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The Origin of Species / The Voyage of the Beagle
Easily the most influential book published in the nineteenth century, Darwin’s The Origin of Species is also that most unusual phenomenon, an altogether readable discussion of a scientific subject. On its appearance in 1859 it was immediately recognized by enthusiasts and detractors alike as a work of the greatest importance: its revolutionary theory of evolution by means of natural selection provoked a furious reaction that continues to this day.
The Origin of Species is here published together with Darwin’s earlier Voyage of the ‘Beagle.’ This 1839 account of the journeys to South America and the Pacific islands that first put Darwin on the track of his remarkable theories derives an added charm from his vivid description of his travels in exotic places and his eye for the piquant detail.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
The Origin of Species is here published together with Darwin’s earlier Voyage of the ‘Beagle.’ This 1839 account of the journeys to South America and the Pacific islands that first put Darwin on the track of his remarkable theories derives an added charm from his vivid description of his travels in exotic places and his eye for the piquant detail.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
1024 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2003
About the author
Charles Darwin
2,021 books3,024 followersCharles Robert Darwin of Britain revolutionized the study of biology with his theory, based on natural selection; his most famous works include
On the Origin of Species
(1859) and
The Descent of Man
(1871).
Chiefly Asa Gray of America advocated his theories.
Charles Robert Darwin, an eminent English collector and geologist, proposed and provided scientific evidence of common ancestors for all life over time through the process that he called. The scientific community and the public in his lifetime accepted the facts that occur and then in the 1930s widely came to see the primary explanation of the process that now forms modernity. In modified form, the foundational scientific discovery of Darwin provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.
Darwin developed his interest in history and medicine at Edinburgh University and then theology at Cambridge. His five-year voyage on the Beagle established him as a geologist, whose observations and supported uniformitarian ideas of Charles Lyell, and publication of his journal made him as a popular author. Darwin collected wildlife and fossils on the voyage, but their geographical distribution puzzled him, who investigated the transmutation and conceived idea in 1838. He discussed his ideas but needed time for extensive research despite priority of geology. He wrote in 1858, when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay, which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication.
His book of 1859 commonly established the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human sexuality in Selection in Relation to Sex , and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals followed. A series of books published his research on plants, and he finally examined effect of earthworms on soil.
A state funeral recognized Darwin in recognition of preeminence and only four other non-royal personages of the United Kingdom of the 19th century; people buried his body in Westminster abbey, close to those of John Herschel and Isaac Newton.
Her fathered Francis Darwin, astronomer George Darwin, and politician, economist and eugenicist Leonard Darwin.
(Arabic: تشارلز داروين)
Chiefly Asa Gray of America advocated his theories.
Charles Robert Darwin, an eminent English collector and geologist, proposed and provided scientific evidence of common ancestors for all life over time through the process that he called. The scientific community and the public in his lifetime accepted the facts that occur and then in the 1930s widely came to see the primary explanation of the process that now forms modernity. In modified form, the foundational scientific discovery of Darwin provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.
Darwin developed his interest in history and medicine at Edinburgh University and then theology at Cambridge. His five-year voyage on the Beagle established him as a geologist, whose observations and supported uniformitarian ideas of Charles Lyell, and publication of his journal made him as a popular author. Darwin collected wildlife and fossils on the voyage, but their geographical distribution puzzled him, who investigated the transmutation and conceived idea in 1838. He discussed his ideas but needed time for extensive research despite priority of geology. He wrote in 1858, when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay, which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication.
His book of 1859 commonly established the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human sexuality in Selection in Relation to Sex , and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals followed. A series of books published his research on plants, and he finally examined effect of earthworms on soil.
A state funeral recognized Darwin in recognition of preeminence and only four other non-royal personages of the United Kingdom of the 19th century; people buried his body in Westminster abbey, close to those of John Herschel and Isaac Newton.
Her fathered Francis Darwin, astronomer George Darwin, and politician, economist and eugenicist Leonard Darwin.
(Arabic: تشارلز داروين)
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July 29, 2018A couple of years ago I had the notion, even though I last studied science at about the age of nineteen (ah how well I remember spending a Wednesday afternoon trying to measure the size of stars in tenths of a millimetre using a ruler whose smallest increment was a millimetre. I earnt a fine headache from that and learnt that pointless exercises come in many flavours) to read some Darwin. On grounds of cost, in other words because it was the cheapest, I bought this awkwardly large volume containing both the Voyage of the Beagleand The Origin of Species.
Reading the Voyage of the Beagle I was struck straight away by the campaigns against indigenous peoples that Darwin witnessed in Argentina, New Zealand and Australia. There was something particularly horrible in the understated way that he described the ongoing efforts round the world by settlers to wipe out entire peoples. But I was also impressed by the casual nature of his science - at one point he accidentally eats a specimen for dinner (most of the bones were still intact) and of course seeing how far he can ride a Galapagos tortoise becomes one of his objectives.
In contrast The Origin of the Species has smouldered slowly in my imagination, but I seem to have absorbed a lot of it.
Thanks to the internet you can sometimes come across people who don't believe in evolution and hold up the eye as proof that evolution is a silly concept. Yet Darwin starts off a chapter with that very objection and shows how evolution can quite reasonably explain the development of the eye. When a Victorian with their own raw brain power, bowel problems and an open mind out thinks a contemporary with all the wonders that a modern education and technology can provide then there is a lesson to be learnt about progress.
Anyhow. One of the points that Darwin makes is about the enormous fecundity of plants. Some will produce hundreds or thousands of seeds of which perhaps a bare one will take and germinate. I remember this when things fail to grow in my flower bed. This for Darwin was an illustration of the struggle of the fittest to survive, as his cousin Francis Galton later summerised evolution through natural selection, a plant produces thousands of seeds precisely because they are unlikely to survive - that is it's survival strategy so to speak (I don't believe we are meant to admit to thinking that plants are conscious or capable of strategising) Of course if the seed does germinate and grow and even if the climate and soil are friendly, the struggle doesn't end there, lurking ominously are slugs and snails and diseases each of which itself is struggle to survive, Nature red in tooth and Claw as Tennyson said. A vision of the web of life that one suspects was decisively coloured for Darwin by the death of his daughter Annie while she was just a little girl.
I notice after a walk in the country how many seeds I've picked up and wonder if I am just a moving ecological disaster or simply a convenient mechanism for the dispersal of plant species. We learn that for us life would be impossible without earth worms, but earth worms could live perfectly well without us.
Reading the Voyage of the Beagle I was struck straight away by the campaigns against indigenous peoples that Darwin witnessed in Argentina, New Zealand and Australia. There was something particularly horrible in the understated way that he described the ongoing efforts round the world by settlers to wipe out entire peoples. But I was also impressed by the casual nature of his science - at one point he accidentally eats a specimen for dinner (most of the bones were still intact) and of course seeing how far he can ride a Galapagos tortoise becomes one of his objectives.
In contrast The Origin of the Species has smouldered slowly in my imagination, but I seem to have absorbed a lot of it.
Thanks to the internet you can sometimes come across people who don't believe in evolution and hold up the eye as proof that evolution is a silly concept. Yet Darwin starts off a chapter with that very objection and shows how evolution can quite reasonably explain the development of the eye. When a Victorian with their own raw brain power, bowel problems and an open mind out thinks a contemporary with all the wonders that a modern education and technology can provide then there is a lesson to be learnt about progress.
