Evolution and Wonder: Understanding Charles Darwin

About the Image

This elevation map of a coral reef island is a hand-drawn water-color sketch by Charles Darwin, date unknown.

+ (photo: Cambridge University Library)

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(Reprinted with permission of Syndics of Cambridge University Library, DAR 123:36-37)

» listen (mp3, 2:54) to David Kohn provide a broader context to this passage and why Darwin wrote it

Image transcription ↑

[Not shown] 16th Aug.— What a magnificent view one can take of the world Astronomical ~~& unknown~~ causes, modified by unknown ones. cause changes in geography & changes of climate superadded to change of climate from physical causes.— these superinduce changes of form in the organic world, as adaptation. & these changing affect each other, & their bodies, by certain laws of harmony keep perfect in these themselves.— instincts alter, reason is formed, & the world peopled with Myriads of distinct forms from a period short of eternity to the present time, to the future— How far grander than idea from cramped

imagination of God created. (warring against those very laws he established in all ~~nature~~ organic nature) the Rhinoceros of Java & Sumatra, that since the time of the Silurian, he has made a long succession of vile Molluscous animals— How beneath the dignity of him, who is supposed to have said let there be light & there was light.— bad taste {whom it has been declared "he said let there be light & there was light."—