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An Agnostic Would Be The More Correct Description Of My State Of Mind.

-Charles Darwin

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An Agnostic Would Be

Charles Darwin

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An Agnostic Would Be The More Correct Description Of My State Of Mind.

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The Fact Of Evolution Is The Backbone Of Biology, And Biology Is Thus In The Peculiar Position Of Being A Science Founded On An Improved Theory, Is It Then A Science Or Faith?

Theory Of Evolution

I Often Had To Run Very Quickly To Be On Time, And From Being A Fleet Runner Was Generally Successful; But When In Doubt I Prayed Earnestly To God To Help Me, And I Well Remember That I Attributed My Success To The Prayers And Not To My Quick Running, And Marvelled How Generally I Was Aided.

In The Survival Of Favoured Individuals And Races, During The Constantly-recurring Struggle For Existence, We See A Powerful And Ever-acting Form Of Selection.

Till Facts Are Grouped & Called There Can Be No Prediction. The Only Advantage Of Discovering Laws Is To Foretell What Will Happen & To See Bearing Of Scattered Facts.

When The Views Entertained In This Volume On The Origin Of Species, Or When Analogous Views Are Generally Admitted, We Can Dimly Forsee That There Will Be A Considerable Revolution In Natural History.

I Fully Subscribe To The Judgement Of Those Writers Who Maintain That Of All The Differences Between Man And The Lower Animal, The Moral Sense Of Conscience Is By Far The Most Important....it Is The Most Noble Of All The Attributes Of Man.

The Explanation Of Types Of Structure In Classes - As Resulting From The Will Of The Deity, To Create Animals On Certain Plans - Is No Explanation. It Has Not The Character Of A Physical Law And Is Therefore Utterly Useless. It Foretells Nothing Because We Know Nothing Of The Will Of The Deity, How It Acts And Whether Constant Or Inconstant Like That Of Man.

Mere Chance ... Alone Would Never Account For So Habitual And Large An Amount Of Difference As That Between Varieties Of The Same Species.

Origin Of Species

There Is Grandeur In This View Of Life, With Its Several Powers, Having Been Originally Breathed Into A Few Forms Or Into One; And That, Whilst This Planet Has Gone Cycling On According To The Fixed Law Of Gravity, From So Simple A Beginning Endless Forms Most Beautiful And Most Wonderful Have Been, And Are Being, Evolved.

When The Sexes Differ In Beauty, In The Power Of Singing, Or In Producing What I Have Called Instrumental Music, It Is Almost Invariably The Male Which Excels The Female.

Traveling Ought Also To Teach Him Distrust; But At The Same Time He Will Discover, How Many Truly Kind-hearted People There Are, With Whom He Never Before Had, Or Ever Again Will Have Any Further Communication, Who Yet Are Ready To Offer Him The Most Disinterested Assistance.

If It Could Be Demonstrated That Any Complex Organ Existed, Which Could Not Possibly Have Been Formed By Numerous, Successive, Slight Modifications, My Theory Would Absolutely Break Down. But I Can Find No Such Case.

Theory Of Evolution

Creation Science

Evolution Of Man

A Man Who Has No Assured And Ever Present Belief In The Existence Of A Personal God Or Of A Future Existence With Retribution And Reward, Can Have For His Rule Of Life, As Far As I Can See, Only To Follow Those Impulses And Instincts Which Are The Strongest Or Which Seem To Him The Best Ones

Even When We Are Quite Alone, How Often Do We Think With Pleasure Or Pain Of What Others Think Of Us - Of Their Imagined Approbation Or Disapprobation.

Blushing Is The Most Peculiar And Most Human Of All Expressions.

Sympathy Beyond The Confines Of Man, That Is, Humanity To The Lower Animals, Seems To Be One Of The Latest Moral Acquisitions.

The Age-old And Noble Thought Of 'i Will Lay Down My Life To Save Another,' Is Nothing More Than Cowardice.

It Is No Valid Objection That Science As Yet Throws No Light On The Far Higher Problem Of The Essence Or Origin Of Life. Who Can Explain Gravity? No One Now Objects To Following Out The Results Consequent On This Unknown Element Of Attraction.

Daily It Is Forced Home On The Mind Of The Biologist That Nothing, Not Even The Wind That Blows, Is So Unstable As The Level Of The Crust Of This Earth.

I Believe We Were All Glad To Leave New Zealand. It Is Not A Pleasant Place. Amongst The Natives There Is Absent That Charming Simplicity .... And The Greater Part Of The English Are The Very Refuse Of Society.

Of All The Differences Between Man And The Lower Animals, The Moral Sense Or Conscience Is By Far The Most Important. This Sense, As Mackintosh Remarks, "has A Rightful Supremacy Over Every Other Principle Of Human Action"; It Is Summed Up In That Short But Imperious Word "ought," So Full Of High Significance. It Is The Most Noble Of All The Attributes Of Man, Leading Him Without A Moment's Hesitation To Risk His Life For That Of A Fellow-creature; Or After Due Deliberation, Impelled Simply By The Deep Feeling Of Right Or Duty, To Sacrifice It In Some Great Cause.

