JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I can’t be sure of where this stands overall, but it certainly seemed to my reading over the last x-yearsx that using a quote or idea from our Mr. Darwin to sell something in the first decade or two after the publication of On the Origin of Species…. is a rare thing. So seeing this ad in the back of the volume of Popular Science Monthly (1877) was really surprising, as it was taking the phrase we find in Darwin to sell the long-lasting qualities of a life insurance firm. (Well, the phrase actually starts out with Herbert Spencer as he was influence by OTOOS, writing it to express an idea in economics in his Principles of Biology in 1864; Darwin himself adopts it in Variations of Animals and Plants under Domestication in 1868 and then in the fifth edition of OTOOS in 1869. I’ve included a lengthy quote from the Spencer, where the phrase turns out on page 444.) I do have a recollection of a drawing in Punch of a crying Mr. Darwin in a quarter illustration promoting kindness to animals or some such…but offhand there’s no memory of using the man/ideas as a sales vehicle before this. Again, that’s not my field so I may be missing a lot–if you know of other ads like this please let me know.
