The Origin of Species (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charles Darwin [267]
k
By vera causa Darwin means not a hypothetical explanation but an empirically knowable one.
l
Nature does not make leaps (Latin).
m
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the most famous and influential naturalist and anatomist of the first part of the nineteenth century.
n
In his revision of the Beagle narrative: Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands Visited During the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle, together with some brief notices of the geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R. N., during the years 1832 to 1836.
o
Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge, befriended Darwin when he was a student there but was to write outraged and long attacks on Origin.
p
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842-1846).
q
See the original discussion of this diagram, beginning on page 101.
r
Probable reference to Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology ( 1830-1833), volume 2, chapter 10.
s
Darwin’s penultimate use of the diagram, which he begins on page 101 and concludes in the sequence beginning on page 333.
t
Aristotle, in his ‘Physicae Auscultationes’ (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer’s corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organization: and adds (as translated by Mr. Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), “So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Whereso ever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity, and whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished, and still perish.” We here see the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth. [Darwin’s note]
u
I have taken the date of the first publication of Lamarck from Isid. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s (‘Hist. Nat. Générale,‘ tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion on this subject. In this work a full account is given of Buffon’s conclusions on the same subject. It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his ’Zoonomia’ (vol. i. pp. 500-510), published in 1794. According to Isid. Geoffroy there is no doubt that Goethe was an extreme partisan of similar views, as shown in the Introduction to a work written in 1794 and 1795, but not published till long afterwards: he has pointedly remarked (‘Goethe als Naturforscher,’ von Dr Karl Medinge s. 34) that the future question for naturalists will be how, for instance, cattle got their horns, and not for what they are used. It is rather a singular instance of the manner in which similar views arise at about the same time, that Goethe in Germany, Dr Darwin in England, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (as we shall immediately see) in France; came to the same conclusion on the origin of species, in the years 1794-5. [Darwin’s note]
v
I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W. S. Dallas for this Glossary, which has been given because several readers have complained to me that some of the terms used were unintelligible to them. Mr. Dallas has endeavoured to give the explanation of the terms in as