Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Library Collection - Darwin, Evolution and Genetics

George John Romanes (1848-94) was an influential evolutionary biologist and one of the pioneers of comparative psychology. He was a close friend of Charles Darwin (1809-82), and this biography, written in 1896 by Romanes' wife, includes correspondence between the two scientists.

Sometimes referred to as 'the grand old man of science', Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was a naturalist, evolutionary theorist, and friend of Charles Darwin. In this study of tropical flora and fauna, he takes the reader on a tour of the equatorial forest belt - the almost continuous band of forest that stretches around the world between the tropics. There, chameleon-like caterpillars alter the colours of their cocoons, parasitical trees override their hosts with spectacular aerial root systems, and some of the most pressing questions of Victorian evolutionary science arise: how do animals and plants come to be brightly coloured? Can their adaptations provide clues about past geological eras? And was Darwin wholly correct in his theory of sexual selection? First published in 1878, Wallace's book is a skilfully written reflection of contemporary naturalism, still highly readable and relevant to students in the history of science.

Building on the work of Darwin and Mendel, the biologist William Bateson (1861-1926) was the first scientist to combine the study of variation, heredity and evolution, and to use the term 'genetics'. This book was first published in 1894 after many years of experimental and theoretical work - particularly in the embryology of the acorn worm genus Balanoglossus - which had been guided by the principle that embryonic developmental stages replay the evolutionary transitions of adult forms of an organism's ancestors. Bateson was the first to challenge this theory, which made him unpopular among the scientific establishment of the time, but he was proved right. Organising his material by anatomical sections, Bateson explores speciation, phylogeny and discontinuous and continuous variation among a wide range of species, including vertebrates, invertebrates and plants. This pioneering work offers great insight into how the study of genetics and inheritance itself evolved.

A key figure in the field of evolutionary biology, William Bateson (1861-1926) revived Mendelian methods of analysis to develop Darwin's theory of evolution, thereby pioneering the study of genetics. In these lectures, published at Yale in 1913, Bateson systematically chronicles the era's conflicting and developing theories on taxonomy, speciation, variation and hybridisation, and includes his own thoughts on continuous and discontinuous variation and its causes. Drawing on the comparative physiology and anatomy of species that he knew from his wide experience, citing detailed examples from across the taxonomic kingdoms, Bateson brings to life this exciting time in biology. Because the theories central to the modern understanding of genetics, heredity and evolution were formed at this time, this work remains valuable and relevant to students of biology and the history of science.

The Danish plant scientist Wilhelm Johannsen (1857-1927) is remembered for his experimental work on plant heredity, and as a founding figure of modern genetics. The terms 'gene', 'genotype' and 'phenotype' were first used by him. The results of his studies on beans supported theories advanced during the 1890s by the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries, who had unknowingly replicated the work of Gregor Mendel, published in English translation in 1902 (also reissued in this series) by William Bateson. Johannsen's proposal that changes in heredity resulted from sudden mutations rather than from slow processes of natural selection was seen at the time as a threat to Darwinian theory, though later research showed otherwise. This influential book, first published in 1909 (with later editions in 1913 and 1926), is a revised, expanded German translation of a 1905 Danish book by Johannsen, itself based on a journal article originally published in 1903.

The great French zoologist Lamarck (1744-1829) was best known for his theory of evolution, called 'soft inheritance', whereby organisms pass down acquired characteristics to their offspring. Originally a soldier, Lamarck later studied medicine and biology. His distinguished career included admission to the French Academy of Sciences (1779), and appointments as Royal Botanist (1781) and as professor of zoology at the Musee Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle in 1793. Acknowledged as the premier authority on invertebrate zoology, he is credited with coining the term 'invertebrates'. In this 1809 work, translated into English in 1914, he outlines his theory that under the pressure of different external circumstances, species can develop variations, and that new species and genera can eventually evolve as a result. Darwin paid tribute to Lamarck as the man who 'first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change ... being the result of law'.

