評論
打印
He threw out scores of ideas which have contained profound truths, even in some of his most criticized conceptions, such as Pangenesis.In this he ascribed the mechanism of heredity to physical entities which he called gemmules, supposed to be connected with every part of the body.The modem knowledge of genes and hormones has confirmed his fundamental idea.
他提出了許多含有深刻真理的想法，就連泛生論等廣受批評的一些看法也是如此。在泛生論中他把遺傳的機理歸于他叫作“小芽”的身體實體，而這些實體被認為與身體的各部分都有聯系。現代有關基因和荷爾蒙的知識已經證實了他的基本觀點。
He buttressed his technical position with huge monographs on barnacles, and important works on coral reefs, the fertilization of flowers by insects,climbing and movement in plants,crossing, and a big final volume on The Formation of Vegetable Mould,through the Action of Worms, published in the year before he died.
他寫下的有關甲殼動物的大量專著，有關珊瑚礁的、昆蟲為花授精的、植物攀援、長勢以及雜交的重要著作，以及去世前一年出版的最后一大卷：《蚯蚓作用下植物土壤的形成》，都為其專業假設提供了依據。
His range of enquiry was astonishing, and his power of drawing important conclusions from inconspicuous details unequalled. Nevertheless, time has, of course, emphasized many of the obscurities of which he was himself very much aware. While the fact of evolution became obvious,its inner mechanism, in spite of all the biological research of the last hundred years, is still under sharp dispute.
他探索的范圍之廣令人驚訝，他從不引人注目的細節中得出重要結論的能力無與倫比。不過，隨著時間的推移，人們往往更多地強調他理論中的許多模糊不清之處，其實這些模糊的地方他本人當時也是清楚地意識到了的。雖然進化的事實顯而易見，盡管過去的一百年 來進行了大量的生物學研究，但對其運行的內在機制，人們仍在激烈爭論之中。
Why did Darwin’s work have such an effect, not only on science, but on the whole of human thought? It was because it contained principles which were of interest to many different classes in society.
為什么達爾文的研究不僅對科學，而且對整個人類思想具有這么大的影響？因為它包含了社會上許多不同階層普遍感興趣的原理。