Anyhow. One of the points that Darwin makes is about the enormous fecundity of plants. Some will produce hundreds or thousands of seeds of which perhaps a bare one will take and germinate. I remember this when things fail to grow in my flower bed. This for Darwin was an illustration of the struggle of the fittest to survive, as his cousin Francis Galton later summerised evolution through natural selection, a plant produces thousands of seeds precisely because they are unlikely to survive - that is it's survival strategy so to speak (I don't believe we are meant to admit to thinking that plants are conscious or capable of strategising) Of course if the seed does germinate and grow and even if the climate and soil are friendly, the struggle doesn't end there, lurking ominously are slugs and snails and diseases each of which itself is struggle to survive, Nature red in tooth and Claw as Tennyson said. A vision of the web of life that one suspects was decisively coloured for Darwin by the death of his daughter Annie while she was just a little girl.
I notice after a walk in the country how many seeds I've picked up and wonder if I am just a moving ecological disaster or simply a convenient mechanism for the dispersal of plant species. We learn that for us life would be impossible without earth worms, but earth worms could live perfectly well without us.
March 6, 2019
To say that Origin of the Species might be slightly interesting is to make a monumental error in degree. Obviously. And no other work of literature... nee, science, has been as contentious.
This is the extremely readable work that provides us a step-by-step accounting of the theory of Evolution, after all.
I mean, what's the big deal? Indeed, what IS the big deal? This just the work of a Naturalist, after all. He made detailed descriptions of things he saw on his journeys, making a fascinating travelogue in Voyage of the Beagle, giving us a frankly FUN accounting of the adventure. And then, after several decades of working out the facts and combining the other works of other naturalists and regular breeders, from dogs to sheep to all kinds of plants in the agricultural fields.
In this particular edition of Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle and Origins of the Species, narrated by and specially abridged by Richard Dawkins, a lot of the detailed extras are boiled down to an easy to read and fully explained middle section that includes background information, concurrent debates of Darwin's time, and the circumstances that catapulted this work to the forefront of science.
Dawkins also boils down the major insights into the modern full theory of Evolution as we know it. The highlights? Well, if you're really interested, I TOTALLY recommend that you do yourself a big favor and just read this wonderful work for yourself. It's one thing to get a simple digest and it's another thing to get the step-by-step logical ascension for yourself.
Natural selection has been an idea that has been around longer than Darwin, but Darwin took the idea a bit farther and he gave us the strong idea that it is both universal and reproducible from a simple beginning. There are not a pre-formed plethora of species. We have what we have from the natural progression of optimization, die-offs, and improvements based on variation. The fact that plants, insects, and animals all predate on one another is not nearly as interesting as the fact that they also learn to COOPERATE.
It is the most interesting aspect to see emergent intelligence arise from evolution. And make no mistake, the intelligence is everywhere in nature. It is not limited to us. :)
I suspect that anyone who poo-poos Darwin does it without having read him. There's really nothing contentious about the text. He just applies observation and realism to what he sees all around us.
Of course, anyone can quote scripture to further their own ends, right?
This is the extremely readable work that provides us a step-by-step accounting of the theory of Evolution, after all.
I mean, what's the big deal? Indeed, what IS the big deal? This just the work of a Naturalist, after all. He made detailed descriptions of things he saw on his journeys, making a fascinating travelogue in Voyage of the Beagle, giving us a frankly FUN accounting of the adventure. And then, after several decades of working out the facts and combining the other works of other naturalists and regular breeders, from dogs to sheep to all kinds of plants in the agricultural fields.
In this particular edition of Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle and Origins of the Species, narrated by and specially abridged by Richard Dawkins, a lot of the detailed extras are boiled down to an easy to read and fully explained middle section that includes background information, concurrent debates of Darwin's time, and the circumstances that catapulted this work to the forefront of science.
Dawkins also boils down the major insights into the modern full theory of Evolution as we know it. The highlights? Well, if you're really interested, I TOTALLY recommend that you do yourself a big favor and just read this wonderful work for yourself. It's one thing to get a simple digest and it's another thing to get the step-by-step logical ascension for yourself.
Natural selection has been an idea that has been around longer than Darwin, but Darwin took the idea a bit farther and he gave us the strong idea that it is both universal and reproducible from a simple beginning. There are not a pre-formed plethora of species. We have what we have from the natural progression of optimization, die-offs, and improvements based on variation. The fact that plants, insects, and animals all predate on one another is not nearly as interesting as the fact that they also learn to COOPERATE.
It is the most interesting aspect to see emergent intelligence arise from evolution. And make no mistake, the intelligence is everywhere in nature. It is not limited to us. :)
I suspect that anyone who poo-poos Darwin does it without having read him. There's really nothing contentious about the text. He just applies observation and realism to what he sees all around us.
Of course, anyone can quote scripture to further their own ends, right?
July 19, 2017
Introduction
Note on the Text
Preface
Postscript
--Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World, 1832-36
An Historical Sketch
Author's Introduction
--On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
Glossary
Index to 'The Voyage of the Beagle'
Index to 'The Origin of Species'
Note on the Text
Preface
Postscript
--Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World, 1832-36
An Historical Sketch
Author's Introduction
--On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
Glossary
Index to 'The Voyage of the Beagle'
Index to 'The Origin of Species'
July 19, 2017
Essential reading for anyone seeking the truth.
March 3, 2022
Firstly - what a challenging read. Although Darwin is engaging and well-spoken, this is such a difficult book to follow for a bunch of reasons. In The Voyage of the Beagle, it's the frequent divergences into topics that are less than thrilling, like the dense sections on strata or snails. In Origin of Species, it's just the logically complexity. The basics are explained in quite a simple way in every chapter, but the endless thoroughness of this book is increasingly daunting as you go on. It's a real slog to grasp the nuance of what he's describing - especially as this is all written in a vastly different scientific context to today and a commensurately different audience.
Otherwise, this is without a doubt one of the best books (two books?) that I've ever read. There are countless instances where you are utterly struck by how foundational and revolutionary a book it is - and I'd compare those moments to the emotional pay-off you get at the end of a particularly good work of fiction. If anything these are more telling in Voyage of the Beagle, written decades earlier, as you see him begin to form the basics of evolutionary theory. The Origin of Species is, as I said, marked more by the thoroughness with which he presses his case.
Lastly, something that shines through in both books is a sense of how likeable he is. In Origin of Species, it's the humility and seriousness with which he treats opposing views. In Voyage of the Beagle this is also quite evident, and he generally comes across as deeply empathetic. In spite of one hilariously murdered fox, I'd get a beer with Darwin.
Obviously recommended if you're in any way interested in ecology or natural history.
Otherwise, this is without a doubt one of the best books (two books?) that I've ever read. There are countless instances where you are utterly struck by how foundational and revolutionary a book it is - and I'd compare those moments to the emotional pay-off you get at the end of a particularly good work of fiction. If anything these are more telling in Voyage of the Beagle, written decades earlier, as you see him begin to form the basics of evolutionary theory. The Origin of Species is, as I said, marked more by the thoroughness with which he presses his case.
Lastly, something that shines through in both books is a sense of how likeable he is. In Origin of Species, it's the humility and seriousness with which he treats opposing views. In Voyage of the Beagle this is also quite evident, and he generally comes across as deeply empathetic. In spite of one hilariously murdered fox, I'd get a beer with Darwin.
Obviously recommended if you're in any way interested in ecology or natural history.
June 20, 2020
I am a firm believer that those who profess to actually believe or think something should be aware of the primary source material for those notions. While I have read many modern summaries of evolution and the current competing theories of evolution, it has been a while since I endeavored to read the whole thing from the man himself, beginning with the naturalist tour of the Voyage of the Beagle and proceeding to The Origin of Species. This elegant volume from Everyman's Library combines the two along with a wonderful introduction from Richard Dawkins.