Charles Darwin (1809-82) was the English naturalist famous for the theory of evolution by natural selection. He began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but developed a fascination for natural history and left Edinburgh to attend Christ's College, Cambridge, where he pursued his new interest while taking a Bachelor of Arts degree. After graduating, he had the opportunity to secure a position as ship's naturalist aboard H.M.S. Beagle for a five-year, round-the-world voyage which would make him famous. Published in 1845, this book is the second edition of Darwin's expedition journal, more popularly known as The Voyage of the Beagle. Throughout the journey he made observations and discoveries that would lead him to develop his revolutionary theory of evolution, which later appeared in On the Origin of Species and created a storm in the scientific and religious communities.

George John Romanes (1848-94) was considered by The Times to be 'the biological investigator upon whom in England the mantle of Mr. Darwin has most conspicuously descended'. Incorporating some of Darwin's unpublished notes, this book explores the question of whether human intelligence evolved. In a stance still often considered controversial at the time of its first printing in 1888, the first half establishes a link between humans and animals, and introduces some of the most important issues of nineteenth-century evolutionary psychology: the impact of relative brain sizes of humans and primates, the origin of self-consciousness and the possible reasons behind the apparent mental stasis of what Romanes terms 'savage man'. Following the argument that one of the main factors to be considered is language, the second half focuses on philology. Romanes' earlier work, Mental Evolution in Animals (1883), is also reissued in this series.

George John Romanes (1848-94), considered by The Times to be 'the biological investigator upon whom in England the mantle of Mr. Darwin has most conspicuously descended', wrote this influential work on the evolution of the mental faculties of animals in 1883. The two scientists were close friends, and Darwin gave Romanes his notes on psychology to use in his studies. Much of the book is devoted to instinct, and contained in the appendix is a posthumous essay by Darwin on the subject, originally intended for a later edition of On the Origin of Species. Romanes' method of using anecdotal evidence over empirical research has been criticised, but this book stands as an influential work in the history of evolutionary biology; it was followed in 1888 by his Mental Evolution in Man (also reissued in this series), which discussed some of the most important issues of nineteenth-century evolutionary psychology.

In the nineteenth century and beyond, scientists at Cambridge produced some of the most significant developments in the study of biological variation and inheritance. The work of William Bateson (several of whose books are also reissued in this series) was especially important in this regard. This book, first published in 1906 by the botanist Robert Heath Lock (1879-1915), lucidly traces these and other milestones in modern biological understanding. A readable account is given of the evolution of the discipline since the publication of Darwin's On the Origins of Species in 1859, taking in the biometrical contributions of Francis Galton and the research into mutation conducted by Hugo de Vries. The pioneering experiments of Gregor Mendel, and the more recent rediscovery of his laws of inheritance, are clearly contextualised so that non-specialist readers can appreciate the scientific progress that had been made in the half-century prior to the book's first publication.

French astronomer Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) won acclaim for bringing science to a general readership. His Astronomie populaire (1880) and its translation into English as Popular Astronomy (1894) are both reissued in this series. The present work, on the origins of the Earth and humankind, sold tens of thousands of copies. Flammarion's original purpose was to update Zimmermann's Le monde avant la creation de l'homme, published a quarter of a century earlier. However, scientific understanding had progressed so much that he decided to rewrite the work completely. First published in 1886, it contains some 400 wood engravings depicting dramatic landscapes, dinosaurs, fossils and much more. Ranging from early chapters on the universe and solar system, through to later discussion of the emergence of humankind after aeons of evolution, this book will prove an absorbing read for those interested in a nineteenth-century perspective on the origins of life.

In this investigation of orchids, first published in 1862, Darwin expands on a point made in On the Origin of Species that he felt required further explanation, namely that he believes it to be 'a universal law of nature that organic beings require an occasional cross with another individual'. Darwin explains the method by which orchids are fertilised by insects, and argues that the intricate structure of their flowers evolved to favour cross pollination because of its advantages to the species. The book is written in Darwin's usual precise and elegant style, accessible despite its intricate detail. It includes a brief explanation of botanical terms and is illustrated with 34 woodcuts.

