25 quotes
In a rude state of society all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.
Principles of Geology (1832)
Thus community in embryonic structure reveals community of descent, however much the structure of the adult may have been modified.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
It will be necessary to dwell on futile reasoning and visionary hypothesis because the most extravagant systems were often invented or controverted by men of acknowledged talent.
Principles of Geology (1832)
But exactly in proportion as the completeness of the record and our knowledge of it are overrated, in that same degree are many progressionists unconscious of the goal towards which they are drifting.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
Strabo rejects this theory as insufficient to account for all the phenomena, and he proposes one of his own, the profoundness of which modern geologists are only beginning to appreciate.
Principles of Geology (1832)
Mammals were added next, until Nature became what she now is, by the addition of Man. ...the generalisation, as laid down by the Woodwardian Professor, still holds good in all essential particulars.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
Now, if it would be reasonable to draw such inferences with respect to
the future, we cannot but apply the same rules of induction to the
past.
Principles of Geology (1832)
When we study history we obtain a more profound insight into human nature by instituting a comparison between the present and former states of society.
Principles of Geology (1832)
We learn from a passage in Strabo, that it was a dogma of the Gaulish Druids that the universe was immortal, but destined to survive catastrophes both of fire and water. That this doctrine was communicated to them from the East, with much of their learning, cannot be doubted.
Principles of Geology (1832)
The elevating of the bottom of the sea, the sinking and submersion of the land, and most of the inequalities of the earth's surface, might, he said, be accounted for by the agency of these subterranean causes.
Principles of Geology (1832)
It seems, then, that the Greeks had not only derived from preceding nations, but had also, in some slight degree, deduced from their own observations, the theory of great periodical revolutions in the inorganic world.
Principles of Geology (1832)
Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we gather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the former successive destruction and renovation of the world.
Principles of Geology (1832)
The Egyptian philosophers ventured on the perilous task of seeking out some analogy to the mode of operation employed by the Author of Nature in the first creation of organized beings, and they compared it to that which governs the birth of new individuals by generation.
Principles of Geology (1832)
Many distinguishing features of the surface may often be ascribed to the operation at a remote era of slow and tranquil causes-to the gradual deposition of sediment in a lake or in the ocean, or to the prolific increase of testacea and corals therein.
Principles of Geology (1832)
In the account given to Solon by the Egyptian priests, of the submersion of the island of Atlantis under the waters of the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earthquake, we find that the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of the inhabitants.
Principles of Geology (1832)
In the Egyptian and Eastern cosmogonies, and in the Greek version of them, no very definite meaning can, in general, be attached to the term 'destruction of the world,' for sometimes it would seem almost to imply the annihilation of our planetary system, and at others a mere revolution of the surface of the earth.
Principles of Geology (1832)
Mr. Darwin labours to show, and with no small success, that all true classification in zoology and botany is, in fact, genealogical, and that community of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, while they often imagined that they were looking for some unknown plan of creation.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
By the multiplying of slight modifications in the course of thousands of generations, and by the handing down of the newly-acquired peculiarities by inheritance, a greater and greater divergence from the original standard is supposed to be effected, until what may be called a new species, or, in a greater lapse of time, a new genus, will be the result.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
Hitherto no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed, or the direct intervention of the Supreme Cause, must simply be considered as an avowal that we deem the question to lie beyond the domain of science.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
As breeders of domestic animals, when they choose certain varieties in preference to others to breed from, speak technically of their method as that of 'selecting,' Mr. Darwin calls the combination of natural causes, which may enable certain varieties of wild animals or plants to prevail over others of the same species, 'natural selection.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)