Charles Darwin's Origin Leaves

By July 1858 one month after Natural Selection, Charles Darwin's two-thirds complete long version of the species theory, was 'interrupted'--as Darwin wrote in his diary--by receiving Wallace's short but conceptually identical paper, Darwin had regrouped and began to write the Origin of Species as an abstract of his theory. After its epoch making publication in November 1859, Darwin paid little attention to the original manuscript even though his many crossing outs and insertions show he had struggled to find just the right way to express himself. He and his children used the manuscript for scrap and drawing paper. Only 42 full pages are known to have survived and these have scattered to libraries and collectors in Britain and America--the largest trove eventually coming to Cambridge University Library through Darwin's children.

What we present here is a digital reassembly of the surviving leaves. Readers of the Origin know that one of the most intriguing, and most metaphysically engaged chapters is the 6th, on 'Difficulties'. So we have the satisfaction that the largest batch to come down to us is from that wonderful section of the book.

Produced/Edited by James Sims. For more information visit http://darwin.amnh.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• charles darwin
• alfred wallace
• origin of species
• natural selection
• amnh
• natural history
• darwin

[imp336]

@alagodny28 : No.  This story about Darwin is a lie. Its not surprising that you're peddling lies...you seem to be a devout religionist, and that's all you lot ever do. Can I ask a favor? Can you just be quiet and go away? Humankind has spent 7,000 years trying to claw its way out of superstition and ignorance. Reason and science have finally produced incontrovertible truths, something we've never had before. Yet you and your ilk would gladly take us back to the Dark Ages. So depressing.

[UppruniTegundanna]

@alagodny28 This is based on the so-called Lady Hope story, which has been refuted. Darwin didn't recant anything on his deathbed. His final words were "I am not the least afraid of death Remember what a good wife you have been to me Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me".

[Daxilen]

@DutchAreSoGay haha grow up man ^^ the dutch are one of the best business people, that's no monkey business :D

[DutchAreSoGay]

@imp336, it most certainly has to be a lie BECAUSE there is NO way in hell that dutch people evolved from monkeys. Monkeys are waaaaaaay too smart !!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe that the average NORMAL human being evolved from monkeys, BUT the dutch must have evolved from the FECES of monkeys !!

[gamesbok]

@alekscrane 2009, The year of Darwin, with more than 300 Scientific Symposia around the world to commemorate the greatest naturalist who ever lived.

[oaktubs]

I am a theist, a Christian, and an apologist. Just considering evolution for what science says it is and its opponents say it isn't blows my mind, whether it's true or not. Also, the idea of a God who is everything theists claim Him to be blows my mind. Please learn. Thanks. A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension. -Oliver Wendell Holmes

[oaktubs]

Crazy that people who put as much stock into evolution are so quick to condemn any theist as an idiot or someone who is just fooling themselves. Also crazy is the apparent willingness of overly religious (as opposed to faithful) people to completely discount the possibility that evolution COULD exist to some degree or another, and that God is responsible for it. Way too much closed mindedness for even the internet to handle.

[basstard013]

@qeldroma1982

1) Anything and nothing can be explained by the existence of a mystical God. Which makes it completely pointless as an argument.

I'm not even gonna bother with the rest, Would be like talking to a wall. Get some perspective.

[liquidminds]

I think there is a special form of tourette-syndrome in creationists that is triggered by the word "darwin"...

I bet, if you said "darwin believed in god" some of them still would call you a liar, just because the word "Darwin" is in the sentence.....

If there was a cure for stupidity, they should hand them out for free with every purchased bible....

[3tangle3]

Don't forget the work of the co founder Alfred Russell Wallace

[alekscrane]

it funny that they threat darvin like god.. not even scientific world belives in this theory anymore..lol