surprising info, anyone can verify in the book?

[Guest guest]

I have two editions of Origin of Species (downloadable from Project

Gutenberg Etexts).

 

> "Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the

> view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it

> accords better with what we know of the LAWS IMPRESSED ON MATTER BY

> THE CREATOR, that the production and extinction of the past and present

> inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes,

> like those determining the birth and death of the individual."...

 

This is in both the 1st and the 6th edns.

 

> ..."These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with

> Reproduction;

 

This is in the 1st edn but not the 6th.

 

> ...Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most

> exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the

> production of the higher animals, directly follows.

 

This is in both edns.

 

> There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,

> HAVING BEEN ORIGINALLY BREATHED BY THE CREATOR into a few forms or

> into one; and 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."

 

This is present but without "by the creator" in the 6st edn., but not in the

1st edn. ... Curious... (It is of course _implied_.)

 

So yes, these are actual quotes.

 

Doing a search for "creator" in the text, I found that it appears around a

dozen times. I also found that Darwin is not talk like the rabid atheist he

might otherwise (by someone who has not actually read him) be considered. In

fact he is probalby classifiable as a very knowledgeable and intelligent

deitist (if I am not mistaken, 'one who considers that God created... and

then retired into the background to let the universe carry on automatically

according to the laws of nature'). Of course his work is laced with the

unscientific suggetion that ideas can be accepted simply by their being

"scarcely doubtable", etc.

 

I came upon the following statement of Darwins's: "If it could be proved

that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the

exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such

could not have been produced through natural selection." Some research to

see if there are any cases of benefitial symbiosis involves anatomical or

physiological specialization (symbiosis being the "close association of

animals or plants of different species that is often, but not always, of

mutual benefit. The relationship between a small fish and a larger fish on

which it eats parasites is an example of symbiosis being the living

cooperatively") is in order.

 

Rasananda das

 

--------------------

 

> Darwin on Int. Design

>

> Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)

> Origin of Species

> The Harvard Classics. 1909-14.

> XV. Recapitulation and Conclusion

>

> "Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the

> view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it

> accords better with what we know of the LAWS IMPRESSED ON MATTER BY

> THE CREATOR, that the production and extinction of the past and present

> inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes,

> like those determining the birth and death of the individual."...

>

> ..."These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with

> Reproduction;

>

> ...Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most

> exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the

> production of the higher animals, directly follows.

>

> There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,

> HAVING BEEN ORIGINALLY BREATHED BY THE CREATOR into a few forms or

> into one; and 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."