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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.

-Charles Darwin

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But I Own That

Charles Darwin

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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.

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Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge: It Is Those Who Know Little, And Not Those Who Know Much, Who So Positively Assert That This Or That Problem Will Never Be Solved By Science.

On The Theory Of Natural Selection We Can Clearly Understand The Full Meaning Of That Old Canon In Natural History, “natura Non Facit Saltum.” This Canon, If We Look Only To The Present Inhabitants Of The World, Is Not Strictly Correct, But If We Include All Those Of Past Times, It Must By My Theory Be Strictly True.

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.

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

Only The Fittest Will Survive.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Noble Science Of Geology Loses Glory From The Extreme Imperfection Of The Record. The Crust Of The Earth With Its Embedded Remains Must Not Be Looked At As A Well-filled Museum, But As A Poor Collection Made At Hazard And At Rare Intervals.

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

The Normal Food Of Man Is Vegetable.

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.

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.'

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

We Are Not Here Concerned With Hopes Or Fears, Only With Truth As Far As Our Reason Permits Us To Discover It.

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

I Always Make Special Notes About Evidence That Contridicts Me: Supportive Evidence I Can Remember Without Trying.

I Fully Agree With All That You Say On The Advantages Of Spencer's Excellent Expression Of 'the Survival Of The Fittest.' This, However, Had Not Occurred To Me Till Reading Your Letter. It Is, However, A Great Objection To This Term That It Cannot Be Used As A Substantive Governing A Verb; And That This Is A Real Objection I Infer From H. Spencer Continually Using The Words, Natural Selection.

We Fancied Even That The Bushes Smelt Unpleasantly.

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.

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 Willing Horse Is Always Overworked.

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

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

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

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.

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

... 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

We Behold The Face Of Nature Bright With Gladness.

Origin Of Species

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

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.

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.

Attention, If Sudden And Close, Graduates Into Surprise; And This Into Astonishment; And This Into Stupefied Amazement.

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.

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.

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

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 Am Aware That The Assumed Instinctive Belief In God Has Been Used By Many Persons As An Argument For His Existence. The Idea Of A Universal And Beneficent Creator Does Not Seem To Arise In The Mind Of Man, Until He Has Been Elevated By Long-continued Culture.

In The Distant Future I See Open Fields For Far More Important Researches. Psychology Will Be Based On A New Foundation, That Of The Necessary Acquirement Of Each Mental Power And Capacity By Gradation. Light Will Be Thrown On The Origin Of Man And His History.

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

I Was A Young Man With Uninformed Ideas. I Threw Out Queries, Suggestions, Wondering All The Time Over Everything; And To My Astonishment The Ideas Took Like Wildfire. People Made A Religion Of Them.

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

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

Looking To Future Generations, There Is No Cause To Fear That The Social Instincts Will Grow Weaker... The Social Instincts, - The Prime Principle Of Man's Moral Constitution - With The Aid Of Active Intellectual Powers And The Effects Of Habit, Naturally Lead To The Golden Rule, "as Ye Would That Men Should Do To You; Do Ye To Them Likewise"; And This Lies At The Foundation Of Morality.

We Can Allow Satellites, Planets, Suns, Universe, Nay Whole Systems Of Universes, To Be Governed By Laws, But The Smallest Insect, We Wish To Be Created At Once By Special Act.

Theory Of Evolution

Delight Itself, However, Is A Weak Term To Express The Feelings Of A Naturalist.

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.

A Fair Result Can Be Obtained Only By Fully Stating And Balancing The Facts And Arguments On Both Sides Of Each Question." Charles Darwin

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.

The Moral Faculties Are Generally Esteemed, And With Justice, As Of Higher Value Than The Intellectual Powers. But We Should Always Bear In Mind That The Activity Of The Mind In Vividly Recalling Past Impressions Is One Of The Fundamental Though Secondary Bases Of Conscience. This Fact Affords The Strongest Argument For Educating And Stimulating In All Possible Ways The Intellectual Faculties Of Every Human Being.

I Am Not Apt To Follow Blindly The Lead Of Other Men

I Am Not The Least Afraid To Die

Famous Last Words

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".

Worms Have Played A More Important Part In The History Of The World Than Humans Would At First Suppose.

