Evolution: Its nature, its evidence, and its relation to religious thought. Joseph LeConte

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       Joseph LeConte

      Evolution: Its nature, its evidence, and its relation to religious thought

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066184735

Table of Contents

       PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

       PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

       PART I. WHAT IS EVOLUTION?

       CHAPTER I. ITS SCOPE AND DEFINITION.

       Definition of Evolution.

       The Above Three Laws Are Laws of Evolution.

       CHAPTER II. THE RELATION OF LOUIS AGASSIZ TO THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.

       PART II. EVIDENCES OF THE TRUTH OF EVOLUTION.

       CHAPTER I. GENERAL EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION AS A UNIVERSAL LAW.

       CHAPTER II. SPECIAL PROOFS OF EVOLUTION. Introductory.

       CHAPTER III. THE GRADES OF THE FACTORS OF EVOLUTION AND THE ORDER OF THEIR APPEARANCE.

       CHAPTER IV. SPECIAL PROOFS, TAKEN FROM THE GENERAL LAWS OF ANIMAL STRUCTURE, OR FROM COMPARISON IN THE TAXONOMIC SERIES. General Principles.

       CHAPTER V. PROOFS FROM HOMOLOGIES OF THE VERTEBRATE SKELETON.

       CHAPTER VI. HOMOLOGIES OF THE ARTICULATE SKELETON.

       CHAPTER VII. PROOFS FROM EMBRYOLOGY, OR COMPARISON IN THE ONTOGENIC SERIES.

       CHAPTER VIII. PROOFS FROM GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS.

       Continental Faunas and Floras.

       Theory of the Origin of Geographical Diversity.

       CHAPTER IX. PROOFS FROM VARIATION OF ORGANIC FORMS, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL.

       PART III. THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

       CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.

       CHAPTER II. THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO MATERIALISM.

       CHAPTER III. THE RELATION OF GOD TO NATURE.

       CHAPTER IV. THE RELATION OF MAN TO NATURE.

       CHAPTER V. THE RELATION OF GOD TO MAN.

       CHAPTER VI. THE OBJECTION, THAT THE ABOVE VIEW IMPLIES PANTHEISM, ANSWERED.

       CHAPTER VII. SOME LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE IMMANENCY.

       I. Conception of God.

       II. Question of First and Second Causes.

       III. Question of General and Special Providence.

       IV. The Natural and the Supernatural.

       V. Question of Design in Nature.

       VI. Question of the Mode of Creation.

       CHAPTER VIII. THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO THE IDEA OF THE CHRIST.

       CHAPTER IX. THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.

       INDEX

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

       Table of Contents

      The three years which have elapsed since the publication of the first edition of this work have been years of great activity of thought on many of the subjects treated therein. Some changes and additions seemed therefore imperatively called for.

      For example: There has sprung up recently among the foremost writers on evolution a warm discussion on the factors of evolution, their number and relative importance. I have therefore added a chapter (Chap. III, Part II) on this subject—not, indeed, to discuss it fully (for this would be impossible in the limits of a chapter), but to put the mind of the reader in position to understand it and to judge for himself.

      Again: Every reader of the first edition must have remarked that there are many fundamental religious questions which I have not touched at all in Part III. I had avoided these because my own mind was not yet fully clear. I regarded what I then wrote as only a little leaven in a very large lump. I was willing to wait and let it work. In the mean time it has worked in my own mind, and I hope in the minds of others. I have therefore added two chapters to this part. In one I simply carry out to their logical consequences the doctrine of the Divine Immanency. This brings up the questions of First and Second Causes; of General and Special