Biographical Sketches of Early Evolutionary Theorists

In this section we have provided brief overviews of the lives and works of a number of early evolutionary theorists who worked before the advent of the modern synthesis. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of important theorists; if you do not find documentation regarding the theorist you seek, please consult the Links and References section at the conclusion of this page. For information about later theorists, see Modern Evolutionary Theorists.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

The Greek philosopher Aristotle was a student of Plato and a tutor to Alexander the Great of Macedonia. He established a famous academy called the Lyceum in Athens, but he fled the city following the death of Alexander the Great. About 30 of his treatises on a variety of philosophical topics remain in existence today. Aristotle was one of the first ever to come up with even a quasi-evolutionary speculation about the nature of living things. He saw that there was a blurred distinction between living and nonliving matter, and between plants and animals, and between animals and humans. In his philosophy, all things strove toward perfection (the divine), "evolving" through many intermediate forms in the process.

Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)

Carl Linné, or Carolus Linnaeus, was the father of modern taxonomic classification. Born in Sweden in 1707, he studied medicine at various Swedish universities while studying plant life. He published and repeatedly revised his classic work on the classification of organisms, Systema Naturae and was the official physician to the Swedish royal family. Though he believed in a divine origin and plan for all species, he recognized and acknowledged the formation of new species by hybridization in plants. His work in hierarchical taxonomy, which greatly simplified the communication of relationships between organisms, also cleared a path for future evolutionists.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)

Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin, was one of the first scientists to propose a scientific theory of evolution. Though he did not reach the idea of natural selection, he did believe that species all descended from a common ancestor and that competition, a version of sexual selection, and the use and disuse of parts all contributed to the generation of new species. He also endorsed the teleological idea, later advocated by Lamarck, that unconscious striving toward perfection was responsible for some adaptations and changes of form in species.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was born in 1744, the youngest of eleven children. He began to study plants while working as a bank clerk, and published an analysis of the flora in France, which landed him a job at the royal botanical garden. Following the guillotining of the king and queen due to the French Revolution, the garden was reorganized as the National Museum of Natural History; Lamarck was named the professor of invertebrates, a subject he had never studied. Nevertheless, he set about cataloging and organizing the Museum's vast collections. The study of invertebrates as a separate discipline did not exist at the time, so Lamarck essentially created it, coining the term "invertebrate".

Today Lamarck is best known for his theory of evolution, which is now understood to be false. He firmly believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics (the doctrine with which his name is now associated), evolution through use and disuse of parts, and the same striving toward perfection that Erasmus Darwin emphasized.

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

Thomas Malthus' work on population growth was the final inspiration for Charles Darwin, directly leading to the development of the theory of natural selection. Central to Malthus' work was the key observation that populations produce many more offspring than can possibly live under limited resources (in retrospect, this leads quite clearly to natural selection). Malthus applied his theory mainly to human populations, and believed that poverty, famine, and disease were natural outcomes of too-large population size. However, Malthus thought that such outcomes were ultimately caused by divine plan, not by impersonal forces or processes.

Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)

Georges Cuvier studied at the Carolinian Academy before becoming a tutor to a noble family living in Normandy. He became the professor of animal anatomy at the National Museum of Natural History in France, also accepting various government posts under three successive and mutually antagonistic French governments. Like Lamarck, Cuvier had to create a discipline in order to properly study his assigned area; he founded the discipline of vertebrate paleontology. Though Cuvier was in strict opposition to the idea that evolution took place, arguing that changes in the structure of organisms would destroy its functionality. However, Cuvier's work conclusively showed the reality of extinction of species, a subject hotly debated at the time. This conclusion led the way to further analyses that emphasized evolutionary change.

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)

Gregor Mendel was an Austrian monk who famously expreimented on pea plants, thus resolving the laws of simple heredity (see Introduction to Genetics and Mendelian Inheritance). His work, which languished in obscurity for decades, was unknown to Darwin and the evolutionary theorists immediately following him. His work was rediscovered only after other scientists, working independently, derived the same results from different experiments. Though not an evolutionist, Mendel's mechanisms of inheritance laid the foundations for what is now known as the modern synthesis. (See The Modern Synthesis and Modern Theorist Biographies.)

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Charles Darwin was born in England in 1809. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, but was appalled by the sight of surgery performed without anesthesia and revised his plans, getting a degree from Cambridge University and deciding to enter the clergy. However, after he received his degree, he signed on as a naturalist on a five-year voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle. The research he did on that voyage became the raw material that would eventually become the theory of natural selection. His momentous work delineating his theory of evolution, The Origin of Species, was published in 1859, more than twenty years after the end of the Beagle's voyage. In that time, Darwin conceived the actual hypothesis of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution (a consequence of reading Malthus), did extensive studies attempting to confirm his hypothesis, and thought of and responded to numerous possible objections to his theory.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)

Alfred Russel Wallace was a contemporary of Darwin's who independently developed the theory of natural selection, also after reading Malthus. Wallace was well-known and respected in his own day, but has since fallen into relative obscurity. Darwin analyzed the conclusions and implications of natural selection much more thoroughly than Wallace did, and Wallace had some unusual (and not so highly regarded) political and social opinions - he became a socialist in 1890. Wallace also openly embraced spiritualism and declared that natural selection, his own theory of evolution, could not explain the human cognitive faculty.

Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

Thomas Huxley was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" because of his passionate and eloquent defense of Darwinism against attackers of the theory. Huxley, born to a relatively poor family, had little education became a medical apprentice and won a scholarship to study at a hospital. He then established his reputation as a scientist through research conducted while serving as assistant surgeon on the H.M.S. Rattlesnake. Though he was once an opponent of evolutionary change, he quickly embraced Darwin's theory and made his famous exclamation, "How stupid of me not to have thought of that!"

The most famous story about Huxley is the narrative of his debate with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce on the subject of evolution. Wilberforce asked Huxley if he was descended from an ape on his grandmother's or grandfather's side; Huxley replied that he would rather be descended from an ape than mock serious scientific debate. (Other, later retellings significantly embellish the story.)

Looking Further: Links and References

The following links and references are useful in the study of noted early theorists that played a role in the development of evolutionary theory.

• Books
  • The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
  • The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  • Darwiniana Essays by Thomas Huxley
  • Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus

• Websites
  • A History of Evolutionary Thought
  • Timeline of Evolutionary Thought
  • Lefalophodon: A History of Evolutionary Biology Web Site
  • Lamarck and his Theory of Evolution by Thomas E. Hart from The Victorian Web
  • Evolutionary Theory before Darwin from The Victorian Web
  • Darwin and Evolution Overview from The Victorian Web
  • The Alfred Russel Wallace Page by Charles H. Smith

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