The Sedentary Cause and the Brilliant Event

After the revolutions of 1848 Europe formed a new way of looking at the world. They were no longer optimistic about the future; rather, they were cynical and realistic. Many new thoughts and ideas emerged as a result of this, one of the most prominent being thoughts on evolution. In 1859, Charles Darwin wrote and published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, which is thought by some to have brought about a “new …

…scientific ideas of Darwin, to the application to politics, business, and philosophy by Huxley. Unlike Barzun, Irvine is willing to accept the fact that Darwin gives little credit to his predecessors for his advances in thought. However, the abundance of primary sources leaves little room for argument on the importance of the “New Science” and the clarity and thoroughness of the argument would have surely been appreciated by a debater of the likes of Huxley.