The Darwinian theory of the transmutation of species / examined by a graduate of the University of Cambridge.

  • Beverley, R. M. (Robert Mackenzie), 1797 or 1798-1868.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Darwinian theory of the transmutation of species / examined by a graduate of the University of Cambridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES EXAMINED. CHAPTER I. SPECIES AS TREATED BY MR DARWIN. Mr Darwin begins his Introduction to the Origin of Species by the following words :—‘ When on board H.M.S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to throw some light on the origin of Species; that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers.’ Thus are we enabled to fix a date for the first sugges- tion of that theory which appears in its full maturity in ‘ the Origin of Species.’ The cruise of IT.M.S. Beagle was from the year 1832 to 1S3G, and Mr Darwin’s pub- lication of his researches in that cruise was in the year 1840. In the last pages of the Researches is an interesting passage recommending to young naturalists a journey in 1 C