Abstract
In the first flush of enthusiasm produced by the work of Charles Darwin, his achievement was often compared with that of Newton. Just as Principia Mathematica formulated laws which govern the domain of inanimate matter, so, it was said, The Origin of Species formulated laws which govern the domain of life, at least in its historical aspect. Furthermore, just as physical bodies must obey the law of universal gravitation, so living bodies must obey the law of evolution by natural selection. It was an easy step from this view to the belief that the evolutionary process described by Darwin is not just something which happened in the past. The process is also going on in the present, and is destined to continue throughout “a secure future of great length.” For most Darwinians in the nineteenth century, biological evolution was literally a work in progress.
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