The explanatory power of this original theory cannot be overstated and the fact that this was accomplished with the tools and technology of the mid 19th century (no genetics, DNA, and a barren fossil record) is all the more impressive. This achievement is borne out even further by the predictions made in the 1850's that have been verified with the latest technology and techniques of the 21st century.
Also, the structure of the work is quite admirable in and of itself. Beginning by acknowledging all of the contributing scholars that had a hand in the theory or very similar competing theories, the work examines and also concludes with examinations of the most potent objections to the theory. This intellectual honesty of giving air to the very concepts that could seriously compete with your theory is a trait I wish were more common in general discourse, on anything.
There are the classic sections that have been used by dishonest, anti-intellectual, and anti-science preachers such as this excerpt from the aptly titled chapter - Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication:
"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."
What? Darwin himself admitting his theory can't explain what it purports to explain? No. If only those very people decided not to use the snippet they found on the fake science website that publishes only what their troglodyte audience wishes to hear or merely trusting the word of someone claiming to be well-versed on the subject but who also has decided it not important at all to that attribute to actually read the material, and decided to read THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE:
"Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real."
And then there are the moments of great poetic beauty that have inspired so many to pursue study in this area, perhaps best encapsulated in his closing remarks:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed 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."
The trite remark and casuistry that this is, "just a theory," made exclusively by people who have no understanding of what a scientific theory is (let alone the generations of confirmation of this original theory), would be well served by reading the very thing with which they presume to disagree. Required reading and this is probably the finest edition with which to experience both works.
The explanatory power of this original theory cannot be overstated and the fact that this was accomplished with the tools and technology of the mid 19th century (no genetics, DNA, and a barren fossil record) is all the more impressive. This achievement is borne out even further by the predictions made in the 1850's that have been verified with the latest technology and techniques of the 21st century.
Also, the structure of the work is quite admirable in and of itself. Beginning by acknowledging all of the contributing scholars that had a hand in the theory or very similar competing theories, the work examines and also concludes with examinations of the most potent objections to the theory. This intellectual honesty of giving air to the very concepts that could seriously compete with your theory is a trait I wish were more common in general discourse, on anything.
There are the classic sections that have been used by dishonest, anti-intellectual, and anti-science preachers such as this excerpt from the aptly titled chapter - Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication:
"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."
What? Darwin himself admitting his theory can't explain what it purports to explain? No. If only those very people decided not to use the snippet they found on the fake science website that publishes only what their troglodyte audience wishes to hear or merely trusting the word of someone claiming to be well-versed on the subject but who also has decided it not important at all to that attribute to actually read the material, and decided to read THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE:
"Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real."
And then there are the moments of great poetic beauty that have inspired so many to pursue study in this area, perhaps best encapsulated in his closing remarks:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed 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."
The trite remark and casuistry that this is, "just a theory," made exclusively by people who have no understanding of what a scientific theory is (let alone the generations of confirmation of this original theory), would be well served by reading the very thing with which they presume to disagree. Required reading and this is probably the finest edition with which to experience both works.
November 28, 2009
This is an excellent volume. Two of Charles Darwin's major works are included: "The Voyage of the Beagle" and "The Origin of Species." There is a well written and sprightly introduction by evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins. One additional good feature is a Chronology, beginning on page xxxiv.
Dawkins sets the stage with his 20+ page introduction. He speaks eloquently of the importance of Darwin's work, and the profound nature of his theoretical perspective on evolution. He places Darwin's work in an historical context, in which we see other theorists before Darwin working on how to explain change in animal species. He concludes with the strong statement that (Page xxix): "[Darwin:] also gave us by far the most plausible theory for how evolution has taken place, the theory of natural selection."
Darwin's "The Voyage of the Beagle" provides a view of his trip, as the resident naturalist, on the ship Beagle, during which time (left England in 1831 and returned in 1836) he made myriad observations that helped him work through his theory of evolution. As he notes elsewhere (page 537), the facts that he observed on this voyage "seemed to me to throw new light on the origin of species. . . ." Upon reflection, he felt that this voyage had been a wonderful developmental experience in his life. He observes (Page 516): "In conclusion, it appears to me that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries. It both sharpens, and partly allays that want and craving, which. . .a man experiences although every corporeal sense be fully satisfied."
There follows his chef d'ouevre, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection." The chapter headings are key for understanding the logic of evolution, with natural selection as a key force in explaining change in species, among which chapters are "Variation under Nature," "Struggle for Existence," "Natural Selection," "On the Imperfection of the Fossil Record," and "On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings." A brief quotation at the end of this book encapsulates the basic logic (Page 913):
"These laws [of nature:]. . .being Growth with Reproduction: Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the direct and indirect action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms."
Such a straightforward logic: inheritance of characteristics from generation to generation; variability in characteristics within a species; more individuals born than the carrying capacity of the land can provide for; selection of those individuals' whose characteristic best facilitate survival and subsequent reproduction. Darwin surely had errors and problems in this work. Nonetheless, it remains one of the most important scientific contributions of the last millennium.
His theory has stood up well over time; one major problem, the explanation for the transmission of characteristics from generation to generation, was solved independently by the developing understanding of genetics. When natural selection and genetics were wed in the "synthetic theory of evolution," associated with thinkers like Mayr and others, Darwin's theory reached its culmination.
Dawkins sets the stage with his 20+ page introduction. He speaks eloquently of the importance of Darwin's work, and the profound nature of his theoretical perspective on evolution. He places Darwin's work in an historical context, in which we see other theorists before Darwin working on how to explain change in animal species. He concludes with the strong statement that (Page xxix): "[Darwin:] also gave us by far the most plausible theory for how evolution has taken place, the theory of natural selection."
Darwin's "The Voyage of the Beagle" provides a view of his trip, as the resident naturalist, on the ship Beagle, during which time (left England in 1831 and returned in 1836) he made myriad observations that helped him work through his theory of evolution. As he notes elsewhere (page 537), the facts that he observed on this voyage "seemed to me to throw new light on the origin of species. . . ." Upon reflection, he felt that this voyage had been a wonderful developmental experience in his life. He observes (Page 516): "In conclusion, it appears to me that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries. It both sharpens, and partly allays that want and craving, which. . .a man experiences although every corporeal sense be fully satisfied."
There follows his chef d'ouevre, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection." The chapter headings are key for understanding the logic of evolution, with natural selection as a key force in explaining change in species, among which chapters are "Variation under Nature," "Struggle for Existence," "Natural Selection," "On the Imperfection of the Fossil Record," and "On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings." A brief quotation at the end of this book encapsulates the basic logic (Page 913):
"These laws [of nature:]. . .being Growth with Reproduction: Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the direct and indirect action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms."
Such a straightforward logic: inheritance of characteristics from generation to generation; variability in characteristics within a species; more individuals born than the carrying capacity of the land can provide for; selection of those individuals' whose characteristic best facilitate survival and subsequent reproduction. Darwin surely had errors and problems in this work. Nonetheless, it remains one of the most important scientific contributions of the last millennium.
His theory has stood up well over time; one major problem, the explanation for the transmission of characteristics from generation to generation, was solved independently by the developing understanding of genetics. When natural selection and genetics were wed in the "synthetic theory of evolution," associated with thinkers like Mayr and others, Darwin's theory reached its culmination.
November 25, 2018
For openers: it's not survival of the fittest, but rather struggle for existence.
