The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic |
The Theory of Evolution. |
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference |
The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason. |
There is Grandeur in this view of life, |
There is something referred to as the 'Darwin industry' in science. |
These huge reptiles, surrounded by the black lava, the leafless shrubs and large cacti, seemed to my fancy like some antediluvian animals. The few dull-colored birds cared no more for me than they did for the great tortoises. |
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact |
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. |
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selections, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree. |
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. |
We fancied even that the bushes smelt unpleasantly. |
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. |
We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence. |
What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature! |