I Ought, Or I Ought Not, Constitute

The More I Study Nature, The More I Become Impressed With Ever-increasing Force With The Conclusion, That The Contrivances And Beautiful Adaptations Slowly Acquired Through Each Part Occasionally Varying In A Slight Degree But In Many Ways, With The Preservation Or Natural Selection Of Those Variations Which Are Beneficial To The Organism Under The Complex And Ever-varying Conditions Of Life, Transcend In An Incomparable Degree The Contrivances And Adaptations Which The Most Fertile Imagination Of Man Could Suggest With Unlimited Time At His Disposal.

I See No Good Reason Why The Views Given This Volume [the Origin Of Species] Should Shock The Religious Feelings Of Any One. It Is Satisfactory, As Showing How Transient Such Impressions Are, To Remember That The Greatest Discovery Ever Made By Man, Namely, The Law Of Attraction Of Gravity, Was Also Attacked By Leibnitz, 'as Subversive Of Natural, And Inferentially Of Revealed, Religion.'

This Preservation Of Favourable Variations And The Destruction Of Injurious Variations, I Call Natural Selection, Or The Survival Of The Fittest. Variations Neither Useful Nor Injurious Would Not Be Affected By Natural Selection And Would Be Left A Fluctuating Element.

Why Does Man Regret, Even Though He May Endeavour To Banish Any Such Regret, That He Has Followed The One Natural Impulse, Rather Than The Other; And Why Does He Further Feel That He Ought To Regret His Conduct? Man In This Respect Differs Profoundly From The Lower Animals.

An American Monkey, After Getting Drunk On Brandy, Would Never Touch It Again, And Thus Is Much Wiser Than Most Men.