Impressions of Great Naturalists: Darwin, Wallace, Huxley, Leidy, Cope, Balfour, Roosevelt, and OthersC. Scribner's Sons, 1928 - 292 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
adaptation admiration Alfred Russel Wallace American Museum anatomist animals Balfour Beagle beauty believe biological biologist birds Cambridge century characteristic Charles Darwin color comparative anatomy Cope creative Cuvier discovery early EDWARD DRINKER COPE ence England environment essay eyes fact fossil FRANCIS MAITLAND BALFOUR friends genius greatest Henslow heredity Howard Crosby Butler human Huxley Huxley's laboratory ideas impression influence intellectual interesting James Bryce John Burroughs Joseph Leidy less letter living Lyell mammals memorial mind moral Muir Natural History natural selection naturalist never Notharctus observation opinion Origin of Species Oxford palæontology Pasteur period philosophical plants powers principle Professor published race racial reverence Richard Owen Romanes Lecture scientific single sion soul special creation spiritual Theodore Roosevelt theory Thomas Henry Huxley thought tion truth ture University variation vertebrate vision volume voyage Wallace's writings wrote young zoology
Popular passages
Page 226 - Heaven lies about us in our infancy. Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy; But he beholds the light and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And, by the vision splendid, Is on his way attended. At length the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.
Page 155 - I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the north ; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife " Fie upon this quiet life ! I want work.
Page 222 - We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Page 78 - I happened to read for amusement ' Malthus on Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work...
Page 93 - The inference I would draw from this class of phenomena is, that a superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a definite direction, and for a special purpose, just as man guides the development of many animal and vegetable forms.
Page 78 - Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain — that is, the fittest would survive.
Page 50 - I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.
Page 26 - Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have been — the love of science — unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject — industry in observing and collecting facts — and a fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced...
Page 80 - Most or perhaps all the variations from the typical form of a species must have some definite effect, however slight, on the habits or capacities of the individuals. Even a change of colour might, by rendering them more or less distinguishable, affect their safety; a greater or less development of hair might modify their habits.