Quote: the survival of the fittest explains the variety of the animal and vegetable kingdoms

Quotation

Throughout this volume I have endeavoured to show, that the known laws of variation, multiplication, and heredity, resulting in a "struggle for existence" and the "survival of the fittest," have probably sufficed to produce all the varieties of structure, all the wonderful adaptations, all the beauty of form and of colour, that we see in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. ... [p. 333] I believe, however, that there are such limits [to the power of natural selection]; and that just as knowledge would enable us to follow step by step the whole process of that development, so surely can we trace the action of some unknown higher law, beyond and independent of all those laws of which we have any knowledge. ... [The two most important are] the origin of sensation or consciousness, and the development of man from the lower animals.   Google-1   Google-2

public domain

Additional Titles

Quote: natural selection does not explain consciousness and the development of man

Related Topics

Topic: evolutionary systems (38 items)
Topic: consciousness (57 items)