Evolution and Wonder: Understanding Charles Darwin | 1835 Essay on Births and Deaths of Species [Speaking of Faith® from American Public Media]

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1835 Essay on Birth and Death of Species

Back side of page 2 from the essay
(Reprinted with permission of Syndics of Cambridge University Library, DAR 42:97.2)

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a). The following analogy I am aware is a false one; but when I consider the enormous extension of life of an individual plant, seen in the grafting of an Apple tree, & that all these thousand trees are subject to the duration of life which one bud contained. I cannot see such difficulty in believing a similar duration might be propagated with true generation.— If ~~gradual deaths~~ the existence of species is allowed, each acording to its kind, we must suppose deaths to follow ~~one after~~ at different epochs, & then successive births must repeople the globe or the number of its inhabitants has Varied exceedingly at different periods.— A ~~fact~~ supposition in contradiction to the fitness, ~~with~~ which the Author of Nature has now established.