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I have called this principle by which each slight variation if useful is preserved by the term natural selection.

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The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the "Survival of the fittest" is more accurate and is sometimes equally convenient.

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To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light,...more

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But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none ...more

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Light may be shed on man and his origins.

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We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living crea...more

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A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and...more

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It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.

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When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambria...more

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I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not oc...more

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The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the paren...more

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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 s...more

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If about a dozen genera of birds had become extinct or were unknown, who would have ventured to have surmised that birds might have existed which used...more

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In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquire...more

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One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.