The Direct Action Of Environment And Evolution Classic Reprint

Author : Arthur Ward Lindsey
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780266785743
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (857 download)

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Download or read book Textbook of Evolution and Genetics (Classic Reprint) written by Arthur Ward Lindsey and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Textbook of Evolution and Genetics If we look back through the long ages of recorded history we cannot fail to note another analogy in the gradually increasing complexity of society, in the development of mankind from savagery to primitive cultures and finally to the great civilizations which have come and gone. Each stage has contributed to the greatness of its successors, each has added to the complexity of human knowledge, each has made man a little more independent of his environment, each has turned his thoughts a little more keenly inward until race consciousness has become an active factor in the shaping of human destiny. Behind this long record we find a few remnants which tell us of the infancy of the human race. Crude drawings on the walls of caverns and the implements which these primitive peoples used disclose something of their limited culture. Bones associated with these eloquent legacies tell us much of the characteristics of the people who left them. Every thing points to gradual change, but behind these records - what? Man has first of all a heritage, in common with all other organ isms, a thing without which he cannot exist. He lives surrounded by conditions of various kinds which, in the aggregate, we call his environment. Environment is a second essential; to it the heritage responds within the limits of its possibility. The combination means life. We know from our own experience that life can exist without consciousness. We know too that at some time in the ascending complexity of individual development consciousness dawns, and the individual responds to the world about him not merely as a series of reactions to environmental stimuli, but with an awakening realization of other entities about him, and at last a consciousness of self. Where this point lies in the organic world we cannot say with certainty; it may be that man alone is more than an organic automaton. The light of personal experience clarifies its significance. Have we always, as a species, possessed this quality which must develop in each individual? In View of the records just mentioned this seems unlikely. Back of that crude beginning of our record of man's progress there must have been something. Consciousness must have had a beginning. 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.