When Primeval Man ﬁrst Used ﬂint Stones For Any Purpose, He Would Have Accidentally Splintered Them, And Would Then Have Used The Sharp Fragments. From This Step It Would Be A Small One To Break The ﬂints On Purpose And Not A Very Wide Step To Fashion Them Rudely.

Englishmen Rarely Cry, Except Under The Pressure Of The Acutest Grief; Whereas In Some Parts Of The Continent The Men Shed Tears Much More Readily And Freely.

With Mammals The Male Appears To Win The Female Much More Through The Law Of Battle Than Through The Display Of His Charms.

It Is A Cursed Evil To Any Man To Become As Absorbed In Any Subject As I Am In Mine.

The Normal Food Of Man Is Vegetable.

People Complain Of The Unequal Distribution Of Wealth [but It Is A Far Greater] Injustice That Any One Man Should Have The Power To Write So Many Brilliant Essays... There Is No One Who Writes Like [thomas Huxley].

The Willing Horse Is Always Overworked.

I Find In The Domestic Duck That The Bones Of The Wing Weigh Less And The Bones Of The Leg More, In Proportion To The Whole Skeleton, Than Do The Same Bones In The Wild Duck; And This Change May Be Safely Attributed To The Domestic Duck Flying Much Less, And Walking More, Than Its Wild Parents.

It's An Awful Stretcher To Believe That A Peacock's Tail Was Thus Formed But ... Most People Just Don't Get It - I Must Be A Very Bad Explainer

It At Once Struck Me That Under These Circumstances Favourable Variations Would Tend To Be Preserved, And Unfavourable Ones To Be Destroyed.

The Lower Animals, On The Other Hand, Must Have Their Bodily Structure Modified In Order To Survive Under Greatly Changed Conditions. They Must Be Rendered Stronger, Or Acquire More Effective Teeth Or Claws, In Order To Defend Themselves From New Enemies; Or They Must Be Reduced In Size So As To Escape Detection And Danger. When They Migrate Into A Colder Climate They Must Become Clothed With Thicker Fur, Or Have Their Constitutions Altered. If They Fail To Be Thus Modified, They Will Cease To Exist.

But Then With Me The Horrid Doubt Always Arises Whether The Convictions Of Man's Mind, Which Has Been Developed From The Mind Of The Lower Animals, Are Of Any Value Or At All Trustworthy. Would Any One Trust In The Convictions Of A Monkey's Mind, If There Are Any Convictions In Such A Mind?

Multiply, Vary, Let The Strongest Live And The Weakest Die.

Origin Of Species

Natural Selection

If The Misery Of The Poor Be Caused Not By The Laws Of Nature, But By Our Institutions, Great Is Our Sin.

Man May Be Excused For Feeling Some Pride At Having Risen, Though Not Through His Own Exertions, To The Very Summit Of The Organic Scale; And The Fact Of His Having Thus Risen, Instead Of Having Been Aboriginally Placed There, May Give Him Hopes For A Still Higher Destiny In The Distant Future.

Man Is Descended From A Hairy, Tailed Quadruped, Probably Arboreal In Its Habits.

It Occurred To Me, In 1837, That Something Might Perhaps Be Made Of This Question (the Origin Of The Species) By Patiently Accumulating And Reflecting On All Sorts Of Facts Which Could Possibly Have Any Bearing On It

That There Is Much Suffering In The World No One Disputes. Which Is More Likely, That Pain And Evil Are The Result Of An All-powerful And Good God, Or The Product Of Uncaring Natural Forces? The Presence Of Much Suffering Agrees Well With The View That All Organic Beings Have Been Developed Through Variation And Natural Selection.

I Think It Can Be Shown That There Is Such An Unerring Power At Work In Natural Selection, Which Selects Exclusively For The Good Of Each Organic Being.

Natural Selection

It Has Sometimes Been Said That The Success Of The Origin Proved "that The Subject Was In The Air," Or "that Men's Minds Were Prepared For It." I Do Not Think That This Is Strictly True, For I Occasionally Sounded Not A Few Naturalists, And Never Happened To Come Across A Single One Who Seemed To Doubt About The Permanence Of Species.

It Strikes Me That All Our Knowledge About The Structure Of Our Earth Is Very Much Like What An Old Hen Would Know Of The Hundred-acre Field In A Corner Of Which She Is Scratching.

I Have Been Speculating Last Night What Makes A Man A Discoverer Of Undiscovered Things. As Far As I Can Conjecture The Art Consists In Habitually Searching For The Causes And Meaning Of Everything Which Occurs.

My Mind Seems To Have Become A Kind Of Machine For Grinding General Laws Out Of Large Collections Of Facts.

As Natural Selection Works Solely By And For The Good Of Each Being, All Corporeal And Mental Endowments Will Tend To Progress Toward Perfection.

As Some Of The Lowest Organisms, In Which Nerves Cannot Be Detected, Are Capable Of Perceiving Light, It Does Not Seem Impossible That Certain Sensitive Elements In Their Sarcode Should Become Aggregated And Developed Into Nerves, Endowed With This Special Sensibility.

We Feel Surprise When Travellers Tell Us Of The Vast Dimensions Of The Pyramids And Other Great Ruins, But How Utterly Insignificant Are The Greatest Of These, When Compared To These Mountains Of Stone Accumulated By The Agency Of Various Minute And Tender Animals!

