Strabo (63 BCE-3 BCE)

The poets were not alone in sanctioning myths, for long before the poets the states and the lawmakers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient. They needed to control the people by superstitious fears, and these cannot be aroused without myths and marvels.

Books from Alibris: Strabo

Mary Somerville (1780-1872)

The heavens afford the most sublime subject of study which can be derived from science: the magnitude and splendour of the objects, the inconceivable rapidity with which they move, and the enormous distances between them, impress the mind with some notion of the energy that maintains them in their motions with a durability to which we can see no limits. Equally conspicuous is the goodness of the great First Cause in having endowed man with faculties by which he can not only appreciate the magnificence of his works, but trace, with precision, the operation of his laws, use the globe he inhabits as a base wherewith to measure the magnitude and distance of the sun and planets, and make the diameter of the earth’s orbit the first step of a scale by which he may ascend to the starry firmament. Such pursuits, while they ennoble the mind, at the same time inculcate humility, by showing that there is a barrier, which no energy, mental or physical, can ever enable us to pass: that however profoundly we may penetrate the depths of space, there still remain innumerable systems, compared with which those which seem so mighty to us must dwindle into insignificance, or even become invisible; and that not only man, but the globe he inhabits, nay the whole system of which it forms so small a part, might be annihilated, and its extinction be unperceived in the immensity of creation. - from Mechanism of the Heavens - Preliminary Dissertation, 2nd Ed. by Russell McNeil, (2001)

Etext: Mechanism of the Heavens (Second Edition)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Quotation

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.


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Biographical

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was a celebrated Italian Renaissance architect, inventor, engineer, sculptor and painter. He can be seen as the archetype of the Renaissance Man and has been defined as a genius. His life was described in Giorgio Vasari's "Vite". Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy. This was before modern naming conventions developed in Europe. Therefore, his full name was 'Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci,' which means "Leonardo, son of Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo himself simply signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Presumably he did not use his father's name because he was an illegitimate child. The son of a wealthy landowner and a peasant girl, Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. He became a painter's apprentice and later an independent painter in Florence. From 1482 to 1499 he worked for the Duke of Milan and maintained his own workshop with apprentices there. He returned to Florence, entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino" and son of Pope Alexander VI) as military architect and engineer, and eventually (1506) returned to Milan. From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time; he did not have much contact with these artists however. In 1516, he entered the services of king Francois I of France at the Royal Chateau at Amboise. He died on May 2, 1519 in Cloux, France and is buried in the Chapel of St. Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Leonardo appears to never have had intimate relations with women. In 1476 he was anonymously accused of homosexual contact with a 17-year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a notorious prostitute. He was, together with three other young men, charged with homosexual conduct and acquitted because of lack of evidence. For a time Leonardo and the others were under the watchful eye of Florence's "Officers of the Night" - a kind of renaissance vice squad.

Leonardo is well known for his paintings, such as Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris, France) and the Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan). Only seventeen of his paintings, and none of his statues, survive. He spent many years making plans and models for a monumental 8m high horse statue in bronze, to be erected in Milan. Because of war with France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar statue was completed according to his plans in 1999 in New York, given to Milan and erected there. Maybe even more impressive than his artistic work are his detailed studies in anatomy, engineering, bird flight and many other areas. He recorded his results in detailed notebooks which combine art and science. He was left-handed and used mirror writing, indicating that his notes were intended for his own reference. His approach to science was an observatory one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanations. Throughout his life, he planned a grand encyclopedia based on detailed drawings of everything. His notebooks contain drawings of several innovative machines, among them various flying machines, machine guns and a cog-wheeled device that has been interpreted as a mechanical calculator. Leonardo did not publish or otherwise distribute the contents of these notebooks. The notebooks remained obscure until the 19th century, and were not directly of value to the development of science and technology until that time. On this basis, L. Sprague de Camp, in his book, The Ancient Engineers, considered Leonardo not the first modern engineer, but "the last of the ancient ones", pointing out that after Leonardo's time the practice of disseminating and publishing scientific discoveries began in earnest. In 1994, one of da Vinci's notebooks was purchased by American entrepreneur, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, for US$25 million.

Detailed Biography

Florentine painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scholar, and one of the greatest minds of the Renaissance; born at Vinci, near Florence, in 1452; died at Cloux, near Amboise, France, 2 May, 1519, natural son of Ser Piero, a notary, and a peasant woman. He was reared carefully by his father, and was remarkably gifted and precocious. Few artists owed so little to circumstances and teachers. He was quite self-made. His work was small in bulk, and what remains may be counted on fingers of both hands. Few men had such varied talent and amassed such encyclopedic knowledge; his method as an artist was original with him, science was the measure of beauty, he combined fact with poetry and made use of both to carry on wide investigations in nature and to reproduce life according to the very laws of life. There are three periods in Leonardo's biography: The Florentine period (1469-82); the Milanese period (1483-99); the Nomadic period (1500-19).

I. THE ARTIST

Florentine Period (1469-82)

At an early age, doubtless about his fifteenth year, Leonardo entered Verrocchio's studio which about 1465 was the foremost in the city. Among his associates was Pietro Vanucci called Perugino. A sculptor and painter, Verrocchio was not an artist of the highest genius, but he played an important part in the history of art. The contemporary of Castagno and Pollaiulo, he centralized their labours, codified their efforts, and circulated the results of their studies; in a certain sense Florentine naturalism was organized in his studio. The work of both generations was summed up in a work common to master and pupil, Verrocchio's "Baptism of Christ", in the Academy of Florence, wherein Leonardo painted the face of one of the angels who hold the garments of Jesus. In the midst of a work which, although a conscientious study, is dull and prosaic this ravishing countenance shines with a divine life. Under these conditions young Leonardo acquired the technique of his craft, all the progress attained by the Florentine School about the middle of the fifteenth century, but he gave to it a new value and incomparable beauty. As Verrocchio's collaborator in all branches of art he assisted in the preliminary studies and the preparatory researches for the famous equestrian statue of the condottiere Colleone. He was also admitted to the celebrated garden of the Medicis, where they had gathered a collection of antiquities, then the foremost in the world, and which they had, moreover, made a museum and a school, or academy, of fine arts. The young artist nevertheless almost entirely escaped the superstition of Antiquity, and this is a clear proof of his wonderful independence. The artists of the next generation, especially Michelangelo, scarcely beheld life save through the marble veil of Graeco-Roman sculpture; Leonardo, on the other hand, borrowed almost nothing from the past; a few details in a candelabrum in the small "Annunciation" of the Louvre, rare sketches such as the "Dancers" of the Academy of Venice, a warrior's head at London (British Museum), these constitute nearly the whole of his debt to Antiquity. In this sense Leonardo is the first of the "moderns".

