Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates Over Spontaneous Generation

by James E. Strick

Book Overview

How, asks James E. Strick, could spontaneous generation--the idea that living things can suddenly arise from nonliving materials--come to take root for a time (even a brief one) in so thoroughly unsuitable a field as British natural theology? No less an authority than Aristotle claimed that cases of spontaneous generation were to be observed in nature, and the idea held sway for centuries. Beginning around the time of the Scientific Revolution, however,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067400292X
• ISBN13: 9780674002920
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 283 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"