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Nothing Could Have Been Worse For The Development Of My Mind Than Dr. Butler's School, As It Was Strictly Classical, Nothing Else Being Taught, Except A Little Ancient Geography And History. The School As A Means Of Education To Me Was Simply A Blank. During My Whole Life I Have Been Singularly Incapable Of Mastering Any Language. Especial Attention Was Paid To Versemaking, And This I Could Never Do Well. I Had Many Friends, And Got Together A Good Collection Of Old Verses, Which By Patching Together, Sometimes Aided By Other Boys, I Could Work Into Any Subject.

-Charles Darwin

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Nothing Could Have Been

Charles Darwin

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Nothing Could Have Been Worse For The Development Of My Mind Than Dr. Butler's School, As It Was Strictly Classical, Nothing Else Being Taught, Except A Little Ancient Geography And History. The School As A Means Of Education To Me Was Simply A Blank. During My Whole Life I Have Been Singularly Incapable Of Mastering Any Language. Especial Attention Was Paid To Versemaking, And This I Could Never Do Well. I Had Many Friends, And Got Together A Good Collection Of Old Verses, Which By Patching Together, Sometimes Aided By Other Boys, I Could Work Into Any Subject.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Man Who Walks With Henslow.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Am Not The Least Afraid To Die

Famous Last Words

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

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

Formerly Milton's Paradise Lost Had Been My Chief Favourite, And In My Excursions During The Voyage Of The Beagle, When I Could Take Only A Single Small Volume, I Always Chose Milton.

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

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

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

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

Theory Of Evolution

The 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

I Long To Set Foot Where No Man Has Trod Before.

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

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."

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

An American Monkey, After Getting Drunk On Brandy, Would Never Touch It Again, And Thus Is Much Wiser Than Most Men.

Nothing Is Easier Than To Admit In Words The Truth Of The Universal Struggle For Life, Or More Difficult - At Least I Have Found It So - Than Constantly To Bear This Conclusion In Mind...we Behold The Face Of Nature Bright With Gladness...we Do Not See, Or We Forget, That The Birds Which Are Idly Singing Round Us Mostly Live On Insects And Seeds, And Are Thus Constantly Destroying Life.

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.

Everything In Nature Is The Result Of Fixed Laws.

A Bad Earthquake At Once Destroys The Oldest Associations: The World, The Very Emblem Of All That Is Solid, Has Moved Beneath Our Feet Like A Crust Over A Fluid; One Second Of Time Has Conveyed To The Mind A Strange Idea Of Insecurity, Which Hours Of Reflection Would Never Have Created.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Origin Of Species

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.

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.

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

What Can Be More Curious Than That The Hand Of A Man, Formed For Grasping, That Of A Mole For Digging, The Leg Of The Horse, The Paddle Of The Porpoise, And The Wing Of The Bat, Should All Be Constructed On The Same Pattern?

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

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.

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

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

Origin Of Species

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Music Was Known And Understood Before Words Were Spoken.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Our Ancestor Was An Animal Which Breathed Water, Had A Swim-bladder, A Great Swimming Tail, An Imperfect Skull & Undoubtedly Was An Hermaphrodite! Here Is A Pleasant Genealogy For Mankind.

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.

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

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

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'.

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.

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.

[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].

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Origin Of Species

Natural Selection

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I Have 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 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.

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

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.

[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.

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.

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.

Free Will Is To Mind What Chance Is To Matter.

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

Nature Will Tell You A Direct Lie If She Can.

Light Will Be Thrown On The Origin Of Man And His History.

Theory Of Evolution

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

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

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

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

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

Man Selects Only For His Own Good: Nature Only For That Of The Being Which She Tends.

Origin Of Species

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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".

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

Who When Examining In The Cabinet Of The Entomologist The Gay And Exotic Butterflies, And Singular Cicadas, Will Associate With These Lifeless Objects, The Ceaseless Harsh Music Of The Latter, And The Lazy Flight Of The Former - The Sure Accompaniments Of The Still, Glowing Noonday Of The Tropics.

We Are Optimists, Until We Are Not.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I 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.

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.

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Theory Of Evolution

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.

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.

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

I 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.

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

It Is Not The Biggest, The Brightest Or The Best That Will Survive, But Those Who Adapt The Quickest.

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

We Have Happy Days, Remember Good Dinners.

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

... 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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