Tuesday, 13 May 2014

PDF⋙ Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen

Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen

Our Debt to Insects

Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen PDF, ePub eBook D0wnl0ad

Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899) was a Canadian science writer and novelist, and a successful upholder of the theory of evolution. He was born near Kingston, Canada West (now incorporated into Ontario), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. He was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then France and finally the United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom. After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught at Brighton College in 1870–71 and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college in Jamaica. Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. One of his early articles, 'Note-Deafness' (a description of what is now called amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind) is cited with approval in a recent book by Oliver Sacks. His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead. After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock. In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these was the short novel The Type-writer Girl, which he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner. Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud. The young G. K. Chesterton wrote on what he considered the flawed premise of the idea, arguing that the idea of God preceded human mythologies, rather than developing from them. Chesterton said of Grant Allen's book on the evolution of the idea of God "it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book on the evolution of the idea of [Grant] Allen". He was also a pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption. Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters.

From reader reviews:

Joseph Fulkerson:

The reserve with title Our Debt to Insects has lot of information that you can study it. You can get a lot of gain after read this book. This particular book exist new expertise the information that exist in this book represented the condition of the world now. That is important to yo7u to know how the improvement of the world. This kind of book will bring you in new era of the glowbal growth. You can read the e-book on the smart phone, so you can read it anywhere you want.


Thomas Schwan:

People live in this new morning of lifestyle always try to and must have the extra time or they will get great deal of stress from both everyday life and work. So , once we ask do people have extra time, we will say absolutely yes. People is human not a robot. Then we consult again, what kind of activity do you have when the spare time coming to a person of course your answer may unlimited right. Then do you ever try this one, reading guides. It can be your alternative in spending your spare time, typically the book you have read is actually Our Debt to Insects.


Terrie Newlin:

Some individuals said that they feel uninterested when they reading a guide. They are directly felt it when they get a half elements of the book. You can choose typically the book Our Debt to Insects to make your current reading is interesting. Your own skill of reading skill is developing when you such as reading. Try to choose easy book to make you enjoy to learn it and mingle the feeling about book and reading through especially. It is to be very first opinion for you to like to open up a book and study it. Beside that the publication Our Debt to Insects can to be your brand new friend when you're feel alone and confuse using what must you're doing of these time.




Read Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen for online ebook

Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen Free PDF d0wnl0ad, audio books, books to read, good books to read, cheap books, good books, online books, books online, book reviews epub, read books online, books to read online, online library, greatbooks to read, PDF best books to read, top books to read Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen books to read online.

Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen Doc

Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen Mobipocket
Our Debt to Insects by Grant Allen EPub

No comments:

Post a Comment