Abstract
This chapter narrates how A.R. Wallace, Charles Lyell, and Thomas Huxley disagreed with Charles Darwin on the question of whether the human being is different in kind from our closest animal ancestors or merely different in degree. Siding with the first three, it is explained how difference in kind in evolution can be created not only by genetic mutation, but also by behavioral innovation. Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s important contribution is discussed, and it is explained how the concept of the econiche easily unites Lamarck’s notion of behavior as an evolutionary force with Darwin’s and Wallace’s notion of evolution by natural selection.
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Notes
- 1.
“Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there,” Hegel warned in The Phenomenology of Spirit, but if you want to shirk the work, just go to Chap. 10.
- 2.
Darwin discovered the theory first, but as he did not publish, he was scooped by Wallace. After Charles Lyell’s intervention, the theory was jointly (without Wallace’s prior knowledge) presented at a meeting at the Linnaean Society of London in 1858.
- 3.
Wallace (1905, p. 17).
- 4.
Darwin (1874, p. 618).
- 5.
Wallace (1905, p. 178).
- 6.
Darwin (1869).
- 7.
Huxley (1863, pp. 152–153).
- 8.
Lyell (1863, pp. 504–505).
- 9.
Darwin (1888, p. 12).
- 10.
Darwin (1859, p. 184).
- 11.
- 12.
Nongenetic transgenerational inheritance of acquired characteristics. Commonly found in plants, it was well known to botanists and agriculturalists. Lamarck was a botanist; the hapless Lysenko an agriculturalist.
References
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection. London: John Murray. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1228/1228-h/1228-h.htm
Darwin, C. (1869) Letter to Wallace March 27. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-6684.xml
Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man, London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. (1874). The descent of man (2nd ed.). London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. (1888). Life and letters of charles darwin (vol. 3) Francis Darwin, London: John Murray.
Huxley, T. H. (1863). Man’s place in nature. London: Williams & Norgate.
Lamarck, J. B. (1809). Philosophie zoologique. http://l.academicdirect.org/Horticulture/GAs/Refs/Lamarck_1809.pdf
Lamarck J. B. (1914/2012). Zoological philosophy. Forgotten Books.
Lyell, C. (1863). The geological evidences of the antiquity of man, with remarks on theories of the origin of species by variation. London: John Murray.
Wallace, A. R. (1905). My life, a record of events and opinions (Vol. 2). London: Chapman & Hall.
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Engelsted, N. (2017). The Problem of the Human Being. In: Catching Up With Aristotle . SpringerBriefs in Psychology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51088-0_7
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