It Is Mere Rubbish Thinking, At Present,

My Mind Seems To Have Become A Kind Of Machine For Grinding General Laws Out Of Large Collections Of Facts.

I Have Rarely Read Anything Which Has Interested Me More, Though I Have Not Read As Yet More Than A Quarter Of The Book Proper. From Quotations Which I Had Seen, I Had A High Notion Of Aristotle's Merits, But I Had Not The Most Remote Notion What A Wonderful Man He Was. Linnaeus And Cuvier Have Been My Two Gods, Though In Very Different Ways, But They Were Mere Schoolboys To Old Aristotle.

As Many More Individuals Of Each Species Are Born Than Can Possibly Survive; And As, Consequently, There Is A Frequently Recurring Struggle For Existence, It Follows That Any Being, If It Vary However Slightly In Any Manner Profitable To Itself, Under The Complex And Sometimes Varying Conditions Of Life, Will Have A Better Chance Of Surviving, And Thus Be Naturally Selected. From The Strong Principle Of Inheritance, Any Selected Variety Will Tend To Propagate Its New And Modified Form.

I Am Not Apt To Follow Blindly The Lead Of Other Men

Thus We Have Given To Man A Pedigree Of Prodigious Length, But Not, It May Be Said, Of Noble Quality.