We possess very few of the works of his youth. Apart from the face of the angel in the "Baptism of Christ" spoken of above, we can ascribe to him with certainty only the delicate miniature "Annunciation" of the Louvre, the portrait of a young woman in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna, and two small terra-cottas in the South Kensington Museum, London; a "Madonna and Child", and a bust of St. John the Baptist. Drawings have preserved for us the traces of other projects, e.g., in "Adoration of the Shepherds" (drawing at the Louvre), but we have almost no information concerning this period. A landscape drawing dated 1573 and another study dated 1578 (Uffizi) are the first certain dates we encounter in his life. The following note has also been found: ". . . bre 1578 cominciai le due Madonne"; but no one knows what became of these Madonnas, nor even if they were executed. However, a great many studies, leaves covered with sketches, heads of young women, children playing with cats, etc., show the direction of his researches. He had already conceived this type of mother and child in which the divine expression results only from human race and the poetry of life carried to its highest degree. This was the formula of the Renaissance, of the Madonnas of Raphael and Andrea del Sarto, and which Leonardo himself soon applied in the immortal masterpieces, the "Virgin of the Rocks" and "St. Anne and the Blessed Virgin".

Milanese Period (1483-99)

In 1481 Ludovico il Moro assumed in the name of his nephew, Gian Galeazzo, the regency of the Duchy of Milan. He was one of the most remarkable princes in that age of tyrants of genius: clever, magnificent, ambitious, and cruel. A letter of which a copy forms part of the celebrated "Codex Atlanticus", in the Ambrosian Library, Milan, has preserved the terms in which Leonardo offered his services to this formidable lord; among other terms were read:

(1) I have a process for constructing very light, portable bridges, for the pursuit of the enemy; others more solid, which will resist fire and assault and may be easily set in place and taken to pieces. I also know ways of burning and destroying those of the enemy. . . (4) I can also construct a very manageable piece of artillery which projects inflammable materials, causing great damage to the enemy and also great terror because of the smoke . . . (8)Where the used of cannon is impracticable I can replace them with catapults and engines for casting shafts with wonderful and hitherto unknown effect; briefly, whatever the circumstances I can contrive countless methods of attack. (9) In the event of a naval battle I have numerous engines of great power both for attack and defense: vessels which are proof against the hottest fire, powder or steam. (10) In times of peace I believe that I can equal anyone in architecture, whether for the building of public or private monuments. I sculpture in marble, bronze and terra cotta; in painting I can do what another can do, it matters not who he may be. Moreover I pledge myself to execute a bronze horse to the eternal memory of your father and the very illustrious House of Sforza, and if any of the above things seem impracticable or impossible I offer to give a test of it in your Excellency's park or in any other place pleasing to your lordship, to whom I commend myself in all humility.

Leonardo was at this time thirty years of age and very handsome. He was an accomplished gentleman, and had a keen mind for the invention of fables. His contemporarie, for example the storyteller Bandello, relate the charms of his conversation. He was a musician, being given to improvising verses while accompanying himself on a lute of his own invention, shaped like a bucranium and possessing wonderful sonorousness. For the fetes, ballets, and amusements, and interludes of which the Renaissance was so fond, Leonardo was unequalled. At the time of Louis XII's entry into Milan a mechanical lion crossed the banquet hall, halted before him a shower of lilies. This machine Leonardo had invented. Such was Leonardo when towards the end of 1482 he entered the service of Ludovico il Moro. One of his earliest Milanese works was the delightful "Woman with a Marten", which is believed to be the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, Ludovico's mistress, and which is now at Cracow, in the collection of Count Czartorisky. Unfortunately, the work has been much injured by restorations, but it is the first truly modern work of its kind, wherein feminine grace, subtlety of analysis, refinement of the moral personality, and not merely resemblance of features, constitute the subject of the picture. The pretty profile of "Beatrice d'Este" at the Ambrosian and the so-called "Lucrezia Crivelli" (also called "La Belle Ferroniere") of the Louvre have nothing in common with Leonardo.

At Milan, also, in the early years of his sojourn there, he completed his first large picture, the wonderful "Virgin of the Rocks". Besides copies there are two of these pictures in existence, differing somewhat in details, one at the Louvre and the other at the National Gallery. There have been endless discussions with regard to their authenticity. The truth is that they are both originals, the first in point of time being that of the Louvre, the execution of which, extremely minute in detail, still shows something of the somewhat dry methods of Verrocchio's studio. The other and somewhat later one repeats the same motif for the convent of San Francesco, Milan. On the side panels Ambrogio da Predis painted angels playing on musical instruments. These side panels are with the central picture at the National Gallery. But Leonardo did not finish the picture he had begun, its Madonna and the landscape are the work of a pupil and a mediocre pupil. On the other hand the angel kneeling behind the Infant Jesus whose attitude differs from that of the Paris Angel, is one of the artist's most perfect creations. Both pictures are poetical. The fantastic landscape, the dolomite grotto of prismatic rocks, the ineffiable art of the "pyramidal" grouping, the often copied triangle of which the base is formed by two beautiful children, and the summit of the head of a smiling virgin; the grace and life of the motif, the selection of the moment, the perfection of the model, the depth of the atmosphere, and even the smallest details of the herbs, the stones, the slight ripples in a surface of transparent water -- all this endows the "Virgin of the Rocks" with an imperishable charm, making it one of the works which open a new world to the imagination and fixing eternally the poetry of the subject. Without Leonardo Raphael's "Madonna", his "Belle Jardiniere" and "Madonna of the Goldfinch" would not exist and even their charm does not equal that of their sublime model.

