The Coming of Evolution: The Story of a Great Revolution in Science

The author traces the intellectual emergence of evolutionary thought from ancient mythic and early scientific speculations through nineteenth-century debates over gradual change and catastrophism. He follows the geological work that challenged catastrophic explanations, the development and advocacy of uniformitarian principles, and the parallel emergence of natural selection as articulated by Darwin and Wallace. The account combines historical narrative, scientific exposition, and personal recollections of principal figures, showing how accumulated observation, argument, and publication transformed scattered hypotheses into a coherent framework that reshaped biological and geological understanding and influenced broader intellectual life.