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Atla Abstracts 144 Book Review Supplement Nature Vol. 264 November I! 1976 mised Spencer's Cosmic Philosophy, but the actual content of Darwin's American theory had as little impact on its con­ verts as on its opponents. Russett deals exhaustively with all response aspects of 'Darwinism' in America­ scientific, philosophical, religious, to Darwin social, historiographic, economic and literary. In spite of the opposition of the most powerful scientist in the David L. Hull United States, Louis Agassiz, and per­ versely to some extent because of it, evolution was almost universally ac­ Darwin in America: The Intellectual cepted by American biologists within a Response, 1865-1912. By Cynthia decade after publication of the Origin, Eagle Russett. Pp. ix+ 228. (Freeman : but the 'evolutionism' which became San Francisco and Reading, May 1976.) so popular tended to be Lamarckian for scientific C: Cloth £6.30; paper £3.20. and teleological-partly .2 reasons, partly theological. Theologians ;;; ~ were not alone in viewing the death 0 u RussETT's well-balanced account of of teleology as the death of God. Yet c the intellectual response to Darwinism in slaying Paley, Darwin slew a corpse. -~ in America further enhances the richly Darwin merely shocked nineteenth- A illustrated picture which we already century intellectuals into realising how ~ have of the Darwinian revolution. As vacuous teleology had become. The 6 Russett would be the first to agree, her Me1aphysical Club at Cambridge was book could have been entitled just as the focus of evolutionism among readily Spencer in America because American philosophers. As might be were the authors which Russett treats expected, John Fiske, the most enthu­ of natural selection from Malthus's as likely to have their minds blown to siastic evolutionist, was a Spencerian. Essay on Population (1798), then the bits by reading Spencer's First Prin­ More serious philosophers such as alacrity with which economists like of ciples (1862) as by Darwin's Origin William James, John Dewey, Josiah Thorstein Veblen read the basic prin­ Species (1859). The genuinely scientific Royce, and Chauncey Wright, however, ciples of evolutionary theory back into legiti- character of Darwin's theory viewed Spencer as so much rubbish human affairs was understandable. A which had to be cleared from their quick glance at Malthus's Essay, how­ path before proceeding on their way. ever, brings the argument full circle Spencer was the "philosopher whom because in it Malthus justifies his views ATLA those who have no other philosopher about human population by reference appreciate" (pl 7). to biological species in a state of nature. The most interesting sections in As complex as the interconnections be­ ABSTRACTS Russett's book are those in which she tween intellectual disciplines may be, deals with Social Darwinism and its Russett believes that the content of is published twice yearly and effects on such novelists as Jack Lon­ scientific theories can colour the don, Frank Norris and Theodore and vice contains news, reviews, and general intellectual climate Dreiser. Rugged individualism, socia­ versa. Her final chapter concerns the To abstracts on "Alternatives lism, aid to the poor, free will and blow which Maxwell's equations, quan­ Laboratory Animals". Coverage determinism, nature-nurture, the rela­ tum theory and relativity theory dealt includes a variety of disciplines in tive superiority of the races, group to the absolute, certain, deterministic, a wide selection of world selection and altruism-it is all here mechanistic worldview initiated by scientific literature. hut presented more bluntly and at a Newton. safer distance than it is in the current The book is illustrated with the brouhaha over sociobiology. Darwin usual portraits as well as with ex­ Have you a copy in your Library? also legitimised the 'historical method', tremely well-chosen cartoons and paint­ If not, a free specimen will be sent which for Dewey was the discovery of ings. Some of these illustrations convey on request. the particular sequence of conditions messages much more powerfully than which brought about a particular any printed word could hope to do; natural phenomenon, for Henry Adams for example, the contrast between the search for the one great law of 'Nature red in tooth and claw' and FRAME, history. Adams found his great law in the cloying romanticism of Albert a combination of thermodynamics and Bierstadt's painting of the Rocky 312a Worple Road the law of inverse squares. Not only Mountains. My only criticism is that was the universe running down, it was Russett completely ignores the really London SW20 SQU doing so logarithmically. The religious excellent scholarship which has heen phase of human history had lasted produced during the past dozen years (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in 90,000 yr, the mechanical phase would or so on Darwin and Darwinism. If Medical Experiments) last 300 yr, the electrical 17.5 yr, and she has read any of the more recent the ethereal phase but 4 yr. work, she does not mention it. D England) (Registered Charity No. 259464 Russett's prevailing concern is the Tel: 01-946 1450 interconnections between intellectual David L. Hull is Professor of Philo­ disciplines. For example, if Darwin and sophy at the University of Wisconsin-­ Circle No. 48 on RHder Enquiry Fonn. Wallace actually borrowed the notion Milwaukee. © 1976 Nature Publishing Group.
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