It Has Been A Bitter Mortification For Me To Digest The Conclusion That The "race Is For The Strong" And That I Shall Probably Do Little More But Be Content To Admire The Strides Others Made In Science.

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.

A Surprising Number [of Novels] Have Been Read Aloud To Me, And I Like All If Moderately Good, And If They Do Not End Unhappily-against Which A Law Ought To Be Passed.

I Trust And Believe That The Time Spent In This Voyage ... Will Produce Its Full Worth In Natural History; And It Appears To Me The Doing What Little We Can To Increase The General Stock Of Knowledge Is As Respectable An Object Of Life, As One Can In Any Likelihood Pursue.

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.

Jealousy Was Plainly Exhibited When I Fondled A Large Doll, And When I Weighed His Infant Sister, He Being Then 15? Months Old. Seeing How Strong A Feeling Of Jealousy Is In Dogs, It Would Probably Be Exhibited By Infants At Any Earlier Age Than Just Specified If They Were Tried In A Fitting Manner

The Expression Often Used By Mr. Herbert Spencer Of The Survival Of The Fittest Is More Accurate, And Is Sometimes Equally Convenient.

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

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.

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

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

This Fundamental Subject Of Natural Selection Will Be Treated At Some Length In The Fourth Chapter; And We Shall Then See How Natural Selection Almost Inevitably Causes Much Extinction Of The Less Improved Forms Of Life And Induces What I Have Called Divergence Of Character.

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

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?

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

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

Theory Of Evolution

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

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

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.

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

Origin Of Species

It Is Interesting To Contemplate An Entangled Bank Clothed With Many Plants Of Many Kinds With Birds Singing On The Bushes, With Various Insects Flitting About And With Worms Crawling Through The Damp Earth And To Reflect That These Elaborately Constructed Forms So Different From Each Other And Dependent On Each Other And So Complex A Manner Have All Been Produced By Laws Acting Around Us.

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

The More One Thinks, The More One Feels The Hopeless Immensity Of Man's Ignorance.

I Cannot Anyhow Be Contented To View This Wonderful Universe, And Especially The Nature Of Man, And To Conclude That Everything Is The Result Of Brute Force. I Am Inclined To Look At Everything As Resulting From Designed Laws, With The Details, Whether Good Or Bad, Left To The Working Out Of What We Call Chance. Not That This Notion At All Satisfies Me. 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 And Believe What He Can.

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 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.

Why, If Species Have Descended From Other Species By Insensibly Fine Gradations, Do We Not Everywhere See Innumerable Transitional Forms.

Origin Of Species

At Some Future Period, Not Very Distant As Measured By Centuries, The Civilised Races Of Man Will Almost Certainly Exterminate And Replace Throughout The World The Savage Races. At The Same Time The Anthropomorphous Apes, As Professor Schaaffhausen Has Remarked, Will No Doubt Be Exterminated. The Break Will Then Be Rendered Wider, For It Will Intervene Between Man In A More Civilised State As We May Hope, Than The Caucasian And Some Ape As Low As A Baboon, Instead Of As At Present Between The Negro Or Australian And The Gorilla.

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.

If I Had Not Been So Great An Invalid, I Should Not Have Done So Much As I Have Accomplished.

He Who Is Not Content To Look, Like A Savage, At The Phenomena Of Nature As Disconnected, Cannot Any Longer Believe That Man Is The Work Of A Separate Act Of Creation ... Man Is The Co-descendant With Other Mammals Of A Common Progenitor.

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

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.

How Fleeting Are The Wishes And Efforts Of Man! How Short His Time! And Consequently How Poor Will His Products Be, Compared With Those Accumulated By Nature During Whole Geological Periods. Can We Wonder, Then, That Nature's Productions Should Be Far 'truer' In Character Than Man's Productions; That They Should Be Infinitely Better Adapted To The Most Complex Conditions Of Life, And Should Plainly Bear The Stamp Of Far Higher Workmanship?

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

Theory Of Evolution

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

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

The Traveler May Feel Assured, He Will Meet With No Difficulties Or Dangers, Excepting In Rare Cases, Nearly So Bad As He Beforehand Anticipates. In A Moral Point Of View, The Effect Ought To Be, To Teach Him Good-humored Patience, Freedom From Selfishness, The Habit Of Acting For Himself, And Of Making The Best Of Every Occurrence.