Man Is Developed From An Ovule, About 125th Of An Inch In Diameter, Which Differs In No Respect From The Ovules Of Other Animals.

The Most Important Factor In Survival Is Neither Intelligence Nor Strength But Adaptability.

A Language, Like A Species, When Extinct, Never... Reappears.

Often A Cold Shudder Has Run Through Me, And I Have Asked Myself Whether I May Have Not Devoted Myself To A Fantasy.

Not One Great Country Can Be Named, From The Polar Regions In The North To New Zealand In The South, In Which The Aborigines Do Not Tattoo Themselves.

I Think It Inevitably Follows, That As New Species In The Course Of Time Are Formed Through Natural Selection, Others Will Become Rarer And Rarer, And Finally Extinct. The Forms Which Stand In Closest Competition With Those Undergoing Modification And Improvement Will Naturally Suffer Most.

I Love Fools' Experiments. I Am Always Making Them.

Theory Of Evolution

Some Call It Evolution, And Others Call It God.

Man Is More Courageous, Pugnacious, And Energetic Than Woman, And Has A More Inventive Genius. His Brain Is Absolutely Larger, But Whether Relatively To The Larger Size Of His Body, In Comparison With That Of Woman, Has Not, I Believe Been Fully Ascertained. In Woman The Face Is Rounder; The Jaws And The Base Of The Skull Smaller; The Outlines Of Her Body Rounder, In Parts More Prominent; And Her Pelvis Is Broader Than In Man; But This Latter Character May Perhaps Be Considered Rather As A Primary Than A Secondary Sexual Character. She Comes To Maturity At An Earlier Age Than Man.

I Have Rarely Read Anything Which Has Interested Me More, Though I Have Not Read As Yet More Than A Quarter Of The Book Proper. From Quotations Which I Had Seen, I Had A High Notion Of Aristotle's Merits, But I Had Not The Most Remote Notion What A Wonderful Man He Was. Linnaeus And Cuvier Have Been My Two Gods, Though In Very Different Ways, But They Were Mere Schoolboys To Old Aristotle.

It Is Not The Most Intellectual Of The Species That Survives; It Is Not The Strongest That Survives; But The Species That Survives Is The One That Is Able Best To Adapt And Adjust To The Changing Environment In Which It Finds Itself.

Changing Environment

[t]he Young And The Old Of Widely Different Races, Both With Man And Animals, Express The Same State Of Mind By The Same Movements.

The Love Of A Dog For His Master Is Notorious; In The Agony Of Death He Has Been Known To Caress His Master, And Everyone Has Heard Of The Dog Suffering Under Vivisection, Who Licked The Hand Of The Operator; This Man, Unless He Had A Heart Of Stone, Must Have Felt Remorse To The Last Hour Of His Life.

The Man That Created The Theory Of Evolution By Natural Selection Was Thrown Out By His Dad Because He Wanted Him To Be A Doctor. Gawd, Parents Haven't Changed Much.

May We Not Suspect That The Vague But Very Real Fears Of Children, Which Are Quite Independent Of Experience, Are The Inherited Effects Of Real Dangers And Abject Superstitions During Ancient Savage Times?

There Is No Fundamental Difference Between Man And The Higher Mammals In Their Mental Faculties...the Difference In Mind Between Man And The Higher Animals, Great As It Is, Certainly Is One Of Degree And Not Of Kind.

...all Nature Is Perverse & Will Not Do As I Wish It.

Many Kinds Of Monkeys Have A Strong Taste For Tea, Coffee And Spirituous Liqueurs.

At Some Future Period, Not Very Distant As Measured By Centuries, The Civilized Races Of Man Will Almost Certainly Exterminate, And Replace The Savage Races Throughout The World.

Some Few, And I Am One Of Them, Even Wish To God, Though At The Loss Of Millions Of Lives, That The North Would Proclaim A Crusade Against Slavery. In The Long-run, A Million Horrid Deaths Would Be Amply Repaid In The Cause Of Humanity. Great God! How I Should Like To See The Greatest Curse On Earth - Slavery - Abolished!

... Not One Living Species Will Transmit Its Unaltered Likeness To A Distant Futurity.

Origin Of Species

We May Confidently Come To The Conclusion, That The Forces Which Slowly And By Little Starts Uplift Continents, And That Those Which At Successive Periods Pour Forth Volcanic Matter From Open Orifices, Are Identical.

One Day, On Tearing Off Some Old Bark, I Saw Two Rare Beetles, And Seized One In Each Hand. Then I Saw A Third And New Kind, Which I Could Not Bear To Lose, So I Popped The One Which I Held In My Right Hand Into My Mouth. Alas! It Ejected Some Intensely Acrid Fluid, Which Burnt My Tongue So That I Was Forced To Spit The Beetle Out, Which Was Lost, As Was The Third One.

If Every One Were Cast In The Same Mould, There Would Be No Such Thing As Beauty.

You Ask About My Opinion On Vivisection. I Quite Agree That It Is Justifiable For Real Investigations On Physiology; But Not For Mere Damnable And Detestable Curiosity.

...for The Shield May Be As Important For Victory, As The Sword Or Spear.

