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

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

Understanding the Quote: "not one change of species into another is on record ... we..."

This quote by Charles Darwin reflects deeply on the theme of records. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Records, Fossils, Changed, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Charles Darwin interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin is celebrated for insightful thoughts on records and fossils. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Records
Fossils
Changed
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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.
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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.
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...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.
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Many Kinds Of Monkeys Have A Strong Taste For Tea, Coffee And Spirituous Liqueurs.
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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.
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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!
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I Ought, Or I Ought Not, Constitute The Whole Of Morality.
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Language Is An Art, Like Brewing Or Baking.... It Certainly Is Not A True Instinct, For Every Language Has To Be Learnt.
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I Always Make Special Notes About Evidence That Contridicts Me: Supportive Evidence I Can Remember Without Trying.
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Life Is Nearly Over With Me. I Have Taken No Pains About My Style Of Writing.
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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.'
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A Cell Is A Complex Structure, With Its Investing Membrane, Nucleus, And Nucleolus.
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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.
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A Man's Friendships Are One Of The Best Measures Of His Worth.
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Man Tends To Increase At A Greater Rate Than His Means Of Subsistence.
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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.
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Some Call It Evolution, And Others Call It God.
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It Is Impossible To Concieve Of This Immense And Wonderful Universe As The Result Of Blind Chance Or Necessity.
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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.
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A Fair Result Can Be Obtained Only By Fully Stating And Balancing The Facts And Arguments On Both Sides Of Each Question." Charles Darwin
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We Are Always Slow In Admitting Any Great Change Of Which We Do Not See The Intermediate Steps
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I Feel Like An Old Warhorse At The Sound Of A Trumpet When I Read About The Capturing Of Rare Beetles.
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As Natural Selection Works Solely By And For The Good Of Each Being, All Corporeal And Mental Endowments Will Tend To Progress Toward Perfection.
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We Fancied Even That The Bushes Smelt Unpleasantly.
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A Mathematician Is A Blind Man In A Dark Room Looking For A Black Cat Which Isn't There.
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Animals Manifestly Enjoy Excitement, And Suffer From Annul And May Exhibit Curiosity.
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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.
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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.
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Thus Disbelief Crept Over Me At A Very Slow Rate, But At Last Was Complete. The Rate Was So Slow That I Felt No Distress, And Have Never Since Doubted Even For A Single Second That My Conclusion Was Correct.
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I Cannot See ... Evidence Of Design And Beneficence ... There Seems To Me Too Much Misery In The World.
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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?
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You Will Be Astonished To Find How The Whole Mental Disposition Of Your Children Changes With Advancing Years. A Young Child And The Same When Nearly Grown, Sometimes Differ Almost As Much As Do A Caterpillar And Butterfly.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What Wretched Doings Come From The Ardor Of Fame; The Love Of Truth Alone Would Never Make One Man Attack Another Bitterly.
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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.
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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.
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Not One Change Of Species Into Another Is On Record ... We Cannot Prove That A Single Species Has Been Changed.
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Describing Laughter: The Sound Is Produced By A Deep Inspiration Followed By Short, Interrupted, Spasmodic Contractions Of The Chest, And Especially The Diaphragm... The Mouth Is Open More Or Less Widely, With The Corners Drawn Much Backwards, As Well As A Little Upwards; And The Upper Lip Is Somewhat Raised.
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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.
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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".
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...for The Shield May Be As Important For Victory, As The Sword Or Spear.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I Have No Great Quickness Of Apprehension Or Wit Which Is So Remarkable In Some Clever Men, For Instance Huxley
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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.
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The Most Important Factor In Survival Is Neither Intelligence Nor Strength But Adaptability.
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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.
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I Am A Firm Believer, That Without Speculation There Is No Good And Original Observation.
Education
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I Am Almost Convinced (quite Contrary To Opinion I Started With) That Species Are Not (it Is Like Confessing A Murder) Immutable.
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The Expression Often Used By Mr. Herbert Spencer Of The Survival Of The Fittest Is More Accurate, And Is Sometimes Equally Convenient.
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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.'
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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.
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The Love For All Living Creatures Is The Most Noble Attribute Of Man.
