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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.

-Charles Darwin

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On The Theory Of

Charles Darwin

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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.

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

A Man Who Dares To Waste One Hour Of Time Has Not Discovered The Value Of Life.

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

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.

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.

Progress Has Been Much More General Than Retrogression

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.

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

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

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.

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!

The Assumed Instinctive Belief In God Has Been Used By Many Persons As An Argument For His Existence. But This Is A Rash Argument, As We Should Thus Be Compelled To Believe In The Existence Of Many Cruel And Malignant Spirits, Only A Little More Powerful Than Man; For The Belief In Them Is Far More General Than In A Beneficent Deity.

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.

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.

I Have Called This Principle, By Which Each Slight Variation, If Useful, Is Preserved, By The Term Of Natural Selection.

Theory Of Evolution

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.

Hereafter We Shall Be Compelled To Acknowledge That The Only Distinction Between Species And Well-marked Varieties Is, That The Latter Are Known, Or Believed To Be Connected At The Present Day By Intermediate Gradations Whereas Species Were Formerly Thus Connected.

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

The Survival Or Preservation Of Certain Favoured Words In The Struggle For Existence Is Natural Selection.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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?

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.

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.

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

I Think It Can Be Shown That There Is Such An Unerring Power At Work In Natural Selection, Which Selects Exclusively For The Good Of Each Organic Being.

Natural Selection

We Are Optimists, Until We Are Not.

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.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

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

The Man Who Walks With Henslow.

If A Person Asked My Advice, Before Undertaking A Long Voyage, My Answer Would Depend Upon His Possessing A Decided Taste For Some Branch Of Knowledge, Which Could By This Means Be Advanced. No Doubt It Is A High Satisfaction To Behold Various Countries And The Many Races Of Mankind, But The Pleasures Gained At The Time Do Not Counterbalance The Evils.

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.

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

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.

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.

Some Call It Evolution, And Others Call It God.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Fully Subscribe To The Judgement Of Those Writers Who Maintain That Of All The Differences Between Man And The Lower Animal, The Moral Sense Of Conscience Is By Far The Most Important....it Is The Most Noble Of All The Attributes Of Man.

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

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.

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

Man 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.

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.

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.

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.

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'”

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

Animals, Whom We Have Made Our Slaves, We Do Not Like To Consider Our Equal.

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

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

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?

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

Music Was Known And Understood Before Words Were Spoken.

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

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

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].

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The More Efficient Causes Of Progress Seem To Consist Of A Good Education During Youth Whilst The Brain Is Impressible, And Of A High Standard Of Excellence, Inculcated By The Ablest And Best Men, Embodied In The Laws, Customs And Traditions Of The Nation, And Enforced By Public Opinion.

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.

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.

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

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

I Am Not The Least Afraid To Die

Famous Last Words

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

Origin Of Species

Natural Selection

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.

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.

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

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.

... 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.

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.

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

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

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?

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

Origin Of Species

Many Kinds Of Monkeys Have A Strong Taste For Tea, Coffee And Spirituous Liqueurs.

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 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.

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge.

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

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

Building A Better Mousetrap Merely Results In Smarter Mice.

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

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."

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

The Fact Of Evolution Is The Backbone Of Biology, And Biology Is Thus In The Peculiar Position Of Being A Science Founded On An Improved Theory, Is It Then A Science Or Faith?

Theory Of Evolution

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.

Nothing Before Had Ever Made Me Thoroughly Realise, Though I Had Read Various Scientific Books, That Science Consists In Grouping Facts So That General Laws Or Conclusions May Be Drawn From Them.

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.

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

Theory Of Evolution

Free Will Is To Mind What Chance Is To Matter.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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; And A Most Perplexing Problem It Is. Many Men Who Are Very Clever - Much Cleverer Than The Discoverers - Never Originate Anything.

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.

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.

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.

For I Am Well Aware That Scarcely A Single Point Is Discussed In This Volume On Which Facts Cannot Be Adduced, Often Apparently Leading To Conclusions Directly Opposite To Those At Which I Have Arrived. A Fair Result Can Be Obtained Only By Fully Stating And Balancing The Facts And Arguments On Both Sides Of Each Question.

It 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.

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.

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.

The Willing Horse Is Always Overworked.

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.

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

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

Your Words Have Come True With A Vengeance That I Shd [should] Be Forestalled ... I Never Saw A More Striking Coincidence. If Wallace Had My M.s. Sketch Written Out In 1842 He Could Not Have Made A Better Short Abstract! Even His Terms Now Stand As Heads Of My Chapters.

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.

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.

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.

The Love Of A Dog For His Master Is Notorious; In The Agony Of Death He Has Been Known To Caress His Master, And Everyone Has Heard Of The Dog Suffering Under Vivisection, Who Licked The Hand Of The Operator; This Man, Unless He Had A Heart Of Stone, Must Have Felt Remorse To The Last Hour Of His Life.

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.

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

It Is Always Advisable To Perceive Clearly Our Ignorance.

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.

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.‎

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

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.'

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

We May Confidently Come To The Conclusion, That The Forces Which Slowly And By Little Starts Uplift Continents, And That Those Which At Successive Periods Pour Forth Volcanic Matter From Open Orifices, Are Identical.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

In My Most Extreme Fluctuations I Have Never Been An Atheist In The Sense Of Denying The Existence Of A God ... I Think That Generally (& More And More So As I Grow Older) But Not Always, That An Agnostic Would Be The Most Correct Description Of My State Of Mind.

A Man Who Has No Assured And Ever Present Belief In The Existence Of A Personal God Or Of A Future Existence With Retribution And Reward, Can Have For His Rule Of Life, As Far As I Can See, Only To Follow Those Impulses And Instincts Which Are The Strongest Or Which Seem To Him The Best Ones

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

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.

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.

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.

Sympathy Will Have Been Increased Through Natural Selection

Natural Selection

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

When The Views Entertained In This Volume On The Origin Of Species, Or When Analogous Views Are Generally Admitted, We Can Dimly Forsee That There Will Be A Considerable Revolution In Natural History.

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

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