A history of evolution by Carroll Lane Fenton
"A history of evolution by Carroll Lane Fenton" is a concise historical account of science written in the early 20th century. It surveys the development of the idea of organic evolution—what it is, how it works, and how people came to accept it—moving from ancient speculation to modern scientific methods. The book opens with Greek nature-philosophers (Thales, Anaximander, Empedocles, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius), then follows the thread through early Christian thinkers (notably Augustine),
medieval Arabic scholarship, and the Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophers (Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant) who argued for natural causes. It contrasts fanciful “speculative” writers with the “great naturalists”: Linnaeus’s classification, Buffon’s variability and environment, Erasmus Darwin’s transformist hints, and Lamarck’s use–disuse and branching descent, with support from St.-Hilaire, Goethe, and Treviranus. The core narrative centers on Charles Darwin’s method and synthesis—variation, the struggle for existence, and natural selection—his evidence, the controversy, and Huxley’s public defense. Post-Darwin, it reviews refinements and excesses, then highlights de Vries’s mutation theory and shows how selection and mutation can both operate, closing with the rise of genetics and experimental breeding, alongside ongoing evidence from paleontology, anatomy, and embryology, to affirm evolution as a well-established, continually investigated fact. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Fenton, Carroll Lane, 1900-1969 |
|---|---|
| Editor | Haldeman-Julius, E. (Emanuel), 1888-1951 |
| Title | A history of evolution |
| Original Publication | Girard: Haldeman-Julius Company, 1922. |
| Series Title | Ten cent pocket series no. 321 |
| Series Title | Little blue book no. 321 |
| Credits | Carol Brown, Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 45.4 (College-level). Difficult to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | QH: Science: Natural history |
| Subject | Evolution -- History |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 76278 |
| Release Date | Jun 12, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 150 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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