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As Man Advances In Civilization, And Small Tribes Are United Into Larger Communities, The Simplest Reason Would Tell Each Individual That He Ought To Extend His Social Instincts And Sympathies To All Members Of The Same Nation, Though Personally Unknown To Him. This Point Being Once Reached, There Is Only An Artificial Barrier To Prevent His Sympathies Extending To The Men Of All Nations And Races.

-Charles Darwin

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As Man Advances In

Charles Darwin

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As Man Advances In Civilization, And Small Tribes Are United Into Larger Communities, The Simplest Reason Would Tell Each Individual That He Ought To Extend His Social Instincts And Sympathies To All Members Of The Same Nation, Though Personally Unknown To Him. This Point Being Once Reached, There Is Only An Artificial Barrier To Prevent His Sympathies Extending To The Men Of All Nations And Races.

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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!

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...we Behold The Face Of Nature Bright With Gladness...we Do Not See, Or We Forget, That The Birds Which Are Idly Singing Round Us Mostly Live On Insects And Seeds, And Are Thus Constantly Destroying Life.

In Regard To The Amount Of Difference Between The Races, We Must Make Some Allowance For Our Nice Powers Of Discrimination Gained By A Long Habit Of Observing Ourselves.

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.

Nevertheless So Profound Is Our Ignorance, And So High Our Presumption, That We Marvel When We Hear Of The Extinction Of An Organic Being; And As We Do Not See The Cause, We Invoke Cataclysms To Desolate The World, Or Invent Laws On The Duration Of The Forms Of Life!

...i Have Always Maintained That, Excepting Fools, Men Did Not Differ Much In Intellect, Only In Zeal And Hard Work; And I Still Think There Is An Eminently Important Difference.

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.

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

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

We Fancied Even That The Bushes Smelt Unpleasantly.

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.

The Young Blush Much More Freely Than The Old But Not During Infancy, Which Is Remarkable, As We Know That Infants At A Very Early Age Redden From Passion.

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

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.

Some Call It Evolution, And Others Call It God.

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.

The Chief Distinction In The Intellectual Powers Of The Two Sexes Is Shown By Mans Attaining To A Higher Eminence, In Whatever He Takes Up, Than The Woman. Whether Deep Thought, Reason, Or Imagination Or Merely The Use Of The Senses And Hands.....we May Also Infer.....the Average Mental Power In Man Must Be Above That Of Woman.

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.

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.

Our Faculties Are More Fitted To Recognize The Wonderful Structure Of A Beetle Than A Universe.

To Conclude, Therefore, Let No Man Out Of A Weak Conceit Of Sobriety, Or An Ill-applied Moderation, Think Or Maintain, That A Man Can Search Too Far Or Be Too Well Studied In The Book Of God's Word, Or In The Book Of God's Works; Divinity Or Philosophy; But Rather Let Men Endeavour An Endless Progress Or Proficience In Both."—bacon: "advancement Of Learning".

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?

A Celebrated Author And Divine Has Written To Me That He Has Gradually Learned To See That It Is Just As Noble A Conception Of The Deity To Believe That He Created A Few Original Forms Capable Of Self-development Into Other And Needful Forms, As To Believe That He Required A Fresh Act Of Creation To Supply The Voids Caused By The Action Of His Laws.

The Presence Of A Body Of Well-instructed Men, Who Have Not To Labor For Their Daily Bread, Is Important To A Degree Which Cannot Be Overestimated; As All High Intellectual Work Is Carried On By Them, And On Such Work Material Progress Of All Kinds Mainly Depends, Not To Mention Other And Higher Advantages.

We Must, However, Acknowledge, As It Seems To Me, That Man With All His Noble Qualities... Still Bears In His Bodily Frame The Indelible Stamp Of His Lowly Origin.

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

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

The Assumed Instinctive Belief In God Has Been Used By Many Persons As An Argument For His Existence. But This Is A Rash Argument, As We Should Thus Be Compelled To Believe In The Existence Of Many Cruel And Malignant Spirits, Only A Little More Powerful Than Man; For The Belief In Them Is Far More General Than In A Beneficent Deity.

If Man Had Not Been His Own Classifier, He Would Never Have Thought Of Founding A Separate Order For His Own Reception.

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.

