At last gleams of light have ...

At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a \'tendency to progression\', \'adaptations from the slow willing of animals\', &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here\'s presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.
At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a 'tendency to progression', 'adaptations from the slow willing of animals', &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.
 Charles Darwin

Quotes from the same author

The highest stage in moral culture at which we can arrive is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
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 Charles Darwin
I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs.
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 Charles Darwin
About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!
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 Charles Darwin
I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.
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 Charles Darwin
To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree
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 Charles Darwin