Page 42 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism
P. 42
Once Upon a Time
There Was Darwinism
was believed that living creatures could evolve
spontaneously within inanimate matter. But these ob-
servations and experiments that seemed to prove those as-
sertions were extremely primitive.
The ancient Egyptians living along the River Nile thought that
the number of frogs increased during the rainy season because the
river generated them out of the mud. They believed that not only
frogs, but snakes, worms and mice were formed from the mud
when the Nile flooded each summer. Superficial observations led
the Egyptians into this superstition.