With a ranking of #4 in the 1999 Biography's 100 Most Influential People of the Millennium and with that ranking resulting directly from this book, I almost felt compelled to give it five stars before opening the front cover--of my Kindle. But as I started to read, I knew at once it was worthy of the praise. Of course I was familiar with the theory. But the book itself is the distillation of years of careful research, observation, and thought. It is a work of scholarship. Darwin develops the case for natural selection gradually and much of his evidence comes not from the Galapagos but from his surrounding English countryside or in some cases from right outside his front door. He reasons that if man can artificially select certain traits in cattle or dogs, cannot nature, with its much larger variety and the multiplier of time, bring about a superior natural selection? In his book Darwin details his careful consultations with other leading plant and animal specialists and always gives them both credit and thanks for any influence he has received from their work. He methodically develops his ideas, not with a bravado or disregard from for other theories, but rather by a synthesis based on observation and fact. In the end, we are led to this question: what else, based on fact, record, and observation, can explain the world around us?
As 2018 winds down I hope to read more classics next year, as this one has served to show how they earned that praise.
With a ranking of #4 in the 1999 Biography's 100 Most Influential People of the Millennium and with that ranking resulting directly from this book, I almost felt compelled to give it five stars before opening the front cover--of my Kindle. But as I started to read, I knew at once it was worthy of the praise. Of course I was familiar with the theory. But the book itself is the distillation of years of careful research, observation, and thought. It is a work of scholarship. Darwin develops the case for natural selection gradually and much of his evidence comes not from the Galapagos but from his surrounding English countryside or in some cases from right outside his front door. He reasons that if man can artificially select certain traits in cattle or dogs, cannot nature, with its much larger variety and the multiplier of time, bring about a superior natural selection? In his book Darwin details his careful consultations with other leading plant and animal specialists and always gives them both credit and thanks for any influence he has received from their work. He methodically develops his ideas, not with a bravado or disregard from for other theories, but rather by a synthesis based on observation and fact. In the end, we are led to this question: what else, based on fact, record, and observation, can explain the world around us?
As 2018 winds down I hope to read more classics next year, as this one has served to show how they earned that praise.
September 2, 2023
Better than a double-binding, we’re veering into diptych territory. The Beagle and The Origin talk to one another as an answer talks to a question. Throughout The Beagle, in its many digressions and discussions, we become aware of a negative space. In Darwin’s several observations he becomes aware of a skein of connexion, but he must stop short of identifying it. There is a mystery hovering just slightly overhead. Of the distribution of animals, of their similarity, of their differences. One can see the seams of the Old Order falling into desuetude, and yet nothing in the way of a replacement. Just so many ideas wafted about one another. I am unsure there has ever been a work that so confidently misses the thesis so confidently stated some decades later; it is artistic in the way that it carves out a void that would, unbeknownst to Darwin, later be so totally defined. The Galapagos become the natural climax, in which the many loose ideas suddenly come to fiery prominence, and with some appeal to the dramatic arts. Darwin, having left the islands, is made aware that each possesses species or variants unique in and of itself. He scrambles to his collected specimens, bemoaning that he had not kept them divided per island, perhaps knowing that in that division would be an answer to the great mystery of his career. But there is always a slab of understatement in Darwin’s writing. He is extraordinarily lucid, and writes a fine prose, but will check himself always. Any loud idea will come with it an orchestra of explanation; his devotion to the scientific method permits no flights of fancy, not even those one might expect in the reports of a now-storied explorer. We are likely the better for his sobriety; the real genius of Darwin’s creativity is that it exists without any hint of fabulism. He shapes his wonders only out of observed truth, and does so with so logical a process that one feels each of his proofs to be self-evident (even those later to be disproved). His most impressive sally in The Beagle is likely his decision, in the midst of everything else, to explain and define the formation of coral atolls. Dissatisfied with prevailing explanations of his day, Darwin – with deceptive simplicity – finds a more convincing hypothesis. One that has survived since. It is his manner of telling it, in which the travelogue suddenly morphs into a scientific proof, and then morphs back, without any sense of strain in his arranged prose. The journey and the science become as one: the first indicates the second; the evidence becomes the argument. There are features of Darwin’s writing that are less ordered. His political or anthropological leanings are often undeveloped or naïve; the notion of an English supremacy is obvious, but that he acknowledges no real exploitation other than slavery (and that he fails to appreciate its equivalents) is as much a failing of his individual as it is his age. The chapters after the Galapagos (and before the coral revelations) suffer most in this respect. It appears in this part of his journey that Darwin was either louche or disinterested; suddenly his natural history becomes scarce and meagre, whereas his colonial commentary takes on a primary (and superficial) position. As though the man, in this late stage of his journey, had quite lost the vigour that pressed him up mountains in the Andes. Perhaps a more emotive writer would have confessed some measure of personal difference in the parts of his journey; save for aesthetic disappointments Darwin is not of this character. He must sublimate himself under the aegis of scientific inquiry. If he is not to talk of one such investigation, he must replace it with another.
The Origin is by definition a very different work, though one that fulfils its predecessor neatly. These many loose strands are brought together in a work of culmination; that the entire universe might be reversed in the lines of a single work might imply some kind of Miltonic gravity but in Darwin we are always comforted by a taming of the dramatic spirit. In overturning the natural order he does so only with a series of proofs that must, by his reasoning, make themselves self-evident. His argument is based as much on a preponderance of evidence as on the insinuation that without this process – that of natural selection – so much one observes in the world becomes less sensical. He poses an argument in the way of a vice; to escape it one must not merely disprove his positive notions, but defend against those many negative in their train. The weakness of natural selection is, nonetheless, that with one serious exception the entire enterprise must fail. Darwin must defend evolution in this manner as a system, and it is by system that he creates his most compelling arguments. By this same approach we also encounter his most compelling errors. For instance, he fails to observe the potential of mass extinction events, on the logic that such events would be unnecessary in the vast cast of time. All things, in so many thousand generations, may change. The system provides the simplest explanation. But we have since found that such extinction events have taken place; Darwin’s appeal to a system that would be self-sufficient cannot – in the form he argues it – permit for an explanation that might (in this instance) overwrite its self-sufficiency. The most obvious deficiency aside from this strain of overconfidence is that of genetic ignorance; if The Beagle makes perfect primer for the theory of natural selection, then the theory of natural selection makes perfect primer for a theory of genetic inheritance. Darwin’s glosses on heredity are slim and he finds little justification for the process of inheritance. He may speculate on something shifting in the genitals under certain conditions, that – by dint of the shift – produce offspring in small ways different from their parents. And he can appreciate that certain offspring may produce characteristics often many generations separate from their own sires. But even in the self-contained logic of Victorian science, it appears Darwin only provides a hypothetical mechanism for an objective outcome; which is to say, he must give some answer for what must cause that thing that, as observed, is being caused. As such Darwin must miss some fragment of the beauty of his idea. The influence of the random; that in error (if we are to call it error) the most perfect consonance can be achieved. The metaphors tower above me. But it is that, in the underscore of Darwin’s work, that provides it such gleaming posture. In his empirical way, Darwin – Wallace, et al. – have reordered the presumption of descent. Whether the first being be caused or uncaused, by some finer creature, we must do away with the fall. That we were once greater than now; that a golden age was won and lost. It becomes instead a story of escalation. Of things microbial growing outward from themselves; of all the most complex, most fascinating lifeforms emanating outward from some simple source. We find a new formula, not of derivation from Platonic absolutes, but of development, of evolution, toward some yet-unknown country. We are not at an end, nor are we collapsed from a set beginning, but in the midst of a wheel of time so grand, and so absolute, that we are cloaked in a new ignorance. We cannot know the final destiny of life in a system that does not represent humanity as its absolute; nor can we conceive of the scale of a living universe in which time is no longer measured in the scale of one, or one hundred, or one thousand generations, but in figures so magnificent that their very conception boggles the mind. We look toward coasts and cliffsides, cut upon by hapless ocean. The great rock will always triumph, to the human eye. But we know that all the gashes, all the recesses, were made by that same wave upon that same edge. Darwin, and those who prepared the frame of geological time, has not merely proposed an alternative for the development of life, but for the scale of existence. Humanity is, in every way, minisculed. But the grandeur of the universe grows yet greater; the scope of the future longer; the mystery and connectedness of all beings becomes at once harmonious. We are not arbitrary, or abstract in our similar composition, but all of us deriving from parallel, and diverging lines; we are all couched in global systems of ancient heritage; we are all in constant flux and constant adaptation; every living thing becomes a cousin, or a branch, in the greatest tree ever grown. Darwin’s rigour, his absolutely scientific mind, cannot put out the searing beauty implied by this idea. It is so total, so conquering, and in its midst so moving. It is a trope of spiritualists to see all life as joined by some metaphysical string; a connexion that brings together all breathing things. Darwin makes this a redundancy. He argues by empiricism alone that all things are united in their origins, that all things are as one flesh divided, and multiplying. It is only in his final paragraph that Darwin ever thinks to indulge in the artistry of his revelation. And only in the page before last that he implicates, so very briefly, the fate of man. A canny trick – to allow those who would shut the book at any such implication to have read the whole thing by that time. By then, as Darwin knows, it is too late; the idea is planted.