Why Does Man Regret, Even Though He May Endeavour To Banish Any Such Regret, That He Has Followed The One Natural Impulse, Rather Than The Other; And Why Does He Further Feel That He Ought To Regret His Conduct? Man In This Respect Differs Profoundly From The Lower Animals.

The Most Energetic Workers I Have Encountered In My World Travels Are The Vegetarian Miners Of Chile.

It Is Scarcely Possible To Doubt That The Love Of Man Has Become Instinctive In The Dog.

To Suppose That The Eye Could Have Been Formed By Natural Selection, Seems, I Freely Confess, Absurd In The Highest Possible Degree

Theory Of Evolution

Creation Science

Man With All His Noble Qualities, With Sympathy Which Feels For The Most Debased, With Benevolence Which Extends Not Only To Other Men But To The Humblest Living Creature, With His God-like Intellect Which Has Penetrated Into The Movements And Constitution Of The Solar System- With All These Exalted Powers- Man Still Bears In His Bodily Frame The Indelible Stamp Of His Lowly Origin.

He Who Understands Baboon Would Do More Towards Metaphysics Than Locke.

We Cannot Fathom The Marvelous Complexity Of An Organic Being; But On The Hypothesis Here Advanced This Complexity Is Much Increased. Each Living Creature Must Be Looked At As A Microcosm--a Little Universe, Formed Of A Host Of Self-propagating Organisms, Inconceivably Minute And As Numerous As The Stars In Heaven.

It Seems To Me Absurd To Doubt That A Man May Be An Ardent Theist And An Evolutionist. ... I Have Never Been An Atheist In The Sense Of Denying The Existence Of A God.

Although I Am Fully Convinced Of The Truth Of The Views Given In This Volume Under The Form Of An Abstract, I By No Means Expect To Convince Experienced Naturalists Whose Minds Are Stocked With A Multitude Of Facts All Viewed, During A Long Course Of Years, From A Point Of View Directly Opposite To Mine... I Look With Confidence To The Future, To Young And Rising Naturalists, Who Will Be Able To View Both Sides Of The Question With Impartiality.

I Feel Like An Old Warhorse At The Sound Of A Trumpet When I Read About The Capturing Of Rare Beetles.

Whenever I Have Found That I Have Blundered, Or That My Work Has Been Imperfected, And When I Have Been Contemptuously Criticised, And Even When I Have Been Overpraised, So That I Have Felt Mortified, It Has Been My Greatest Comfort To Say Hundreds Of Times To Myself That 'i Have Worked As Hard As I Could, And No Man Can Do More Than This.'

A Republic Cannot Succeed, Till It Contains A Certain Body Of Men Imbued With The Principles Of Justice And Honour.

...conscience Looks Backwards And Judges Past Actions, Inducing That Kind Of Dissatisfaction, Which If Weak We Call Regret, And If Severe Remorse.

But Just In Proportion As This Process Of Extermination Has Acted On An Enormous Scale, So Must The Number Of Intermediate Varieties, Which Have Formerly Existed, Be Truly Enormous. Why Then Is Not Every Geological Formation And Every Stratum Full Of Such Intermediate Links? Geology Assuredly Does Not Reveal Any Such Finely Graduated Organic Chain; And This, Perhaps, Is The Most Obvious And Serious Objection Which Can Be Urged Against The Theory. The Explanation Lies, As I Believe, In The Extreme Imperfection Of The Geological Record.

Theory Of Evolution

Blushing Is The Most Peculiar And The Most Human Of All Expressions. Monkeys Redden From Passion, But It Would Require An Overwhelming Amount Of Evidence To Make Us Believe That Any Animal Could Blush.

Man Scans With Scrupulous Care The Character And Pedigree Of His Horses, Cattle, And Dogs Before He Matches Them; But When He Comes To His Own Marriage He Rarely, Or Never, Takes Any Such Care.

Describing Laughter: The Sound Is Produced By A Deep Inspiration Followed By Short, Interrupted, Spasmodic Contractions Of The Chest, And Especially The Diaphragm... The Mouth Is Open More Or Less Widely, With The Corners Drawn Much Backwards, As Well As A Little Upwards; And The Upper Lip Is Somewhat Raised.

I Have Called This Principle, By Which Each Slight Variation, If Useful, Is Preserved, By The Term Natural Selection, In Order To Mark Its Relation To Man's Power Of Selection. But The Expression Often Used By Mr. Herbert Spencer Of The Survival Of The Fittest Is More Accurate, And Is Sometimes Equally Convenient.

A Novel According To My Taste, Does Not Come Into The Moderately Good Class Unless It Contains Some Person Whom One Can Thoroughly Love - And If A Pretty Woman, All The Better.

The Plow Is One Of The Most Ancient And Most Valuable Of Man's Inventions; But Long Before He Existed The Land Was In Fact Regularly Plowed, And Still Continues To Be Thus Plowed By Earthworms. It May Be Doubted Whether There Are Many Other Animals Which Have Played So Important A Part In The History Of The World, As Have These Lowly Organized Creatures.

As For A Future Life, Every Man Must Judge For Himself Between Conflicting Vague Probabilities.

