Immortal Curiosity

Notes on Zoological Philosophy, by J.B. Lamarck-

Chapter 7-  Read more... (396 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

• Concerning the influence exerted by the environment on the various living bodies exposed to it. It is in all times and places operative on living bodies.
• The state in which we find any animal is, on the one hand, the result of the increasing complexity of organisation tending to form a regular gradation; and, on the other hand, of the influence of a multitude of very various conditions ever tending to destroy the regularity in the gradation of the increasing complexity of organisation.
• It is only by an inspection of ancient monuments that he becomes convinced that in each of these localities the order of things which he now finds has not always been existent; he may thence infer that it will go on changing.
• First Law of Nature:
  • In animals not past the limit of development, more use of an organ strengthens and develops that organ, while disuse weakens the organ until it disappears.
• Second Law of Nature:
  • All acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise.

Notes on The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
(first edition text)

-”I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species–that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers.” –it is interesting that he refers to this first, i.e. to the inhabitants (viz., assumably, the human inhabitants) and not the animal species. He does not reference this again in the first chapter, but moves on to domesticated animals. What about the distribution of men gave him insight into the origin of species? Was it perhaps, in refering to the “geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent”, that he saw how the various human populations had changed in combination with their geographic motion (speciation as a result of separation, etc)?

-Many people came up with similar ideas around this time. This is odd in some ways. Perhaps due to the movement of the World-Spirit…  Read more... (3840 words, estimated 15:22 mins reading time)