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This work of scientific literature is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. For the sixth edition of 1872, the title was changed to The Origin of Species. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It 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 gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation. 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. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, 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, now the unifying concept of the life sciences.

CONTENT:

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Variation Under Domestication

Chapter 2 - Variation Under Nature

Chapter 3 - Struggle For Existence

Chapter 4 - Natural Selection; Or The Survival Of The Fittest

Chapter 5 - Laws Of Variation

Chapter 6 - Difficulties Of The Theory

Chapter 7 - Miscellaneous Objections To The Theory Of Natural Selection

Chapter 8 - Instinct

Chapter 9 - Hybridism

Chapter 10 - On The Imperfection Of The Geological Record

Chapter 11 - On The Geological Succession Of Organic Beings

Chapter 12 - Geographical Distribution

Chapter 13 - Geographical Distribution--Continued

Chapter 14 - Mutual Affinities Of Organic Beings: Morphology -- Embryology -- Rudimentary Organs

Chapter 15 - Recapitulation And Conclusion

Glossary Of The Principal Scientific Terms Used In The Present Volume