Sublime

But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a widely different nature.

These gravel-beds belong in fact to the glacial period, and in after years I found in them broken arctic shells. But I was then utterly astonished at Sedgwick not being delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical shell being found near the surface in the middle of England. Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read var

Evolution is an ongoing process, and all species must continually respond to pressures in their environment or die off. What’s more, constant adaptation is something that everyone is doing, all the time. Hence the use of the Lewis Carroll character from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Red Queen tells Alice, “Now, here, you see, it takes all t

Or what about old elephants, who die of starvation when their last set of teeth fall out? These elephants aren’t going to reproduce anyway. What would it cost evolution—the evolution of elephants, rather—to ensure that the elephant dies right away, instead of slowly and in agony? What would it cost evolution to anesthetize the elephant, or give it

Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything.

Not a single domestic animal can be named which has not in some country drooping ears; and the view suggested by some authors, that the drooping is due to the disuse of the muscles of the ear, from the animals not being much alarmed by danger, seems probable.