Leonardo's most important work at Milan is his "Last Supper" which he painted in the refectory of the Dominican convent of Sta Maria delle Grazie. This masterpiece is now little more than a ruin, the disaster being largely due to the painter's methods. Fresco seemed to him too summary and hurried a process and he painted in oil on the wall. Dampness soon soaked into and ruined the work, and as early as the middle of the sixteenth century the damage was irreparable. Vandalism did the rest. In 1652 a door was opened in the wall mutilating the feet of Christ and two Apostles. In 1726 and 1770 daubers wrought a masterpiece of injury with their restorations, and finally in 1797 a French army occupied the convent and made a stable of the refectory; even Bonaparte's orders could not prevent the men from mutilating the "Last Supper"; such was the long martyrdom of the masterpiece. Only in recent years have precautions been taken to preserve the remains; the wall has been separated and the hall dried but this tardy care threatens to complete the destruction of the picture. It is to be feared that it will scale and crumble to dust. However there exist /bin/bash: grpe: command not found memorials and copies of it. Few works have exercised a similar fascination and been as often reproduced from the beginning. Some of these copies have been collected in the refectory of Sta Maria delle Grazie; among them the best of all, which was formerly at Castellazzonear Milan, is believed to be by Solari. An excellent copy is preserved at Ponte Capriasca, a neighbouring parish of Lugano. The Academy of London has one, which was formerly at the Certosa of Pavia and attributed to Oggionno or to Gianpietrino. There are two at Paris, one at the Louvre, and the other at St. Germain l'Auxerrois. All there copies, which are fairly correct as regards the composition, vary in detail and especially show great difference of colouring.

Still more valuable are the separate studies of heads, although the most of them may be originals; the most important series are at Strasburg and Weimar. The famous head of Christ in crayon at the Brera seems to be a study of Sodoma or of Cesare da Sesto and to have no relation to the "Last Supper". None of these helps to the study of the masterpiece should be neglected, but despite its ruinous condition there are impressions which can only be given by the picture itself, which still preserves the atmosphere, the moving tonality, a peculiar pathos which seems the sorcery or presence of genius. Its extraordinary superiority is apparent when we compare it with all the extant "Last Supper" with those of Giotto, Castagno, or Ghirlandajo. The old representations become antiquated and obsolete and a new order of ideas is inaugurated. With regard to its subject the theme of the "Last Supper" may be divided into two distinct movements: the institution of the Sacrament and the "Unus vestrum". Leonardo has chosen the moment at which Christ declares that there is a traitor in the company. We are shown the effect of a speech on twelve persons, on twelve different temperaments: a single ray and twelve reflections (Burckhardt). The subject has been well analyzed by Goethe . It is clear that in a drama of this class, a kind of "seated" drama, of which the subject is interior disquiet, surprise, anguish, it suffices to show the persons at half length; busts, face, and hands suffice to manifest the moral emotion; the table with its damask cloth by almost completely concealing the lower limbs offered the ingenious artist a resource which he knew how to use. The difficulty under these conditions was to succeed in constituting a whole with these thirteen figures seated side by side; the greatest weakness of the old painters was composition; each table companion seemed isolated from his neighbour.

With an instinct of genius Leonardo divided his actors into two groups, two on each side of Christ, and he linked these groups so as to imbue the general outline with a certain continuity, animated by a single movement. The whole is like the successive undulations of a vast wave of emotions. The fatal word uttered by Christ seated at the middle of the table produces tumult which symmetrically repels and agitates the two nearest groups and which lapses as it is communicated to the two groups farther removed. The intimate composition of each group is no less wonderful. Stupefaction, sorrow, indignation, denial, vengeance, the variety of expression which the painter has gathered together in this picture, the depth of the analysis, the veracity of the types and physiognomies, the power and the accumulation of contrasts are without parallel in all previous art; the countless studies made for each piece denote in the author a world of new preoccupations. Each head is the "monograph" of a human passion, a plate of moral anatomy. It will be readily understood how such a work cost the artist ten years of preparation. None ever summarized in a single picture a similar total of life. The hands possess incomparable beauty and eloquence. Here for the first time and for the whole future was created the definitive formula of historic painting.

On the wall opposite the "Last Supper" Leonardo had painted (1495), in the great Montorfano Crucifixion, portraits of Ludovico il Moro, his wife Beatrice d'Este, and their sons Maximillian and Francesco. Only whitish traces and uncertain lineaments of these portraits remain. Finally in 1893 Professor Muller Walde discovered in the castle of Milan under a rough cast of the hall of the Torre delle Asse a whole decoration painted by Leonardo in 1498; it is a trellis of laurel, vines, and foliage. The artist conveyed the illusion of a hall of verdure. To this period likewise belong the studies of St. Anne. Together with the cult of the Immaculate Conception the end of the fifteenth century saw the rise of that of the mother of the Blessed Virgin. The work of the learned Trithmius, "De laudibus sanctissimae matris Annae", dates from 1494 (cf. Shankell, "Der Kultus der heilige Annas am susgange Mittelalters", Freiburg, 1893). Leonardo composed two different versions of this subject, one of them being now at the Louvre, the other at the London Academy. That of the Louvre is unfinished. The Virgin is only sketched, the head of St. Anne alone showing that modelling in which Leonardo is unrivalled. Art possesses few groups more charming than that of these two women, one seated on the other's knees. Together with the "Last Supper" Leonardo's greatest Milanese work must have been the equestrian statue of Ludovico il Moro, the famous "bronze horse" which he pledged himself to cast in the letter quoted above. He worked on this constantly for more than fifteen years (1483-99). A plaster model was cast in 1489, but the artist was dissatisfied within and made another which was moulded in 1493. He then turned his attention to preparations for casting. But the French came in 1499 and besides driving out the duke they broke the plaster model of his statue. We have only countless sketches, studies, and drawings of this masterpiece and Leonardo's books dealing with the anatomy and science of the horse.

Nomadic Period (1500-19)

By Ludovico's fall Leonardo was left unemployed, and he was in no hast to seek another position and there began for him a period of wandering. Completed works grow more and more rare, each of them showing traces of more complicated ambitions. From this period date most of his scientific works. After fifty he began to gather the elements of a new synthesis which was never completed. The last twenty years of his life were given to this activity and these experiences. From Milan, Leonardo went to Mantua where he sketched (1500) the portrait of the Marchesa Isabella d'Este, the cartoon of which is one of the wonders of the Louvre. Then he went to Venice (1501) and thence to Florence; from there he entered the service of Caesar Borgia as military engineer and head of the corps of engineers in his Romagna campaign. After Caesar's fall he returned to Florence and seems to have stayed there for three or four years. Then he began see-sawing between Florence and Milan, finally taking up his residence in the latter city where he was called by a law-suit concerning the property left by his father. In 1514 we find him at Rome, but at the end of the year he returned to Florence; in 1515 came journeys to Pavia, Bologna, and a last stay for some months at Milan. Finally in 1516 he accepted the invitation of King Francis I to come to France and left Italy, never to return.

