The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter, Volume 2D. Appleton, 1887 |
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A. R. Wallace admirable affectionately agree Animals and Plants appeared April argument Asa Gray Athenæum believe botanical chapter CHARLES DARWIN Chauncey Wright copy cordially curious Darwin to Asa Darwin to J. D. dear Sir DEAR SIR,-I Descent discussion doubt edition essay Evolution express facts father wrote fear feel fertilisation flowers forms Fritz Müller geological give glad hear honour hope Ilkley insects interest kind look Lyell mind Mivart Müller Natural History natural selection naturalists never November observations opinion Orchids organs Origin of Species Pangenesis paper pleased pollen Professor published received remarks remember respect scientific seems sent sexual selection sincerely Sir J. D. Hooker Sir Thomas Farrer suppose sure T. H. Huxley tell thank theory thought tion translation variation views whole wish wonderful write written wrote to Sir
Popular passages
Page 71 - In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.
Page 203 - It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life ; one might as well think of the origin of matter.
Page 427 - From quotations which I had seen I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.
Page 115 - I asserted — and I repeat — that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would rather be a man — a man of restless and versatile intellect — who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance...
Page 215 - ... d'avec les especes." Mr. Huxley remarks on this, " Being devoid of the blessings of an Academy in England, we are unaccustomed to see our ablest men treated in this way even by a Perpetual Secretary.
Page 297 - We know, however, that this has been done ; and we must therefore admit the possibility that, if we are not the highest intelligences in the universe, some higher intelligence may have directed the process by which the human race was developed, by means of more subtle agencies than we are acquainted with.
Page 78 - Ah my God, What might I not have made of thy fair world, Had I but loved thy highest creature here ? It was my duty to have loved the highest: It surely was my profit had I known : It would have been my pleasure had I seen. We needs must love the highest when we see it, Not Lancelot, nor another.
Page 203 - 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, etc. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case...