HenryFairfieldOsborn

Henry Fairfield Osborn
{{{ On Nov 7, 8:08 pm, backspace  wrote: > === rephrased === > ".... The weak and insufficiently endowed among all forms tend to drop > out.....The strongest.... win. .... The naturally weak fall by the > wayside............."

And then follow the non-sequitur by John Burroughs >Species have come to be what they are through this process..

The same theme is carried forth in the book "From the Greeks to Darwin" by Henry Fairfield Osborn http://www.archive.org/stream/fromgreekstodarw00osborich/fromgreekstodarw00osborich_djvu.txt

p.117
 * ''".... It is rather a form of the Survival of the Fittest theory applied, not to entire organisms,

but to the particles of which it is composed. Blind and ceaseless trials, such as those imagined by Em- pedocles, Democritus, and Lucretius, are made by these particles, impelled by their rude sensibility. As a sequel of many failures, finally a favourable combination is formed, which persists until a recom- bination is rendered necessary....."''

Now this was essentially the interpretation of Burroughs of Darwin, but note how Osborn and Burroughs differed over the term natural selection.


 * ''...Morley (not knowing of Empedocles' hypothesis) speaks of as an anticipation of a famous modern theory, referring of course to * Natural Selection.' This is especially valuable because it affords another conclusive proof that the idea of the ' Survival of the Fittest ' must

actually be traced back to Empedocles, six centuries before Christ. It is contained in an imaginary dialogue upon the teleological view of Nature between ' Saunderson ' and the ' Professor ' : " ... all the faulty combinations of matter disappeared, and that those individuals only survived whose mechanism implied no important misadaptation (contradiction), and who had the power of supporting and per- petuating themselves....." ''

Tautological essence

 * " ... all the faulty ...disappeared, and that those that survived.... had the power of .....perpetuating themselves....." ''