or statesman. Without knowing that Lamarck was poor and blind we cannot properly view his efforts; without realizing that Cuvier was spoiled, wealthy, and of a "ruling class," we cannot understand his bitter contempt for an honest, capable worker who was founding one of the greatest conceptions of all human thought. And so, while we are considering the ideas that go to make up this evolution, let us remember that those ideas were worked out by men, not by erratic, thinking machines which popular magazines proclaim to the world as representations of its scientists.
C. L. F.