Darwin quotations and quotes
To use Charles Darwin's own words from his Autobiography:-
"..After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals and plants under
domestication and nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My first note-book was opened in July 1837. I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory
collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed enquiries, by conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading.
When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that selection was the
keystone of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms
living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me.
Fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species.
Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it."
And why was Charles Darwin so excited?
Fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species.
Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it."
In his Essay on the Principle of Population
Thomas Malthus had suggested that:-
"... Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them. The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious and all-pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds. The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law ..."
Darwin took up Malthus' "imperious and all-pervading law of nature" as providing a mechanism whereby individuals within a species which,
because of some very slight variation, were better suited in win out in the "struggle for survival" by being more able to gain the food necessary
to allow them to survive in the short term,
and to allow them to become the parents of a new generation - which could thereby tend inherit this favourable very slight variation -
in the longer term."... Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them. The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious and all-pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds. The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law ..."
(This basic and food-related struggle for survival between individuals within an existing species proved to be capable of extension towards a consideration of a more complex and food-related struggle for survival between existing species and new species).
In the Introduction to Chapter I of the first, (1859), edition of Charles Darwin's
On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection
we read such things as:-
… the Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings throughout the world, which inevitably follows from their high geometrical powers of increase, will be treated of. This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.
This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life, and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. …
And then, in Chapter IV, (itself titled Natural Selection), we read:-
… Let it be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life. Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection …
To what extent does Darwinian Evolutionary Theory "EXPLAIN" Human Nature?
Darwin's theorising on evolution took place over more than twenty years!
Such content as the following selection, (dating from 1837 and the earlier days of his theoretical deliberations on "that mystery of mysteries the origin of species"), is to be found in Darwin's "Notebook B" and shows that he expected his theory to cover behavioral as well as physical evolution:-
"My theory would give zest to recent & Fossil Comparative Anatomy: it would lead to study of instincts, heredity, & mind heredity, whole metaphysics" ...
The Theory of Evolution, (as considered to be applicable to Humanity), has traditionally tended to focus on the physical!
Darwinian Science and Metaphysics
Whilst this present Age-of-the-Sage page content makes no attempt to address questions of whether the origins of Human Nature
are
~ "Natural? or Divine?" ~
our visitors can nevertheless find key insights on our site from such reliable authorities as:-
The Great Faiths - Plato & Socrates - Shakespeare
that give convincing support to such a "Tripartite" view of Human Nature!!!
~ "Natural? or Divine?" ~
our visitors can nevertheless find key insights on our site from such reliable authorities as:-
The Great Faiths - Plato & Socrates - Shakespeare
that give convincing support to such a "Tripartite" view of Human Nature!!!
It is widely known that Plato, pupil of and close friend to Socrates, accepted that Human Beings have a " Tripartite Soul " where the individual Human Psyche is noticeably composed of three aspects - Wisdom-Rationality, Spirited-Will and Appetite-Desire.
It is less widely appreciated is that Great World Faiths, and William Shakespeare, also effectively see "Spirituality" as being relative to "Desire" and to "Wrath".
Here at Age-of-the-Sage we have assembled effective endorsements - from Plato & Socrates, from all of five World Faiths and from Shakespeare - to the presence, in the Human Psyche, of a "Tripartism" of Wisdom-Rationality, Spirited-Will and Appetite-Desire:-
There are many entertaining and instructive quotations about, or attributable to, Charles Darwin:-
For instance, as a boy of sixteen his father said to him:-
"You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family."
Darwin was keenly interested in Natural History as a young man and his Autobiography mentions one particular beetle hunt in detail:-
"I will give a proof of my zeal: one day on tearing off
some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each
hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to
lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into
my mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt
my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was
lost, as well as the third one".
In biological and evolutionary science a phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological species are believed to have a common ancestor.
Perhaps the earliest example of a phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree was actually devised by Charles Darwin. His
approach can perhaps be illustrated by this famous Tree of Life sketch from his Notebook B dating from 1837-8:
Charles Darwin's early evolutionary theory insight of how a branching tree-like genus of related species might originate by divergence from a starting point (1) to effectively establish related species at such notional points as A, B, C and D.
There is an accompanying text annotation that reads:-
I think
Case must be that one generation then should be as many living as now. To do this & to have many species in same genus (as is) requires extinction.
Thus between A & B immense gap of relation. C & B the finest gradation, B & D rather greater distinction. Thus genera would be formed. — bearing relation (page 36 ends - page 37 begins) to ancient types with several extinct forms.
From Darwin's Notebook B now stored in Cambridge University library.
Does Darwinian Evolution offer much in terms of explaining Human Nature?
Attempts to find answers to this question seems to raise deep, but interesting, issues associated with Human Existence.