Origin of Species Variorum

→ diving Hymenoptera, and petrels 1866 1869 1872

petrels 1859 1860 1861

→ populi, 1866 1869

populi , 1861 1872

→ imperfect and simple, 1866

very imperfect and simple, 1859 1860 1861

perfect and complex, 1869

complex and perfect can be shown to exist, 1872

→ can be shown to exist; 1859 1860 1861 1866

can be shown to exist, 1869

as is certainly the case; 1872

→ if 1859 1860 1861 1866 1872

as is certainly the case; if 1869

→ does vary ever so slightly 1866

does vary ever so slightly, 1859 1860 1861

ever slightly varies, 1869

ever varies 1872

→ or modification in the organ be ever 1859 1860 1861 1866

should ever be 1869

should be 1872

→ real. 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

as subversive of the theory. 1872

→ as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are known to be sensitive to light, it does not seem impossible that certain elements in their tissues or sarcode should have become aggregated and developed into nerves endowed with special sensibility to its action. 1866

several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. 1859 1860

several facts make me suspect that nerves sensitive to touch may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. 1861

as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are known to be sensitive to light, it does not seem impossible that certain elements in the sarcode, of which they are mainly composed, should become aggregated and developed into nerves endowed with this special sensibility. 1869

as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility. 1872

may be from its own place. Hence it will cause him no surprise that there should be geese and frigate-birds with webbed feet,

either

....

living on the dry land

and

or most

rarely alighting on the water; that there should be long-toed

corncrakes,

corncrakes

living in meadows instead of in swamps; that there should be woodpeckers where

hardly

not

a tree grows; that there should be diving

thrushes,

thrushes

and →diving Hymenoptera, and petrels with the habits of auks.

Organs

extreme

perfection

Perfection

and

complication .—

complication. —

Complication.

Complication .

To suppose that the

eye

eye,

with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest

possible

....

degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox → populi, vox

Dei ,

Dei,

as every philosopher knows,

can never

cannot

be trusted in science.

Yet

....

reason

Reason

tells me, that if numerous gradations from

imperfect

simple

perfect

and

simple

imperfect

complex

eye to one →imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, →can be shown to exist; →if further, the eye →does vary ever so slightly and the variations be inherited,

which

likewise certainly

certainly

the case; and if

such

any

variations

variation

→or modification in the organ be ever useful to

any

animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could

have been

formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination,

cannot

should not

can hardly

be considered →real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself

~~first~~

first

originated; but I may remark

that

that,

→as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are known to be sensitive to light, it does not seem impossible that certain elements in their tissues or sarcode should have become aggregated and developed into nerves endowed with special sensibility to its action.