Doing some research on a completely different subject (one connected to art, specifically the Luminists, and not remotely connected to evolution), I just came on something that amazes me.
It's a quote from some guy I'd never heard of (though you probably have), Maupertuis. He was born in 1698, and wrote this in 1750.
"May we not say that, in the fortuitous combination of the productions of Nature, since only those creatures could survive in whose organization a certain degree of adaptation was present, there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that such adaptation is actually found in all those species which now exist? Chance, one might say, turned out a vast number of individuals; a small proportion of these were organized in such a manner that the animal's organs could satisfy their needs. A much greater number showed neither adaptation nor order; these last have perishedd... Thus the species which we see today are but a small part of all those that a blind destiny has produced. (Maupertuis. Essaie de cosmologie, 1750) 1
ourworld.compuserve.com
Darwin wasn't even born until 1809. |