The Origin is by definition a very different work, though one that fulfils its predecessor neatly. These many loose strands are brought together in a work of culmination; that the entire universe might be reversed in the lines of a single work might imply some kind of Miltonic gravity but in Darwin we are always comforted by a taming of the dramatic spirit. In overturning the natural order he does so only with a series of proofs that must, by his reasoning, make themselves self-evident. His argument is based as much on a preponderance of evidence as on the insinuation that without this process – that of natural selection – so much one observes in the world becomes less sensical. He poses an argument in the way of a vice; to escape it one must not merely disprove his positive notions, but defend against those many negative in their train. The weakness of natural selection is, nonetheless, that with one serious exception the entire enterprise must fail. Darwin must defend evolution in this manner as a system, and it is by system that he creates his most compelling arguments. By this same approach we also encounter his most compelling errors. For instance, he fails to observe the potential of mass extinction events, on the logic that such events would be unnecessary in the vast cast of time. All things, in so many thousand generations, may change. The system provides the simplest explanation. But we have since found that such extinction events have taken place; Darwin’s appeal to a system that would be self-sufficient cannot – in the form he argues it – permit for an explanation that might (in this instance) overwrite its self-sufficiency. The most obvious deficiency aside from this strain of overconfidence is that of genetic ignorance; if The Beagle makes perfect primer for the theory of natural selection, then the theory of natural selection makes perfect primer for a theory of genetic inheritance. Darwin’s glosses on heredity are slim and he finds little justification for the process of inheritance. He may speculate on something shifting in the genitals under certain conditions, that – by dint of the shift – produce offspring in small ways different from their parents. And he can appreciate that certain offspring may produce characteristics often many generations separate from their own sires. But even in the self-contained logic of Victorian science, it appears Darwin only provides a hypothetical mechanism for an objective outcome; which is to say, he must give some answer for what must cause that thing that, as observed, is being caused. As such Darwin must miss some fragment of the beauty of his idea. The influence of the random; that in error (if we are to call it error) the most perfect consonance can be achieved. The metaphors tower above me. But it is that, in the underscore of Darwin’s work, that provides it such gleaming posture. In his empirical way, Darwin – Wallace, et al. – have reordered the presumption of descent. Whether the first being be caused or uncaused, by some finer creature, we must do away with the fall. That we were once greater than now; that a golden age was won and lost. It becomes instead a story of escalation. Of things microbial growing outward from themselves; of all the most complex, most fascinating lifeforms emanating outward from some simple source. We find a new formula, not of derivation from Platonic absolutes, but of development, of evolution, toward some yet-unknown country. We are not at an end, nor are we collapsed from a set beginning, but in the midst of a wheel of time so grand, and so absolute, that we are cloaked in a new ignorance. We cannot know the final destiny of life in a system that does not represent humanity as its absolute; nor can we conceive of the scale of a living universe in which time is no longer measured in the scale of one, or one hundred, or one thousand generations, but in figures so magnificent that their very conception boggles the mind. We look toward coasts and cliffsides, cut upon by hapless ocean. The great rock will always triumph, to the human eye. But we know that all the gashes, all the recesses, were made by that same wave upon that same edge. Darwin, and those who prepared the frame of geological time, has not merely proposed an alternative for the development of life, but for the scale of existence. Humanity is, in every way, minisculed. But the grandeur of the universe grows yet greater; the scope of the future longer; the mystery and connectedness of all beings becomes at once harmonious. We are not arbitrary, or abstract in our similar composition, but all of us deriving from parallel, and diverging lines; we are all couched in global systems of ancient heritage; we are all in constant flux and constant adaptation; every living thing becomes a cousin, or a branch, in the greatest tree ever grown. Darwin’s rigour, his absolutely scientific mind, cannot put out the searing beauty implied by this idea. It is so total, so conquering, and in its midst so moving. It is a trope of spiritualists to see all life as joined by some metaphysical string; a connexion that brings together all breathing things. Darwin makes this a redundancy. He argues by empiricism alone that all things are united in their origins, that all things are as one flesh divided, and multiplying. It is only in his final paragraph that Darwin ever thinks to indulge in the artistry of his revelation. And only in the page before last that he implicates, so very briefly, the fate of man. A canny trick – to allow those who would shut the book at any such implication to have read the whole thing by that time. By then, as Darwin knows, it is too late; the idea is planted.
September 16, 2012
It was written in 1800's, first part was the voyage of the Beagle (the ship's name) where he went sailing round the world in. From Europe to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Galapagos, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, Keeling island near Sumatera, Mauritius, back to Brazil and finally reached home of England after 5 long years of journey. In each place, he would venture into the inlands by by foot or horses, climbing and hiking the hills and mountains, crossing the Andes range, experienced one of the largest earthquake and seeing the disaster of tsunami, staying with the cannibals, observing the cultures, while examining the rock, plants, insects, animals, etc.
Second part is his famous "Origin of Species". Wow ! Definitely a very heavy stuff. I keep goin wow ! Crazy ! Incredible ! How can he wrote-out so perfect statements and how he covered all his arguments, but yet his style was so graceful and in fact deeply immensed in so humbled humility.
I'm still crawling page by page, actually sentence by sentence and to top 20 pages per day is closed to impossible. I can't help but to keep pausing to allow each statements absorbing through the thick skull of mine before reaching into my brain.
Fortunately, I have read a few easier books on evolution and natural earth before going for this one. Otherwise, I would have been experiencing rigor mortis, freezing stupor unable to move on my chair nor progressing to the next word anymore.
Second part is his famous "Origin of Species". Wow ! Definitely a very heavy stuff. I keep goin wow ! Crazy ! Incredible ! How can he wrote-out so perfect statements and how he covered all his arguments, but yet his style was so graceful and in fact deeply immensed in so humbled humility.
I'm still crawling page by page, actually sentence by sentence and to top 20 pages per day is closed to impossible. I can't help but to keep pausing to allow each statements absorbing through the thick skull of mine before reaching into my brain.
Fortunately, I have read a few easier books on evolution and natural earth before going for this one. Otherwise, I would have been experiencing rigor mortis, freezing stupor unable to move on my chair nor progressing to the next word anymore.
June 26, 2012
Darwin is the Homer of our actual occidental civilization because we generally hear an over simplification made in the mediocre journalistic spirit of our time.
