The Shrewsbury Edition of the Works of Samuel Butler: Evolution, old and new

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J. Cape, 1924

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Página 10 - For this reason, and for no other, viz, that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, eg that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day...
Página 320 - It has been said that I speak of Natural Selection as an active power or Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets ? Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity.
Página 204 - ... the world itself might have been generated, rather than created; that is, it might have been gradually produced from very small beginnings, increasing by the activity of its inherent principles, rather than by a sudden evolution of the whole by the Almighty fiat.
Página 10 - I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone ? why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first ? For this reason, and for no other, viz.
Página 327 - ... the wingless condition of so many Madeira beetles is mainly due to the action of natural selection, combined probably with disuse. For during many successive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving from not being blown out to sea...
Página 67 - abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three, " but the greatest of these is charity.
Página 10 - I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there.
Página 280 - The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organised life, may, in part, be traced to the extreme fecundity of Nature, who, as before stated, has, in all the varieties of her offspring, a prolific power much beyond (in many cases a thousandfold) what is necessary to fill up the vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existence is limited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these...
Página 304 - Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being...
Página 198 - A great want of one part of the animal world has consisted in the desire of the exclusive possession of the females; and these have acquired weapons to combat each other for this purpose...

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