Chapter 64 Part 2 Results Chapter 15 Science 4

4 Biologists and geographers have not been as lucky as linguists.While the study of the earth (by mining ores) is closely related to chemistry, the study of life (through medicine) is closely linked to physiology and chemistry (by the discovery that the chemical elements in living organisms are the same as those in inorganic nature) , but history is also a major issue for them.In any case, however, the most obvious problems for a geographer involve history—for example, how to explain the distribution of land and water, mountain ranges, and the most obvious formations. If the historical problem of geography is how to explain the evolution of the earth, the historical problem of biology is binary: how to explain the growth of individual organisms from eggs, seeds or spores, and how to explain the evolution of species .Fossils are the visible evidence that connects the two: a unique population of fossils is found in each rock formation, but not in any other.A British drainage engineer, William Smith (William Smith) discovered in the 1790s that the historical sequence of strata can be easily determined by the unique fossils of each stratum. Therefore, the excavation activities of the Industrial Revolution brought biology and geography bright.

It is evident that attempts to develop a theory of evolution have long been attempted, especially by the fashionable but sometimes sloppy zoologist Buffon (Les Epoques de la Nature [1778]) for his analysis of the animal world. An attempt to provide a theory of evolution.During the decade of the French Revolution, these attempts gained momentum rapidly.The brooding Hutton of Edinburgh (James Hutton (Theory of the Earth, 1795)) and the eccentric Erasmus Darwin (who emerged from the Birmingham Crescent Society and wrote in poetry Write some scientific works, such as "Animal Physiology" [Zoonomia, 1794]) put forward a fairly complete set of theories of the evolution of the earth and animal and plant species.Around the same time, Laplace even proposed a theory of the evolution of the solar system that the philosophers Kant and Cabanis had foreseen, seeing humans' high levels of mental ability as a product of their evolutionary history. In 1809, Lamarck of France put forward the first systematic modern theory of evolution based on the heredity of acquired personality.

None of these theories prevailed.In fact, they soon ran into as frenzied a resistance as the Tories' Quarterly Review.The magazine's "belief in the apocalypse is strong".So what about Noah's flood?What about the claim that species (let alone humans) were created individually?Most importantly, how to maintain the stability of society?Such questions trouble not only simple-minded priests but not-so-simple-minded politicians.The great Cuvier, the founder of the systematic study of fossils (Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, 1812), refuted the theory of evolution in the name of God.Rather than shake the solidity of the Bible and Aristotelianism, it is even better to imagine a series of catastrophes in the history of geography followed by a series of divine re-creations—as opposed to denying biological change, denying geography Learning to change is almost impossible.Poor Dr. Lawrence, who proposed a Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection in response to Lamarck, was forced to withdraw his Natural History of Man (1819) from publication under the clamor of conservatives.He is so unwise, because he not only discusses human evolution, but even points out the significance of evolutionary thought for contemporary society.His public confession saved his current career, his future career, and his eternal conscience.He could only console his conscience by flattering the radical printing warriors who stole his seditious works again and again.

It wasn't until the 1830s, as we shall observe, that politics turned left again, and with the publication of Lyell's famous Principles of Geology (1830-1833), a full-fledged theory of evolution A breakthrough was made in geography. The Principles of Geography put an end to Neptunist and catastrophist resistance.Hydrogenists use the Bible as evidence to argue that all minerals were precipitated from the aqueous solution that once covered the earth (see Genesis 1, and 7-9); catastrophists inherit Cuvier's desperate defense tradition. During this same decade, Schmerling and Boucher de Perthes, who were researching in Belgium (fortunately, his archaeological proclivity far outstripped his position as customs officer in Abbeville), foreshadowed a An even more startling development was the discovery of fossils of prehistoric humans whose existence had until then been fanatically denied. (His "Celtic Ancient Architecture" was not published until 1846. In fact, some human fossils have been found again and again, but they are either unknown or all forgotten, lying in the corners of museums everywhere .) However, until the discovery of Neanderthal in 1856, scientific conservatism was still able to dismiss this daunting prospect on the grounds of lack of evidence.

So far it has to be admitted that (1) those agents which are still at work have changed the earth from its original state to its present state in the course of time; (3) The sequence of strata reveals the sequence of evolutionary forms of animals, and therefore of living things.Significantly, those who were most willing to accept this theory, and who showed the greatest genuine interest in the question of evolution, were the self-confident and radical laymen of the English middle class (however, the man famous for his poems praising the factory Dr. Ure [Dr. Andrew Ure] except).Scientists were belated in embracing science.When we consider, however, that geography was the only discipline in this period that was seriously regarded at Oxford and Cambridge for its gentlemanliness (perhaps because it was practiced out of doors, and with a particular fondness for costly "geographic travel"). This is less surprising when it comes to disciplines of study.

