Biologists From Scotland

"The peculiarity of six fingers on the hand and six toes on the feet... is then sometimes seen to descend through several generations. It was Mr. Lawrence's opinion that, a pair, in which both parties were so distinguished, might be the progenitors of a new variety of the race who would be thus marked in all future time. It is not easy to surmise the causes which operate in producing such varieties. Perhaps they are simply types in nature, possible to be realized under certain appropriate conditions, but which conditions are such as altogether to elude notice."

"We are ignorant of the laws of variety-production; but we see it going on as a principle in nature, and it is obviously favorable to the supposition that all the great families of men are of one stock."

"I may here refer to a curious mathematical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if three words coincide in two different languages, it is ten to one they must be derived in both cases from some parent language, or introduced in some other manner."

"Now as there are, according to Humboldt, one hundred and seventy words in common between the languages of the new and old continents, and many of these are expressive of the most primitive ideas, there is, by Dr Young's calculation, overpowering proof of the original connection of the American and other human families."

"The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock which was at first in a state of simplicity if not barbarism."

"Phenomena appear, in a word, to be explicable on the ground of development. We have already seen that various leading animal forms represent stages in the embryotic progress of the highest—the human being. Our brain goes through the various stages of a fish's, a reptile's, and a mammifer's brain, and finally becomes human."

"Now, as the inferior animals were all in being before man, there was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced. The only additional fact in the history of language, which was produced by our creation, was the rise of a new mode of expression—namely that by sound-signs produced by the vocal organs. In other words, speech was the only novelty in this respect attending the creation of the human race."

"The monkeys themselves, without instruction from any quarter, learn to use sticks in fighting, and some build houses—an act which cannot in their case be considered as one of instinct, but of intelligence."

"Let us look at the inventive class of minds which stand out amongst their fellows—the men who, with little prompting or none, conceive new ideas in science, arts, morals—and we can be at no loss to understand how and whence have arisen the elements of that civilization which history traces from country to country throughout the course of centuries. See a Pascal, reproducing the Alexandrian's problems at fifteen; a Ferguson, making clocks from the suggestions of his own brain, while tending cattle on a Morayshire heath; a boy Lawrence, in an inn on the Bath road, producing, without a master, drawings which the educated could not but admire; or look at Solon and Confucius, devising sage laws, and breathing the accents of all but divine wisdom for their barbarous fellow-countrymen, three thousand years ago—and the whole mystery is solved at once. ...Nations, improved by these means, become in turn foci for the diffusion of light over the adjacent regions of barbarism—their very passions helping to this end, for nothing can be more clear than that ambitious aggression has led to the civilization of many countries. Such is the process which seems to form the destined means for bringing mankind from the darkness of barbarism to the day of knowledge and mechanical and social improvement."

"The book, as far as I am aware, is the first attempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of creation."

"Darwin's reply: I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species, under the name of natural selection. I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, has heard of Mr. Matthew's views, considering how briefly they are given, and that they appeared in the Appendix to a work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture. I can do no more than offer my apologies to Mr. Matthew for my entire ignorance of his publication."

"Matthew's response: To me the conception of this law of Nature came intuitively as a self-evident fact, almost without an effort of concentrated thought. Mr Darwin here seems to have more merit in the discovery than I have had; to me it did not appear a discovery. He seems to have worked it out by inductive reason, slowly and with due caution to have made his way synthetically from fact to fact onwards; while with me it was by a general glance at the scheme of Nature that I estimated this select production of species as an a priori recognisable fact – an axiom requiring only to be pointed out to be admitted by unprejudiced minds of sufficient grasp."

"There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possible suited to its condition that its kind, or organized matter, is susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive powers to their highest perfection and to continue them so. This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles. As nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time's decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing — either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the means of subsistence."

"There is more beauty and unity of design in this continual balancing of life to circumstance, and greater conformity to those dispositions of nature which are manifest to us, than in total destruction and new creation... [The] progeny of the same parents, under great differences of circumstance, might, in several generations, even become distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction."

"Throughout this volume, we have felt considerable inconvenience, from the dogmatical classification of plants, and have all along been floundering between species and variety, which certainly under culture soften into each other."

"Geologists discover... an almost complete difference to exist between the species or stamp of life, of one epoch from that of every other. We are therefore led to admit, either of a repeated miraculous creation; or of a power of change, under a change of circumstances, to belong to living organised matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life, which appears to form superior."

