On the Origin of Species

On the Origin of Species
Title page of the 1859 edition[1]
AuthorCharles Darwin
LanguageEnglish
SubjectNatural selection
Evolutionary biology
Published24 November 1859[2] (John Murray)
Publication placeUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages502
OCLC352242
Preceded byOn the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection 
Followed byFertilisation of Orchids 
TextOn the Origin of Species at Wikisource

On the Origin of Species (or, more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life)[3] is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. It was published on 24 November 1859.[4] Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection although Lamarckism was also included as a mechanism of lesser importance. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had collected on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.[5]

Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to other animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream.

The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. Darwin was already highly regarded as a scientist, so his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T. H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades, there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During "the eclipse of Darwinism" from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, and it has now become the unifying concept of the life sciences.

  1. ^ Darwin 1859, p. iii
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Freeman 1977 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ The book's full original title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In the 1872 sixth edition, "On" was omitted, so the full title is The origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. This edition is usually known as The Origin of Species. The 6th is Darwin's final edition; there were minor modifications in the text of certain subsequent issues. See Freeman, R. B. "The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist." In Van Wyhe, John, ed. Darwin Online: On the Origin of Species, 2002.
  4. ^ Desmond & Moore 1991, p. 477.
  5. ^ "Darwin Manuscripts (Digitised notes on Origin)". Cambridge Digital Library. Retrieved 24 November 2014.