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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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The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imaginati...more

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Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.

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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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[Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived.

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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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Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.

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One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to...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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False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little har...more

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The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree.I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The...more

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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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We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be create...more