The author of this life of Erasmus Darwin, published in 1879, is given as Ernst Krause (1839-1903) a German biologist, but in fact more than half the book is a 'preliminary notice' by Charles Darwin, who explains in the preface that he has written it because of his access to family papers which add 'to the knowledge of Erasmus Darwin's character'. Krause wrote his original article in a German periodical because, in turn, he was intrigued by a reference made by Charles Darwin in the later editions of On the Origin of Species to his grandfather's anticipation in his Zoonomia (also reissued in this series) of Lamarckian theory: 'I thought immediately ... that this ancestor of his must certainly deserve considerable credit in connection with the history of the Darwinian theory.' The German text was translated by W. S. Dallas, who had previously collaborated with Darwin as both indexer and translator.

The development of Charles Darwin's views on evolution by natural selection has fascinated biologists since the 1859 publication of his landmark text On The Origin of Species. His experiences, observations and reflections during and after his pivotal journey on the Beagle during 1831-36 were of critical importance. Darwin was not, however, a man to be rushed. While his autobiography claims that the framework of his theory was laid down by 1839, its first outline sketch did not emerge until 1842. That essay was heavily edited, with many insertions and erasures. It formed the vital kernel of his more expansive but also unpolished and unpublished essay of 1844. Following careful editing by his son Francis, both essays were published in 1909, and are reproduced here. Reading these side by side, and together with the Origin, permits us to scrutinise selection and evolution truly in action.

In 1863, the biologist and educator Thomas Henry Huxley published Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, a compilation of his public lectures on Darwin's theory of evolution - specifically the controversial idea of the ape ancestry of humans. An energetic supporter of Darwin, Huxley's argues that in order to understand the universe, everyone must know their place in the natural world. The book is divided into three parts, each written with the aim of persuading lay audiences. The first covers earlier human beliefs about exotic animals, especially 'man-like' apes. In Part 2, Huxley suggests that every animal on Earth is related in that all go through developmental stages from an egg, whether the animal is 'a silkworm or a school-boy'. Part 3 involves a discussion of recently discovered Neanderthal bones and compares prehistoric craniums to modern human skulls.

John Wesley Judd (1840-1916) had a distinguished career, serving as both President of the Geological Society and Dean of the Royal College of Science. Before his retirement as Professor of Geology from Imperial College, he wrote this concise and accessible review of the beginnings of evolutionary theory. Judd skilfully examined the roots of an idea that, already by 1910, had profoundly influenced every branch of science and permeated the work of historians, politicians and theologians. His lively narrative introduces the key individuals, including Darwin and Lyell, who brought about this intellectual revolution. Judd analyses the principal influences that worked upon these scientists as well as the factors that permitted them to remain open to radical new views. His appreciation of the vision, courage and far-reaching impact of the work of both Lyell and Darwin, and the interplay between their ideas, is persuasively and eloquently expressed.

Initially published by the Linnean Society, this 1865 essay was Darwin's first foray into the study of climbing plants. He was inspired to produce this work by a paper on the tendrilled Cucurbitacean plant by American botanist Asa Gray, with whom he had a firm intellectual friendship. Darwin examines in detail those plants which climb using a twisting stem, such as the hop; leaf-climbers, such as the clematis; tendrilled plants such as the passion flower; and hook and root climbers such as ivy. The conclusions reached by his study are presented in terms of the adaptations of various species to their environments, a continuation of the theories that Darwin had propounded in his On the Origin of the Species six years earlier. His passion for the design of the plants and fascination with the diversity of their powers of movement are clear in this accessible example of the process of evolution.

The geological writings of Hugh Miller (1802-56) did much to publicise this relatively new science. After an early career in banking in Scotland, Miller became editor of a newly founded Edinburgh newspaper, The Witness, in which he published a series of his own articles based on his geological research, a collection of which was issued as a book, The Old Red Sandstone, in 1841, and led to the Devonian geological period becoming known as the 'Age of the Fishes'. Footprints of the Creator (1849) described his reconstruction of the extinct fish he had discovered in the Old Red Sandstone and argued, on theological grounds, that their perfection of development disproved the current Lamarckian theory of evolution. The book, illustrated with woodcuts, was written partly as a response to the then anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1884), also reissued in this series.

