doctrine of descent

British  

noun

1. the theory that animals and plants arose by descent from previously existing organisms; theory of evolution

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Example Sentences

Then the doctrine of descent was struggling for existence against principalities and powers both temporal and spiritual, and then it was still relevant to pit it against the theory of special creations.

From Herbert Spencer by Thomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur)

Was this period of six years, between 1794 and 1800, given to a reconsideration of the subject resulting in favor of the doctrine of descent?

From Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution His Life and Work by Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)

From this allusion it appears that he regards a doctrine of descent as opposed to what he describes as an "incomprehensible act of creation."

From The Relations of Science and Religion The Morse Lecture, 1880 by Calderwood, Henry

Pre-Darwinian philosophers had also tried to establish the doctrine of descent with modification; but they all committed the blunder of clumping the two cycles of causation into one.

From The Will to Believe : and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by James, William

It was he who discovered the vestigial teeth of the baleen whale and those of embryo birds, and the bearing of this on the doctrine of descent must have been obvious to him.

From Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution His Life and Work by Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)