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

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

In The Long History Of Humankind (and Animal Kind, Too) Those Who Learned To Collaborate And Improvise Most Effectively Have Prevailed.

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

The Normal Food Of Man Is Vegetable.

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.

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].

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.

As Natural Selection Acts By Competition, It Adapts The Inhabitants Of Each Country Only In Relation To The Degree Of Perfection Of Their Associates; So That We Need Feel No Surprise At The Inhabitants Of Any One Country, Although On The Ordinary View Supposed To Have Been Specially Created And Adapted For That Country, Being Beaten And Supplanted By The Naturalised Productions From Another Land.

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.

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

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

History Shows That The Human Mind, Fed By Constant Accessions Of Knowledge, Periodically Grows Too Large For Its Theoretical Coverings, And Bursts Them Asunder To Appear In New Habiliments, As The Feeding And Growing Grub, At Intervals, Casts Its Too Narrow Skin And Assumes Another.

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

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.

It Is Impossible To Concieve Of This Immense And Wonderful Universe As The Result Of Blind Chance Or Necessity.

I Am Actually Weary Of Telling People That I Do Not Pretend To Adduce [direct] Evidence Of One Species Changing Into Another, But I Believe That This View Is In The Main Correct, Because So Many Phenomena Can Thus Be Grouped End Explained.

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

Extinction Has Only Separated Groups: It Has By No Means Made Them; For If Every Form Which Has Ever Lived On This Earth Were Suddenly To Reappear, Though It Would Be Quite Impossible To Give Definitions By Which Each Group Could Be Distinguished From Other Groups, As All Would Blend Together By Steps As Fine As Those Between The Finest Existing Varieties, Nevertheless A Natural Classification, Or At Least A Natural Arrangement, Would Be Possible.

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

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.

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.

From The War Of Nature, From Famine And Death, The Most Exalted Object Which We Are Capable Of Conceiving, Namely, The Production Of Higher Animals, Directly Follows.

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.

The Theory Which I Would Offer, Is Simply, That As The Land With The Attached Reefs Subsides Very Gradually From The Action Of Subterranean Causes, The Coral-building Polypi Soon Raise Again Their Solid Masses To The Level Of The Water: But Not So With The Land; Each Inch Lost Is Irreclaimably Gone; As The Whole Gradually Sinks, The Water Gains Foot By Foot On The Shore, Till The Last And Highest Peak Is Finally Submerged.

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.

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

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

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

Linnaeus And Cuvier Have Been My Two Gods, Though In Very Different Ways, But They Were Mere Schoolboys To Old Aristotle.

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

The Main Conclusion Here Arrived At ... Is That Man Is Descended From Some Less Highly Organized Form.

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

Theory Of Evolution

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

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

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.

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

Man Tends To Increase At A Greater Rate Than His Means Of Subsistence.

Not One Change Of Species Into Another Is On Record ... We Cannot Prove That A Single Species Has Been Changed.

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

The Earthquake, However, Must Be To Every One A Most Impressive Event: The Earth, Considered From Our Earliest Childhood As The Type Of Solidity, Has Oscillated Like A Thin Crust Beneath Our Feet; And In Seeing The Laboured Works Of Man In A Moment Overthrown, We Feel The Insignificance Of His Boasted Power.

With Highly Civilised Nations Continued Progress Depends In A Subordinate Degree On Natural Selection; For Such Nations Do Not Supplant And Exterminate One Another As Do Savage Tribes.

I Have Watched How Steadily The General Feeling, As Shown At Elections, Has Been Rising Against Slavery. What A Proud Thing For England If She Is The First European Nation Which Utterly Abolishes It! I Was Told Before Leaving England That After Living In Slave Countries All My Opinions Would Be Altered; The Only Alteration I Am Aware Of Is Forming A Much Higher Estimate Of The Negro Character.

It May Be Said That Natural Selection Is Daily And Hourly Scrutinizing, Throughout The World, Every Variation, Even The Slightest; Rejecting That Which Is Bad, Preserving And Adding Up All That Is Good; Silently And Insensibly Working, Wherever And Whenever Opportunity Offers, At The Improvement Of Each Organic Being In Relation To Its Organic And Inorganic Conditions Of Life.

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.

It's Not The Strongest, But The Most Adaptable That Survive.

