"There are authorities who maintain that one should not think much about taxonomy but just do it. I have been doing it for many years, but like the would-be philosopher who was thwarted by having cheerfulness break in, I have found thought breaking in. In 1941-42 (published in 1945) I put down some of those thoughts in connection with my broadest taxonomic effort, a classification of the Mammalia. That essay was intended to explain and justify the bases of that particular classification, but it also seemed to have some wider interest for taxonomists. Ever since then the divorcing of the essay from the classification of mammals and its separate issue in revised form have been one of those projects to be performed “when I have time.” -
One of the advantages of lecture series—their greatest advantage, I believe—is that they may force the lecturer to take the time to organize his thoughts and to write them down. The flattering invitation to join the roster of jesup Lecturers at Columbia University was accepted, somewhat rashly, in large part because it was a means of forcing myself to take the time for the long-deferred project on the principles of taxonomy. Of course this turned out to involve much more than just dusting off the old essay, revising and expanding it. Indeed the present book, based on the jesup Lectures for 1960, has little to do with the earlier essay aside from the facts that both are on the same subject and that I still agree with much, by no means with all, that I thought fifteen to twenty years ago.
Here I have tried something much more ambitious than in the earlier essay. As far as is permitted by ability and scope, I have here tried to examine the deepest foundations of taxonomy and to build up from those foundations the structures of zoological classification. Further characterization of the subject matter is made at the beginning of Chapter 1, where it is more likely to be read, and the book before you demonstrates for itself what has been made of the subject. I might here add that, although the treatment is not intended to be elementary, I have inserted much that professional taxonomists already know and may, for their purposes, find superfluous. (Various of those passages were omitted from the lectures.) That material is included with the hope that students may here acquire some of the rudiments while also, and perhaps with greater difficulty, learning to think about taxonomy and not just to do it.
Dr. Anne Roe has read the entire manuscript and has helped me to limit, if not altogether to eliminate, failures of communication. She deserves more than the routine acknowledgment often given to wives. Miss Holly Osler has gone beyond the strict call of duty in converting my handwriting into legible manuscript and in assisting with details of bibliography and index. At Columbia University Press, Raymond I. Dixon has edited the manuscript and Miss Nancy Dixon has designed the book. Mrs. Nancy Gahan has converted my roughs into finished illustrations.
I am grateful, perhaps most of all, to the late Alexander Agassiz and to Harvard University. By a conjunction foreseen by neither one, they have given me the freedom to pursue these thoughts to this point." (George Gaylord Simpson)
Apreciem sem moderação.
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