If you read Darwin for real, you will see that he was a rigorous scientist that has nothing to do with a mythologist of evolution. For him, evolution is not the true ontological story of the world, but a theory describing changes that we can experiment in biology. Evolution does not explain any origin and can not be use to predict anything. It has also to be complemented with other principles. More than that, “The Origin of Species” is, in fact, explicitly, leaving the “origin” to a rational supra-being (which means, in our modern jargon, that Darwin is, also, a “creationist”) and considers their “evolution” only, as a part of an intelligent design of the world, so it would have better been named “The Evolution of Species” if he had not to struggle against the “immuabilists” of his time.
As for the Voyage…, it is the best of what you can get out of a British scientist who is reporting lots of biological novelties for his time and who is seeing the superiority of his nation everywhere he is travelling.
If you read Darwin for real, you will see that he was a rigorous scientist that has nothing to do with a mythologist of evolution. For him, evolution is not the true ontological story of the world, but a theory describing changes that we can experiment in biology. Evolution does not explain any origin and can not be use to predict anything. It has also to be complemented with other principles. More than that, “The Origin of Species” is, in fact, explicitly, leaving the “origin” to a rational supra-being (which means, in our modern jargon, that Darwin is, also, a “creationist”) and considers their “evolution” only, as a part of an intelligent design of the world, so it would have better been named “The Evolution of Species” if he had not to struggle against the “immuabilists” of his time.
As for the Voyage…, it is the best of what you can get out of a British scientist who is reporting lots of biological novelties for his time and who is seeing the superiority of his nation everywhere he is travelling.
Want to read
February 3, 2016I love that he is so animated about his work, but wow, this is extremely detailed. However, I love that the man revered for such amazing connections is also just a guy complaining about his hotel accommodations!
I had to abandon this. Too much flowery language for me.
I had to abandon this. Too much flowery language for me.
Want to read
April 17, 2012I'm taking a loooooong time reading this, but it is very interesting and I look forward to being able to say "Oh yeah, I've read The Origin of Species" and look all intelligent.
May 20, 2008
Obviously a landmark in biology, and obviously pretty dry.
October 17, 2022
This is a long work (or more accurately, two long works). Yet, the amount of detail in it is tremendous. If each one of us were even a fraction as observant as Darwin, science would make progress in leaps and bounds. And yet I know most people don't even bother to reach such tremendous works but instead choose to sadly waste their lives with fantasy and other shitrature.
The most stunning thing to me is how systematic Darwin is. He accounts for every possibility. He identifies, documents, and explains every outlier and every counter argument to his theory of descent with modification through natural selection. His experiments with germination and the impact of saltwater etc. are so systematic and insightful.
The mental genius of Darwin is also evident from these works. He anticipates entire theories of geology which have not yet been discovered or described. And he makes such minute observations, as how animals gather their dead in one place, how the geological record is incomplete and why, etc. Reading Darwin, one is enlightened about a variety of subjects, many that one did not even know they didn't know. Like, when I started reading this, I was basically expecting it to be a boring work that I knew the whole of from having learned all that from science classes - I couldn't have been more wrong.
It is also marvelous how, before the several breakthroughs in geology, genetics, biology, even the entire world of microbes and reasons for diseases, Darwin came to his theory, with such intricate explanation of every aspect of it.
Therefore, on the whole I think this work is one of the best that I've ever read, and something every educated person in this world must read!
The most stunning thing to me is how systematic Darwin is. He accounts for every possibility. He identifies, documents, and explains every outlier and every counter argument to his theory of descent with modification through natural selection. His experiments with germination and the impact of saltwater etc. are so systematic and insightful.
The mental genius of Darwin is also evident from these works. He anticipates entire theories of geology which have not yet been discovered or described. And he makes such minute observations, as how animals gather their dead in one place, how the geological record is incomplete and why, etc. Reading Darwin, one is enlightened about a variety of subjects, many that one did not even know they didn't know. Like, when I started reading this, I was basically expecting it to be a boring work that I knew the whole of from having learned all that from science classes - I couldn't have been more wrong.
It is also marvelous how, before the several breakthroughs in geology, genetics, biology, even the entire world of microbes and reasons for diseases, Darwin came to his theory, with such intricate explanation of every aspect of it.
Therefore, on the whole I think this work is one of the best that I've ever read, and something every educated person in this world must read!
August 26, 2018
Right at outset I was skeptical about reading about science that may be a couple of hundred years out of date. The feeling you get when reading Newtonian Physics. Often coming across propositions that have subsequently been famously refuted. Nonetheless, this remains a phenomenal read if only for the step by step building of a case. Gathering vast reams of evidence from the observations of the time, Darwin presently the case, that cannot be revolutionary enough. The excitement at times is palpable as you realize how breaking with the norm this is at the time, while still building up on the shoulders of colleagues. This is a tome on the scientific method. This should be required reading for anyone learning science! Another fascinating aspect was learning about the views on flora and fauna at the time - the world was an exciting place then, as it renews the fact the universe is an exciting place now. If and when alien life is discovered, how fascinating will it be to learn about it's evolution. If intelligent, how fascinating will be to learn about how they came to learn about science, how did their Darwin come to this conjecture!
January 8, 2021
This has been a difficult book to read. Good, and interesting, but difficult.
Bear in mind the time that this was written. The English that we use now is different in parts, and we definitely have a different view on the world.
It is very informative, and you can tell that a lot of people would have been stunned at the time, and still are by his discoveries.
I mostly found this difficult to read, as the chapters were 30+ pages long, and it took me between half an hour and an hour to read a chapter. I also kept having to look up the meaning of words, and after finishing the book, found the glossary at the end.
I also recommend having a map for The Voyage of The Beagle, as many places have been renamed since the book was written.
Bear in mind the time that this was written. The English that we use now is different in parts, and we definitely have a different view on the world.
It is very informative, and you can tell that a lot of people would have been stunned at the time, and still are by his discoveries.
I mostly found this difficult to read, as the chapters were 30+ pages long, and it took me between half an hour and an hour to read a chapter. I also kept having to look up the meaning of words, and after finishing the book, found the glossary at the end.
I also recommend having a map for The Voyage of The Beagle, as many places have been renamed since the book was written.
June 3, 2018
I enjoyed the Voyage of the Beagle - it was an entertaining read. I found Origin of Species to be a bit of a slog. Darwin often repeats himself, which I found very irritating (especially as he often goes on about how little space he has to fully explain his theory). He refers to Origin as an 'abstract', which should give you an idea of how tedious it can be.
It took me 5 years to finish Origin, since I saved it for the times when I had insomnia. Origin managed to put me to sleep when nothing else could.
It took me 5 years to finish Origin, since I saved it for the times when I had insomnia. Origin managed to put me to sleep when nothing else could.
September 27, 2023
A 5 for Voyage of the Beagle and a 3 for Origin of Species, bringing us to a nice even 4. Voyage was a much easier read, a nice little travelog with an insight to the animals and cultures of the time interspersed with woodcuts and sketches; at times surreal to hear him speaking of creatures only recently extinct. Origin was a very dense read, very dry, but I have an immense respect and appreciation for the fact that a 400-page thesis is finely distilled into a 50-page chapter in every modern university-level biology textbook. RIP to Darwin you would've loved modern systematics
May 6, 2019
Reading these works was an experience of intense concentration but great reward. No wonder he is an immortal giant. And he manages to explain complex scientific matters in terms accessible to the lay reader. It frequently led me during Origin of Species to wonder how many of the hordes of people who reject the theory of evolution and proclaim the creation theory, under whatever name happens to be fashionable at any time, have actually read the book.
September 3, 2022
I must confess that I could not read the entire book, but I did read the sections about Darwin's journey through the Galapagos Islands and a few other sections that were relevant to my own trip to the Galapagos. I found those sections really interesting, but the rest of the book was not what I was looking for.