"The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organised life may, in part, be traced to the extreme fecundity of Nature, who, as before stated, has, in all the varieties of her offspring, a prolific power much beyond (in many cases a thousand-fold) what is necessary to fill up the vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existence is limited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which they have superior adaptation and greater powers of occupancy than any other kind; the weaker, less circumstance-suited, being prematurely destroyed."

"The circumstance-adaptive law, operating upon the slight but continued natural disposition to sport in the progeny (seedling variety), does not preclude the supposed influence which volition or sensation may have over the configuration of the body. To examine into the disposition to sport in the progeny, even when there is only one parent, as in many vegetables, and to investigate how much variation is modified by the mind or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itself during its progress to maturity; how far it depends upon external circumstance, and how far on the will, irritability and muscular exertion, is open to examination and experiment. In the first place, we ought to investigate its dependency upon the preceding links of the particular chain of life, varieties being often merely types or approximations of former parentage; thence the variation of the family, as well as of the individual, must be embraced by our experiments."

"In your number of March 3rd [1860] I observe a long quotation from The Times, stating that Mr. Darwin "professes to have discovered the existence and modus operandi of the natural law of selection," that is, "the power in nature which takes the place of man and performs a selection, sua sponte," in organic life. This discovery recently published as "the results of 20 years' investigation and reflection" by Mr. Darwin turns out to be what I published very fully and brought to apply practically to forestry in my work Naval Timber and Arboriculture, published as far back as January 1, 1831, by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, and Longman & Co., London, and reviewed in numerous periodicals, so as to have full publicity in the "Metropolitan Magazine," the "Quarterly Review," the "Gardeners' Magazine," by Loudon... and repeatedly in the "United Service Magazine" for 1831, &c. The following is an extract from this volume, which clearly proves a prior claim. [excerpt follows]"

"[Why do animals] undergo in the course of their growth a series of complicated changes, during which they acquire organs which have no function, and which, after remaining visible for a short time, disappear without leaving a trace . . . The explanation of such facts is obvious. The stage when the tadpole breathes by gills is a repetition of the stage when the ancestors of the frog had not advanced in the scale of development beyond a fish."

"He was one of those who are much more delighted with the contemplation of truth, than with the praise of having discovered it."

"Few men have entered with better preparation on the arduous task of investigating the true theory of the earth."

"From the date... when he was yet a very young man, and making excursions on foot through the different counties of England, till that which we are now arrived at, a period of about thirty years, he had never ceased to study the natural history of the globe, with a view of ascertaining the changes that have taken place on its surface, and of discovering the causes by which they have been produced."

"A good deal of his leisure was now employed in the prosecution of chemical experiments. In one of these experiments... which I have heard of from Dr Black, he discovered that mineral alkali is contained in zeolite. On boiling the gelatinous substance obtained from combining that fossil with muriatic acid, he found that, after evaporation, sea-salt was formed. ...from circumstances... it was earlier than 1772. It is, if I mistake not, the first instance of an alkali being discovered in a stony body."

"Among other advantages... we must reckon that of being able to enjoy, with less interruption, the society of his literary friends, among whom were Dr Black, Mr Russel, professor of Natural Philosophy, Professor Adam Ferguson, Sir George Clerk... his brother Mr Clerk of Elden, Dr James Lind... and several others. Employed in maturing his views, and studying nature with unwearied application, he now passed his time most usefully and agreeably to himself, but in silence and obscurity with respect to the world. He was, perhaps, in the most enviable situation in which a man of science can be placed. He was in the midst of a literary society of men of the first abilities, to all of whom he was peculiarly acceptable, as bringing along with him a vast fund of information and originality, combined with that gayety and animation which so rarely accompany the profounder attainments of science. Free from the interruption of professional avocations, he enjoyed the entire command of his own time, and had sufficient energy of mind to afford himself continual occupation."

"In a letter to Sir John Hall, he says that he was become very fond of studying the surface of the earth, and was looking with anxious curiosity into every pit, or ditch, or bed of a river that fell in his way; "and that if he did not always avoid the fate of Thales, his misfortune was certainly not owing to the same cause." This letter is from Yarmouth; it has no date, but it is plain from circumstances that it must have been written in 1753."

"Hutton published a landmark treatise, Theory of the Earth, in which he set forth the principle of uniformitarianism: the present is the key to the past. He proposed the same processes of erosion, weathering, uplift and sedimentation that are sculpting the land today have been at work throughout the eons. ...In Hutton's day, uniformitarianism was a refutation of theories that called upon catastrophic events like the biblical flood to explain the way the world looked. But even as these deux ex machina theories fell to the wayside, Hutton's ideas continued to hold sway..."

"We find no vestige of a beginning - no prospect of an end."

"The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle."

