Charles Darwin: Frasi in inglese (pagina 8)

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised 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; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised 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. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine dell'uomo e la selezione sessuale

volume I, chapter V: "On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties during Primeval and Civilised Times" (second edition, 1874) pages 133-134 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=156&itemID=F944&viewtype=image
The last sentence of the first paragraph is often quoted in isolation to make Darwin seem heartless.
The Descent of Man (1871)

“How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done.”

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Charles Darwin

Claimed http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A668&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 by the evangelist Lady Hope; Reported in [They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions, 1989, Paul F., Jr., Boller, John, George, Oxford University Press, New York; Oxford, isbn - 978-0195064698, 88022115, [PN6081.B635 1989], 19] Darwin's daughter Henrietta refuted the claim, stating "I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. The whole story has no foundation whatever."
Misattributed

“I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”

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Charles Darwin

volume I, chapter VIII: "Religion", page 313 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=331&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

“As I was led to keep in my study during many months worms in pots filled with earth, I became interested in them, and wished to learn how far they acted consciously, and how much mental power they displayed.”

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Charles Darwin libro The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Introduction, p. 2-3. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=17&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881)

“In order that woman should reach the same standard as man, she ought, when nearly adult, to be trained to energy and perseverance, and to have her reason and imagination exercised to the highest point; and then she would probably transmit these qualities chiefly to her adult daughters. The whole body of women, however, could not be thus raised, unless during many generations the women who excelled in the above robust virtues were married, and produced offspring in larger numbers than other women. As before remarked with respect to bodily strength, although men do not now fight for the sake of obtaining wives, and this form of selection has passed away, yet they generally have to undergo, during manhood, a severe struggle in order to maintain themselves and their families; and this will tend to keep up or even increase their mental powers, and, as a consequence, the present inequality between the sexes.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine dell'uomo e la selezione sessuale

volume II, chapter XIX: "Secondary Sexual Characters of Man", page 329 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=346&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

“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.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine delle specie

Origine: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 490 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F373&viewtype=image
Close of the first edition (1859). Only use of the term "evolve" or "evolution" in the first edition.
In the second http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F376&viewtype=image (1860) through sixth (1872) editions, Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" to read:

“When the principles of breeding and of inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining by an easy method whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine dell'uomo e la selezione sessuale

volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", page 403 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=420&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

“There is one living spirit prevalent over this world, (subject to certain contingencies of organic matter & chiefly heat), which assumes a multitude of forms each having acting principle according to subordinate laws. — There is one thinking sensible principle, intimately allied to one kind of organic matter—have & which thinking principle seems to be given a assumed according to a more extended relations of the individuals, whereby choice with memory or reason? is necessary—which is modified into endless forms bearing a close relation in degree & kind to the endless forms of the living beings.”

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Charles Darwin

" Notebook C http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_notebooks.html" (1838) page 210e http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=186&itemID=CUL-DAR122.-&viewtype=side
quoted in
also quoted in
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

“I have not as yet noticed by far the most remarkable feature in the natural history of this archipelago; it is, that the different islands to a considerable extent are inhabited by a different set of beings. My attention was first called to this fact by the Vice-Governor, Mr. Lawson, declaring that the tortoises differed from the different islands, and that he could with certainty tell from which island any one was brought. I did not for some time pay sufficient attention to this statement, and I had already partially mingled together the collections from two of the islands. I never dreamed that islands, about fifty or sixty miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted; but we shall soon see that this is the case. It is the fate of most voyagers, no sooner to discover what is most interesting in any locality, than they are hurried from it; but I ought, perhaps, to be thankful that I obtained sufficient materials to establish this most remarkable fact in the distribution of organic beings.”

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Charles Darwin libro Viaggio di un naturalista intorno al mondo

Origine: The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), chapter XVII: "Galapagos Archipelago" (second edition, 1845), pages 393-394 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=406&itemID=F14&viewtype=image

“It may be presumed that all animals which feed on various substances possess the sense of taste, and this is certainly the case with worms.”

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Charles Darwin libro The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Origine: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881), Chapter 1: Habits of Worms, p. 32. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=47&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image

“Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on this subject were published in 1801.”

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Charles Darwin

L'Origine des espèces, 1859

“The real affinities of all organic beings are due to inheritance or community of descent.”

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Charles Darwin

L'Origine des espèces, 1859

“It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. 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.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine delle specie

Last paragraph of the first edition (1859). Only use of the term "evolve" or "evolution" in the first edition.
In the second http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F376&viewtype=image (1860) through sixth (1872) editions, Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" to read:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator 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.
Origine: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 489-90 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

“There is one living spirit prevalent over this world, (subject to certain contingencies of organic matter & chiefly heat), which assumes a multitude of forms each having acting principle according to subordinate laws.”

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Charles Darwin

There is one thinking sensible principle, intimately allied to one kind of organic matter—have & which thinking principle seems to be given a assumed according to a more extended relations of the individuals, whereby choice with memory or reason? is necessary—which is modified into endless forms bearing a close relation in degree & kind to the endless forms of the living beings.
" Notebook C http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_notebooks.html" (1838) page 210e http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=186&itemID=CUL-DAR122.-&viewtype=side
quoted in [Creativity, Psychology and the History of Science, 2005, Howard E., Gruber, Katja, Bödeker, Springer, 9781402034916, 142, http://books.google.com/books?id=MDbruQKIu-wC&pg=PA142]
also quoted in [The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, 2003, Robert J., Richards, Darwin on mind, morals, and emotions, Johnathan, Hodge, Gregory, Radick, Cambridge University Press, 9780521777308, 95-96, http://books.google.com/books?id=uj_by_Sg3LkC&pg=PA95]
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

“Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine dell'uomo e la selezione sessuale

volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", page 405 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=422&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image
Closing paragraph of the book.
The Descent of Man (1871)

“As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually through public opinion.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine dell'uomo e la selezione sessuale

volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", pages 100-101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=113&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibilites.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine delle specie

On the Origin of Species (1859)

“And thus, the forms of life throughout the universe become divided into groups subordinate to groups.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine delle specie

Origine: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter II: "Variation Under Nature", page 59

“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.”

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Charles Darwin libro L'origine delle specie

From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.
"Introduction", page 5 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=20&itemID=F373&viewtype=image
On the Origin of Species (1859)

“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”

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Charles Darwin

Letter https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2814.xml to Asa Gray, 22 May 1860
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