Every One Must Be Struck With Astonishment, When He First Beholds One Of These Vast Rings Of Coral-rock, Often Many Leagues In Diameter, Here And There Surmounted By A Low Verdant Island With Dazzling White Shores, Bathed On The Outside By The Foaming Breakers Of The Ocean, And On The Inside Surrounding A Calm Expanse Of Water, Which, From Reflection, Is Of A Bright But Pale Green Color.

But When On Shore, & Wandering In The Sublime Forests, Surrounded By Views More Gorgeous Than Even Claude Ever Imagined, I Enjoy A Delight Which None But Those Who Have Experienced It Can Understand.

On Your Life, Underestimating The Proclivities Of Finches Is Likely To Lead To Great Internal Hemorrhaging.

The School As A Means Of Education To Me Was Simply A Blank.

Hereafter We Shall Be Compelled To Acknowledge That The Only Distinction Between Species And Well-marked Varieties Is, That The Latter Are Known, Or Believed To Be Connected At The Present Day By Intermediate Gradations Whereas Species Were Formerly Thus Connected.

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge.

Such Simple Instincts As Bees Making A Beehive Could Be Sufficient To Overthrow My Whole Theory.

Man Himself Cannot Express Love And Humility By External Signs, So Plainly As Does A Dog, When With Drooping Ears, Hanging Lips, Flexuous Body, And Wagging Tail, He Meets His Beloved Master.

You Will Be Astonished To Find How The Whole Mental Disposition Of Your Children Changes With Advancing Years. A Young Child And The Same When Nearly Grown, Sometimes Differ Almost As Much As Do A Caterpillar And Butterfly.

When It Was First Said That The Sun Stood Still And World Turned Round, The Common Sense Of Mankind Declared The Doctrine False; But The Old Saying Of Vox Populi, Vox Dei [the Voice Of The People Is The Voice Of God], As Every Philosopher Knows, Cannot Be Trusted In Science.

Our Descent, Then, Is The Origin Of Our Evil Passions!! The Devil Under Form Of Baboon Is Our Grandfather.

Great Is The Power Of Steady Misrepresentation; But The History Of Science Shows That Fortunately This Power Does Not Long Endure.

We Are Always Slow In Admitting Any Great Change Of Which We Do Not See The Intermediate Steps

I See No Good Reasons Why The Views Given In This Volume Should Shock The Religious Views Of Anyone.

Believing As I Do That Man In The Distant Future Will Be A Far More Perfect Creature Than He Now Is, It Is An Intolerable Thought That He And All Other Sentient Beings Are Doomed To Complete Annihilation After Such Long-continued Slow Progress.

... If Variations Useful To Any Organic Being Do Occur, Assuredly Individuals Thus Characterized Will Have The Best Chance Of Being Perserved In The Struggle For Life; And From The Strong Principle Of Inheritance They Will Tend To Produce Offsping Similarly Characterized. This Principle Of Preservation, I Have Called, For The Sake Of Brevity, Natural Selection.

Only The Fittest Will Survive.

Intelligence Is Based On How Efficient A Species Became At Doing The Things They Need To Survive.

A Cell Is A Complex Structure, With Its Investing Membrane, Nucleus, And Nucleolus.

The Very Essence Of Instinct Is That It's Followed Independently Of Reason.

I Have Just Finished My Sketch Of My Species Theory. If As I Believe That My Theory Is True & If It Be Accepted Even By One Competent Judge, It Will Be A Considerable Step In Science. I Therefore Write This, In Case Of My Sudden Death, As My Most Solemn & Last Request, Which I Am Sure You Will Consider The Same As If Legally Entered In My Will, That You Will Devote 400£ To Its Publication & Further Will Yourself, Or Through Hensleigh [wedgwood], Take Trouble In Promoting It.

Thus Disbelief Crept Over Me At A Very Slow Rate, But At Last Was Complete. The Rate Was So Slow That I Felt No Distress, And Have Never Since Doubted Even For A Single Second That My Conclusion Was Correct.

I Am Turned Into A Sort Of Machine For Observing Facts And Grinding Out Conclusions.

The More I Study Nature, The More I Become Impressed With Ever-increasing Force With The Conclusion, That The Contrivances And Beautiful Adaptations Slowly Acquired Through Each Part Occasionally Varying In A Slight Degree But In Many Ways, With The Preservation Or Natural Selection Of Those Variations Which Are Beneficial To The Organism Under The Complex And Ever-varying Conditions Of Life, Transcend In An Incomparable Degree The Contrivances And Adaptations Which The Most Fertile Imagination Of Man Could Suggest With Unlimited Time At His Disposal.

I Have Deeply Regretted That I Did Not Proceed Far Enough At Least To Understand Something Of The Great Leading Principles Of Mathematics, For Men Thus Endowed Seem To Have An Extra Sense.

I Conclude That The Musical Notes And Rhythms Were First Acquired By The Male Or Female Progenitors Of Mankind For The Sake Of Charming The Opposite Sex.

I Have Tried Lately To Read Shakespeare, And Found It So Intolerably Dull That It Nauseated Me.

Thus We Have Given To Man A Pedigree Of Prodigious Length, But Not, It May Be Said, Of Noble Quality.

