Introduction to the Sketch of 1842 and the Essay of 1844, by F. Darwin (1909)--Sketch of 1842, by C. Darwin.--Essay of 1844, by C. Darwin.--On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection, by C. Darwin and A. Wallace.

The section on the Argument from Design in collections of readings in the philosophy of religion usually begins with an expository selection drawn from Archdeacon William Paley’s Natural Theology, and follows with a critical selection drawn from David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Only from the footnotes does the student learn that Hume’s Dialogues was published over twenty years before Paley’s Natural Theology. Probably the student will feel that Hume’s devastating critique of the Argument must strike every reasonable person with (...) equal force, and so he will conclude that Paley must have been an archetypal intellectual conservative—a man whose ideas were dead and fossilized long before he put pen to paper. In fact, historically, the very opposite was the case. Although few could deny Hume’s towering intellect—“God’s greatest gift to the infidel” one fellow Scot grudgingly called him—Hume failed entirely to break the hold that the Argument from Design had on people’s imaginations. As many of us feel about Descartes’s arguments from illusion, people “knew” that somehow there must be a flaw in Hume’s argumentation, for, in the words of the anatomist Richard Owen, organic characters like the hand, the foot, and the eye, bear “irrefragable evidence of creative foresight.” Far from being outdated before it appeared, Paley’s book, in which he drew lucidly upon the most recent findings in natural science, rapidly became the standard work on the Argument from Design. It was, for instance, considered essential reading in any young man’s university education. (shrink)

Joseph Agassi is a critic, a gadfly, a debunker and deflater; he is also a constructor, a speculator and an imaginative scholaro In the history and philosophy of science, he has been Peck's bad boy, delighting in sharp and pungent criticism, relishing directness and simplicity, and enjoying it all enormously. As one of that small group of Popper's students (ineluding Bartley, Feyerabend and Lakatos) who took Popper seriously enough to criticize him, Agassi remained his own man, holding Popper's work itself (...) to the criteria of critical refutation. Agassi's range is wide and his publications proliik. He has published serious studies in the historiography of science, applied sociology (on Hong Kong with LC. Jarvie), foundations of anthropology, interpretive scientific biography (Faraday), Judaic studies, philosophy of technology (which Agassi pioneered, particulady in distinguishing it from the philosophy of science), as weIl as the many works on the Iogic, methodoI­ ogy, and history of science. Even as we go to press, Agassi's works are appearing; we append an imperfect and selected bibliography. For Agassi, the test of relevance is whether something is interesting. (shrink)