The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. II (1st Edition)
1871
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. II (1st Edition)
1871
Darwin had already rewritten our understanding of life on Earth with Origin of Species. But one question remained unanswered: why do animals possess the extraordinary ornaments, colors, and behaviors that seem to serve no purpose except to dazzle potential mates? This volume contains his answer. Here Darwin unveils the theory of sexual selection, arguing that the peacock's tail, the stag's antlers, and the nightingale's song evolved not through survival of the fittest but through success in courtship. Drawing on decades of observations from across the globe, he documents the elaborate mating rituals of fishes, birds, reptiles, and mammals, showing how female choice and male competition have sculpted the living world. The prose is meticulous, Victorian, and occasionally startling in its candor about what drives animal desire. This is where Darwin explains the logic of beauty itself: why anything in nature is considered beautiful, and by whom. The book remains essential reading not as historical artifact but as the foundation of our understanding of how evolution shapes not just bodies but behavior, attraction, and the profound diversity of life.
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“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.””
— Charles Darwin
“As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.””
— Charles Darwin
“The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable”
— Charles Darwin
“We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.””
— Charles Darwin
“For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs”
— Charles Darwin
“But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge , as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system - with all these exalted powers - Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.””
— Charles Darwin
“Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system”
— Charles Darwin
“A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives”
— Charles Darwin
“Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children, but no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew, or write.””
— Charles Darwin
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Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. II (1st Edition). Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-descent-of-man-and-selection-in-relation-to-sex-vol-ii-1st-edition-67ffe520-711a-4960-b91d-f82cf6aea12b.Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. II (1st Edition). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-descent-of-man-and-selection-in-relation-to-sex-vol-ii-1st-edition-67ffe520-711a-4960-b91d-f82cf6aea12bDarwin, Charles. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. II (1st Edition). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-descent-of-man-and-selection-in-relation-to-sex-vol-ii-1st-edition-67ffe520-711a-4960-b91d-f82cf6aea12b.