During these wandering years there are only two places where we find undoubted proofs of his activity, at Florence (1501-06) and Milan (1506-13). At Florence he executed to of his most famous works now unfortunately lost of destroyed. The Seigniory of Florence had for the decoration of its council hall opened a contest for the portrayal of two patriotic subjects drawn from the annals of the Republic. One was an occurrence of the war against Pisa in 1304 and was confided to Michelangelo; the other commemorated the victory of Anghiari Maria Visconti. This was the subject treated by Leonardo. The rival cartoons were exhibited in 1505 and were an event in the history of the school. All the youth of the artist world hastened to copy them, but in the midst of all this Michelangelo was called to Rome and abandoned his work. Warned by his experience with the "Last Supper" Leonardo refrained from painting in oil, but would not be satisfied with fresco; he fancied some process of encaustic (one of the rare instances in him of the influence of the ancients). The attempt was unfortunate. The coat did not dry and the colours flowed together. But the artist was not discouraged and continued his work. The cartoon still existed in the eighteenth century; it is not known when it or that of Michelangelo disappeared. The latter is known only through a famous engraving by Marcantoni Raimondi. Leonardo did not fare so well. Apart from countless sketches there exists only a single group of his work, that of the knights of the "Battle of the Standard" which has been preserved by a drawing of Rubens (Louvre) and an engraving of Edelinck. Nevertheless there are few more important battle pieces in the art work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. All the chasses of Rubens and the Flemish school are but variations and repetitions of this furious melee. The Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi is unfortunately only a sketch, a rough cartoon, chiefly interesting for the information it gives concerning the basis of Leonardo's painting and his manner of preparing a picture. It belongs to the same period (about 1505) as that work of the artists which is most popular, most complete, and most closely associated with his name as that which best sums up in a woman's face all the research, grace, and seductiveness of his genius. This is the portrait of Madonna (Monna) Lisa, wife of Ser Giocondo, and universally known as Jaconde (La Gioconda), and which, acquired directly from the artist by Francis I, and preserved for three centuries at Fontainebleau, disappeared, 21 August, 1911, under mysterious circumstances, from the Louvre, where it had been since 1793.

The numerous copies of this enchanting face, those of the museums of Madrid, Munich, Quimper, and St. Petersburg, the Torlonia Gallery at Rome, and the Mozzi Gallery, Florence, of the Villa Sommariva on Lake Lugano, of the Hume and Woodburn collections at London, can scarcely console us for the loss of the masterpiece. Leonardo never painted anything with more love. He devoted four years to this single face. Vasari relates what delicate care he took to amuse his graceful model during the sittings and to bring to her lips that imperceptible smile, which has been taken to mean such depth and perfidy and which is merely the serene expression of a harmonious soul, of moral peace and health, with a slight tinge of Florentine irony. Its place in the Louvre is occupied by another of Leonardo's works, one of the last really authentic of his productions, the enigmatic St. John Baptist. Here the depth and complexity of his intentions, above all the systematic use of chiaroscuro, lead to odd and equivocal results. But the spoiled work formulated the whole language of chiaroscuro, and fixed its laws with a clearness which has never been surpassed.

The following pictures preserve the memory of others of Leonardo's works of which the originals are lost. The St. John the Baptist or Bacchus full length, seated, amid a landscape; the picture belongs to a date previous to 1505 and is contemporary with the Giaconda. Ancient copies are at the Louvre and at Sant'Eustorgio, Milan. The Leda; same period; copy (by Bacchiacca?) at the Casino Borghese; others in the Ruble collection, Paris, and the Oppler collection, Cologne; drawing by Raphael at Windsor. The Resurrection at the Museum of Berlin is apocryphal. The famous wax bust required in 1909 by the same museum is the work of an English forger who worked about 1840. Finally the charming wax Head of the Wicar Museum, at Lille, belongs probably to the school of Canova, which robs it of none of its exquisite grace. The last picture of Leonardo's which we possess is the splendid sketch of St. Jerome in the desert in the collection at the Vatican. It dates from 1514. Leonardo spent the last three years of his unquiet life in France. The king gave him a pension of 7000 crowns and had given him a dwelling in the Chateau of Cloux near Amboise. At this period the master was very tired, and his faculties were declining. He was still engaged with the question of canalization and studied ways of regulating the course of the Loire and making it navigable. He died amid these occupations at the age of 67. A legend, popularized by Ingres's picture, relates that he passed away in the arms of Francis I; but on that day the king was at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

II. THE SCHOLAR

Art represents only a small part of Leonardo's activity. Always and especially at Milan from 1506 his genius was absorbed in scientific matters, but these researches had begun in Verrocchio's studio, as is shown by the letter of 1482 to Ludovico il Moro. It is impossible to give here a detailed analysis even of his principal works, for his studies included all branches of knowledge. On the other hand their strictly personal nature, the secret and deliberately cabbalistic practices with which he loved to surround them, the methods of abbreviation and cryptography of which he made use in order to conceal his discourse (he wrote from right to left, in an inverted hand which could probably only be read with the aid of a mirror), all this mystery removes a great deal of interest from the treasures of observation which Leonardo consigned to countless manuscripts. In fact by refusing to disclose his discoveries, by wishing to retain the monopoly of his processes and secrets, he condemned this portion of his work to oblivion and sterility. However, his art is in so many ways connected with his science that the former cannot be known without an acquaintance with the latter. In his drawings of flowers, plants, landscapes, and in his studies of persons, it is impossible to say whether it is the botanist, the geologist, the anatomist or the artist who interests us most. In Leonardo, knowledge and art are never separate. The characteristics frequently seen in the men of the Renaissance, the encyclopedic turn of mind so striking in a Leone Battista Alberti, a Bramante, or a Durer, is never more brilliantly evident than in Leonardo da Vinci. His method is based exclusively on observation and experiment. He recognized no mistress save nature. Neither in science nor in art did he admit the authority of either the ancients or the scholastics.

