The Doctrine of Evolution

Doctrine of Evolution, The

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Title: The Doctrine of Evolution Its Basis and Its Scope
Author: Henry Edward Crampton
Release Date: August 5, 2005 [EBook #16442]
Language: English
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Columbia University Lectures
THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION
THE HEWITT LECTURES
1906-1907

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS
NEW YORK: LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 WEST 27TH STREET
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD AMEN CORNER, E.C.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LECTURES THE DOCTRINE OF
EVOLUTION
ITS BASIS AND ITS SCOPE
BY
HENRY EDWARD CRAMPTON, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF ZOOeLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1916
All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1911,
By THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1911. Reprinted December,
1912; September, 1916.
Norwood Press J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood,
Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE
The present volume consists of a series of eight addresses delivered as
the Hewitt Lectures of Columbia University at Cooper Union in New
York City during the months of February and March, 1907. The

purpose of these lectures was to describe in concise outline the
Doctrine of Evolution, its basis in the facts of natural history, and its
wide and universal scope. They fall naturally into two groups. Those of
the first part deal with matters of definition, with the essential
characteristics of living things, and, at greater length, with the
evidences of organic evolution. The lectures of the second group take
up the various aspects of human evolution as a special instance of the
general organic process. In this latter part of the series, the subject of
physical evolution is first considered, and this is followed by an
analysis of human mental evolution; the chapter on social evolution
extends the fundamental principles to a field which is not usually
considered by biologists, and its purpose is to demonstrate the
efficiency of the genetic method in this department as in all others;
finally, the principles are extended to what is called "the higher human
life," the realm, namely, of ethical, religious, and theological ideas and
ideals.
Naturally, so broad a survey of knowledge could not include any
extensive array of specific details in any one of its divisions; it was
possible only to set forth some of the more striking and significant facts
which would demonstrate the nature and meaning of that department
from which they were selected. The illustrations were usually made
concrete through the use of photographs, which must naturally be
lacking in the present volume. In preparing the addresses for
publication, the verbal form of each evening's discussion has been
somewhat changed, but there has been no substantial alteration of the
subjects actually discussed.
The choice of materials and the mode of their presentations were
determined by the general purpose of the whole course. The audiences
were made up almost exclusively of mature persons of cultivated minds,
but who were on the whole quite unfamiliar with the technical facts of
natural history. It was necessary to disregard most of the problematical
elements of the doctrine so as to bring out only the basic and
thoroughly substantiated principles of evolution. The course was, in a
word, a simple message to the unscientific; and while it may seem at
first that the discussions of the latter chapters lead to somewhat

insecure positions, it should be remembered that their purpose was to
bring forward the proof that even the so-called higher elements of
human life are subject to classification and analysis, like the facts of the
lower organic world.
It may seem that the biologist is straying beyond his subject when he
undertakes to extend the principles of organic evolution to those
possessions of mankind that seem to be unique. The task was
undertaken in the Hewitt Lectures because the writer holds the deeply
grounded conviction that evolution has been continuous throughout,
and that the study of lower organic forms where laws reveal themselves
in more fundamental simplicity must lead the investigator to employ
and apply those laws in the study of the highest natural phenomena that
can be found. Another motive was equally strong. Too frequently men
of science are accused of restricting the application of their results to
their own particular fields of inquiry. As individuals they use their
knowledge for the development of world conceptions, which they are
usually reluctant to display before the world. It is because I believe that
the