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.

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

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.

I Am A Firm Believer, That Without Speculation There Is No Good And Original Observation.

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.

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.

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.

Sympathy Will Have Been Increased Through Natural Selection

Natural Selection

Whoever Is Led To Believe That Species Are Mutable Will Do Good Service By Conscientiously Expressing His Conviction; For Only Thus Can The Load Of Prejudice By Which This Subject Is Overwhelmed Be Removed.

A Grand And Almost Untrodden Field Of Inquiry Will Be Opened, On The Causes And Laws Of Variation, On Correlation Of Growth, On The Effects Of Use And Disuse, On The Direct Actions Of External Conditions, And So Forth.

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.

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

Theory Of Evolution

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.

I Have Been Speculating Last Night What Makes A Man A Discoverer Of Undiscovered Things; And A Most Perplexing Problem It Is. Many Men Who Are Very Clever - Much Cleverer Than The Discoverers - Never Originate Anything.

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.

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.

I Am Not Very Sceptical, — A Frame Of Mind Which I Believe To Be Injurious To The Progress Of Science. A Good Deal Of Scepticism In A Scientific Man Is Advisable To Avoid Much Loss Of Time, But I Have Met With Not A Few Men, Who, I Feel Sure, Have Often Thus Been Deterred From Experiment Or Observations, Which Would Have Proved Directly Or Indirectly Serviceable .

Animals Manifestly Enjoy Excitement, And Suffer From Annul And May Exhibit Curiosity.

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

At No Time Am I A Quick Thinker Or Writer: Whatever I Have Done In Science Has Solely Been By Long Pondering, Patience And Industry.

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.

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

How So Many Absurd Rules Of Conduct, As Well As So Many Absurd Religious Beliefs, Have Originated, We Do Not Know; Nor How It Is That They Have Become, In All Quarters Of The World, So Deeply Impressed On The Minds Of Men; But It Is Worthy Of Remark That A Belief Constantly Inculcated During The Early Years Of Life, While The Brain Is Impressionable, Appears To Acquire Almost The Nature Of An Instinct; And The Very Essence Of An Instinct Is That It Is Followed Independently Of Reason.

A Man's Friendships Are One Of The Best Measures Of His Worth.

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.

Freedom Of Thought Is Best Promoted By The Gradual Illumination Of Men’s Minds Which Follows From The Advance Of Science.

It Appears To Me (whether Rightly Or Wrongly) That Direct Arguments Against Christianity And Theism Produce Hardly Any Effect On The Public; And Freedom Of Thought Is Best Promoted By The Gradual Illumination Of Men's Minds, Which Follows From The Advance Of Science.

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.

During My Second Year At Edinburgh [1826-27] I Attended Jameson's Lectures On Geology And Zoology, But They Were Incredible Dull. The Sole Effect They Produced On Me Was The Determination Never As Long As I Lived To Read A Book On Geology.

Nothing Exists For Itself Alone, But Only In Relation To Other Forms Of Life

Only The Fittest Will Survive.

Mathematics Seems To Endow One With Something Like A New Sense.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I Worked On True Baconian Principles, And Without Any Theory Collected Facts.

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.

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

It Is Really Laughable To See What Different Ideas Are Prominent In Various Naturalists' Minds, When They Speak Of 'species'; In Some, Resemblance Is Everything And Descent Of Little Weight-in Some, Resemblance Seems To Go For Nothing, And Creation The Reigning Idea-in Some, Descent Is The Key,-in Some, Sterility An Unfailing Test, With Others It Is Not Worth A Farthing. It All Comes, I Believe, From Trying To Define The Undefinable.

...he Who Remains Passive When Over-whelmed With Grief Loses His Best Chance Of Recovering His Elasticity Of Mind.

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.

Wherever The European Has Trod, Death Seems To Pursue The Aboriginal.

[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.

Mr. J.s. Mill Speaks, In His Celebrated Work, "utilitarianism," Of The Social Feelings As A "powerful Natural Sentiment," And As "the Natural Basis Of Sentiment For Utilitarian Morality," But On The Previous Page He Says, "if, As Is My Own Belief, The Moral Feelings Are Not Innate, But Acquired, They Are Not For That Reason Less Natural." It Is With Hesitation That I Venture To Differ From So Profound A Thinker, But It Can Hardly Be Disputed That The Social Feelings Are Instinctive Or Innate In The Lower Animals; And Why Should They Not Be So In Man?

