Autobiography and Selected Letters

Front Cover
Courier Corporation, Jan 1, 1958 - Science - 365 pages
Fascinating behind-the-scenes look at one of the most powerful and revolutionary ideas in the history of mankind, the theory of evolution. It traces the development of this momentous idea in an autobiographical essay, letters, and notebook excerpts by the theory's originator.
 

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE 1 The Darwins
1
Autobiography
5
Religion
59
Cameron who has allowed me to reproduce the late
70
18281831
110
18311836
131
18361842
148
18421854
159
1860
236
WYCHFIELD CAMBRIDGE
257
18611871
259
MiscellaneaRevival of Geological WorkThe Vivi
297
The Fertilisation of Flowers
315
Climbing PlantsPower of Movement in Plants Insectivorous PlantsKew Index of Plant Names
333
XVIIIConclusion
345
The Funeral in Westminster Abbey
349

18311844
174
18431858
183
The Writing of the Origin of Species June 1858 to November 1859
196
The Publication of the Origin of Species October to December 1859
218
Portraits
351
INDEX
353
Copyright

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About the author (1958)

Charles Darwin was born in England in 1809 and attended the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. When he decided against that vocation, he enrolled at Cambridge where he earned a degree in theology. During an expedition to Africa and South America, Darwin continued his studies in natural science and began writing about his theories of natural selection. His work led to the publication of On the Origin of Species, a book that changed the world.

Charles Darwin: Original Thinking
Each generation of students comes to Darwin's epoch-making works, several of which are the basis of our publishing program in biology and related fields: The Essential Darwin, 2006; The Descent of Man, 2010; The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 2006; and On the Origin of the Species, 2006.

In the Author's Own Words:

"A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there."

"I feel most deeply that this whole question of Creation is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton! Let each man hope and believe what he can."

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

"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."

"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." — Charles Darwin



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