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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.

-Charles Darwin

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Of All The Differences

Charles Darwin

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Great Is The Power Of Steady Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation

Origin Of Species

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

With Savages, The Weak In Body Or Mind Are Soon Eliminated. We Civilized Men, On The Other Hand, Do Our Utmost To Check The Process Of Elimination. We Build Asylums For The Imbecile, The Maimed And The Sick. Thus The Weak Members Of Civilized Societies Propagate Their Kind. No One Who Has Attended To The Breeding Of Domestic Animals Will Doubt That This Must Be Highly Injurious To The Race Of Man. Hardly Anyone Is So Ignorant As To Allow His Worst Animals To Breed.

Theory Of Evolution

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.

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

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

Theory Of Evolution

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.'

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

I Have Deeply Regretted That I Did Not Proceed Far Enough At Least To Understand Something Of The Great Leading Principles Of Mathematics, For Men Thus Endowed Seem To Have An Extra Sense.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Some Call It Evolution, And Others Call It God.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

[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.

...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 & Believe What He Can.—

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 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.

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

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

Music Was Known And Understood Before Words Were Spoken.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Believing As I Do That Man In The Distant Future Will Be A Far More Perfect Creature Than He Now Is, It Is An Intolerable Thought That He And All Other Sentient Beings Are Doomed To Complete Annihilation After Such Long-continued Slow Progress.

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

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.

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge.

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

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

After Five Years' Work I Allowed Myself To Speculate On The Subject, And Drew Up Some Short Notes; These I Enlarged In 1844 Into A Sketch Of The Conclusions, Which Then Seemed To Me Probable: From That Period To The Present Day I Have Steadily Pursued The Same Object. I Hope That I May Be Excused For Entering On These Personal Details, As I Give Them To Show That I Have Not Been Hasty In Coming To A Decision.‎

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

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

Origin Of Species

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Theory Of Evolution

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

... 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I 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.

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

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.

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.

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'”

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

As For A Future Life, Every Man Must Judge For Himself Between Conflicting Vague Probabilities.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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.

Building A Better Mousetrap Merely Results In Smarter Mice.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Theory Of Evolution

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

And Hail Their Queen, Fair Regent Of The Night.

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

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.

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.

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

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].

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

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.

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

The Normal Food Of Man Is Vegetable.

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.

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

Origin Of Species

Natural Selection

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.

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

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.

The Man That Created The Theory Of Evolution By Natural Selection Was Thrown Out By His Dad Because He Wanted Him To Be A Doctor. Gawd, Parents Haven't Changed Much.

We Fancied Even That The Bushes Smelt Unpleasantly.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Willing Horse Is Always Overworked.

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

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

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

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.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

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?

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.

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.

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

Theory Of Evolution

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".

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.

...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.

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

I Believe We Were All Glad To Leave New Zealand. It Is Not A Pleasant Place. Amongst The Natives There Is Absent That Charming Simplicity .... And The Greater Part Of The English Are The Very Refuse Of Society.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

[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].

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

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.

Free Will Is To Mind What Chance Is To Matter.

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

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

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