If A Person Asked My Advice, Before Undertaking A Long Voyage, My Answer Would Depend Upon His Possessing A Decided Taste For Some Branch Of Knowledge, Which Could By This Means Be Advanced. No Doubt It Is A High Satisfaction To Behold Various Countries And The Many Races Of Mankind, But The Pleasures Gained At The Time Do Not Counterbalance The Evils.

About Thirty Years Ago There Was Much Talk That Geologists Ought Only To Observe And Not Theorise; And I Well Remember Some One Saying That At This Rate A Man Might As Well Go Into A Gravel-pit And Count The Pebbles And Describe The Colours. How Odd It Is That Anyone Should Not See That All Observation Must Be For Or Against Some View If It Is To Be Of Any Service!

I Am Sorry To Have To Inform You That I Do Not Believe In The Bible As A Divine Revelation, & Therefore Not In Jesus Christ As The Son Of God.

We Behold The Face Of Nature Bright With Gladness.

Origin Of Species

I Cannot See ... Evidence Of Design And Beneficence ... There Seems To Me Too Much Misery In The World.

A Man Who Dares To Waste One Hour Of Time Has Not Discovered The Value Of Life.

Nothing Before Had Ever Made Me Thoroughly Realise, Though I Had Read Various Scientific Books, That Science Consists In Grouping Facts So That General Laws Or Conclusions May Be Drawn From Them.

I Am Almost Convinced (quite Contrary To Opinion I Started With) That Species Are Not (it Is Like Confessing A Murder) Immutable.

Origin Of Species

Life Is Nearly Over With Me. I Have Taken No Pains About My Style Of Writing.

The Formation Of Different Languages And Of Distinct Species And The Proofs That Both Have Been Developed Through A Gradual Process, Are Curiously Parallel.

Nothing Can Be More Improving To A Young Naturalist, Than A Journey In A Distant Country.

Owing To This Struggle For Life, Any Variation, However Slight And From Whatever Cause Proceeding, If It Be In Any Degree Profitable To An Individual Of Any Species, In Its Infinitely Complex Relationship To Other Organic Beings And To External Nature, Will Tend To The Preservation Of That Individual, And Will Generally Be Inherited By Its Offspring.

I Am Quite Conscious That My Speculations Run Beyond The Bounds Of True Science....it Is A Mere Rag Of An Hypothesis With As Many Flaw[s] & Holes As Sound Parts.

Any One Whose Disposition Leads Him To Attach More Weight To Unexplained Difficulties Than To The Explanation Of Facts Will Certainly Reject My Theory.

It Is Not The Conscience Which Raises A Blush, For A Man May Sincerely Regret Some Slight Fault Committed In Solitude, Or He May Suffer The Deepest Remorse For An Undetected Crime, But He Will Not Blush... It Is Not The Sense Of Guilt, But The Thought That Others Think Or Know Us To Be Guilty Which Crimsons The Face.

Seeing This Gradation And Diversity Of Structure In One Small, Intimately Related Group Of Birds, One Might Really Fancy That From An Original Paucity Of Birds In This Archipelago, One Species Had Been Taken And Modified For Different Ends.

The Times Is Getting More Detestable (but That Is Too Weak Word) Than Ever.

It Is Absurd To Talk Of One Animal Being Higher Than Another...we Consider Those, Where The Intellectual Faculties Most Developed As The Highest. - A Bee Doubtless Would [use] ... Instincts As A Criteria.

Hence, A Traveller Should Be A Botanist, For In All Views Plants Form The Chief Embellishment.

Your Words Have Come True With A Vengeance That I Shd [should] Be Forestalled ... I Never Saw A More Striking Coincidence. If Wallace Had My M.s. Sketch Written Out In 1842 He Could Not Have Made A Better Short Abstract! Even His Terms Now Stand As Heads Of My Chapters.

Man, Wonderful Man, Must Collapse, Into Nature's Cauldron, He Is No Deity, He Is No Exception.

Every New Body Of Discovery Is Mathematical In Form, Because There Is No Other Guidance We Can Have.

The Limit Of Man S Knowledge In Any Subject Possesses A High Interest Which Is Perhaps Increased By Its Close Neighbourhood To The Realms Of Imagination.

It May Be Conceit, But I Believe The Subject Will Interest The Public, And I Am Sure That The Views Are Original.

Although Much Remains Obscure, And Will Long Remain Obscure, ... I Am Convinced That Natural Selection Has Been The Main But Not Exclusive Means Of Modification.

It Is Often Said That All The Conditions For The First Production Of A Living Organism Are Now Present, Which Could Ever Have Been Present. But If (and Oh! What A Big If!) We Could Conceive In Some Warm Little Pond, With All Sorts Of Ammonia And Phosphoric Salts, Light, Heat, Electricity, &c., Present, That A Proteine Compound Was Chemically Formed Ready To Undergo Stillmore Complex Changes, At The Present Day Such Matter Would Be Instantly Devoured Or Absorbed, Which Would Not Have Been The Case Before Living Creatures Were Formed.

A Scientific Man Ought To Have No Wishes, No Affections, - A Mere Heart Of Stone.

Only Picture To Yourself A Nice Soft Wife On A Sofa With Good Fire, & Books & Music.