Furthermore he clearly understood: (1) that science should be subject to formulation in mathematical laws; (2) that science has power over nature, and ability to foresee phenomena and at need to reproduce or imitate them. This granted, there were few questions which this tireless mind did not study, and to which he did not bring ingenious views and new solutions. Often he perceived truths established by modern science. Long before Bacon and with a far different range of application he invented the positive sciences. As a geologist, for example, he discerned that there was a "history of the earth", that the outside of the globe was not formed at a single stroke, and in this history, guided by studies of hydraulics, he successfully saw through the function of water. He divined the true nature of fossils. In botany he formulated the laws of the alternation of leaves, that of the eccentricity of trunks, and that of solar attraction. As an anatomist (he had dissected nine bodies) he gave figures concerning the insertion of the muscles and their movements which specialists still admire for their accuracy. He devised the earliest theories concerning the muscular movements of the cardiac valves. By his studies in embryology he laid the foundations for comparative anatomy. In mechanics he understood the power of steam and if he did not invent any action machines he at least made it an agent of propulsion, for he invented a steam cannon. He composed explosives and shells. But perhaps his most "modern" title to fame lies in his having laid down the principle of aviation, devoting years to this task. He foresaw nearly all the forms, parachute and montgolfier, but by boldly adhering to the "heavier than air" principle he constructed the first artificial bird. Long series of studies analyze with astonishing clearness the flight of the bird, the form and movement of the wing Leonardo distinguishes between the soaring flight and that made by successive flappings, in each case defining the action of the air and the part played by it; he understands that the bird rises obliquely on an aerial inclined plane, forming under it a kind of angle and that currents form in the concavity of the wing which serve it as momentary supports to recover its equilibrium, like the waves on which the car is rested to propel the boat.

Leonardo was more a scholar than a philosopher, nevertheless his wholly naturalistic science implies a certain philosophy, which if it is neither the kind of paganism nor the materialism in which the Renaissance so often resulted cannot be called truly Christian. Either through prudence or through scorn of abstract ideas Leonardo seems to have avoided declaring himself on this subject. Nevertheless it is easy to see that the idea of miracles is repugnant to his imagination. He admits or would logically admit only an immanent Providence, a God who refrains from intervention in the universe like to God of Lucretius or the Stoics. It is also certain, and he does not conceal it, that he did not like the monks. However, as an artist, he accommodated himself perfectly to the Christian tradition. His art, though not at all mystic, is in its forms certainly less pagan than that of Raphael or even Michelangelo. He died a very Christian death.

His manuscripts are now divided among several depositories. The most important are (1) the gigantic collection in the Ambrosian Library of Milan called the Codex Atlanticus consisting of 393 folio pages on which are pasted more than 1600 leaves of notes; (2) at Paris in the library of the Institut twelve manuscripts numbered from A to M; (3) at London three volumes at South Kensington, a manuscript of 566 pages at the British Museum, and at Windsor splendid anatomical plates and drawings. Other books are in the possession of Count Manzoni and the Earl of Leicester. The treatise on painting is his first work. It was printed at Paris in folio in 1651 in the Italian text by Raphael du Fresne and almost immediately translated into French by Freart de Chambray. More correct editions have since been issued, notably that of Manzi (1817), and thatof Ludwig made according to a Vatican manuscript (3 vols., at Vienna, 1883). Ventura compiled a memoir on Leonardo's scientific works properly so called which he presented to the Institute in 1797. He announced that this would soon be followed by the publication of original documents, but this promise was not kept. In 1872 the Italian Government issued a limited number of copies of a de luxe work, "Saggio dell' opere di L. da V.", containing extracts from the Codex Atlanticus with twenty-four facsimiles. In 1889 J.P. Richter issued at London, under the title "The Literary Works of Lenoardo da Vinci",two quarto volumes comprising more than 1500 extracts and fragments of manuscripts. Systematically classified, with beautiful reproductions.

However, Ravaisson-Mollier had undertaken the entire publication of the manuscripts of the Institut in a model edition with facsimiles of the original text, transcription in ordinary characters and French translation (6 vols. for., Paris, 1881-92). The example at Milan a manuscript of Leonardo's belonging to Prince Trivulzio. And since 1892 the Accademia dei Lincei has published completely the Codex Atlanticus. If the London manuscript were published we should have as complete knowledge as possible of this extraordinary man who united in himself the triple or quadruple genius of an Apelles, an Aristides, a Euclid, and an Archimedes. Mention must be made of Leonardo's artistic influence. His influence on painting was supreme; it has been shown above what paths his genius opened to historical painting, to portraiture, to scenes of sanctity, landscapes, and the art of chiaroscuro. But this general action, profound as it was, did not give rise to a school at Florence. Leonardo's pupils and imitators properly so called must be sought for at Milan. There were very numerous, and nothing enables us to judge better of his ascendency than the revolution of taste which his appearance determined in Milanese painting. The national school of Foppa, Zenale, Borgognone was suddenly cast into the shade, eclipsed by a host of disciples, among them Solario, Ambrogio da Predis, Cesare de Sesto, Marco d'Oggione, Boltraffio, some of them very gifted and talented men. To them we owe the multitude of copies which often take the place of lost works of the master; but only two or three pupils attained an absolute independent expression, and were other than reflections of Leonardo: these included the gentle and prolific Bernardino Luini and the troubled, passionate, and very unequal Sodoma. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Leonardo da Vinci and Catholic Encyclopedia (1912).]

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Charles Lyell (1797-1895)

Quotation

When on my return to England I showed the cast of the cranium to Professor Huxley, he remarked at once that it was the most ape-like skull he had ever beheld.

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Biographical

Sir Charles Lyell (November 14, 1797-February 22, 1875), British geologist, and popularizer of uniformitarianism. Charles Lyell was born in Kinnordy, Forfarshire, Scotland, the eldest of ten children. Lyell's father, also named Charles, was a botanist of minor repute and first exposed the younger Charles to the study of nature. Having attended Exeter College of Oxford University beginning in 1816, Lyell encountered geology as a serious profession under the wing of William Buckland. Upon graduation he took a professional detour into the law, but dabbled in geology. His first paper, On a Recent Formation of Freshwater Limestone in Forfarshire, was presented in 1822. By 1827 he had abandoned the law and embarked on a long geological career that would result in the widespread acceptance of the ideas proposed by James Hutton a few decades before.

