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.

A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jellyfish and a saurian,
read more

A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jellyfish and a saurian,
And caves where the cavemen dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod--
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.

While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.

While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.

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.]

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.

The rise of every man he loved to trace,
Up to the very pod O!
And, in read more

The rise of every man he loved to trace,
Up to the very pod O!
And, in baboons, our parent race
Was found by old Monboddo.
Their A, B, C, he made them speak,
And learn their qui, quae, quod, O!
Till Hebrew, Latin, Welsh, and Greek
They knew as well's Monboddo!

And hear the mighty stream of tendency
Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
A clear sonorous voice, read more

And hear the mighty stream of tendency
Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
A clear sonorous voice, inaudible
To the vast multitude.

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

Said the little Eohippus,
"I am going to be a horse,
And on my middle fingernails
read more

Said the little Eohippus,
"I am going to be a horse,
And on my middle fingernails
To run my earthly course!
. . . .
I'm going to have a flowing tail!
I'm going to have a mane!
I'm going to stand fourteen hands high
On the Psychozoic plain!"