From one piece On the Origin of Species (first edition, 1859) 8 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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There is grandeur in a view of life in which endless beautiful forms evolved from a simple beginningTheir words
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally 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.
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This theory will give psychology a new foundation and throw light on the origin of humansTheir words
In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.
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I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide.
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Natural selection can make no great or sudden change; it acts only by very short, slow stepsTheir words
As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification; it can act only by very short and slow steps.
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The fossil record is a very incomplete history of life, of which only fragments surviveTheir words
For my part, following out Lyell’s metaphor, I look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries.
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A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase.
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Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.
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Species are not fixed: species of the same genus descend from other, mostly extinct, speciesTheir words
I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species.