His most important specific work was in the field of stratigraphy. In 1828, he travelled to the south of France and to Italy, where he realized that the recent strata could be categorized according to the number and proportion of marine shells encased within. Based on this he proposed dividing the Tertiary period into three parts, which he named the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene. From 1830 to 1833 his multi-volume Principles of Geology was published. The work's subtitle was An Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface by Reference to Causes now in Operation, and this explains Lyell's impact on science. He was, along with the earlier John Playfair, the major advocate of the then-controversial idea of uniformitarianism, that the earth was shaped entirely by slow-moving forces acting over a very long period of time. This was in contrast to catastrophism, a geologic idea that went hand-in-hand with age of the earth as implied by biblical chronology. In various revised editions (twelve in all, through 1872), Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the middle of the 19th century, and did much to put geology on a modern footing. For his efforts he was knighted in 1848, then made a baronet in 1864. During the 1840s, he travelled to the United States and Canada, which resulted in his writing two popular travel-and-geology books: 1845's Travels in North America and A Second Visit to the United States (from 1849). Charles Darwin was a close personal friend, and Lyell was one of the first prominent scientists to support The Origin of Species -- though he never fully accepted natural selection as the driving engine behind evolution. In fact, Lyell was instrumental in arranging the peaceful co-publication of the theory of natural selection by Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858, after each discovered it independently. Lyell's own The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man followed a few years later in 1863. Upon his death in 1875, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Charles Lyell.]

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Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Quotation

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

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Biographical

Charles Robert Darwin (February 12, 1809 - April 19, 1882), British Naturalist. Charles Darwin developed the first theory of a naturalistic mechanism for evolution, that of natural selection, it explains the diversification of life through a lengthy process of change by adaptation. He was born in Shrewsbury, England, the fifth of six children of Robert and Susannah Darwin (nee Wedgwood), and the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, and of Josiah Wedgwood. After finishing school, Darwin studied medicine in Edinburgh in 1825. His dislike for dissection and the brutality of surgery at the time led him to leave the medical school in 1827. Whilst there, however, he was influenced by the Lamarckian Robert Edmund Grant. His father, concerned by his son's apparent academic failure, and fearing that he would become a "ne'er do well", enrolled him at Cambridge to read Theology, with the hopes of Charles eventually becoming a parson. While at Cambridge, he came under the intellectual influence of scientific minds such as William Whewell and John Stevens Henslow which (combined with his interest in collecting beetles, which was encouraged by his cousin, William Darwin Fox) resulted in him pursuing natural history. Darwin planned to visit Madeira with some class-mates upon graduation in 1831. These plans, however, fell through and after Darwin finished his studies, Henslow recommended him for the position of gentleman's companion to Robert Fitzroy, the captain of HMS Beagle, which was departing on a five-year expedition to chart the coastline of South America. Prior to departure, Darwin spent a few weeks with the geologist Adam Sedgwick mapping strata in Wales. It must be noted that (aside from a few lectures that he endured in Edinburgh) this was Darwin's sole exposure to formal geological study.

Darwin's work during the expedition allowed him to study both the geological properties of continents and isles and a multitude of living organisms and fossils. During his voyage, he visited the Cape Verde Archipelago, the Falkland Islands, the South American coast, the Galapagos Islands and Australia, collecting considerable quantities of specimens. After returning from the voyage in 1836, Darwin analyzed the specimens he collected, and noticed similarities between fossils and living species within the same geographic area. In particular, he noticed that every island had its own kind of tortoises and birds that were all slightly different in appearance, favored food etc., but otherwise quite similar. This observation was especially apparent among the specimens collected on the Galapagos Islands. He developed the theory that, for example, all the different turtles had originated from a single turtle species, and had adopted to life on the different islands in different ways.

Based on these thoughts, he formulated his thoughts about the changes and developments of species in his Notebook on the Transmutation of Species, which was in accordance with Lyell's Principles of Geology and Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population, which stated that the size of a population is limited by the food resources available. In 1842, Darwin formulated a short "Pencil Sketch" of his theory and by 1844 had written a 240 page "Essay" which provides an expanded version of his early ideas on natural selection. Between 1844 and 1858, when he would prevent his theory to the Linnean Society of London, Darwin would modify his theory in a number of ways. Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgwood in 1839. After living for a number of years in London, the couple eventually moved to Downe House, in Downe, Kent (which is now open to public visits, south of Orpington). Darwin and his wife had ten children, three of whom died early. Between 1839 and 1843, Darwin's Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle was published in five volumes. On July 1, 1858, Darwin's paper about The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was read to the Linnean Society in London, on the same day as a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace, who had developed a similar theory independently.

Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published one year later, and was of sufficient interest to have the publisher's stocks completely sold to bookstores on the first day. In his later books The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868), The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of Emotions in Animals and Man (1872), Darwin expanded on many topics introduced in Origin of Species.

In spite of some criticism, the value of Darwin's work was appreciated throughout the scientific community. He became a member of the Royal Society of London in 1839 and of the French Academy of Science (l'Académie des Sciences) in 1878. Darwin died in Downe, Kent, England, on April 19, 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Darwin was given particular recognition in 2000 when his image appeared on the Bank of England ten pound note, replacing Charles Dickens. Reportedly his impressive and supposedly hard to forge beard was a contributing factor in this choice.

Before Darwin

Before the nineteenth century, the accepted theory for the extinction of species was called Catastrophism, which stated that species went extinct due to catastrophes that were often followed by the formation of new species ex nihilo (out of nothing). The extinct species can then be found as fossils. The new species were considered unchangeable. This theory was in accordance with the story of the Flood in the Bible. In the early nineteenth century, several new theories started to compete with Catastrophism. One of the most important ones was developed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). He observed that every new generation inherits the traits of its ancestors. He suggested that traits or organs become enhanced with repeated use and weakened or removed by disuse in each individual, who will pass these improvements or losses directly to their offspring. In 1830, the British geologist Sir Charles Lyell disproved the Catastrophism Theory, but held on to the theory of species staying unchanged during time. Lyell founded uniformitarianism, a theory stating that the surface of earth changed slowly through eons by constant forces.

The Structure of Darwin's Theory

Darwin's theory of evolution states that all individuals of a population are different from each other. Some of them are adapted better for their actual environment than the others and have therefore better chances to survive and procreate. That way, their genetic properties are given to the following generations, becoming dominant among the population throughout time (Fig. 2). This gradual and continuous process results in the evolution of species. The four key points of his theory were : Evolution does occur; Evolutionary change is usually gradual, requiring thousands to millions of years; The primary mechanism for evolution is natural selection; All species alive today originated from a single life form through a branching process called specialization.

