SCIENCE AND EVOLUTION. A COLLECTION

Spencer, Herbert. The Principles of Biology. Williams and Norgate, 1884, 2 volumes, fourth thousand, printed slips ("From the Author") tipped-in on title-pages, 2pp. publisher's advertisements, errata leaves and 16pp. publisher's catalogue in each volume, numerous illustrations, original cloth with design in gilt on covers, spines faded, lower joint and hinge of volume one splitting--Trémaux, Pierre. Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres etres. Paris: Hachette et Cie., 1865, FIRST EDITION, half-title (adverts on verso), one plate, colophon leaf at end, contemporary morocco-backed boards--Lock, S.R. and G.C. Whitfield. Men of Mark. A Gallery of Contemporary Portraits... photographed from life by Lock and Whitfield... with brief biographical notices by Thompson Cooper. Sampson Low et al., 1876-1883, 7 volumes, Woodbury type photographic portraits laid-down, original gilt cloth, top edges gilt, some browning and spotting, bindings worn, all volumes rebacked preserving most of original spines; Royal Society. Catalogue of the Scientific Papers...Compiled by the Royal Society of London. Cambridge University Press, [1867]-1925, 19 volumes, first, second, third and fourth series and the supplement (volume 12), the first volume bound in half brown morocco over cloth, the remaining 18 volumes in full maroon or red cloth, volumes 9-19 stamped with Cambridge University crest, all lettered in gilt on spine with arms of the Royal Society at foot, some rubbing to cloth bindings, some with shelfmarks at foot of spine, withdrawal stamps of the Hill Reference Library, Saint Paul, Minnesota, perforated library stamp on title, with withdrawal stamps; 8vo and 4to (29)

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The first work introduced the expression "survival of the fittest" to the literature of the subject. The second work is a rare and controversial contribution on speciation, praised by Karl Marx as "a very important advance over Darwin", though it was rejected by Engels and Stephen Gould (author of The Darwinian Gentleman at Marx's Funeral), who described it as a "poorly documented thesis". This view has been challenged more recently by Wilkins and Nelson (Trémaux on species (2008)), arguing that the work may well have influenced Darwin's revision of the 1866 edition of Origin of Species.