Worms Have Played A More Important Part

I Have Steadily Endeavored To Keep My Mind Free So As To Give Up Any Hypothesis, However Much Beloved (and I Cannot Resist Forming One On Every Subject), As Soon As The Facts Are Shown To Be Opposed To It.

... If Variations Useful To Any Organic Being Do Occur, Assuredly Individuals Thus Characterized Will Have The Best Chance Of Being Perserved In The Struggle For Life; And From The Strong Principle Of Inheritance They Will Tend To Produce Offsping Similarly Characterized. This Principle Of Preservation, I Have Called, For The Sake Of Brevity, Natural Selection.

Whoever Is Led To Believe That Species Are Mutable Will Do Good Service By Conscientiously Expressing His Conviction; For Only Thus Can The Load Of Prejudice By Which This Subject Is Overwhelmed Be Removed.

It Appears To Me (whether Rightly Or Wrongly) That Direct Arguments Against Christianity And Theism Produce Hardly Any Effect On The Public; And Freedom Of Thought Is Best Promoted By The Gradual Illumination Of Men's Minds, Which Follows From The Advance Of Science.

If Mozart, Instead Of Playing The Pianoforte At Three Years Old With Wonderfully Little Practice, Had Played A Tune With No Practice At All, He Might Truly Have Been Said To Have Done So Instinctively.