Essay on the Theory of the Earth was the last work of the scientific writer Robert Kerr who translated it from the introductory essay of George Cuvier's four-volume Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupedes. Before its first publication in 1813, the essay was partly expanded by the geologist and natural historian Robert Jameson who wrote a preface and included extensive notes on mineralogy. Using geological evidence as its principal source of enquiry, Cuvier's essay attempts to address the questions of the origins of the human race, the formation of the earth, and the correlation between incomplete fossil remains and existing species of animals. Extremely influential in its own time, the essay remains a source of considerable insight into the early development of geological research, examining issues of continued significance today.

William Bateson (1861-1926) began his academic career working on variation in animals in the light of evolutionary theory. He was inspired by the rediscovery in 1900 of the 1860s work on plant hybridisation by the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (included here as an appendix) to pursue further experimental work in what he named 'genetics'. He realised that Mendel's results could help to solve difficult biological questions and controversies and to challenge the status quo in evolutionary studies. Annoyed by the 'apathetic' stance of his evolutionist colleagues, and incensed by a scathing critique of Mendel by the Oxford professor Raphael Weldon, Bateson incorporated an English translation of Mendel's work into this 1902 book along with a defence of Mendel's statistical experiments and the principles of heredity derived from them. His book is an impassioned appeal for scientists to adopt this 'brilliant method' which he felt could revolutionise both scholarship and industry.

St George Jackson Mivart was an eminent biologist, who was at first an advocate for natural selection and later a passionate opponent. In this beautifully illustrated 1871 text, Mivart raised objections to natural selection as a means for evolution. These included problems in explaining: 'incipient stages' of complex structures (e.g. the mammalian eye); the existence of similar structures of divergent origin; dramatic and rapid changes in form; the absence of transitional forms from the fossil record; and issues in geological distribution. Citing the giraffe's neck, the rattle of the snake and the whale's baleen, Mivart argued for the necessity of an innate power underlying all organic life. Mivart's book did not seriously undermine the concept of natural selection - Darwin and Huxley soon countered his 'formidable array' of arguments - but it helped move the debate forward. Sadly, it also led to a rift between Mivart and Darwin.

William Bateson claimed at the Darwin Centenary in 1909 that Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was 'the most brilliant and by far the most interesting of Darwin's opponents, whose works are at length emerging from oblivion.' Best remembered today as the author of the novels Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh, he also wrote on a range of subjects from translations of Homer to studies of evolutionary thought. In his Life and Habit (published in 1878) Butler contended that much of inheritance was based on habit making a feature ingrained, to the extent that it could pass between generations. However, he strongly contests Darwin's views on natural selection, and supports those of Lamarck - who he felt was unjustly overlooked in the scientific rush to acclaim Darwin - and of St George Mivart, whose On the Genesis of Species, published in 1871, was another blast against natural selection by a disenchanted Darwinist.

Darwin had long been fascinated by insectivorous plants, from the native British sundews and bladderworts to the exotic pinguiculas and nepenthes which he encountered during the Beagle voyage. Growing in environments low in soil nutrients, their highly specialised ways of obtaining enough food, including the capability for fast movement in the case of the Venus flytrap, were evidence of evolutionary adaptation. But he was also interested in what food they needed, and whether they would be selective when offered a varied diet; and how did the flytrap close its trap on its prey? Darwin conducted a range of simple but ingenious experiments on his collection of insectivores and observed and noted the results of each with his customary meticulousness. The results can be seen in this book, which remains of enormous interest to anyone whose imagination has been fired by these strange and beautiful plants.

What conclusions do the facts of cosmic and organic evolution require or permit on the origin and destiny of the world and the individual? From 1881 to 1925 Thomas Whittaker, an Oxford-trained scientist turned philosopher, grappled with this question, which he tried to answer by metaphysical interpretation of the sciences. The majority of the essays in this volume first appeared in Mind, and a few in other journals, while three had not been previously published. Whittaker ranges widely over some of the most daring theories of the past, from the early centuries of the common era (including Apollonius of Tyana and Origen), to the middle ages (including John Scotus Erigena and Nicholas of Cusa), the renaissance (Giordano Bruno, Shakespeare) and the early modern period. Whittaker's own view is that hypothesis and imagination are legitimate aids in the search for truth in both science and philosophy in a new synthesis.

