Darwin and Modern Science Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Charles Darwin and of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of the “Origin of Species”

Abstract

IN bringing together the series of essays composing this volume, the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the syndics of the University Press, and the editor of the work, Prof. Seward, have rendered a public service for which all those who cultivate science in any of its numerous branches must be deeply grateful. It is an appropriate international memorial raised at a most opportune time in memory of the centenary of the birth of our greatest naturalist, and in celebration of the jubilee of the publication of that epoch-making book which made the principle of organic evolution a living reality in the strictest scientific sense. We have now been provided with a symposium of twenty-eight essays by English and foreign experts—every name being that of a recognised authority in that subject with which he deals. It is no exaggeration to speak of this work as monumental; it is a monument of greater durability than bronze or marble, because it stereotypes the collective thought of our age. For the future historian of science it must for all time serve as a land-mark indicating the present stage of development of scientific doctrine in every department of human thought where science holds sway, and where the great principle of evolution has, under Darwin's influence, served as a guide in the interpretation both of organic and inorganic nature.

Darwin and Modern Science. Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Charles Darwin and of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of the “Origin of Species.”

Edited for the Cambridge Philosophical Society and the Syndics of the University Press by Prof. A. C. Seward. Pp. xvii + 595. (Cambridge: University Press, 1909.) Price 18s. net.