However, the development of biology is still faltering.This explosive subject was not taken seriously again until after the failed revolution of 1848; at that time even Darwin approached it with extreme caution and ambiguity (not to say insincerity).Even similar explorations through embryology fell silent for a while.In this field, early German speculative philosophers such as Johann Meckel of Halle (1781-1833) had pointed out that during the embryonic growth of an organism, the evolutionary process of the species was reenacted.However, this "biological law", although initially supported by people like Rathke (who discovered in 1829 that the development of bird embryos passes through a stage with gill openings), has been met with opposition. To the dreaded opposition of Von Baer of Königsberg and St. Petersburg—experimental physiology seemed to have acquired a marked appeal to researchers in the Slavic and Baltic regions. (Latke taught in Dorpat [Tartu], Estonia; Pander taught in Riga, Latvia; the great Czech physiologist Purkinje founded it in Breslau, Poland in 1830) established the first physiology research laboratory.) It was not until the advent of Darwinism that these ideas were revived.

At the same time, evolutionary theory has made astonishing advances in social research.However, we should not exaggerate this progress.The period of the dual revolution belongs to the prehistory of all social sciences, except political economy, linguistics, and perhaps statistics.Even its most significant achievement, the well-structured theory of social evolution of Marx and Engels, was at this time no more than a brilliant conception presented with the aid of a brilliant pamphlet as the basis for a historical narrative.It was not until the second half of the century that the scientific foundation of humanities and social research was firmly established.

The same is true in the fields of social anthropology or ethnology, and in the fields of prehistory, sociology, and psychology.These fields of study were baptized, or declared for the first time, in the period in question, to regard themselves as separate disciplines with special rules—Müller the Younger's statement in 1843 was perhaps the first to assert that psychology should be A statement of status—is significant.The establishment of special ethnological societies in France and England (1839, 1843) for the study of the "race of man," as did the increase in statistical methods for social investigation and the increase in statistical societies between 1830 and 1848. A fact is equally important.However, the French ethnographic society calls on travelers to "discover what memories a people has of its origins . Changes? Are these changes brought about by internal causes or by external intrusion?" This "general instruction to the traveler" is but a synopsis, albeit a profoundly historic one.Indeed, what is important to the social sciences of the period covered by this book is not their output (despite the accumulation of descriptive data), but their resolutely materialistic orientation (environmental determinism to explain differences in human societies), and their The same obsession with evolutionary theory.Didn't Chavannes define ethnology in 1787, when it was just beginning, as "the history of the progress of peoples towards civilization"?

Here, however, it is necessary to recall briefly a dark by-product of the early development of the social sciences—the theory of race.The existence of different races (or rather skin colours) was widely discussed in the eighteenth century, as was the question of whether humans were created once or more than once.The line between hominists and hominists is not a simple straight line.The first group combines believers in evolution and human equality with those relieved to find that at least science does not conflict with the Bible on this point, such as ex-Darwinist Pritchard De (Prichard), Lawrence and Cuvier.It is accepted that the second group included not only real scientists but also racists of the American South who practiced slavery.Discussions about race have led to a flourishing of anthropometry.Anthropometry is primarily based on the collection, classification and measurement of skull bones.These activities have also been fueled by contemporary phrenology, a strange theory that attempts to decipher human personality from the shape of the skull.Phrenological societies were established in both England and France (1823, 1832), although the discipline soon fell out of science again.

At the same time, nationalism, racism, history, and field observation have joined forces to introduce into society another equally dangerous issue, that of the permanence of national or racial identity. In the 1820s, French historiography and revolutionary pioneers, the Thierry brothers, devoted themselves to the study of the Norman Conquest and the Gauls, a study that is still reflected in French school books (“Our ancestors Gauls”) and On the blue box of Gauls.As good radicals, they believed that the French people were descended from the Gauls and the nobility descended from the Teutonic conquerors, an argument that would later be dismissed by upper-class racists like the Count of Gobineau, used as an argument for its conservatism.The Welsh naturalist Edward, on the side of the Celts, embraced with understandable zeal the belief that certain races survived in this age because they sought to discover the romantic and magical aspects of their own race. idiosyncratic; try to justify themselves on a mission to save the world; or try to ascribe their wealth and power to "innate superiority" (they show no tendency to ascribe poverty and oppression to innate inferiority) .They can be excused, however, by the fact that the worst abuses of race theory occurred after the period in which this book is concerned has ended.