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We Thus Learn That Man Is Descended From A Hairy Quadruped, Furnished With A Tail And Pointed Ears, Probably Arboreal In Its Habits, And An Inhabitant Of The Old World.
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Only The Fittest Will Survive.
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.
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Race
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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.
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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.
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The Formation Of Different Languages And Of Distinct Species And The Proofs That Both Have Been Developed Through A Gradual Process, Are Curiously Parallel.
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Why, If Species Have Descended From Other Species By Insensibly Fine Gradations, Do We Not Everywhere See Innumerable Transitional Forms.
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...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.
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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.
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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.
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For My Own Part I Would As Soon Be Descended From That Heroic Little Monkey, Who Braved His Dreaded Enemy In Order To Save The Life Of His Keeper; Or From That Old Baboon, Who, Descending From The Mountains, Carried Away In Triumph His Young Comrade From A Crowd Of Astonished Dogs-as From A Savage Who Delights To Torture His Enemies, Offers Up Bloody Sacrifices, Practices Infanticide Without Remorse, Treats His Wives Like Slaves, Knows No Decency, And Is Haunted By The Grossest Superstitions.
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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.
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Law
Facts
Even People Who Aren’t Geniuses Can Outthink The Rest Of Mankind If They Develop Certain Thinking Habits.
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People
Genius
As The Sense Of Smell Is So Intimately Connected With That Of Taste, It Is Not Surprising That An Excessively Bad Odour Should Excite Wretching Or Vomitting In Some Persons.
Smell
Scent
Taste
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.
Mean
Intelligent
Survival
I Can Remember The Very Spot In The Road, Whilst In My Carriage, When To My Joy The Solution Occurred To Me.
Joy
Remember
Carriages
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.
Past
Justice
Mind
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.
Struggle
Years
Healthy
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.
Art
Night
Men
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.
Past
Looks
World
Sympathy For The Lowest Animals Is One Of The Noblest Virtues With Which Man Is Endowed.
Animal
Men
Compassion
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.
Children
Pain
Animal
The Man Who Walks With Henslow.
Science
Men
Biographies
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.
Animal
Hands
Order
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.
Europe
Civilization
People
Nature Will Tell You A Direct Lie If She Can.
Nature
Lying
Direct
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.
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Men
Garden
Animals, Whom We Have Made Our Slaves, We Do Not Like To Consider Our Equal.
Humility
Animal
Slave
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.
Character
Men
Animal
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.
Thinking
Natural
Natural Selection
[alexander Von Humboldt Was The] Greatest Scientific Traveller Who Ever Lived.
Traveller
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.
Uncles
Science
Offering
It Strikes Me That All Our Knowledge About The Structure Of Our Earth Is Very Much Like What An Old Hen Would Know Of The Hundred-acre Field In A Corner Of Which She Is Scratching.
Acres
Earth
Hens
As For A Future Life, Every Man Must Judge For Himself Between Conflicting Vague Probabilities.
Life
Men
Judging
Great Is The Power Of Steady Misrepresentation
Inspirational
Misrepresentation
Origin Of Species
Hence, A Traveller Should Be A Botanist, For In All Views Plants Form The Chief Embellishment.
Views
Plant
Form
If Every One Were Cast In The Same Mould, There Would Be No Such Thing As Beauty.
Science
Would Be
Mould
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.
Light
Origin Of Life
Essence
Wherever The European Has Trod, Death Seems To Pursue The Aboriginal.
Aboriginal
Pursue
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.
Mean
Simple
Thinking
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.
Regret
Science
Men
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.
Mean
Science
Giving
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.
Dog
Horse
Animal
It May Be Conceit, But I Believe The Subject Will Interest The Public, And I Am Sure That The Views Are Original.
Believe
Science
Views
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.
Mean
Views
Looks
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.
Positive
Confidence
Ignorance
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.
Book
Writing
Long
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.
Believe
Science
Keys
The Instruction At Edinburgh Was Altogether By Lectures, And These Were Intolerably Dull, With The Exception Of Those On Chemistry.
Edinburgh
Dull
Lectures
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.
Believe
Knowledge
Science
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.
Struggle
Fighting
Ideas
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.
Struggle
Variation
Owing
Blushing Is The Most Peculiar And Most Human Of All Expressions.
