評論
打印
Charles Darwin and His Theory of Evolution
查爾斯·達爾文與進化論
J. G. Crowther
J·G·克勞瑟
During the voyage of the Beagle,Darwin had been deeply impressed by similarities between existing South American animals and the fossil remains. He had noted how closely similar animalsreplaced one another when proceeding southward. He was struck by the South American characterof the animals on the Galapagos archipelago，differing from island to island, and yet all the islands were recent and of the same age. It seemed utterly improbable that all of these myriad different yet similar species could each have been individually created. He felt that they could only be explained by supposing that they had sprung from a few original species which had gradually become modified. The subject haunted him.
在小獵犬號的航程中，達爾文對南美洲現有的動物與動物化石之間的相似性留下了深刻印象。他注意到,一路往南，種類極為相近的動物相互取代。加拉帕哥斯群島上南美洲動物的特性因島而異，但所有的島嶼都是在較近的同一時期形成的，這令他大為吃驚。要說所有這許多不同卻又相似的物種是被一個個單獨創造出來的，這似乎根本不可能。他認為唯一的解釋是假設它們源自幾個最初的物種，而后再逐漸變化而成。這一問題始終縈繞在他心頭。
Though Darwin said that he started collecting facts on the Origin of Species without the guidance of any theory, his first notebook on the subject shows that he was in fact grappling with1 the problem of a scientific law which would explain how these modifications occurred. His mind went out to the law of gravitation. Before Newton, men had thought that each planet was individually kept in its course by God. There was no necessary relation between all of the moving bodies. In 1837，men believed that each individual species of animal was created by God, without necessary relation with any other species.
達爾文說自己開始為《物種起源》收集論據時沒有任何理論的指導，但他就此所作的第一本筆記卻表明，實際上他是在努力探索一種解釋這些變異如何產生的科學規律。他想到的是萬有引力定律。在牛頓之前，人們認為每一顆行星由上帝規定了各自的運行軌跡。所有運動物體之間并沒有必然的聯系。在1837年，人們認為動物的每一種物種都是上帝創造的，物種之間沒有必然的聯系。
