dots-menu
×

Home  »  Familiar Quotations  »  Page 663

John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 663

 
 
Charles Robert Darwin. (1809–1882)
 
6682
      I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection.
          The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
6683
      We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence. 1 
          The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
6684
      The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. 2 
          The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
6685
      Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.
          Letter to E. Ray Lankester.
6686
      I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.
          Remark cited in “Life.”
6687
      As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.
          From Life and Letters.
6688
      Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.
          From Life and Letters.
 
Note 1.
The perpetual struggle for room and food.—Malthus: On Population, chap. iii. p. 48 (1798). [back]
Note 2.
This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called “natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.”—Herbert Spencer: Principles of Biology. Indirect Equilibration. [back]