Background Image

...

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.

-Charles Darwin

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

It Is Often Said

Charles Darwin

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Charles Darwin

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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].

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

We Will Now Discuss In A Little More Detail The Struggle For Existence.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Even The Humblest Mammal's Strong Sexual, Parental, And Social Instincts Give Rise To 'do Unto Others As Yourself' And 'love Thy Neighbor As Thyself'.

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

[alexander Von Humboldt Was The] Greatest Scientific Traveller Who Ever Lived.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Am Aware That The Conclusions Arrived At In This Work Will Be Denounced By Some As Highly Irreligious; But He Who Denounces Them Is Bound To Show Why It Is More Irreligious To Explain The Origin Of Man As A Distinct Species By Descent From Some Lower From, Through The Laws Of Variation And Natural Selection, Than To Explain The Birth Of The Individual Through The Laws Of Ordinary Reproduction. The Birth Both Of The Species And Of The Individual Are Equally Parts Of That Grand Sequence Of Events, Which Our Minds Refuse To Accept As The Result Of Blind Chance.

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

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

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?

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.

I Can Indeed Hardly See How Anyone Ought To Wish Christianity To Be True For If So The Plain Language Of The Text Seems To Show That The Men Who Do Not Believe, And This Would Include My Father, Brother And Almost All Of My Friends, Will Be Everlastingly Punished. And This Is A Damnable Doctrine.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Seeing Every Height Crowned With Its Crater, And The Boundaries Of Most Of The Lava-streams Still Distinct, We Are Led To Believe That Within A Period, Geologically Recent, The Unbroken Ocean Was Here Spread Out. Hence, Both In Space And Time, We Seem To Be Brought Somewhat Near To That Great Fact — That Mystery Of Mysteries — The First Appearance Of New Beings On This Earth.

I Liked The Thought Of Being A Country Clergyman. Accordingly I Read With Care Pearson On The Creed And A Few Other Books On Divinity; And As I Did Not Then In The Least Doubt The Strict And Literal Truth Of Every Word In The Bible, I Soon Persuaded Myself That Our Creed Must Be Fully Accepted.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

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

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

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

The Moral Faculties Are Generally And Justly Esteemed As Of Higher Value Than The Intellectual Powers.

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.

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

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

If Mozart, Instead Of Playing The Pianoforte At Three Years Old With Wonderfully Little Practice, Had Played A Tune With No Practice At All, He Might Truly Have Been Said To Have Done So Instinctively.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The More We Know Of The Fixed Laws Of Nature The More Incredible Do Miracles Become, - That The Men At That Time Were Ignorant And Credulous To A Degree Almost Incomprehensible By Us, - That The Gospels Cannot Be Proved To Have Been Written Simultaneously With The Events, - That They Differ In Many Important Details, Far Too Important As It Seemed To Me To Be Admitted As The Usual Inaccuracies Of Eye-witnesses; - By Such Reflections As These... I Gradually Came To Disbelieve In Christianity As A Divine Revelation.

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

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.

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!

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

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'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

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 Number Of Humble-bees In Any District Depends In A Great Degree On The Number Of Field-mice, Which Destroy Their Combs And Nests; And Mr. H. Newman, Who Has Long Attended To The Habits Of Humble-bees, ... Says "near Villages And Small Towns I Have Found The Nests Of Humble-bees More Numerous Than Elsewhere, Which I Attribute To The Number Of Cats That Destroy The Mice." Hence It Is Quite Credible That The Presence Of A Feline Animal In Large Numbers In A District Might Determine, Through The Intervention First Of Mice And Then Of Bees, The Frequency Of Certain Flowers In That District!

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.

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 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 Shall Always Feel Respect For Every One Who Has Written A Book, Let It Be What It May, For I Had No Idea Of The Trouble Which Trying To Write Common English Could Cost One—and Alas There Yet Remains The Worst Part Of All Correcting The Press.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 No Great Quickness Of Apprehension Or Wit Which Is So Remarkable In Some Clever Men, For Instance Huxley

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

[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.

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.

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

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

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

We Have Seen That The Senses And Intuitions, The Various Emotions And Faculties, Such As Love, Memory, Attention And Curiosity, Imitation, Reason, Etc., Of Which Man Boasts, May Be Found In An Incipient, Or Even Sometimes In A Well-developed Condition, In The Lower Animals.

Now When Naturalists Observe A Close Agreement In Numerous Small Details Of Habits, Tastes And Dispositions Between Two Or More Domestic Races, Or Between Nearly-allied Natural Forms, They Use This Fact As An Argument That All Are Descended From A Common Progenitor Who Was Thus Endowed; And Consequently That All Should Be Classed Under The Same Species. The Same Argument May Be Applied With Much Force To The Races Of Man.

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

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

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.

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

Progress Has Been Much More General Than Retrogression

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.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.'

...one Doubts Existence Of Free Will [because] Every Action Determined By Heredity, Constitution, Example Of Others Or Teaching Of Others." "this View Should Teach One Profound Humility, One Deserves No Credit For Anything...nor Ought One To Blame Others.

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

And Hail Their Queen, Fair Regent Of The Night.

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.

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!

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

Theory Of Evolution

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 Several Difficulties Here Discussed, Namely Our Not Finding In The Successive Formations Infinitely Numerous Transitional Links Between The Many Species Which Now Exist Or Have Existed; The Sudden Manner In Which Whole Groups Of Species Appear In Our European Formations; The Almost Entire Absence, As At Present Known, Of Fossiliferous Formations Beneath The Silurian Strata, Are All Undoubtedly Of The Gravest Nature.

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

Free Will Is To Mind What Chance Is To Matter.

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.

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.

Besides Love And Sympathy, Animals Exhibit Other Qualities Connected With The Social Instincts Which In Us Would Be Called Moral.

If Worms Have The Power Of Acquiring Some Notion, However Rude, Of The Shape Of An Object And Over Their Burrows, As Seems The Case, They Deserve To Be Called Intelligent; For They Act In Nearly The Same Manner As Would Man Under Similar Circumstances.

The Lower Animals, Like Man, Manifestly Feel Pleasure And Pain, Happiness And Misery. Happiness Is Never Better Exhibited Than By Young Animals, Such As Puppies, Kittens, Lambs, &c., When Playing Together, Like Our Own Children.

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.

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.

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.

The Willing Horse Is Always Overworked.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

One Hand Has Surely Worked Throughout The Universe.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

[herschel And Humboldt] Stirred Up In Me A Burning Zeal To Add Even The Most Humble Contribution To The Noble Structure Of Natural Science. No One Or A Dozen Other Books Influenced Me Nearly So Much As These Two. I Copied Out From Humboldt Long Passages About Teneriffe And Read Them Aloud On One Of [my Walking Excursions].

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Only The Fittest Will Survive.

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.

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.

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.

... 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.

There Is No Fundamental Difference Between Humans And The Higher Mammalsin Their Mental Faculties

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.

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To Kill An Error Is As Good A Service As, And Sometimes Even Better Than, The Establishing Of A New Truth Or Fact.

New Relationship

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

Theory Of Evolution

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.

Thomson's Views On The Recent Age Of The World Have Been For Some Time One Of My Sorest Troubles.

We Behold The Face Of Nature Bright With Gladness.

Origin Of Species

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.

Nature Will Tell You A Direct Lie If She Can.

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

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.

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

Trending Author

Sparky Anderson

Shirley Hazzard

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Category