Inspirational
Expression
Peculiar
The Age-old And Noble Thought Of 'i Will Lay Down My Life To Save Another,' Is Nothing More Than Cowardice.
Age
Noble
Cowardice
If I Had My Life To Live Over Again, I Would Have Made A Rule To Read Some Poetry And Listen To Some Music At Least Once Every Week.
Music
Mental Health
Week
From The First Dawn Of Life, All Organic Beings Are Found To Resemble Each Other In Descending Degrees, So That They Can Be Classed In Groups Under Groups. This Classification Is Evidently Not Arbitrary Like The Grouping Of Stars In Constellations.
Inspirational
Life
Stars
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.
Success
Science
Men
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'”
Thinking
Two
Australia
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.
Book
Eye
Science
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.
Men
Ideas
Long
It Is A Cursed Evil To Any Man To Become As Absorbed In Any Subject As I Am In Mine.
Inspirational
Men
Evil
Man Selects Only For His Own Good: Nature Only For That Of The Being Which She Tends.
Men
Origin Of Species
Good Nature
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].
Writing
Men
Thinking
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.
Running
Sound
Rags
Attention, If Sudden And Close, Graduates Into Surprise; And This Into Astonishment; And This Into Stupefied Amazement.
Attention
Astonishment
Graduates
It May Be Doubted Whether Any Character Can Be Named Which Is Distinctive Of A Race And Is Constant.
Character
Race
May
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.
Taken
Science
Diversity
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.
God
Nature
Science
It May Be Doubted That There Are Many Other Animals Which Have Played So Important A Part In The History Of The World As Have These Lowly Organized Creatures.
Animal
Important
World
From My Early Youth I Have Had The Strongest Desire To Understand Or Explain Whatever I Observed. ... To Group All Facts Under Some General Laws.
Law
Desire
Groups
And Hail Their Queen, Fair Regent Of The Night.
Inspirational
Queens
Night
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.
Long
Done
Pondering
There Is A Grandeur In This View Of Life, From So Simple A Beginning Endless Forms Most Beautiful Are Being Evolved
Beautiful
Simple
Views
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.
Animal
Light
Example
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.
Clever
Science
Night
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.
Atheist
Men
Illumination
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.
Book
Men
Two
I Cannot Persuade Myself That A Beneficient And Omnipotent God Would Have Designedly Created...that A Cat Should Play With Mice.
Cat
Play
Should
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.
Mean
Long
Obscure
The Highest Possible Stage In Moral Culture Is When We Recognize That We Ought To Control Our Thoughts.
Inspirational
Love Life
Hypnosis
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.
Inspirational
Life
Past
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.
Music
Sex
Opposites
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.
Intelligent
Men
Rude
Mathematics Seems To Endow One With Something Like A New Sense.
Math
Seems
Mathematics
In The Long History Of Humankind (and Animal Kind, Too) Those Who Learned To Collaborate And Improvise Most Effectively Have Prevailed.
Teamwork
Creativity
Knowledge
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.
Long
World
Maps
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.
Intelligent
Men
Feelings
Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.
Nature
Men
Light
Multiply, Vary, Let The Strongest Live And The Weakest Die.
Origin Of Species
Natural Selection
Strongest
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.
Friendship
Dog
Humility
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.
Pride
Destiny
Men
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.
Home
Science
Blow
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.
Opportunity
Variation
World
We Will Now Discuss In A Little More Detail The Struggle For Existence.
Struggle
Science
Survival
Music Was Known And Understood Before Words Were Spoken.
Understood
Known
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.
Giving Up
Science
Mind
It's Not The Strongest, But The Most Adaptable That Survive.
Strongest
Adaptable
Such Simple Instincts As Bees Making A Beehive Could Be Sufficient To Overthrow My Whole Theory.
Simple
Bees
Instinct
[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.
Animal
Men
Race
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?
Powerful
Men
Animal
I Am Turned Into A Sort Of Machine For Observing Facts And Grinding Out Conclusions.
Inspirational
Science
Machines
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.
Animal
Equality
Men
Sympathy Beyond The Confines Of Man, That Is, Humanity To The Lower Animals, Seems To Be One Of The Latest Moral Acquisitions.
Animal
Men
Humanity
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.
Groups
Links
Absence
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.
Cat
Play
Design
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