Today in 1859 Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published (and immediately sold out). While Darwin published many other books during his life (including the very popular The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms With Observations of Their Habits), On the Origin of Species is by far the most famous and influential, and it is my own shame that my only copy is a small pocket version of it (although I do own 2nd edition copies of The Descent of Man and The Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication [both volumes]). Perhaps the lines have now been so often used that they've nearly become cliche, but I still am enthralled by the closing words of Darwin's great contribution to our understanding of nature;
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having originally been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
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And on this day 105 years later I was born. Imagine that. And yes, I'm an adherent.
Happy birthday, Tony!
Per the photo, Charles seems to have had somewhat H erectus - like brows and sloping forehead, unless the photo was altered a bit.
Remarkable naturalist.
Laelaps, that's two of us in the world with an appreciation of fine Darwin prose:
http://thewordwench.blogspot.com/2007/11/24-november-1859-words-that-ch…
I lie: Afarensis honours the words, too.