“That by any series of changes a protozoon should ever become a mammal, seems to those who are not familiar with zoology”

—  Herbert Spencer

The Development Hypothesis (1852)
Context: That by any series of changes a protozoon should ever become a mammal, seems to those who are not familiar with zoology, and who have not seen how clear becomes the relationship between the simplest and the most complex forms when intermediate forms are examined, a very grotesque notion. Habitually, looking at things rather in their statical aspect than in their dynamical aspect, they never realize the fact that, by small increments of modification, any amount of modification may in time be generated.

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Herbert Spencer 81
English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent … 1820–1903

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