Great Is The Power Of Steady Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation

Origin Of Species

The Instruction At Edinburgh Was Altogether By Lectures, And These Were Intolerably Dull, With The Exception Of Those On Chemistry.

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.

Nature Will Tell You A Direct Lie If She Can.

I Always Feel As If My Books Came Half Out Of Lyell's Brain... & Therefore That When Seeing A Thing Never Seen By Lyell, One Yet Saw It Partially Through His Eyes.

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

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

The Love For All Living Creatures Is The Most Noble Attribute Of Man.

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.

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

I Could Show Fight On Natural Selection Having Done And Doing More For The Progress Of Civilization Than You Seem Inclined To Admit. Remember What Risk The Nations Of Europe Ran, Not So Many Centuries Ago Of Being Overwhelmed By The Turks, And How Ridiculous Such An Idea Now Is! The More Civilised So-called Caucasian Races Have Beaten The Turkish Hollow In The Struggle For Existence. Looking To The World At No Very Distant Date, What An Endless Number Of The Lower Races Will Have Been Eliminated By The Higher Civilized Races Throughout The World.

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.

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

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

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.

The Man Who Walks With Henslow.

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.

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.

The Impossibility Of Conceiving That This Grand And Wondrous Universe, With Our Conscious Selves, Arose Through Chance, Seems To Me The Chief Argument For  the Existence Of God.

So Great Is The Economy Of Nature, That Most Flowers Which Are Fertilised By Crepuscular Or Nocturnal Insects Emit Their Odour Chiefly Or Exclusively In The Evening.

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

The Most Powerful Natural Species Are Those That Adapt To Environmental Change Without Losing Their Fundamental Identity Which Gives Them Their Competitive Advantage.

On Seeing The Marsupials In Australia For The First Time And Comparing Them To Placental Mammals: “an Unbeliever . . . Might Exclaim 'surely Two Distinct Creators Must Have Been At Work'”

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!

False Facts Are Highly Injurious To The Progress Of Science, For They Often Endure Long; But False Views, If Supported By Some Evidence, Do Little Harm, For Every One Takes A Salutary Pleasure In Proving Their Falseness.

Theory Of Evolution

In However Complex A Manner This Feeling May Have Originated, As It Is One Of High Importance To All Those Animals Which Aid And Defend One Another, It Will Have Been Increased Through Natural Selection; For Those Communities, Which Included The Greatest Number Of The Most Sympathetic Members, Would Flourish Best, And Rear The Greatest Number Of Offspring.

Even People Who Aren’t Geniuses Can Outthink The Rest Of Mankind If They Develop Certain Thinking Habits.

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

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.

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

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.

It Is Well-known That Those Who Have Charge Of Young Infants, That It Is Difficult To Feel Sure When Certain Movements About Their Mouths Are Really Expressive; That Is When They Really Smile. Hence I Carefully Watched My Own Infants. One Of Them At The Age Of Forty-five Days, And Being In A Happy Frame Of Mind, Smiled... I Observed The Same Thing On The Following Day: But On The Third Day The Child Was Not Quite Well And There Was No Trace Of A Smile, And This Renders It Probable That The Previous Smiles Were Real.

It Is A Truly Wonderful Fact - The Wonder Of Which We Are Apt To Overlook From Familiarity - That All Animals And All Plants Throughout All Time And Space Should Be Related To Each Other In Group Subordinate To Group.

Man In His Arrogance Thinks Himself A Great Work, Worthy The Interposition Of A Great Deity. More Humble And I Believe True To Consider Him Created From Animals.

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

I Can Remember The Very Spot In The Road, Whilst In My Carriage, When To My Joy The Solution Occurred To Me.

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

It Is Easy To Specify The Individual Objects Of Admiration In These Grand Scenes; But It Is Not Possible To Give An Adequate Idea Of The Higher Feelings Of Wonder, Astonishment, And Devotion, Which Fill And Elevate The Mind.

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?

The Highest Possible Stage In Moral Culture Is When We Recognize That We Ought To Control Our Thoughts.

