Project Gutenberg 2007-11-09 Public domain in the USA. 449 Butler, Samuel 1835 1902 Cellarius Evolution, Old & New Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as compared with that of Charles Darwin Produced by Stacy Brown, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Evolution, Old & New" by Samuel Butler is a scholarly exploration of evolutionary theory written in the late 19th century. The book critically examines the theories proposed by notable figures such as Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Charles Darwin, analyzing their perspectives on evolution, teleology, and the purpose behind the structures of living organisms. Butler aims to affirm the idea of design and purpose in the evolution of life, arguing against the reduction of evolution to mere chance or mechanical causes. At the start of the work, Butler presents the central question of teleology in natural history, contemplating whether the structures of animals and plants demonstrate design or purpose. He contrasts the traditional view of teleology, exemplified by William Paley's arguments, with the emergent scientific perspectives influenced by natural selection and descent with modification. Ultimately, he intends to assert that these evolutionary changes are not devoid of purposeful design, alongside an examination of historical ideas about purposiveness in biology, setting the stage for a deeper discussion that challenges contemporary evolutionary reasoning. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 49.4 (College-level). Difficult to read. en Evolution (Biology) -- History QH Text Biology Browsing: History - General Browsing: Science - Genetics/Biology/Evolution Category: History - Modern (1750+) Category: Science - Biology Category: Archaeology & Anthropology Category: Philosophy & Ethics 951363 2025-06-10T03:36:45.320816 text/html 947155 2007-11-09T09:11:06 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 300070 2007-11-09T09:11:06 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 393723 2025-06-10T03:37:08.418704 application/epub+zip 406288 2025-06-10T03:36:52.957799 application/epub+zip 402174 2025-06-10T03:36:49.367831 application/epub+zip 729434 2025-06-10T03:37:16.498669 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 661031 2025-06-10T03:37:03.785763 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 666111 2022-09-11T05:27:48.785390 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 734319 2025-06-10T03:36:42.985859 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 734077 2007-11-09T09:11:04 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 266406 2007-11-09T09:11:06 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 734136 2007-11-09T09:11:04 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 266070 2007-11-09T09:11:06 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 20577 2025-06-10T03:37:16.672628 application/rdf+xml 13477 2025-06-10T03:36:50.070776 image/jpeg 3601 2025-06-10T03:36:49.718764 image/jpeg 366080 2025-06-10T03:36:45.386806 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia