A PRIMER OF DARWINISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION BY J. Y. BERGEN, JR., AND FANNY D. BERGEN BOSTON MDCCCXC LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 10 MILK STREET NEXT "THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. THE title of this little book, "A PRIMER OF DARWINISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION," has, after some deliberation, been substituted for that which headed the preceding edition (The Development Theory), in the belief that the incorporation of the term Darwinism in the name of the book will best indicate to the class of readers whom it is designed to reach the nature of its subject-matter. Its general scope remains the same as in the first edition, but many changes have been made. in its details. The authors' thanks are due to Prof. F. W. Putnam, of the Peabody Museum of Archæology, Cambridge, for important statements and criticisms, and for the plates for Figs. 29 and 30. Prof. Alpheus Hyatt has kindly lent the electrotype plate for the cut illustrating the pedigree of the Steinheim snails, and for the frontispiece, and has placed many books and pamphlets, not otherwise accessible to them, in the hands of the writers. Mr. W. J. McGee, of the U. S. Geological Survey, has lent his original drawings for Figs. 31 and 32. Mr. Walter Faxon, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, at Cambridge, and Prof. E. W. Claypole, of Buchtel College, Akron, Ohio, have read the book critically and lent valuable aid in its revision. It has been suggested that the book might have been given a more impartial air if the objections that have been urged against the theory of organic evolution had been stated in these pages with considerable fulness. An extended discussion, however, of these difficulties could not find room in so elementary a work, while a mere mention would hardly prove of any service. Such a statement, indeed, would be hardly more useful in a primer like this than would an account of the philosophical difficulties of the atomic theory, in a text-book on chemistry for secondary schools. The reader who wishes to find the principal objections to the sufficiency of the natural selection hypothesis stated in detail, may look for them in the writings of Mivart, Cope. |