"His character was distinguished by its transparent simplicity, its frank openness, its absence of all that was little or selfish, and its overflowing enthusiasm and vivacity."

"Though his partnership in the chemical work brought him considerable wealth, it made no difference in the quiet unostentatious life of a philosopher, which he had led ever since he settled in Edinburgh."

"If an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among the individuals of that species, we must be assured, that, on the one hand, those which depart most from the best adapted constitution, will be most liable to perish, while, on the other hand, those organised bodies, which most approach to the best constitution for the present circumstances, will be best adapted to continue, in preserving themselves and multiplying the individuals of their race."

"Hutton's claim to rank high among the founders of geology rests on no wide series of writings, like those which Von Buch poured forth so copiously for more than two generations. Nor was it proclaimed by a host of devoted pupils, like those who spread abroad the fame of Werner. It is based, so far at least as geology is concerned, on one single work, and on the elucidations of two friends and disciples."

"Dr. Hutton... was highly pleased with appearances that set in so clear a light the different formations of the parts which compose the exterior crust of the earth... On us who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression made will not easily be forgotten. ...The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abbys of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much further reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow."

"The world... might have had still a long time to wait for the appearance of his dissertation, had it not been for the interest he took in the foundation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh... At one of the early meetings of this Society he communicated a concise account of his Theory of the Earth., which appeared in the first volume of the Transactions. This essay was afterwards expanded..."

"Hutton was... no narrow specialist, wrapped up in the pursuit of one circumscribed section of human inquiry. His mind ranged far and wide over many departments of knowledge. ...His pleasure in every outward step made by science and philosophy showed itself in the most lively demonstrations."

"Among the marks of disturbance in which the mineral kingdom abounds, those great breaches among rocks, which are filled with materials different from the rock on either side, are among the most conspicuous. These are the veins, and comprehend, not only the metallic veins, but also those of whinstone, of porphyry, and of granite, all of them substances more or less crystallized, and none of them containing the remains of organized bodies. ...The materials of all these veins Dr Hutton concludes to have been melted by subterraneous heat, and, while in fusion, injected among the fissures and openings of rocks already formed, but thus disturbed, and moved from their original place."

"The third general fact on which this theory is founded, is, that the stratified rocks, instead of being either horizontal, or nearly so, as they no doubt were originally, are now found possessing all degrees of elevation, and some of them even perpendicular to the horizon; to which we must add, that those strata which were once at the bottom of the sea are now raised up, many of them several thousand feet above its surface. ...This force, which has burst in pieces the solid pavement on which the ocean rests, and has raised up rocks from the bottom of the sea, into mountains... exceeds any which we see actually exerted, but seems to come nearer to the cause of the volcano or the earthquake than to any other, of which the effects are directly observed. The immense disturbance, therefore, of the strata, is in this theory ascribed to heat acting with an expansive power, and elevating those rocks which it had before consolidated."

"The present rocks, with the exceptions of such as are not stratified, having all existed in the form of loose materials collected at the bottom of the sea, must have been consolidated and converted into stone by virtue of some very powerful and general agent. The consolidating cause which he points out is subterraneous heat, and he has removed the objections to this hypothesis by the introduction of a principle new and peculiar to himself. This principle is the compression which must have prevailed in that region where the consolidation of mineral substances was accomplished. Under the weight of a superincumbent ocean, heat, however intense, might be unable to volatilize any part of those substances which, at the surface, and under the lighter pressure of our atmosphere, it can entirely consume. The same pressure, by forcing those substances to remain united, which at the surface are easily separated, might occasion the fusion of some bodies which in our fires are only calcined. Hence the objections that are so strong and unanswerable, when opposed to the theory of volcanic fire, as usually laid down, have no force at all against Dr Hutton's theory; and hence we are to consider this theory as hardly less distinguished from the hypothesis of the Vulcanists, in the usual sense of that appellation than it is from that of the Neptunists or the disciples of Werner."

"The first general fact which he has remarked is, that by far the greater part of the bodies which compose the exterior crust of our globe, bear the marks of being formed out of the materials of mineral or organized bodies, of more ancient date. The spoils or the wreck of an older world are every where visible in the present, and, though not found in every piece of rock, they are diffused so generally as to leave no doubt that the strata which now compose our continents are all formed out of strata more ancient than themselves."

"The object of Dr Hutton was not, like that of most other theorists, to explain the first origin of things. He was too well skilled in the rules of sound philosophy for such an attempt; and he accordingly confined his speculations to those changes which terrestrial bodies have undergone since the establishment of the present order, in as far as distinct marks of such changes are now to be discovered."