William Bateson (1861-1926) began his academic career working on variation in animals in the light of evolutionary theory. He was inspired by the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's work on plant hybridisation to pursue further experimental work in what he named 'genetics'. He realised that Mendel's results could help to solve difficult biological questions and controversies which others had glossed over, and to challenge assumptions underlying evolution as it was understood at the time. After two years as Professor of Biology at Cambridge he left in 1910 to become Director of the newly founded John Innes Institute. Bateson's argumentative personality and unorthodox approach did not make him popular, and his reputation declined after his death. Was Bateson misunderstood? Was evolution misunderstood? This 1928 volume - including a substantial memoir by Bateson's wife - gives readers access to selected papers and addresses and allows them to consider him afresh.

Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) is remembered today as much for his profound influence on the young Charles Darwin as for his own work as a geologist: Darwin read the three volumes of his Principles of Geology (1830-3) as they came out, and was greatly interested in Lyell's theory of the huge effects over geological time of an accumulation of tiny, almost unobservable changes. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man was published in 1863, and went into three editions in that year alone. The work synthesises the then existing evidence for the earliest humans in Europe and North America and - as indicated by its subtitle, With Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation - discusses Darwin's theory and 'the bearing of this hypothesis on the different races of mankind and their connection with other parts of the animal kingdom.'

Written in collaboration with his son Francis, a notable botanist, this 1880 book builds on Darwin's earlier investigations into climbing plants, orchids, insectivorous plants, flower variety, and the processes of fertilisation. This detailed study of many species from seed to mature plant further develops Darwin's work on adaptation and evolution, with the aim of collating the results of individual studies into common factors applicable to plants in general. Particular emphasis is given to analysis and investigation of the process here termed circumnutation, the movement of the stem of the plant in order to direct the head in certain directions. This is seen as of paramount importance, with the conclusion that it is modification of this feature that has enabled plants to adapt and evolve so diversely. The authors also note similarities between plants and animals, such as sensitivity to touch and habit of action at certain times.

Darwin's impetus for the experiments of which the results are recorded in this book was 'a mere accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage'. After eleven years of meticulous experimentation and observation, described in this volume, he was ready to publish in 1876 the detailed study which he regarded as a companion volume to his 1862 On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects. His 'first and most important of the conclusions which may be drawn ... is that cross-fertilisation is generally beneficial, and self-fertilisation injurious': this understanding is of course the basis of all modern plant breeding programmes.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is regarded as the co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of evolution. It was an essay which Wallace sent in 1858 to Darwin (whom he greatly admired and to whom he dedicated his most famous book, The Malay Archipelago) which impelled Darwin to publish an article on his own long-pondered theory simultaneously with that of Wallace. As a travelling naturalist and collector in the Far East and South America, Wallace already inclined towards the Lamarckian theory of transmutation of species, and his own researches convinced him of the reality of evolution. On the publication of On the Origin of Species, Wallace became one of its most prominent advocates, and Darwinism, published in 1889, supports the theory and counters many of the arguments put forward by scientists and others who opposed it.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is regarded as the co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of evolution. It was an essay which Wallace sent in 1858 to Darwin (to whom he had dedicated his most famous book, The Malay Archipelago) which impelled Darwin to publish an article on his own long-pondered theory simultaneously with that of Wallace. As a travelling naturalist and collector in the Far East and South America, Wallace already inclined towards the Lamarckian theory of transmutation of species, and his own researches convinced him of the reality of evolution. On the publication of On the Origin of Species, Wallace became one of its most prominent advocates. This second, corrected, edition (1871) of a series of essays published in book form in 1870, shows the development of his thinking about evolution, and emphasises his admiration for, and support of, Darwin's work.