In My Most Extreme Fluctuations I Have Never Been An Atheist In The Sense Of Denying The Existence Of A God ... I Think That Generally (& More And More So As I Grow Older) But Not Always, That An Agnostic Would Be The Most Correct Description Of My State Of Mind.

...i Feel Most Deeply That The Whole Subject Is Too Profound For The Human Intellect. A Dog Might As Well Speculate On The Mind Of Newton.— Let Each Man Hope & Believe What He Can.—

The Season Of Love Is That Of Battle. The Roots Of These Fights Run Deep.

I Had Gradually Come, By This Time [1839-01], To See That The Old Testament From Its Manifestly False History Of The World, With The Tower Of Babel, The Rainbow As A Sign, Etc., Etc. And From Its Attributing To God The Feelings Of A Revengeful Tyrant, Was No More To Be Trusted Than The Sacred Books Of The Hindoos, Or The Beliefs Of Any Barbarian.

... Probably All The Organic Beings Which Have Ever Lived On This Earth Have Descended From Some One Primordial Form, Into Which Life Was First Breathed.

In The Struggle For Survival, The Fittest Win Out At The Expense Of Their Rivals Because They Succeed In Adapting Themselves Best To Their Environment.

The More Efficient Causes Of Progress Seem To Consist Of A Good Education During Youth Whilst The Brain Is Impressible, And Of A High Standard Of Excellence, Inculcated By The Ablest And Best Men, Embodied In The Laws, Customs And Traditions Of The Nation, And Enforced By Public Opinion.

Each Organic Being Is Striving To Increase In A Geometrical Ratio . . . Each At Some Period Of Its Life, During Some Season Of The Year, During Each Generation Or At Intervals, Has To Struggle For Life And To Suffer Great Destruction . . . The Vigorous, The Healthy, And The Happy Survive And Multiply.

Another Source Of Conviction In The Existence Of God, Connected With The Reason And Not With The Feelings, Impresses Me As Having Much More Weight. This Follows From The Extreme Difficulty Or Rather Impossibility Of Conceiving This Immense And Wonderful Universe, Including Man With His Capacity Of Looking Far Backwards And Far Into Futurity, As The Result Of Blind Chance Or Necessity. When Thus Reflecting I Feel Compelled To Look To A First Cause Having An Intelligent Mind In Some Degree Analogous To That Of Man; And I Deserve To Be Called A Theist.

From My Early Youth I Have Had The Strongest Desire To Understand Or Explain Whatever I Observed. ... To Group All Facts Under Some General Laws.

When I View All Beings Not As Special Creations, But As The Lineal Descendants Of Some Few Beings Which Lived Long Before The First Bed Of The Cambrian System Was Deposited, They Seem To Me To Become Ennobled.

How Paramount The Future Is To The Present When One Is Surrounded By Children.

At Last Gleams Of Light Have Come, And I Am Almost Convinced (quite Contrary To Opinion I Started With) That Species Are Not (it Is Like Confessing A Murder) Immutable. Heaven Forfend Me From Lamarck Nonsense Of A 'tendency To Progression', 'adaptations From The Slow Willing Of Animals', &c! But The Conclusions I Am Led To Are Not Widely Different From His; Though The Means Of Change Are Wholly So. I Think I Have Found Out (here's Presumption!) The Simple Way By Which Species Become Exquisitely Adapted To Various Ends.

Disbelief Crept Over Me At A Very Slow Rate, But At Last It Was Complete.

The Main Conclusion Arrived At In This Work, Namely That Man Is Descended From Some Lowly-organised Form, Will, I Regret To Think, Be Highly Distasteful To Many Persons. But There Can Hardly Be A Doubt That We Are Descended From Barbarians.

A Moral Being Is One Who Is Capable Of Reflecting On His Past Actions And Their Motives - Of Approving Of Some And Disapproving Of Others.

It May Be Doubted Whether Any Character Can Be Named Which Is Distinctive Of A Race And Is Constant.

This Preservation Of Favourable Variations And The Destruction Of Injurious Variations, I Call Natural Selection, Or The Survival Of The Fittest. Variations Neither Useful Nor Injurious Would Not Be Affected By Natural Selection And Would Be Left A Fluctuating Element.

I Must Begin With A Good Body Of Facts And Not From A Principle (in Which I Always Suspect Some Fallacy) And Then As Much Deduction As You Please.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

If I Had Life To Live Over Again, I Would Give My Life To Poetry, To Music, To Literature, And To Art To Make Life Richer And Happier. In My Youth I Steeled Myself Against Them And Thought Them So Much Waste.

But I Own That I Cannot See As Plainly As Others Do, And I Should Wish To Do, Evidence Of Design And Beneficence On All Sides Of Us. There Seems To Me Too Much Misery In The World. I Cannot Persuade Myself That A Beneficent And Omnipotent God Would Have Designedly Created That A Cat Should Play With Mice.

But Geology Carries The Day: It Is Like The Pleasure Of Gambling, Speculating, On First Arriving, What The Rocks May Be; I Often Mentally Cry Out 3 To 1 Tertiary Against Primitive; But The Latter Have Hitherto Won All The Bets.

I Am Dying By Inches, From Not Having Any Body To Talk To About Insects.

