We do not draw conclusions with our eyes, but with our reasoning powers, and if the whole of the rest of living nature proclaims with one accord from all sides the evolution of the world of organisms, we cannot assume that the process stopped short of Man. But it follows also that the factors which brought about the development of Man from his Simian ancestry must be the same as those which have brought about the whole of evolution.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that human evolution is part of the broader process of evolution observed in nature and relies on our reasoning to understand it.
August Weismann's quote reflects the idea that human beings are not separate from the evolutionary processes that shape all living organisms. He argues that just as nature evolves and adapts, so too did humans emerge from a long line of ancestors, influenced by the same evolutionary factors as all other life forms. Weismann highlights the importance of reasoning in our understanding of these concepts, suggesting that conclusions about our origins require thoughtful analysis rather than mere observation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture about evolutionary biology to highlight the connection between humans and other species.
What a sublime idea of the infinite might of the great Architect, the Cause of all causes, the Father of all fathers, the Ens Entium! For if we would compare the Infinite, it would surely require a greater Infinite to cause the causes of effects than to produce the effects themselves.
The Secretary of Hygiene or Physical Culture will be far more important in the cabinet of the President of the United States who holds office in the year 2035 than the Secretary of War.
Mathematical science shows what is. It is the language of unseen relations between things. But to use and apply that language, we must be able fully to appreciate, to feel, to seize the unseen, the unconscious.
Artificial selection turned the wolf into the shepherd, and the wild grasses into wheat and corn. In fact, almost every plant and animal that we eat today was bred from a wild, less edible ancestor. If artificial selection can work such profound changes in only ten or fifteen thousand years, what can natural selection do operating over billions of years? The answer is all the beauty and diversity of life.
The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for free and independent life: the mechanism that makes it possible is that which assured the maintenance, with the internal environment, of all the conditions necessary for the life of the elements.
Hubble touches people. When you're looking that far out, you're giving people their place in the universe, it touches people. Science is often visual, so it doesn't need translation. It's like poetry, it touches you.
Imagination alone is not enough, because the reality of nature is far more wondrous than anything we can imagine
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