Several years ago, I had the great privilege to sail to British Naturalist Charles Darwins Galapagos with Joseph Arancio. Based partly on what he observed there, today in 1859, Darwin published On the Origin of Species, which explained his theory of evolution by means of natural selection. The last paragraph of that work is among the most beautiful prose ever written in English, in my not very humble opinion. They read: Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object of 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. Darwins view of existence as a continual becoming is worthy of our consideration still.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 22:25:49 +0000
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