First Principles

About the book

Excerpt from First Principles The distinctness of origin might, indeed, have been in. Ferred from the work itself, which deals with Evolution at large - Inorganic, Organic, and Super-organic - in terms of Matter and Motion; and touches but brie y on those particular processes so luminously exhibited by Mr. Dar win. In 159 only when illustrating the law of The Multiplication of Effects, as universally dis played, have I had occasion to refer to the doctrine set forth in the Origin of Species pointing out that the general cause I had previously assigned for the produc tion of divergent varieties of organisms, would not suffice to account for all the facts without that special cause disclosed by Mr. Darwin. The absence of this passage would, of course, leave a serious gap in the general argu ment; but the remainder of the work would stand exactly as it now does. I do not make this explanation in the belief that the prevailing misapprehension will thereby soon be rectified; for I am conscious that, once having become current, wrong beliefs Of this kind long persist - all disproofs not withstanding. Nevertheless, I yield to the suggestion that unless I state the facts as they stand, I shall continue to countenance the misapprehension, and cannot expect it to cease. 1i. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."