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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.

-Charles Darwin

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This Fundamental Subject Of

Charles Darwin

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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.

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

Only The Fittest Will Survive.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Willing Horse Is Always Overworked.

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!

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.

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.

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

Sympathy Will Have Been Increased Through Natural Selection

Natural Selection

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.

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

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 .

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

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.

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].

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

We Are Optimists, Until We Are Not.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Nothing Can Be More Hopeless Than To Attempt To Explain This Similarity Of Pattern In Members Of The Same Class, By Utility Or By The Doctrine Of Final Causes.

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.

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.

History Shows That The Human Mind, Fed By Constant Accessions Of Knowledge, Periodically Grows Too Large For Its Theoretical Coverings, And Bursts Them Asunder To Appear In New Habiliments, As The Feeding And Growing Grub, At Intervals, Casts Its Too Narrow Skin And Assumes Another.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

As Man Advances In Civilization, And Small Tribes Are United Into Larger Communities, The Simplest Reason Would Tell Each Individual That He Ought To Extend His Social Instincts And Sympathies To All Members Of The Same Nation, Though Personally Unknown To Him. This Point Being Once Reached, There Is Only An Artificial Barrier To Prevent His Sympathies Extending To The Men Of All Nations And Races.

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.

Building A Better Mousetrap Merely Results In Smarter Mice.

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.

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

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.

Describing Laughter: The Sound Is Produced By A Deep Inspiration Followed By Short, Interrupted, Spasmodic Contractions Of The Chest, And Especially The Diaphragm... The Mouth Is Open More Or Less Widely, With The Corners Drawn Much Backwards, As Well As A Little Upwards; And The Upper Lip Is Somewhat Raised.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

Blushing Is The Most Peculiar And Most Human Of All Expressions.

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

Great Is The Power Of Steady Misrepresentation; But The History Of Science Shows That Fortunately This Power Does Not Long Endure.

I Cannot Anyhow Be Contented To View This Wonderful Universe, And Especially The Nature Of Man, And To Conclude That Everything Is The Result Of Brute Force. I Am Inclined To Look At Everything As Resulting From Designed Laws, With The Details, Whether Good Or Bad, Left To The Working Out Of What We Call Chance. Not That This Notion At All Satisfies Me. I Feel Most Deeply That The Whole Subject Is Too Profound For The Human Intellect. A Dog Might As Well Speculate On The Mind Of Newton. Let Each Man Hope And Believe What He Can.

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.

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.

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

It May Be Said That Natural Selection Is Daily And Hourly Scrutinizing, Throughout The World, Every Variation, Even The Slightest; Rejecting That Which Is Bad, Preserving And Adding Up All That Is Good; Silently And Insensibly Working, Wherever And Whenever Opportunity Offers, At The Improvement Of Each Organic Being In Relation To Its Organic And Inorganic Conditions Of Life.

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.

It's An Awful Stretcher To Believe That A Peacock's Tail Was Thus Formed But ... Most People Just Don't Get It - I Must Be A Very Bad Explainer

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

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

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 Could Show Fight On Natural Selection Having Done And Doing More For The Progress Of Civilization Than You Seem Inclined To Admit. Remember What Risk The Nations Of Europe Ran, Not So Many Centuries Ago Of Being Overwhelmed By The Turks, And How Ridiculous Such An Idea Now Is! The More Civilised So-called Caucasian Races Have Beaten The Turkish Hollow In The Struggle For Existence. Looking To The World At No Very Distant Date, What An Endless Number Of The Lower Races Will Have Been Eliminated By The Higher Civilized Races Throughout The World.

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.

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.

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

As Buds Give Rise By Growth To Fresh Buds, And These, If Vigorous, Branch Out And Overtop On All Sides Many A Feebler Branch, So By Generation I Believe It Has Been With The Great Tree Of Life, Which Fills With Its Dead And Broken Branches The Crust Of The Earth, And Covers The Surface With Its Ever Branching And Beautiful Ramifications.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

And Hail Their Queen, Fair Regent Of The Night.

Not One Great Country Can Be Named, From The Polar Regions In The North To New Zealand In The South, In Which The Aborigines Do Not Tattoo Themselves.

The Limit Of Man S Knowledge In Any Subject Possesses A High Interest Which Is Perhaps Increased By Its Close Neighbourhood To The Realms Of Imagination.

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.

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.

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

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

I Must Begin With A Good Body Of Facts And Not From A Principle (in Which I Always Suspect Some Fallacy) And Then As Much Deduction As You Please.

[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].

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

The World Will Not Be Inherited By The Strongest, It Will Be Inherited By Those Most Able To Change.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

... 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 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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Nature Will Tell You A Direct Lie If She Can.

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.

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.

I Trust And Believe That The Time Spent In This Voyage ... Will Produce Its Full Worth In Natural History; And It Appears To Me The Doing What Little We Can To Increase The General Stock Of Knowledge Is As Respectable An Object Of Life, As One Can In Any Likelihood Pursue.

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.

...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.

One Hand Has Surely Worked Throughout The Universe.

Any One Whose Disposition Leads Him To Attach More Weight To Unexplained Difficulties Than To The Explanation Of Facts Will Certainly Reject My Theory.

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.

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'.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

This Fundamental Subject Of Natural Selection Will Be Treated At Some Length In The Fourth Chapter; And We Shall Then See How Natural Selection Almost Inevitably Causes Much Extinction Of The Less Improved Forms Of Life And Induces What I Have Called Divergence Of Character.

The Following Proposition Seems To Me In A High Degree Probable—namely, That Any Animal Whatever, Endowed With Well-marked Social Instincts, The Parental And Filial Affections Being Here Included, Would Inevitably Acquire A Moral Sense Or Conscience, As Soon As Its Intellectual Powers Had Become As Well, Or Nearly As Well Developed, As In Man. For, Firstly, The Social Instincts Lead An Animal To Take Pleasure In The Society Of Its Fellows, To Feel A Certain Amount Of Sympathy With Them, And To Perform Various Services For Them.

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.

How Fleeting Are The Wishes And Efforts Of Man! How Short His Time! And Consequently How Poor Will His Products Be, Compared With Those Accumulated By Nature During Whole Geological Periods. Can We Wonder, Then, That Nature's Productions Should Be Far 'truer' In Character Than Man's Productions; That They Should Be Infinitely Better Adapted To The Most Complex Conditions Of Life, And Should Plainly Bear The Stamp Of Far Higher Workmanship?

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.

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.

A Grand And Almost Untrodden Field Of Inquiry Will Be Opened, On The Causes And Laws Of Variation, On Correlation Of Growth, On The Effects Of Use And Disuse, On The Direct Actions Of External Conditions, And So Forth.

My Books Have Sold Largely In England, Have Been Translated Into Many Languages, And Passed Through Several Editions In Foreign Countries. I Have Heard It Said That The Success Of A Work Abroad Is The Best Test Of Its Enduring Value. I Doubt Whether This Is At All Trustworthy; But Judged By This Standard My Name Ought To Last For A Few Years.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

At 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.

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

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.'

Free Will Is To Mind What Chance Is To Matter.

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

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

Origin Of Species

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.‎

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