The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

RECORD: Darwin, C. R. 1858.04. Those who believe in successive or even single universal annihilations of life on our globe, since its commencement. CUL-DAR205.9.339. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 10.2021. RN1

NOTE: The brown crayon number '22' indicates that this document was filed by Darwin in his portfolio for the subject of Palaeontology: extinction.

Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volume CUL-DAR205.9 contains notes on palaeontology and geology [regarding theory of evolution].

[339]

Ap. 58

Those who believe in successive or even single universal annihilations of life on our globe, since its commencement, those who after studying Principles & works of geologists of this school & the works of nature think this proved, may close my volume for it is as certain in my theory & to my mind, that the living shells of our coast are the descendants of those which existed in the Silurian sea, as that the lamb, which we have not seen born are the offspring of the sheep, by whose sides they are feeding.

The continuance of same genus, & even reappearance in same class of facts, that species in successive formations are the most nearly related to each other.

Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)