Visionneuse

Date_TXT

London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1926

Cote

597.6 KYL

Auteur

Kyle, Harry

Type de document

Livre

Description :

IN standing the life and characters of fishes one must face The problem of interpreting the phenomena. They may
Be taken as évidence of this or that theory, or they may be Described as hard, cold facts without reference to any
Theory. A middle course may be suggested. One may Forme tentative deductions based on the facts and contrats Them as impartially as possible with the conventional Theories, so that the “fittest” may survive.
The possibility that charters have arisen at variance With the innate tendencies of “Heredity,” and persisted Without the aid of “Natural Selection,” is a thesis which requires some courage to state. Yet this is one of the Deductions that come, it seems to us inevitably, from a Study of fishes and a few words of explanation may be Given here.
Fishes occupy a peculiar position in the hierarchy of Animal life. We cannot be sure whence they came, but Many of the important, even the essential, characters of Higher Vertebrates make their first definite appearance Among them, and it is certain that fishes were the forerunner Of all higher forms of life. We have these important Vertebrate characters, then, at the upper end, and nothing But a hypothetical form—very different from a fish and Possibly a mutation from some larval form of lower degree —at the beginning. How did such characters first arise? Which means, how can we conceive their origin?