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I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.

Charles Darwin

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Charles Darwin
Age: 73 †
Born: 1809
Born: February 12
Died: 1882
Died: April 19
Beekeeper
Botanist
Carcinologist
Entomologist
Ethologist
Explorer
Geologist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Travel Writer
The Mount
Shrewsbury
Charles Robert Darwin
Charles R. Darwin
Darwin
Nothing
Miraculous
Giving
Selection
Would
Requires
Absolutely
Theory
Stage
Natural
Additions
Give
Descent

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I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.
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I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.
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Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the latter are known, or believed to be connected at the present day by intermediate gradations whereas species were formerly thus connected.
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On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them to placental mammals: β€œAn unbeliever . . . might exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'”
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To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree
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Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles.
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A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct.
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...I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.β€” Let each man hope & believe what he can.β€”
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If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much as I have accomplished.
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In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God ... I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.
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Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd [should] be forestalled ... I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters.
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We may confidently come to the conclusion, that the forces which slowly and by little starts uplift continents, and that those which at successive periods pour forth volcanic matter from open orifices, are identical.
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There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties
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On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.
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A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
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Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.
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Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals.
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There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties...The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.
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Formerly Milton's Paradise Lost had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage of the Beagle, when I could take only a single small volume, I always chose Milton.
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