Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882
Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) was an English philosopher of the Modern era, associated with Empiricism.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist whose work transformed the life sciences and reshaped Western thought. His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle furnished the observations and the questions that, after twenty more years of work, became On the Origin of Species, published in 1859. The book proposed a single mechanism, natural selection acting on heritable variation, capable of explaining the diversity and adaptedness of life without recourse to design. The Descent of Man extended the argument to human beings. Darwin's theory and its subsequent extensions have become the unifying framework of modern biology.
Charles Robert Darwin was born in 1809 at the Mount, in Shrewsbury, the son of the prosperous physician Robert Darwin and grandson of the natural philosopher Erasmus Darwin. After an unhappy stint as a medical student at Edinburgh he was sent to Christ's College, Cambridge to prepare for the Anglican clergy; the recommendations of the botanist John Stevens Henslow secured him in 1831 the position of gentleman-naturalist on HMS Beagle, whose nearly five-year voyage around the southern hemisphere shaped the rest of his life.
Settled after 1842 at Down House in Kent, he produced a stream of empirical and theoretical works: the Journal of Researches (1839), the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, the four monographs on barnacles, and finally On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), prompted to publication by Alfred Russel Wallace's parallel insight. The Descent of Man (1871), The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), and a series of botanical and psychological studies of earthworms and climbing plants completed the program.
Although Darwin is not a philosopher in the disciplinary sense, his account of natural selection as an undirected mechanism producing apparent design transformed every philosophical question about life, mind, ethics, and religion that touched it, and remains a touchstone for philosophy of biology, evolutionary ethics, and the science-religion debate. He died at Down House in April 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Key facts
- Nationality
- English
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Empiricism
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Charles Darwin:
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one.”
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Attributed to Charles Darwin:
“False views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm; for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.”
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“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
volume I, chapter VI: "The Voyage", page 266 ; letter to sister Susan Elizabeth Darwin (4 August 1836) -
Attributed to Charles Darwin:
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
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Attributed to Charles Darwin:
“We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence.”
Charles Darwin by topic
Frequently asked about Charles Darwin
- When did Charles Darwin live?
- Charles Darwin was born in 1809 and died in 1882.
- Where was Charles Darwin from?
- Charles Darwin was an English philosopher of the Modern era.
- What philosophical movements is Charles Darwin associated with?
- Charles Darwin was associated with Empiricism.
- What was Charles Darwin known for?
- Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist whose work transformed the life sciences and reshaped Western thought.
- How many quotes are attributed to Charles Darwin?
- There are 15 attributed quotations from Charles Darwin in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from Charles Darwin
These lines are widely circulated as Charles Darwin, but they do not appear in Charles Darwin's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
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“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: The earliest known appearance of this basic statement is a paraphrase of Darwin in the writings of Leon C. Megginson, a management sociologist at Louisiana State University. [ Megginson, Leon C. (1963) . "Lessons from Europe for American Business". Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 44(1) : 3-13.
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“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This related misquote appeared in The Living Clocks (1971) by Ritchie R. Ward.
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“A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This is attributed, with an expression of doubt as to its correctness, in Mathematics, Our Great Heritage: Essays on the Nature and Cultural Significance of Mathematics (1948) by William Leonard Schaaf, p. 163; also attributed in Pi in the Sky : Counting, Thinking and Being (1992) by John D. Barrow
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“How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Claimed by the evangelist Lady Hope ; Reported in Boller, Paul F., Jr.; George, John (1989). They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions . New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 19. LCC PN6081.B635 1989 . Darwin's daughter Henrietta refuted the claim, stati
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“I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment, the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Attributed to Darwin in another version of the Lady Hope fabrication.
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“When I hear of an 'equity' in a case like this, I am reminded of a blind man in a dark room — looking for a black hat — which isn't there.”
Lord Bowen , as quoted in "Pie Powder", Being Dust from the Law Courts, Collected and Recollected on the Western Circuit, by a Circuit Tramp (1911) by John Alderson Foote; this seems to be the earliest account of any similar expression. It is mentioned by the author that this expression has become misquoted as a "black cat" rather than "black hat."
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“With his obscure and uncertain speculations as to the intimate nature and causes of things, the philosopher is likened to a 'blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there.'”
William James , himself apparently quoting someone else's expression, in Some Problems of Philosophy : A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy (1911) Ch. 1 : Philosophy and its Critics
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“A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.”
H. L. Mencken , as quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 427
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“If this book were to find general public acceptance, it would bring with it a brutalization of the human race such as it had never seen before.”
One often finds this as a quote about Darwin's book On the Origin of Species from Darwin's friend and teacher Adam Sedgwick. However, this "quote" goes back to A.E. Wilder-Smith, Man's Origin, Man's Destiny: A Critical Survey of the Principles of Evolution and Christianity (H. Shaw Publishers, 1968) page 190, where it is clear that Wilder-Smith is describing Sedgwick's position, not quoting him. In fact, Sedgwick did write that "If the book be true, the labours of sober induction are in vain; religion is a lie; human law is a mass of folly, and a base injustice; morality is moonshine; our labours for the black people of Africa were works of madmen; and man and woman are only better beasts!"…