The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution The Present Evolution of Man

Abstract

PROF. COPE tells us in his preface that his work may be regarded as containing a plea on behalf of the Lamarckian view of the factors of evolution; and he believes that evidence has now been accumulated to demonstrate the doctrine, which, he says, he has defended as a working hypothesis for twenty-five years. At p.9 of the introduction, he states, referring to one of his own papers: “By the discovery of the palaeontologic succession of modifications of the articulations of the vertebrate, and especially, mammalian skeleton, I first furnished an actual demonstration of the reality of the Lamarckian factor of use, or motion, as friction, impact, and strain, as an efficient cause of evolution.” Such statements as these lead the reader to expect that at last we shall have something of the nature of proof of the inheritance of acquired characters, and that the difficulties and objections of those who hold Weismann's views will be fairly met and satisfactorily answered. The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution. By E. D. Cope, Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania. Pp. xvi + 532. (Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1896.) The Present Evolution of Man. By G. Archdall Reid. Pp. 370. (London: Chapman and Hall, Limited, 1896.)