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The Theory of Evolution
Charles Darwin
Quotes from Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) on Evolution, Natural
Selection, Science, Humanity, God & Religion
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term
Natural Selection. (Charles Darwin)
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little,
not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved
by science. (Charles Darwin, Introduction to The Descent of Man, 1871)
Introduction - Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Darwin Quotes on Evolution - Evolution Articles -
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Introduction: On the Philosophy & Metaphysics of Charles
Darwin's Theory of Evolution

3. For thousands of years many philosophers had argued that life must have been created
by a supernatural being / creator / God due to the incredible complexity of Nature (in
particular, we humans and our minds). Thus it is remarkable that Charles Darwin (and
others) were able to explain our existence by means of Evolution from Natural Selection
- which is very obvious once understood.
Below you will find a brief summary of Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution and some
interesting quotes from Darwin on Evolution, Natural Selection, Science, Humanity, God
and Religion.
When thinking about evolution, it is important to take a further step and ask, 'What is
evolving?' As this website explains, there is a simple and obvious explanation of what
exists and thus how we can understand the metaphysical foundations of Evolution. See
Evolution-Metaphysics webpage.
We hope you enjoy the following quotes and browsing around this website. We have a
wonderful collection of knowledge from many of the greatest minds of human history -
and most importantly can provide a simple sensible explanation for most of them!
Cheers,
Geoff Haselhurst, Karene Howie
Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume I by no means
expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts
all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. But I
look with confidence to the future to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both
sides of the question with impartiality. (Charles Darwin)
Introduction - Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Darwin Quotes on Evolution - Evolution Articles -
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Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution
Brief Summary
Darwin's theory of evolution is based on five key observations and inferences drawn from
them. These observations and inferences have been summarized by the great biologist Ernst
Mayr as follows:
1) Species have great fertility. They make more offspring than can grow to adulthood.
2) Populations remain roughly the same size, with modest fluctuations.
3) Food resources are limited, but are relatively constant most of the time.
From these three observations it may be inferred that in such an environment there will be a
struggle for survival among individuals.

4. 4) In sexually reproducing species, generally no two individuals are identical. Variation is
rampant.
5) Much of this variation is heritable.
From this it may be inferred: In a world of stable populations where each individual must
struggle to survive, those with the "best" characteristics will be more likely to survive, and
those desirable traits will be passed to their offspring. These advantageous characteristics are
inherited by following generations, becoming dominant among the population through time. This
is natural selection. It may be further inferred that natural selection, if carried far enough,
makes changes in a population, eventually leading to new species. These observations have been
amply demonstrated in biology, and even fossils demonstrate the veracity of these observations.
To summarise Darwin's Theory of Evolution;
1. Variation: There is Variation in Every Population.
2. Competition: Organisms Compete for limited resources.
3. Offspring: Organisms produce more Offspring than can survive.
4. Genetics: Organisms pass Genetic traits on to their offspring.
5. Natural Selection: Those organisms with the Most Beneficial Traits
are more likely to Survive and Reproduce.
Darwin imagined it might be possible that all life is descended from an original species from
ancient times. DNA evidence supports this idea.
Probably all organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one
primordial life form. There is grandeur in this view of life 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. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of
Species)
Edited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
Introduction - Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Darwin Quotes on Evolution - Evolution Articles -
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Charles Darwin Quotes
Theory of Evolution, Science, Humanity, Knowledge, God & Religion
In scientific investigations, it is permitted to invent any hypothesis and, if it explains various
large and independent classes of facts, it rises to the rank of a well-grounded theory. (Charles
Darwin)
How extremely stupid for me not to have thought of that!
(Thomas Huxley's first reflection after mastering, in 1859, the central idea of Darwin's Origin
of Species)

5. Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little,
not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved
by science. (Charles Darwin, Introduction to The Descent of Man, 1871)
In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they
succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment. (Charles Darwin)
Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with
benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his
god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar
system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of
his lowly origin. (Charles Darwin)
Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific
books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn
from them. (Charles Darwin)
I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for
instance Huxley. (Charles Darwin)
We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.
.. The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more
accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. (Charles Darwin)
.. doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an
object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue. (Charles Darwin)
a scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections .. a mere heart of stone. (Charles
Darwin)
I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions. (Charles
Darwin)
The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of
being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith? (Charles Darwin)
Charles Darwin on God / Religion
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created
parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of
Caterpillars. (Charles Darwin)
As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.
(Charles Darwin)
Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now
is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete
annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. (Charles Darwin)

6. We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes to be governed
by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. (Charles Darwin)
I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly
or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on
the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds,
which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid
writing on religion, and I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly
biased by the pain which it would give some members of my family, if I aided in any way direct
attacks on religion. (Charles Darwin)
http://www.darwin-literature.com/l_quotes.html
When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings
which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to
become ennobled. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, quoted from John Stear, No Answers
in Genesis)
What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horribly
cruel works of nature. (Charles Darwin, quoted by Richard Dawkins in A Devil's Chaplain, 2004)
When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of
mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the
people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.
(Charles Darwin, reminding his readers that they should always treat "obvious" truths with
skepticism, in the context of the apparent absurdity of evolving a complex eye through a long
series of gradual steps, in the famous passage added to later editions of the Origin of Species
(1872, p. 134), quoted from Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002),
chapter 1, "Defining and Revising the Structure of Evolutionary Theory," p. 1 (the bracketed
translation is Gould's)
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false
views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in
proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward errors is closed and the road to
truth is often at the same time opened. (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man)
A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he has gradually learned to see that it is
just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable
of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of
creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws. (Charles Darwin, Origin of Species
p. 422)
About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not
theorize; and I well remember someone 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!
(Charles Darwin, letter to Henry Fawcett, who had defended Darwin before the British
Association for the Advancement of Science against a critic who said Darwin's book was too
theoretical and that he should have just "'put his facts before us and let them rest," quoted

7. from Michael Shermer, "Colorful Pebbles and Darwin's Dictum: Science is an exquisite blend of
data and theory," Scientific American, May, 2001)
How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have
originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so
deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly
inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire
almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed
independently of reason. (Charles Darwin, Descent of Man p. 122)
I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an
argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to
arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture. (Charles Darwin,
Descent of Man p. 612)
I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly
irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to show why it is more irreligious to explain the
origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower from, through the laws of
variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of
ordinary reproduction. The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of
that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance.
(Charles Darwin, Descent of Man p. 613)
But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design
and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot
persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat
should play with mice. (Charles Darwin, source unknown)
On the Evolution of Nature & Culture
Human, Society, Ecology, Life, The Environment & Universe
Metaphysics of Evolution: What is
Matter & Life?
Evolutionary Biology: Wave Genetics Charles Darwin:
The Theory of Evolution
Evolution of Culture: Sociobiology &
Custom
Richard Dawkins: Famous
Evolutionary Biologist
Jared Diamond: Famous Biologist
Ecologist