Sublime

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. In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus

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My 'Descent of Man' was published in February, 1871. As soon as I had become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were mutable productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the same law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject for my own satisfaction, and not for a long time with any intention of publishing. A

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Kropotkin pointed out that Darwin’s own comments regarding the survival value of the social instincts are widely ignored. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin described how animal species in which cooperation among individuals replaced competitive struggle were able to secure the best conditions for survival. He implied that, in such cases, the fit... See more

It was that same summer of 1859, with the cornerstone in place, that he returned to Europe, accompanied by his wife, and it was in England the autumn following, in November, that On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection appeared, a volume bound in green cloth and priced at fifteen shillings. The first copy to reach Cambridge, one sent

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If Darwin published his theory of natural selection today, the tweet announcing it would be deprioritized because it contained a link, and instead Twitter would show you wisecracks that fit in 280 characters.