Much Love Much Trial, But What An

Among The Scenes Which Are Deeply Impressed On My Mind, None Exceed In Sublimity The Primeval [tropical] Forests, ... Temples Filled With The Varied Productions Of The God Of Nature. No One Can Stand In These Solitudes Unmoved, And Not Feel That There Is More In Man Than The Mere Breath Of His Body.

I Think It Can Be Shown That There Is Such An Unerring Power At Work In Natural Selection, Which Selects Exclusively For The Good Of Each Organic Being.

With Savages, The Weak In Body Or Mind Are Soon Eliminated. We Civilized Men, On The Other Hand, Do Our Utmost To Check The Process Of Elimination. We Build Asylums For The Imbecile, The Maimed And The Sick. Thus The Weak Members Of Civilized Societies Propagate Their Kind. No One Who Has Attended To The Breeding Of Domestic Animals Will Doubt That This Must Be Highly Injurious To The Race Of Man. Hardly Anyone Is So Ignorant As To Allow His Worst Animals To Breed.

Hereafter We Shall Be Compelled To Acknowledge That The Only Distinction Between Species And Well-marked Varieties Is, That The Latter Are Known, Or Believed To Be Connected At The Present Day By Intermediate Gradations Whereas Species Were Formerly Thus Connected.

I Trust And Believe That The Time Spent In This Voyage ... Will Produce Its Full Worth In Natural History; And It Appears To Me The Doing What Little We Can To Increase The General Stock Of Knowledge Is As Respectable An Object Of Life, As One Can In Any Likelihood Pursue.