Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZSwas an English naturalist and geologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth12 February 1809
CityShrewsbury, England
The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children.
The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.
The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands.....We may also infer.....The average mental power in man must be above that of woman.
Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.
We behold the face of nature bright with gladness.
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.
Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.
Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.
Wherever the European had trod, death seemed to pursue the aboriginal.
...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy the interposition of a great deity. More humble and I believe true to consider him created from animals.