Quotes About Development

I have omitted the numbers to highlight that the basic argument is as simple as it was in Vogt's day. Stay within the limits, and people can develop freely. Go beyond the boundaries—exceed carrying capacity—and trouble will ensue.

But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? [To William Graham 3 July 1881]

we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps

But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?

Two distinct elements are included under the term inheritance— the transmission, and the development of characters;

We can not suppose that all the breeds were suddenly produced as perfect and as useful as we now see them; indeed, in many cases, we know that this has not been their history. The key is man's power of accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; man adds them up in certain directions useful to him. In this sense he may be said to have made for himself useful breeds.

I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.

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 Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.

Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children, but no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew, or write.

Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

Thus, as I believe, natural selection will tend in the long run to reduce any part of the organisation, as soon as it becomes, through changed habits, superfluous, without by any means causing some other part to be largely developed in a corresponding degree. And conversely, that natural selection may perfectly well succeed in largely developing an organ without requiring as a necessary compensation the reduction of some adjoining part.

Hoe al die absurde gedragsregels en al die absurde geloofsovertuigingen ontstaan zijn weten we niet; ...: maar het is opvallend hoe een geloof dat in de vroege levensjaren voortdurend werd ingeprent, als het brein nog ontvankelijk is, welhaast de status van instinct verwerft; en de essentie van een instinct is dat het wordt gevolgd, zelfs tegen de ratio in.

They also carried on commerce with other nations. All this clearly shows, as Heer has remarked, that they had at this early age progressed considerably in civilisation; and this again implies a long continued previous period of less advanced civilisation, during which the domesticated animals, kept by different tribes in different districts, might have varied and given rise to distinct races.

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.

interpositions

Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my 'Origin of Species.

It has already been stated that various parts in the same individual, which are exactly alike during an early embryonic period, become widely different and serve for widely different purposes in the adult state. So again it has been shown that generally the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar.

Light will be thrown on the origin of men and his history.

Some highly competent authorities are convinced that the setter is directly derived from the spaniel, and has probably been slowly altered from it. It is known that the English pointer has been

Charles Darwin

In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some apelike creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point where the term 'man' ought to be used.

El embrión no queda afectado, y sirve como indicio de la pasada condición de las especies. Por eso sucede que las especies existentes, durante los primeros períodos de su desarrollo, se parecen a menudo a formas antiguas y extinguidas

we are always slow in admitting great changes of which we do not see the steps.

Natura non facit saltum.