The Times is getting more detestable (but that is too weak word)... by Charles Darwin

The Times is getting more detestable (but that is too weak word) than ever.

Charles Darwin

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We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.

tails men science

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.

variation opportunity world

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.

nature love memories

I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.

dogma atheism done

I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.

descent natural giving

Light may be shed on man and his origins. by Charles Darwin

Light may be shed on man and his origins.

nature light men

Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.

astonishment graduates attention

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything.

clever night science

The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians.

regret men science

Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.

origin-of-species fine form

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. by Charles Darwin

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

confidence atheist inspirational

We are optimists, until we are not. by Charles Darwin

We are optimists, until we are not.

The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.

different evolution language

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.

savages progress degrees

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.

singing struggle bird

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.

religious self men

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?

doubt animal men

The lower animals, on the other hand, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, in order to defend themselves from new enemies; or they must be reduced in size so as to escape detection and danger. When they migrate into a colder climate they must become clothed with thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered. If they fail to be thus modified, they will cease to exist.

animal order hands

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.

insightful atheist inspirational

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.

simple mean thinking