Precursors of The Idea
In the 18th century Linnaeus and others had classified man as a primate, but without drawing evolutionary conclusions. It was Lamarck, the first to develop a coherent theory of evolution, who discussed human evolution in this context. Robert Chambers in his anonymous Vestiges also clearly made the point.
The book came five years after Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace announced their theory of evolution by means of natural selection, and four years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. In the Origin Darwin had deliberately avoided tackling human evolution, but left a gnomic trailer: "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history". Darwin's sequel came eight years later, with The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871).
Read more about this topic: Man's Place In Nature
Famous quotes containing the word idea:
“At each minute we are crushed by the idea and the feeling of time. And there are only two ways to escape this nightmare, Mto forget it: pleasure and work. Pleasure wears us out. Work fortifies us. Let’s choose.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)