DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN
AN EXPOSITION OF THE DARWINIAN THEORYAND A DISCUSSION OFPOST-DARWINIAN QUESTIONS
BY
GEORGE JOHN ROMANES, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
I
THE DARWINIAN THEORY
FOURTH EDITION
Chicago
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1910
The Illustrations of this book (with the exception of the Frontispieceand the colored plate facing page 332) are copyrighted under the title“Darwinism Illustrated.”
The Open Court Publishing Co.
PRESS OF THE
BLAKELY-OSWALD PRINTING CO.
CHICAGO
Ch. Ch. Oxford: March 15th 1892. My dear Sir, As we have now agreed thatthe Open Court Publishing Company is toundertake the American edition of mywork entitled “Darwin and afterDarwin,” I have much pleasurein transferring to you the copyrightthereof, with all that thisincludes.Thanking you very much forthe kindness and liberality whichhave marked your conduct of thesenegotiations, I remain, Yours very faithfully, George J. RomanesToEdward C. Hegeler Esq. La Salle, Ill. U. S.
PREFACE
Several years ago Lord Rosebery founded, in the University of Edinburgh,a lectureship on “The Philosophy of Natural History,” and Iwas invited by the Senatus to deliver the lectures. This invitation Iaccepted, and subsequently constituted the material of my lectures thefoundation of another course, which was given in the Royal Institution,under the title “Before and after Darwin.” Here the courseextended over three years—namely from 1888 to 1890. The lectures for1888 were devoted to the history of biology from the earliest recordedtimes till the publication of the “Origin of Species” in1859; the lectures for 1889 dealt with the theory of organic evolutionup to the date of Mr. Darwin’s death, in 1882; while those of thethird year discussed the further developments of this theory from thatdate till the close of the course in 1890.
It is from these two courses—which resembled each other incomprising between thirty and forty lectures, but differed largely inother respects—that the present treatise has grown. Seeing,however, that it has [vi]Grown much beyond the bulk of the original lectures, I have thought itdesirable to publish the whole in the form of three separate works. Ofthese the first—or that which deals with the purely historicalside of biological science—may be allowed to stand over for anindefinite time. The second is the one which is now brought out andwhich, as its sub-title signifies, is devoted to the general t