Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles DarwinDarwin, Charles
Science
Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles Darwin
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology)
American monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on brandy, would never
touch it again, and thus was wiser than many men. These trifling facts
prove how similar the nerves of taste must be in monkeys and man, and
how similarly their whole nervous system is affected.
Man is infested with internal parasites, sometimes causing fatal
effects; and is plagued by external parasites, all of which belong to
the same genera or families as those infesting other mammals, and in
the case of scabies to the same species. Man is subject, like other
mammals, birds, and even insects, to that mysterious law which causes
certain normal processes, such as gestation, as well as the maturation
and duration of various diseases, to follow lunar periods. His wounds
are repaired by the same process of healing; and the stumps left after
the amputation of his limbs, especially during an early embryonic
period, occasionally possess some power of regeneration, as in the
lowest animals.
* * * * *
[Page 9.]
Man is developed from an ovule, about the 125th of an inch in diameter,
which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals. The
embryo itself at a very early period can hardly be distinguished
from that of other members of the vertebrate kingdom. At this period
the arteries run in arch-like branches, as if to carry the blood to
branchiæ which are not present in the higher vertebrata, though the
slits on the side of the neck still remain, marking their former
position. At a somewhat later period, when the extremities are
developed, “the feet of lizards and mammals,” as the illustrious Von
Baer remarks, “the wings and feet of birds, no less than the hands
and feet of man, all arise from the same fundamental form.” It is,
says Professor Huxley, “quite in the later stages of development that
the young human being presents marked differences from the young ape,
while the latter departs as much from the dog in its developments as
the man does. Startling as this last assertion may appear to be, it is
demonstrably true.”
THE FACTS OF EMBRYOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT.
[Origin of
Species,
page 386.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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