About five years ago when I read Charles Darwins’ The Origin of Species as an adult with some comprehension of biology on a deeper level I was struck by how original and fertile the text was. Years earlier Geoffrey Miller had said in The Mating Mind that it was very useful to read Darwin’s original works, because there is a great deal which doesn’t need to be reinvented. Often Darwin had anticipated many objections, or, his mind had gone down paths which are today very fertile areas of research. I hadn’t thought of that assertion until reading Darwin in the original, but it struck me as exactly right. A few weeks ago I wrote something about species concepts. Well, today I stumbled onto this quote from Origin:
Some few naturalists maintain that animals never present varieties; but then these same naturalists rank the slightest difference as of specific value; and when the same identical form is met with in two distant countries, or in two geological formations, they believe that two distinct species are hidden under the same dress. The term species thus comes to be a mere useless abstraction, implying and assuming a separate act of creation. It is certain that many forms, considered by highly competent judges to be varieties, resemble species so complete in character, that they have been thus ranked by other highly competent judges. But to discuss whether they ought to be called species or varieties, before any definition of these terms has been generally accepted, is vainly to beat the air.
Well played sir! Obviously the context is very different, but some of the arguments are quite general. Darwin was attempting to get to the heart of the matter, and that’s why we remember him and far less the myriad other thinkers of that era.
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