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.

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'”

...i Believe There Exists, & I Feel Within Me, An Instinct For The Truth, Or Knowledge Or Discovery, Of Something Of The Same Nature As The Instinct Of Virtue, & That Our Having Such An Instinct Is Reason Enough For Scientific Researches Without Any Practical Results Ever Ensuing From Them.

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 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.

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.

I Cannot Persuade Myself That A Beneficient And Omnipotent God Would Have Designedly Created...that A Cat Should Play With Mice.

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.

We Are Optimists, Until We Are Not.

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.

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.

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

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

It Is So Easy To Hide Our Ignorance Under Such Expressions As The Plan Of Creation Or Unity Of Design, Etc., And To Think That We Give An Explanation When We Only Restate A Fact.

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.

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

On The Ordinary View Of Each Species Having Been Independently Created, We Gain No Scientific Explanation.

As Buds Give Rise By Growth To Fresh Buds, And These, If Vigorous, Branch Out And Overtop On All Sides Many A Feebler Branch, So By Generation I Believe It Has Been With The Great Tree Of Life, Which Fills With Its Dead And Broken Branches The Crust Of The Earth, And Covers The Surface With Its Ever Branching And Beautiful Ramifications.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

After My Return To England It Appeared To Me That By Following The Example Of Lyell In Geology, And By Collecting All Facts Which Bore In Any Way On The Variation Of Animals And Plants Under Domestication And Nature, Some Light Might Perhaps Be Thrown On The Whole Subject.

I Would Give Absolutely Nothing For The Theory Of Natural Selection, If It Requires Miraculous Additions At Any One Stage Of Descent.

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.

As Many More Individuals Of Each Species Are Born Than Can Possibly Survive; And As, Consequently, There Is A Frequently Recurring Struggle For Existence, It Follows That Any Being, If It Vary However Slightly In Any Manner Profitable To Itself, Under The Complex And Sometimes Varying Conditions Of Life, Will Have A Better Chance Of Surviving, And Thus Be Naturally Selected. From The Strong Principle Of Inheritance, Any Selected Variety Will Tend To Propagate Its New And Modified Form.

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

Origin Of Species

Natural Selection

I Look At The Natural Geological Record As A History Of The World Imperfectly Kept And Written In A Changing Dialect; Of This History We Possess The Last Volume Alone, Relating Only To Two Or Three Countries. Of This Volume, Only Here And There A Short Chapter Has Been Preserved; And Of Each Page, Only Here And There A Few Lines.

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

To My Deep Mortification My Father Once Said To Me, "you Care For Nothing But Shooting, Dogs, And Rat-catching, And You Will Be A Disgrace To Yourself And All Your Family."

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

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.'

I Never Gave Up Christianity Until I Was Forty Years Of Age.

I Agree With Agassiz That Dogs Possess Something Very Like Conscience.

And Hail Their Queen, Fair Regent Of The Night.

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

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.

To Suppose That The Eye, With All Its Inimitable Contrivances For Adjusting The Focus To Different Distances, For Admitting Different Amounts Of Light, And For The Correction Of Spherical And Chromatic Aberration, Could Have Been Formed By Natural Selection, Seems, I Freely Confess, Absurd In The Highest Possible Degree.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

Nature Will Tell You A Direct Lie If She Can.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The Mystery Of The Beginning Of All Things Is Insoluble By Us; And I For One Must Be Content To Remain An Agnostic.

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

[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.

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

About Weak Points [of The Origin] I Agree. The Eye To This Day Gives Me A Cold Shudder, But When I Think Of The Fine Known Gradations, My Reason Tells Me I Ought To Conquer The Cold Shudder.

Nothing Can Be More Hopeless Than To Attempt To Explain This Similarity Of Pattern In Members Of The Same Class, By Utility Or By The Doctrine Of Final Causes.

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

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.

... 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Free Will Is To Mind What Chance Is To Matter.

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.

Great Is The Power Of Steady Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation

Origin Of Species

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

It Is A Fatal Fault To Reason Whilst Observing, Though So Necessary Beforehand And So Useful Afterwards.

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.

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Robert A. Heinlein

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