My Books Have Sold Largely In England, Have Been Translated Into Many Languages, And Passed Through Several Editions In Foreign Countries. I Have Heard It Said That The Success Of A Work Abroad Is The Best Test Of Its Enduring Value. I Doubt Whether This Is At All Trustworthy; But Judged By This Standard My Name Ought To Last For A Few Years.

Farewell Australia! You ... Are Too Great And Ambitious For Affection, Yet Not Great Enough For Respect. I Leave Your Shores Without Sorrow Or Regret.

And Hail Their Queen, Fair Regent Of The Night.

It Is Certain That There May Be Extraordinary Mental Activity With An Extremely Small Absolute Mass Of Nervous Matter: Thus The Wonderfully Diversified Instincts, Mental Powers, And Affections Of Ants Are Notorious, Yet Their Cerebral Ganglia Are Not So Large As The Quarter Of A Small Pin's Head. Under This Point Of View, The Brain Of An Ant Is One Of The Most Marvelous Atoms Of Matter In The World, Perhaps More So Than The Brain Of A Man.

The Tree Of Life Should Perhaps Be Called The Coral Of Life, Base Of Branches Dead; So That Passages Cannot Be Seen-this Again Offers Contradiction To Constant Succession Of Germs In Progress.

Consequently, If My Theory Be True, It Is Indisputable That Before The Lowest Silurian Stratum Was Deposited, Long Periods Elapsed, As Long As, Or Probably Far Longer Than, The Whole Interval From The Silurian Age To The Present Day; And That During These Vast, Yet Quite Unknown, Periods Of Time, The World Swarmed With Living Creatures. To The Question Why We Do Not Find Records Of These Vast Primordial Periods, I Can Give No Satisfactory Answer.

The Survival Or Preservation Of Certain Favoured Words In The Struggle For Existence Is Natural Selection.

I Ought, Or I Ought Not, Constitute The Whole Of Morality.

Ultimately A Highly Complex Sentiment, Having Its First Origin In The Social Instincts, Largely Guided By The Approbation Of Our Fellow-men, Ruled By Reason, Self-interest, And In Later Times By Deep Religious Feelings, Confirmed By Instruction And Habit, All Combined, Constitute Our Moral Sense Or Conscience.

I Cannot Persuade Myself That A Beneficent And Omnipotent God Would Have Designedly Created Parasitic Wasps With The Express Intention Of Their Feeding Within The Living Bodies Of Caterpillars.

I Suppose You Are Two Fathoms Deep In Mathematics, And If You Are, Then God Help You. For So Am I, Only With This Difference: I Stick Fast In The Mud At The Bottom, And There I Shall Remain.

My Mind Seems To Have Become A Kind Of Machine For Grinding General Laws Out Of Large Collections Of Facts, But Why This Should Have Caused The Atrophy Of That Part Of The Brain That Alone On Which The Higher Tastes Depend, I Cannot Conceive. A Man With A Mind More Highly Organised Or Better Constituted Than Mine Would Not, I Suppose, Have Thus Suffered, And If I Had To Live My Life Over Again, I Would Have Made A Rule To Read Some Poetry And Listen To Some Music At Least Once Every Week; For Perhaps The Parts Of My Brain Now Atrophied Would Thus Have Been Kept Alive Through Use.

A Mathematician Is A Blind Man In A Dark Room Looking For A Black Cat Which Isn't There.

We Are Optimists, Until We Are Not.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful And Most Wonderful Have Been, And Are Being Evolved

Theory Of Evolution

One General Law, Leading To The Advancement Of All Organic Beings, Namely, Multiply, Vary, Let The Strongest Live And The Weakest Die.

Origin Of Species

Natural Selection Acts Solely By Accumulating Slight Successive Favorable Variations, It Can Produce No Great Or Sudden Modification; It Can Act Only By Very Short Steps.

What Wretched Doings Come From The Ardor Of Fame; The Love Of Truth Alone Would Never Make One Man Attack Another Bitterly.

I Am Not The Least Afraid To Die

Famous Last Words

A Grain In The Balance Will Determine Which Individual Shall Live And Which Shall Die - Which Variety Or Species Shall Increase In Number, And Which Shall Decrease, Or Finally Become Extinct.

Nothing Is Easier Than To Admit In Words The Truth Of The Universal Struggle For Life, Or More Difficult--at Least I Have Found It So--than Constantly To Bear This Conclusion In Mind.

The Western Nations Of Europe, Who Now So Immeasurably Surpass Their Former Savage Progenitors, And Stand At The Summit Of Civilization, Owe Little Or None Of Their Superiority To Direct Inheritance From The Old Greeks, Though They Owe Much To The Written Works Of That Wonderful People.

I Have Steadily Endeavored To Keep My Mind Free So As To Give Up Any Hypothesis, However Much Beloved (and I Cannot Resist Forming One On Every Subject), As Soon As The Facts Are Shown To Be Opposed To It.

The Question Of Whether There Exists A Creator And Ruler Of The Universe Has Been Answered In The Affirmative By Some Of The Highest Intellects That Have Ever Existed.

Language Is An Art, Like Brewing Or Baking.... It Certainly Is Not A True Instinct, For Every Language Has To Be Learnt.

There Is A Grandeur In This View Of Life, From So Simple A Beginning Endless Forms Most Beautiful Are Being Evolved

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