Our Ancestor Was An Animal Which Breathed

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 Disuse, On The Direct Actions Of External Conditions, And So Forth.

It At Once Struck Me That Under These Circumstances Favourable Variations Would Tend To Be Preserved, And Unfavourable Ones To Be Destroyed.

It Occurred To Me, In 1837, That Something Might Perhaps Be Made Of This Question (the Origin Of The Species) By Patiently Accumulating And Reflecting On All Sorts Of Facts Which Could Possibly Have Any Bearing On It

There Is Grandeur In This View Of Life, With Its Several Powers, Having Been Originally 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.

I Am Quite Conscious That My Speculations Run Beyond The Bounds Of True Science....it Is A Mere Rag Of An Hypothesis With As Many Flaw[s] & Holes As Sound Parts.