Darwinism stated by Darwin himself Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles Darwin

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, while this planet has go...

The most widely prevalent movement is essentially of the same nature as that of the stem of a climbing plant, which bends successively to all points of the compass, so that the...

It is a more difficult problem why some plants, and apparently all the higher animals, after becoming hermaphrodites, have since had their sexes reseparated. This separation has...

Any one who had never observed continuously a sleeping plant would naturally suppose that the leaves moved only in the evening when going to sleep, and in the morning when awaki...

The removal of worm-castings by the above means leads to results which are far from insignificant. It has been shown that a layer of earth, ·2 of an inch in thickness, is in man...

The first and chief point of interest in this chapter is, whether the numerous domesticated varieties of the dog have descended from a single wild species, or from several. Some...

Esquirol gives several striking instances of insanity coming on at the same age as that of a grandfather, father, and son, who all committed suicide near their fiftieth year. Ma...

The only difference between organisms which annually produce eggs or seeds by the thousand and those which produce extremely few is, that the slow breeders would require a few m...

No doubt there is a limit beyond which the organization can not be modified compatibly with health or life. The extreme degree of fleetness, for instance, of which a terrestrial...

The advantage of diversification of structure in the inhabitants of the same region is, in fact, the same as that of the physiological division of labor in the organs of the sam...

I am far from supposing that all the difficulties in regard to the distribution and affinities of the identical and allied species, which now live so widely separated in the nor...

Rudiments of various muscles have been observed in many parts of the human body; and not a few muscles which are regularly present in some of the lower animals can occasionally...

It is well known that the hair on our arms tends to converge from above and below to a point at the elbow. This curious arrangement, so unlike that in most of the lower mammals,...

Turning now to the nearest allies of men, and therefore to the best representatives of our early progenitors, we find that the hands of the _Quadrumana_ are constructed on the s...

Of all the faculties of the human mind, it will, I presume, be admitted that _reason_ stands at the summit. Only a few persons now dispute that animals possess some power of rea...

But if it be further asked why musical tones in a certain order and rhythm give man and other animals pleasure, we can no more give the reason than for the pleasantness of certa...

Suicide during former times was not generally considered as a crime, but rather, from the courage displayed, as an honorable act; and it is still practiced by some semi-civilize...

We are naturally led to inquire, where was the birthplace of man at that stage of descent when our progenitors diverged from the Catarrhine stock? The fact that they belonged to...

We have thus far been baffled in all our attempts to account for the differences between the races of man; but there remains one important agency, namely, sexual selection, whic...

The senses of man and of the lower animals seem to be so constituted that brilliant colors and certain forms, as well as harmonious and rhythmical sounds, give pleasure and are...

When a dog approaches a strange dog or man in a savage or hostile frame of mind, he walks upright and very stiffly; his head is slightly raised, or not much lowered; the tail is...

But the most conspicuous result of the opposed contraction of the above-named muscles is exhibited by the peculiar furrows formed on the forehead. These muscles, when thus in co...

It is remarkable how readily and instantly retching or actual vomiting is induced in some persons by the mere idea of having partaken of any unusual food, as of an animal which...

But I have further to assume that the gemmules in their undeveloped state are capable of largely multiplying themselves by self-division, like independent organisms. Delpino ins...

The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs m...

By the theory of natural selection all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the natural and d...

The shape of the fragments of stone at the base of our precipice may be called accidental, but this is not strictly correct; for the shape of each depends on a long sequence of...