Challenge to Survival by Leonard Williams

Challenge to Survival

A Philosophy of Evolution

by Leonard Williams

Andre Deutsch, 1971, [First Edition], b/w plates, hardcover, dustjacket, ISBN 0233962964

Near Fine Condition, minor shelf and edge wear to dustjacket

'In this new book Leonard Williams establishes himself as a leading figure in the field of evolutionary and primate studies.  With a commanding presentation of fact and historical synthesis he introduces us to an entirely new conception of the origin and function of man's nature in pre-history.  In an apocalyptic chapter - 'The Birth of Sin' - he shows us how he actually enters the mid of the ape and of prehistoric man.
Williams opposes the popular theory that man has a built-in schizophrenia that is rooted in an 'evolutionary mistake in brain-building'.  He claims that the divided mind is not a 'split-mind', but a mind that must oppose itself in order to establish its own unity and health.  An undivided mind is therefore not a mind but a vegetable.  historical and behavioral evidence is produced to show that instinct and reason, though distinct, are fundamentally continuous, and that instead of making a god of reason we must use it to strengthen an instinctual morality that we have inherited from our primitive ancestors.'