The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter, Volume 1John Murray, 1887 - 418 pages |
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admiration affectionate afterwards animals answer Asa Gray asked Barmouth Beagle beetles believe Cambridge Captain Beaufort Captain Fitz-Roy character Charles Darwin Christ's College Cirripedes Cirripedia Coral Coral Reefs curious Darwin to W. D. dear Fox dear Henslow delightful doubt England Erasmus Erasmus Darwin facts father feel felt gave give Glen Roy hear heard Herbert hope insects interest island Josiah Wedgwood Journal kind letter living London look Lyell Maer manner mind months Natural History naturalist never observations Origin of Species paper plants pleasant pleasure published received Recollections remarkable remember scientific seems Shrewsbury Shropshire sincerely species sure talk taste tell things thought Tierra del Fuego tion told took voyage W. D. Fox walk week whole William Darwin Fox wish write written wrote Zoology
Popular passages
Page 102 - I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
Page 61 - Beagle" has been by far the most important event in my life, and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me thirty miles to Shrewsbury, which few uncles would 41 have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose.
Page 32 - Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank.
Page 101 - My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher states depend, I cannot conceive...
Page 82 - ... surrounding conditions, nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of life — for instance, a woodpecker or a tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal byhooks or plumes.
Page 316 - But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind...
Page 84 - This problem is the tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders and so forth; and I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had come to Down.
Page 313 - 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. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species, and it is since that time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But then arises the doubt — can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest...
Page 38 - Zoonomia of my grandfather, in which similar views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me. Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my Origin of Species.
Page 55 - Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy,' stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science.