The Response to Darwin's Theory

After the publication of Darwin's book, evolution as the means of natural selection was widely discussed, particularly by the religious and the scientific communities. Though Darwin was supported by some scientists (e.g., T.H. Huxley), others hesitated to accept the theory due to the unexplained ability of individuals to pass their special abilities to their offspring. The last point remained a mystery until the existence of genes was discovered. In 1874, the theologian Charles Hodge accused Darwin of denying the existence of God by defining humans to be a result of a natural process rather than a creation designed by God. Even today, many Christian and other religious fundamentalists continue to fight the Darwinian theory of evolution. Darwin's theory is now backed up by the comparison of DNA from different organisms which shows the closeness of their relationship.

Contrary to popular opinion, Darwin did not "discover" evolution as it was accepted by many since the beginning of the 1800's. Instead, he provided the first really coherent theory of how evolution occurs (via the mechanism of natural selection). Other important aspects of Darwin's overall theory were: common descent, sexual selection, gradualism, and pangenesis. It is important to remember that Darwin's version of natural selection was different from that presented by Wallace in that he held that natural selection was continuously operating, whereas Wallace argued that selection only occurred when the environment changed. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Charles Darwin.]


Darwin as a Classical Thinker
Russell McNeil, PhD (Copyright 2005)
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Archaeopteryx lithographica is regarded as one of the most important fossils ever discovered. This isn't because of any uniquely transitional nature, since many transitional forms exist, but due to the fact that Archaeopteryx is such a good example of evolution. The skeleton is essentially reptilian, with close affinities to theropod dinosaurs, with teeth, a long bony tail, abdominal ribs and three digits on each hand - characters absent in birds. However, the specimens also show certain bird characters such as a furcula (wishbone) and a retroverted pubis (characters also shared with some dinosaurs) and a opposable hallux (big toe) for perching. Along with these other avian characters, the most spectacular feature is the distinct impression of feathers around the forelimbs and tail, feathers almost exactly like those of modern birds.


Archaeopteryx lithographica
The original 150 million year old Archaeopteryx fossil was uncovered in 1860 sprawling within a split block of limestone in a Bavarian quarry in Germany. This discovery occurred a year after Darwin's publication of The Origins of Species, and only weeks after a famous Evolution versus Creation debate in Oxford where Bishop Wilberforce is alleged to have asked a defender of Evolution whether he thought he was descended from the ape on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's side. The memory of this debate was still fresh in everyone's minds, as was the fact that a major issue causing some consternation that came up in the debate related to the lack of fossil evidence for intermediate forms. The discovery of the Archaeopteryx on the heals of this debate seemed to fill an important gap, supplying to the delight of evolutionists, a fossil form intermediate between reptiles and birds. Despite rumblings from German experts at the time that this new fossil was a forgery, the then Director of the British Museum, Richard Owen, commissioned its purchase..


Artist's Drawing of Archaeopteryx
The authenticity of Archaeopteryx, or more specifically the authenticity of the feather impressions, was questioned in more recent times in 1985 by a group which included, Fred Hoyle (an astronomer), N. Wickramasinghe (mathematician), L. Spetner (physicist), and Dr. R. Watkins (medical doctor). The issue was explored in a series of four articles published in the British Journal of Photography (Hoyle et al. 1985; Watkins et al. 1985a, 1985b, 1985c).

Fred Hoyle is one of the world's foremost astronomers--the parent of the quasar--he predicted them before they were seen. Chandra Wickramasinghe is one of Britain's foremost astronomers and an international authority on interstellar material.

The claims made by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe were opposed by the British Museum of Natural History and refutations of the original claims were published in the literature. As far as I am aware, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe never reversed or withdrew their claim after these refutations.

What's the point?

Well, more recently (1990) Ian Taylor (1990), a creationist, this time, has revived the old forgery claim citing new evidence based mainly on "unexplained" differences between early engravings, historical photographs, and the modern appearance. However, the evidence presented by Taylor has been soundly discredited.

Taylor's research was nevertheless published in the Journal of the Institute of Creation Research,. This is an the official organ of an organization dedicated to fostering what they refer to as creation science. But mainstream science generally regards creation science as an anti-intellectual activity - primarily because the assertions or hypotheses of creation science are not falsifiable - and falsifiability is the generally accepted criterion for any scientific theory. As a consequence Creation science by definition is considered pseudo-science and thus anti-intellectual.

Now, I am not making any particular claim about Archaeopteryx. I don't know if the thing is a fake or not. The scientist in me hopes it is genuine--good reptilian birds are hard to find. But the journalist in me--I covered this as a science story when it came out in 1985-- was amused then by a respectible British scientific establishment getting egg in its face. My point is that legitimate criticisms of evolutionary theory (Taylor's is not legitimate--Hoyle's was) are in danger of being tarred by the brush of this anti-intellectual charge. Therefore, anyone offering a critique of evolution must be prepared to take some heat - if only because any opposition to any of the theoretical underpinnings of evolutionary theory is suspect. Therefore any radical thinking that hits too close to the core of Evolution theory is always in danger of being dismissed as anti-intellectual. The safe course is to stay out of the kitchen. The very presence of creationist pseudoscience effectively dampens any novel thinking about evolution.

My faith in the fact of evolution does not hang on the authenticity of a bird in a British Museum. In human terms I've never in the least felt diminished by the connectivity and unity of Nature contained in the Idea of Evolution. That I am linked to, part of, connected with, and related to everything in the biosphere makes me feel allied to nature - not alienated! For me it is the old idea of design--the notion that we are somehow unique and special--that makes me feel alienated from nature.

Evolution as an idea is a wonderful gift -- Darwin's logic has affected an important intellectual transformation. Darwin may indeed have moved us away from design and moved us into the realm of chance--and that seems scary to some people--but he in a very real sense Darwin also moved us together--by drawing a tether through all we call life. And for many people that is far more uplifting and enervating than the idea of design--at least the old classic idea of design, including the biblical notion of special creation. That takes takes away, but hands us back something better: a special unity with nature.

In showing us how we are one, Darwin in a sense may have saved us all from extinction--a consequence of the responsibility Darwin's logic introduces into the intellectual life.

I've said two things so far. First: taking issue with Darwin is intellectually risky. Two: Darwin's contribution is intellectually magnificent.

That said I want to take issue with Darwin, specifically with the concept of natural selection. As I understand it, the critical steps around the mechanism of Natural Selection as presented by Darwin in Origen of Species are listed below:

1. All species follow from the struggle for life.

2. Natural Selection [is] the preservation of individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those that are injurious.

3. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages, and then so imperfect is our view of long-past geological ages, that we see only that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were.