October 4, 2022
Two brilliant works on natural science and evolution. Voyage is a much more widely accessible read, written before Darwin became the famous champion for the theory of evolution and natural selection. However, Origin of Species is surprisingly enjoyable too, whatever your stance may be on his propositions.
October 15, 2017
Only read Voyage of the Beagle (though in the time it took me to read it normally I could read at least two books) but on here because this was the version I read it. Pretty boring I hate to say, but still 2 stars because like I didn't hate it, it was just kind of a struggle to read.
March 5, 2018
From a single cell, a flower,a rat, to a human, from ocean to land, life's varity and wonderful is all in this book, Charles Darwin shows us a secret world of biology evolution. animals and plants adapt their environments. This book tells us if you don't run, you will be thrown in the back.
October 19, 2021
An amazing book, that describes the journey of discover in a detailed way, a great observation into how we became what we are.
October 15, 2022
The combo of two important books made this a good purchase.
April 22, 2024
Probably really wise book, idk hard to read
March 2, 2013
Review (of The Voyage of the Beagle only) originally published on my blog here in February 2007.
The eighteenth and nineteenth century saw many voyages of exploration by Europeans, most of which would have been followed by reports and books, ancestors of today's travel memoirs. Most of these voyages have now been forgotten, even the names they gave many places being swept away in our post-colonial world. The books produced are even more forgotten in general: the sort of books you sometimes see in the libraries of English stately homes, and maybe read by academics with related interests. The exception is of course this one (and this does not include the companion volumes with which it was originally published). Its survival is not so much due to its literary qualities, though it is eminently readable, but because of the use Darwin later made of this material; the obvservations made on this voyage, especially on the Galapagos islands, form an important part of the foundations of one of the most famous books of all time, The Origin of Species (also included in this Everyman edition).
The voyage began in December 1831, reaching the Galapagos in September 1835 after spending several years surveying the waters around South America (the principal purpose of the voyage), returning to England a year later; a lengthy circumnavigation of the globe. When the Beagle departed, Darwin was only 22. Without a reputation to uphold, or an academic post which would have made it politic to peddle old orthodoxies, he was a modern, up to date naturalist, surely better able to make use of his observations (and the attention to detail with which he observed should be the envy of many scientists to this day) than a more eminent older man, who would, moreover, have probably been reluctant to spend so many years away from European scientific culture. Darwin was a follower of Lyell, whose Principles of Geology, which had the same sort of revolutionary effect on that science that the principle of natural selection was to have on biology, had started appearing in 1830, the year before the Beagle set sail; he was given a copy of volume one by the Beagle's captain. Lyell attributed the character of the most world's rock formations to forces acting over lengthy period of time rather than to a series of catastrophes in the much more recent past. (Indeed, his book should be at least as stringly anathematised by Creationists as Darwin's own ideas.) Darwin was one of the first scientific observers to take part in such an expedition who was able to bear Lyell's ideas in mind, and he describes how they informed his observations at several places in The Voyage of the Beagle, and a long geological history is essential to the principles of Darwinian evolution. It is clear, too, that the ideas which became known as natural selection were in the air (the introduction to the Origin of Species lists quite a number of precursors) and early thoughts about this, as well as rival theories like Lamarck's, may well have influenced the way that Darwin looked at the plants and animals he saw on the voyage.
The Voyage of the Beagle is not all about the natural world. There are interesting observations on the ways in which people lived in the countries he visited, particularly on the gauchos of Argentina, and a lot of material about the effects of colonisation on native peoples and the institution of slavery. On both these issues Darwin had quite modern views.
In terms of style, Darwin is a clear and writer with fascinating information to impart, though perhaps not as good (and certainly not as amusing) as Gerald Durrell, who must be the current bestselling author of natural history travel books.
In the end, though, the principal interest of The Voyage of the Beagle is its formative role in Darwin's later thought, and this makes it completely unique.
It should be noted that the text here is the second, 1845, edition. There is an interesting foreword to the Everyman edition from Richard Dawkins, which (somewhat predictably, but with a certain amount of justification) he claims evolution to be the greatest scientific idea of all time.
The eighteenth and nineteenth century saw many voyages of exploration by Europeans, most of which would have been followed by reports and books, ancestors of today's travel memoirs. Most of these voyages have now been forgotten, even the names they gave many places being swept away in our post-colonial world. The books produced are even more forgotten in general: the sort of books you sometimes see in the libraries of English stately homes, and maybe read by academics with related interests. The exception is of course this one (and this does not include the companion volumes with which it was originally published). Its survival is not so much due to its literary qualities, though it is eminently readable, but because of the use Darwin later made of this material; the obvservations made on this voyage, especially on the Galapagos islands, form an important part of the foundations of one of the most famous books of all time, The Origin of Species (also included in this Everyman edition).
The voyage began in December 1831, reaching the Galapagos in September 1835 after spending several years surveying the waters around South America (the principal purpose of the voyage), returning to England a year later; a lengthy circumnavigation of the globe. When the Beagle departed, Darwin was only 22. Without a reputation to uphold, or an academic post which would have made it politic to peddle old orthodoxies, he was a modern, up to date naturalist, surely better able to make use of his observations (and the attention to detail with which he observed should be the envy of many scientists to this day) than a more eminent older man, who would, moreover, have probably been reluctant to spend so many years away from European scientific culture. Darwin was a follower of Lyell, whose Principles of Geology, which had the same sort of revolutionary effect on that science that the principle of natural selection was to have on biology, had started appearing in 1830, the year before the Beagle set sail; he was given a copy of volume one by the Beagle's captain. Lyell attributed the character of the most world's rock formations to forces acting over lengthy period of time rather than to a series of catastrophes in the much more recent past. (Indeed, his book should be at least as stringly anathematised by Creationists as Darwin's own ideas.) Darwin was one of the first scientific observers to take part in such an expedition who was able to bear Lyell's ideas in mind, and he describes how they informed his observations at several places in The Voyage of the Beagle, and a long geological history is essential to the principles of Darwinian evolution. It is clear, too, that the ideas which became known as natural selection were in the air (the introduction to the Origin of Species lists quite a number of precursors) and early thoughts about this, as well as rival theories like Lamarck's, may well have influenced the way that Darwin looked at the plants and animals he saw on the voyage.
The Voyage of the Beagle is not all about the natural world. There are interesting observations on the ways in which people lived in the countries he visited, particularly on the gauchos of Argentina, and a lot of material about the effects of colonisation on native peoples and the institution of slavery. On both these issues Darwin had quite modern views.
In terms of style, Darwin is a clear and writer with fascinating information to impart, though perhaps not as good (and certainly not as amusing) as Gerald Durrell, who must be the current bestselling author of natural history travel books.
In the end, though, the principal interest of The Voyage of the Beagle is its formative role in Darwin's later thought, and this makes it completely unique.
It should be noted that the text here is the second, 1845, edition. There is an interesting foreword to the Everyman edition from Richard Dawkins, which (somewhat predictably, but with a certain amount of justification) he claims evolution to be the greatest scientific idea of all time.
June 22, 2020
Easily the most influential book published in the nineteenth century, Darwin’s The Origin of Species is also that most unusual phenomenon, an altogether readable discussion of a scientific subject. On its appearance in 1859 it was immediately recognised by enthusiasts and detractors alike as a work of the greatest importance: its revolutionary theory of evolution by means of natural selection provoked a furious reaction that continues to this day.
The Origin of Species is here published together with Darwin’s earlier Voyage of the ‘Beagle.’ This 1839 account of the journeys to South America and the Pacific islands that first put Darwin on the track of his remarkable theories derives an added charm from his vivid description of his travels in exotic places and his eye for the piquant detail.
