To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
With highly civilised nations continued progress depends in a subordinate degree on natural selection; for such nations do not supplant and exterminate… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
... if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being perserved… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This,… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“The small strength and speed of man, his want of natural weapons, etc., are more than counterbalanced, firstly, by his intellectual powers,… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
As some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
In however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as it is one of high importance to all those animals which… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“Thus, as I believe, natural selection will tend in the long run to reduce any part of the organisation, as soon as… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form. — Charles Darwin Copy Share
So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. — Charles Darwin Copy Share
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… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and over their burrows, as seems the… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
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… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
May we not suspect that the vague but very real fears of children, which are quite independent of experience, are the inherited effects of… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
“Darwin, landing in Brazil in 1832, had a similar reaction, colored by his reading of his predecessor." Humboldt's glorious descriptions are & will for… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
“To admit that species generally become rare before they become extinct—to feel no surprise at the comparative rarity of one species with another, and… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree — Charles Darwin Copy Share
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