4. Natural Selection will generally act very slowly, only on a few individuals of the same region.

5. Varieties are species in the process of formation...incipient species

6. Natural Selection acts exclusively by the preservation and accumulation of variations.

7. The species of large genera present a strong analogy with varieties.

Here is where my question arises. What is this analogy above?

What did Darwin have in mind when he talked about varieties? Did he think about varieties as we might, or was his thinking formed by a conception of variation determined by a different mindset?

For example, did he imagine that the range of possible varieties as large (yet finite) or essentially unlimited (i.e. infinite)?

This is a useful question. Another way of asking the question is this: how many unique potential reproductive outcomes is possible from the sexual pairing of two individuals?

I suspect Darwin would affirm that those possibilities were unlimited.

This means that the Darwinian framework was guided by a non-discreet and effectively analog thought pattern.

So what? What difference does it really make if the number of outcomes from a sexual pairing is finite (because of genetics) or infinite (because the range of variations is a smoothly changing blend of possibilities contributed from both parents.) In the analog case (Darwin's mindset) we would see a smoothly changing normal distribution for any characteristic or trait. In the non-analog case the distribution would still be normal, but the distribution curve would be made by joining the points from a histogram of a large but limited number of possibilities.

An analogy here might be the range of discreet colors available on a digital computer (64,000 or more - but finite) vs. the infinite number of colours produced by mixing of tinted paints.

Now, speciation is really no problem in the Darwinian process and analog mindset: It is simply a matter of time. Competition, environment, struggle and so on push the envelope in any direction and towards whatever configuration is profitable for survival.

But speciation may be more of a problem for the digital scheme because there are prohibitions built into this model. Some variations are prohibited. The envelope is pushable but there are limits as to how far the envelope can be pushed because by definition the possibilities are limited.

What does this mean? It means that to account for speciation in the discreet scheme we need to invoke a mechanism, a process, which allows us to break the rules that hold a discreetly determined model so rigidly in place. What is prohibited must be somehow no longer prohibited.

Well, rules are broken in the real world--things like mutations allow for the variations that a digital scheme would disallow. Darwin himself alludes to other processes, processes other than Natural Selection that might assist Natural Selection--although Natural Selection might be the main process.

What am I getting at? Darwin uses analog thinking to explain a process is inherently quantized or discreet.

Well, rules are broken in the real world--things like mutations allow for the variations that a digital scheme would disallow. Darwin himself alludes to other processes, processes other than Natural Selection that might assist Natural Selection--although Natural Selection might be the main process.

What am I getting at? Darwin uses analog thinking to explain a process is inherently quantized or discreet.

What difference would this make?

I don't know that we really know the full implications of this. In the world of physics there are significantly different world views associated with the classical and quantum world picture. Classical (analog) theories do marvelously well, but fall to pieces when they are used to describe very small things and very big things. Newton's achievements are not diminished by quantum theory--quantum theory explains things Newton's theory could not touch--mainly because it was oblivious to the nature of the small.

Darwin too would be oblivious to the small because he was unaware of its nature.

Darwin's ideas as they come to us here are necessarily limited by the state of knowledge in 1859.

I could say much the same thing of Newton. No one faults Newton today for not having discovered the true nature of physical mechanics two hundred years before Darwin.

I will argue that Darwin -- confined as he was by an essentially classical mind set -- is in part open only to only those possibilities that a classical mind set might allow. The great fallacy of classical models is their failure to accurately describe nature in the small and nature in the large. All early classical thinkers attempted to do that by extrapolating from what is well described to what is not. I see this as similar to what Darwin is attempting to do with speciation. He tries to extrapolate from the observables of macroevolution to the details of microevolution.

What this opens up in my mind is a line of Enquiry directed towards a deeper understanding of how nature works. We do this by taking a second look as Darwin's exquisite reasoning with new questions: questions which -- if Darwin had asked them -- might have augmented, modified, or radically opened up new channels or ways in which speciations might occur.

One possibility might be to explore the idea of life cycle. Individuals are born. They grow old. They die. That phenomenon is independent of natural selection. Some process is at work during the life cycle -- a biological clock -- that ticks on independently of individual action. That process seems to be dictated by biology and not circumstance. There is plenty of data about to support the conclusion that every biological entity on earth is subject to the process. If this biological timing process is so ubiquitous in the individual, is it irrational to suppose that the process may not manifest -- in an analogous fashion (to borrow from Darwin) -- at the level of the species -- as an independent and inexorable cofactor? Species emerge, they mature, they go into decline, they die. Natural selection might intervene to end this inexorable process independently but perhaps a species life cycle (if there is one) is nonetheless unstoppable?

I see advantages and disadvantages in offering an idea like this. The advantage is that if we take the analogy seriously -- then during the life cycle of a species there would be little change seen during the life cycle of a species. There might be lots of variation due to Natural Selection, but no great structural change in the species as a whole (with the possible exception of a decline in species fecundity as is the case in the individual fecundity with increasing age). If the biological life cycle for a species was 30 million years then the fossil record might show little major change over that sort of time frame. Another advantage is that a mechanism like this could account for the so-called poverty of intermediates Darwin is concerned about.

Perhaps we could modify the analogy by invoking the (caterpillar to butterfly) metamorphosis analogy. Species do not die at the end of their life cycle, they transform into other organisms. Is some sort of mild metamorphosis at work at the level of the species?

I think that Darwin could have drawn on other possibilities as well. One possibility he might explore had he been aware of genetics is the notion of threshold response. The idea of critical threshold is mirrored also in nature in other ways: critical mass, black holes, escape velocity, tree lines on mountain sides. etc.

I've picked 1) life cycle, 2) metamorphosis, and 3) threshold as analogy alternatives available essentially only to a mindset schooled in the discreet and limited nature of the biological variation of traits. These and perhaps a much broader range of possibilities would not be available to a classically formed modality of thought - and Darwin's thinking was so formed. Darwin did not and could not explore possibilities still hidden from the human mind.

My suspicion is that in exploring these possibilities now, we may be able to understand more fully what Darwin was attempting to do and hoping to explain--including such things as the paucity of intermediate species in the fossil record.

Not to challenge Darwin does great disservice to the Enquiry. I'd say the same of Newton.

Unfortunately in the intellectual climate surrounding the discussion of Darwin today -- challenging Darwin is interpreted as support for Creationism--an anti-intellectual thesis. It's a poor environment in which to push the envelope. Better to concentrate on other problems. I don't know if that's healthy with the golden age of biotechnology on the threshold of radically altering our world.

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