This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ...most elusive, and its definition most difficult. A single page from a prominent scientific writer will afford abundant illustration. He there announces that "the fact of evolution " has been "demonstrated " by Mr. Darwin, by the help of a theory of evolution, " formed out of" the "previously well known facts " of " ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ...most elusive, and its definition most difficult. A single page from a prominent scientific writer will afford abundant illustration. He there announces that "the fact of evolution " has been "demonstrated " by Mr. Darwin, by the help of a theory of evolution, " formed out of" the "previously well known facts " of " struggle for existence, survival of the fittest and heredity," the "proof" having been "completed" by "amassing facts from every department of science" (a sample of the latter class of facts being given in "his experimental proof of the manner in which bees make their hexagonal cells, and of the important part played in the economy of nature by earthworms"), and the " large body of facts relating to the ornamentation of all classes of animals." Here a highly attenuated and confessedly unverifiable theory, a group com prising an alleged process, an alleged result and an alleged law, a pair of hypothetical interpretations of highly recondite and equivocal phenomena in the lower ranges of life, and a final group of descriptions of phenomena themselves are alike recklessly labeled "facts." The absurd self-complacency and assumption involved in such a random use of language is apparent when we remember how confessedly difficult science finds the secure application of the term, even in the last and lowest of the uses here assigned to it, viz: that of an observed appearance. Cuvier's traditional criticism of the definition of the crab by the French Academy, as "a small red fish that walks backward "--which he is said to have declared sound except that a crab is "not red, is not a fish, and does not walk backward "--certainly ...
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Seller's Description:
Poor. Paperback, rough cut edges chipping, pages uncut, cover soiled and worn and browned, tears at spine, pages browned. Please Note: This book has been transferred to Between the Covers from another database and might not be described to our usual standards. Please inquire for more detailed condition information.