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From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859

Science

The story behind the card

This ends the last sentence of On the Origin of Species (1859), the book in which the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) set out evolution by natural selection. The closing paragraph begins with an ‘entangled bank’: a patch of ground crowded with plants, singing birds, insects and worms. Darwin asks the reader to see that all these intricate forms were produced by laws still acting around us, spreading from a few simple forms, or perhaps one. From the second edition onwards he added the words ‘by the Creator’ to that final sentence.

Türkçe oku
Böylesine basit bir başlangıçtan sonsuz sayıda, en güzel ve en harikulade biçim evrildi ve evrilmeye devam ediyor.
Charles Darwin, Türlerin Kökeni, 1859

Bu satırlar, İngiliz doğa bilimci Charles Darwin'in (1809–1882) doğal seçilim yoluyla evrimi anlattığı Türlerin Kökeni'nin (1859) son cümlesini bitirir. Kapanış paragrafı bir toprak yamacının tasviriyle başlar: her türden bitki, çalılarda öten kuşlar, uçuşan böcekler, nemli toprakta kıpırdayan solucanlar. Darwin okurdan, bütün bu karmaşık canlıların bugün de çevremizde işleyen yasalarla, birkaç basit biçimden, belki de tek bir biçimden türediğini görmesini ister. Kitabın ikinci baskısından itibaren bu son cümleye “Yaratıcı tarafından” sözlerini ekledi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Charles Darwin
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