In My Simplicity, I Remember Wondering Why Every Gentleman Did Not Become An Ornithologist.

I Have Long Discovered That Geologists Never Read Each Other's Works, And That The Only Object In Writing A Book Is A Proof Of Earnestness.

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.

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.

I Hate A Barnacle As No Man Ever Did Before, Not Even A Sailor In A Slow-sailing Ship.

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

Building A Better Mousetrap Merely Results In Smarter Mice.

I Have At Least, As I Hope, Done Good Service In Aiding To Overthrow The Dogma Of Separate Creations.

Progress Has Been Much More General Than Retrogression

There Are Several Other Sources Of Enjoyment In A Long Voyage, Which Are Of A More Reasonable Nature. The Map Of The World Ceases To Be A Blank; It Becomes A Picture Full Of The Most Varied And Animated Figures.

It Is Not The Strongest Of The Species That Survives, Nor The Most Intelligent That Survives. It Is The One That Is The Most Adaptable To Change, That Lives Within The Means Available And Works Co-operatively Against Common Threats.

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.

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

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.

Among The Scenes Which Are Deeply Impressed On My Mind, None Exceed In Sublimity The Primeval [tropical] Forests, ... Temples Filled With The Varied Productions Of The God Of Nature. No One Can Stand In These Solitudes Unmoved, And Not Feel That There Is More In Man Than The Mere Breath Of His Body.

We Are Optimists, Until We Are Not.

What A Book A Devil's Chaplain Might Write On The Clumsy, Wasteful, Blundering, Low, And Horribly Cruel Work Of Nature!

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.

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

Origin Of Species

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

It Is Mere Rubbish Thinking, At Present, Of Origin Of Life; One Might As Well Think Of Origin Of Matter.

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.

The Following Proposition Seems To Me In A High Degree Probable—namely, That Any Animal Whatever, Endowed With Well-marked Social Instincts, The Parental And Filial Affections Being Here Included, Would Inevitably Acquire A Moral Sense Or Conscience, As Soon As Its Intellectual Powers Had Become As Well, Or Nearly As Well Developed, As In Man. For, Firstly, The Social Instincts Lead An Animal To Take Pleasure In The Society Of Its Fellows, To Feel A Certain Amount Of Sympathy With Them, And To Perform Various Services For Them.

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

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.

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

Sympathy For The Lowest Animals Is One Of The Noblest Virtues With Which Man Is Endowed.

For I Am Well Aware That Scarcely A Single Point Is Discussed In This Volume On Which Facts Cannot Be Adduced, Often Apparently Leading To Conclusions Directly Opposite To Those At Which I Have Arrived. A Fair Result Can Be Obtained Only By Fully Stating And Balancing The Facts And Arguments On Both Sides Of Each Question.

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

I Am Not The Least Afraid To Die

Famous Last Words

The Loss Of These Tastes [for Poetry And Music] Is A Loss Of Happiness, And May Possibly Be Injurious To The Intellect, And More Probably To The Moral Character, By Enfeebling The Emotional Part Of Our Nature.

There Is No Fundamental Difference Between Man And Animals In Their Ability To Feel Pleasure And Pain, Happiness, And Misery.

The Voyage Of The Beagle Has Been By Far The Most Important Event In My Life And Has Determined My Whole Career; Yet It Depended On So Small A Circumstance As My Uncle Offering To Drive Me 30 Miles To Shrewsbury, Which Few Uncles Would Have Done, And On Such A Trifle As The Shape Of My Nose.

Much Love Much Trial, But What An Utter Desert Is Life Without Love.

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.

I See No Good Reason Why The Views Given This Volume [the Origin Of Species] Should Shock The Religious Feelings Of Any One. It Is Satisfactory, As Showing How Transient Such Impressions Are, To Remember That The Greatest Discovery Ever Made By Man, Namely, The Law Of Attraction Of Gravity, Was Also Attacked By Leibnitz, 'as Subversive Of Natural, And Inferentially Of Revealed, Religion.'

So In Regard To Mental Qualities, Their Transmission Is Manifest In Our Dogs, Horses And Other Domestic Animals. Besides Special Tastes And Habits, General Intelligence, Courage, Bad And Good Tempers. Etc., Are Certainly Transmitted.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

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