This book was incredible.
I will admit that this book wasn’t easy to read. I have been slowly making my way through it by reading a few chapters a month. I am glad I chose to do this as I stopped me from getting overwhelmed and giving up.
This is one of those books that I have wanted to read for a long time. I really enjoyed The Voyage Of The Beagle, and I didn’t find it that hard to read. I loved seeing all of the different places that Charles Darwin visited and how he viewed everything he was seeing.
While I found The Origin Of Species harder to read, I really loved seeing how Charles Darwin used what he saw and learned on his journey with the Beagle to come up with the theory of evolution.
I am glad that I finally read this book. It was definitely worth the extra effort.
The Voyage Of The Beagle and The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin are two books everyone should read at least once in their life.
Geramie Kate Barker
gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
The Origin of Species is here published together with Darwin’s earlier Voyage of the ‘Beagle.’ This 1839 account of the journeys to South America and the Pacific islands that first put Darwin on the track of his remarkable theories derives an added charm from his vivid description of his travels in exotic places and his eye for the piquant detail.
This book was incredible.
I will admit that this book wasn’t easy to read. I have been slowly making my way through it by reading a few chapters a month. I am glad I chose to do this as I stopped me from getting overwhelmed and giving up.
This is one of those books that I have wanted to read for a long time. I really enjoyed The Voyage Of The Beagle, and I didn’t find it that hard to read. I loved seeing all of the different places that Charles Darwin visited and how he viewed everything he was seeing.
While I found The Origin Of Species harder to read, I really loved seeing how Charles Darwin used what he saw and learned on his journey with the Beagle to come up with the theory of evolution.
I am glad that I finally read this book. It was definitely worth the extra effort.
The Voyage Of The Beagle and The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin are two books everyone should read at least once in their life.
Geramie Kate Barker
gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
October 12, 2011
Awwww yeah, evolution.
I have to be honest, unless you're a very specific kind of geek (that is, literary and also interested in molecular genetics) this book probably isn't for you. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how not-dry it was. Don't get me wrong, it's 913 pages of an upper-middle class 19th century British man fawning over ant hills formations and geological deposits. But Darwin is surprisingly eloquent, and it doesn't lack a touch of cheeky British humour.
This particular version was actually two of his works- The Voyage of the Beagle (the only time he ever left his village in Britain, I learned in A Brief History of Nearly Everything) is basically his field journal from his five-year voyage around South America; Origin of the Species is obviously the definitive treatise on evolution. Both are interesting, but in completely different ways.
Voyage can get tedious because Darwin gets almost too descriptive- it's only by reminding myself that it was his job to study the slightest minutiae of 56 different beetles he found under the same rock that I can tolerate some of the passages. However, some of his descriptions, generally those of the flora, are really beautiful and illustrative, and remind us that just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you lack imagination or an eye for aesthetics. Also his observations of the local people, despite being mildly (but somehow unoffensively) racist (you just kind of have to remind yourself that he's a 19th century Brit and they literally owned 25% of the world) are interesting.
Origin of course is a fascinating read. Though many people had believed in what he calls the "mutability of the species" for years, Darwin manages to capture the essence of all his predecessors while adding original research to the body of work to provide support for a monumental theory- in short, he basically wrote the best thesis project ever. And even though it is also a little tedious (around 300 pages), it's striking how accurate a picture he got of the way species differentiate without having the concept of a gene (I believe Mendel's work, though completed in the early 1800s, wasn't re-discovered until the 1880s, shortly after this was published) or a germ (Pasteur didn't his work until the early 1900s). His whole premise, which remains remarkably accurate and generally supported (there are details that fall apart, but these are few, and forgiven due to technological restraints), was formed entirely by looking very closely at different animals and their various appendages and forms. It's definitely remarkable and would require a level of determination that I'm not sure I could have.
Conceptually my one critique is that he definitely left the door open for Social Darwinism (a largely debunked social theory that is basically akin to, at best, racism, and at worst, systematic pogroms against people-you-don't-like) by being generally smug and Britishy. There's definitely bias in there, in the sense that he denotes some species (note that Origin of the Species makes almost no mention of human decent, this is all strictly animal and plant species here) are "better" than others. He doesn't often mean it in a subjective sense, what he means is "better adapted," but I can see how the whole history of eugenics spawned from his work. I guess British Imperialism leaves certain biases in the way people think, huh?
Overall, I wouldn't necessarily tell anyone to go out and read this book, but if you ever come across the final chapter and read it, it'll be worth your time. It's basically a summary of all his work, and it alone pretty clearly supports the idea of evolution (note he never uses this word to describe his studies). If nothing else, it'll make you feel really depressed that so many people still hold stock in creationism, when a man in the mid 1800s managed to more or less obliterate such shenanigans.
I have to be honest, unless you're a very specific kind of geek (that is, literary and also interested in molecular genetics) this book probably isn't for you. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how not-dry it was. Don't get me wrong, it's 913 pages of an upper-middle class 19th century British man fawning over ant hills formations and geological deposits. But Darwin is surprisingly eloquent, and it doesn't lack a touch of cheeky British humour.
This particular version was actually two of his works- The Voyage of the Beagle (the only time he ever left his village in Britain, I learned in A Brief History of Nearly Everything) is basically his field journal from his five-year voyage around South America; Origin of the Species is obviously the definitive treatise on evolution. Both are interesting, but in completely different ways.
Voyage can get tedious because Darwin gets almost too descriptive- it's only by reminding myself that it was his job to study the slightest minutiae of 56 different beetles he found under the same rock that I can tolerate some of the passages. However, some of his descriptions, generally those of the flora, are really beautiful and illustrative, and remind us that just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you lack imagination or an eye for aesthetics. Also his observations of the local people, despite being mildly (but somehow unoffensively) racist (you just kind of have to remind yourself that he's a 19th century Brit and they literally owned 25% of the world) are interesting.
Origin of course is a fascinating read. Though many people had believed in what he calls the "mutability of the species" for years, Darwin manages to capture the essence of all his predecessors while adding original research to the body of work to provide support for a monumental theory- in short, he basically wrote the best thesis project ever. And even though it is also a little tedious (around 300 pages), it's striking how accurate a picture he got of the way species differentiate without having the concept of a gene (I believe Mendel's work, though completed in the early 1800s, wasn't re-discovered until the 1880s, shortly after this was published) or a germ (Pasteur didn't his work until the early 1900s). His whole premise, which remains remarkably accurate and generally supported (there are details that fall apart, but these are few, and forgiven due to technological restraints), was formed entirely by looking very closely at different animals and their various appendages and forms. It's definitely remarkable and would require a level of determination that I'm not sure I could have.
Conceptually my one critique is that he definitely left the door open for Social Darwinism (a largely debunked social theory that is basically akin to, at best, racism, and at worst, systematic pogroms against people-you-don't-like) by being generally smug and Britishy. There's definitely bias in there, in the sense that he denotes some species (note that Origin of the Species makes almost no mention of human decent, this is all strictly animal and plant species here) are "better" than others. He doesn't often mean it in a subjective sense, what he means is "better adapted," but I can see how the whole history of eugenics spawned from his work. I guess British Imperialism leaves certain biases in the way people think, huh?
Overall, I wouldn't necessarily tell anyone to go out and read this book, but if you ever come across the final chapter and read it, it'll be worth your time. It's basically a summary of all his work, and it alone pretty clearly supports the idea of evolution (note he never uses this word to describe his studies). If nothing else, it'll make you feel really depressed that so many people still hold stock in creationism, when a man in the mid 1800s managed to more or less obliterate such shenanigans.
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