The Descent of man

Front Cover
D. Appleton and Company, 1871

From inside the book

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 67 - I FULLY subscribe to the judgment of those writers ' who maintain that, of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important.
Page 70 - If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters ; and no one would think of interfering.
Page 34 - The Fuegians rank amongst the lowest barbarians; but I was continually struck with surprise how closely the three natives on board HMS " Beagle," who had lived some years in England, and could talk a little English, resembled us in disposition and in most of our mental faculties.
Page 192 - The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution.
Page 57 - The formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.
Page 166 - This especially holds good with injurious characters which tend to reappear through reversion, such as blackness in sheep; and with mankind some of the worst dispositions, which occasionally without any assignable cause make their appearance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a savage state, from which we are not removed by very many generations.
Page 159 - It is obvious, that the members of the same tribe would approve of conduct which appeared to them to be for the general good, and would reprobate that which appeared evil. To do good unto others — to do unto others as ye would they should do unto you— is the foundation-stone of morality.
Page 161 - With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment.
Page 198 - The foot, judging from the condition of the great toe in the foetus, was then prehensile ; and our progenitors, no doubt, were Arboreal in their habits, frequenting some warm forest clad laud. The males were provided with great canine teeth, which served them as formidable weapons.

Bibliographic information