This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express
in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. read more

This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express
in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural
selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle
for life."

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine read more

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

Or ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a read more

Or ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a king in Babylon
And you were a Christian slave.

I have called this principle, by which, each slight variation, if
useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural read more

I have called this principle, by which, each slight variation, if
useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.

Children, behold the Chimpanzee;
He sits on the ancestral tree
From which we sprang in ages gone.
read more

Children, behold the Chimpanzee;
He sits on the ancestral tree
From which we sprang in ages gone.
I'm glad we sprang: had we held on,
We might, for aught that I can say,
Be horrid Chimpanzees to-day.

When you were a tadpole, and I was a fish,
In the Palaeozoic time,
And side by read more

When you were a tadpole, and I was a fish,
In the Palaeozoic time,
And side by side in the sluggish tide
We sprawled in the ooze and slime.

Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form:
Mounts from her read more

Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form:
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.

For my own part I am persuaded that everything advances by an
unchangeable law through the eternal constitution and read more

For my own part I am persuaded that everything advances by an
unchangeable law through the eternal constitution and association
of latent causes, which have been long before predestined.
[Lat., Equidem aeterna constitutione crediderim nexuque causarum
atentium et multo ante destinatarum suum quemque ordinem
immutabili lege percurrere.]