Thursday, February 12, 2009

Happy 200th Birthday of Darwin!




Facsimile of a page from a note-book of 1837, by Charles Darwin.
Transcription (from source): "led to comprehend true affinities. My theory would give zest to recent & Fossil Comparative Anatomy : it would lead to study of instincts, heredity, & mind heredity, whole metaphysics, it would lead to closest examination of hybridity & generation, causes of change in order to know what we have come from & to what we tend, to what circumstances favour crossing & what prevents it, this & direct examination of direct passages of structure in species, might lead to laws of change, which would then be main object of study, to guide our speculations."

Reproduced in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by his son Francis Darwin, in Two Volumes: Vol. II. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887.

No comments: