George John Romanes (1848-94), considered by The Times to be 'the biological investigator upon whom in England the mantle of Mr. Darwin has most conspicuously descended', wrote this influential work on the evolution of the mental faculties of animals in 1883. The two scientists were close friends, and Darwin gave Romanes his notes on psychology to use in his studies. Much of the book is devoted to instinct, and contained in the appendix is a posthumous essay by Darwin on the subject, originally intended for a later edition of On the Origin of Species. Romanes' method of using anecdotal evidence over empirical research has been criticised, but this book stands as an influential work in the history of evolutionary biology; it was followed in 1888 by his Mental Evolution in Man (also reissued in this series), which discussed some of the most important issues of nineteenth-century evolutionary psychology.
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ISBN-13
978-1-139-10366-4 (9781139103664)
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Preface; Introduction; 1. The criterion of mind; 2. The structure and functions of nerve-tissue; 3. The physical basis of mind; 4. The root-principles of mind; 5. Explanation of the diagram; 6. Consciousness; 7. Sensation; 8. Pleasures and pains, memory, and association of ideas; 9. Perception; 10. Imagination; 11. Instinct; 12. Instinct (continued) - origin and development of instincts; 13. Instinct (continued) - blended origin, or plasticity of instinct; 14. Instinct (continued) - modes in which intelligence determines the variation of instinct in definite lines; 15. Instinct (continued) - domestication; 16. Instinct (continued) - local and specific varieties of instinct; 17. Instinct (continued) - examination of the theories of other writers on the evolution of instinct, with a general summary of the theory here set forth; 18. Instinct (continued) - cases of special difficulty with regard to the foregoing theory of the origin and development of instincts; 19. Reason; 20. Animal emotions, and summary of intellectual faculties; Appendix. A posthumous essay on instinct by Charles Darwin; Index.
