Charles Darwin: A handwritten paper could sell for a record sum

• On Friday, Sotheby’s in New York will begin selling a fragment of writing that Charles Darwin signed and which supports his theory of evolution.
• The object is anticipated to sell for over a million pounds, setting a record price for a Darwin manuscript.
• He had created the document so that it may be reproduced in what, in 1865, was a magazine for famous people.

The object is anticipated to sell for over a million pounds, setting a record price for a Darwin manuscript.

He had created the document so that it may be reproduced in what, in 1865, was a magazine for famous people.

There isn’t much original Darwinian writing left because he didn’t regularly archive his work.

If it is signed, it nearly always merely says “C Darwin” or “Ch Darwin” in abbreviation.

Having his name, “Charles Darwin,” spelled out completely and in his own writing is quite uncommon.
However, Prof. John van Wyhe, the curator of the academic database known as Darwin Online, claims that it is particularly noteworthy because of what the great man chose to include on the page in addition to his signature.

The senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore said, “He inserts a passage that is in the third edition of On the Origin of Species.

“It’s one of my favourite passages because he’s attempting to make the point that while people would find his theory absurd and implausible, they also thought the same thing about Newton and gravity, and no longer questioned its reality.

According to evolution and natural selection, the same would eventually be true, the professor told BBC News.

The Autographic Mirror approved the creation of the document.

Hermann Kindt, the book’s publisher, also reproduced facsimiles of famous people’s autographs or handwriting alongside their histories.

The scientist leaped at the possibility when he was asked whether he would assist. It was a chance for him to refute his detractors.

It was a popular critique at the time, six years after the publication of Origin of Species in its first edition, that Darwin couldn’t explain the origin of life itself.

Darwin acknowledged this, but he said it had no bearing on his findings of the evolution and diversification of life on Earth. Similar to gravity, its “essence” may not be known, yet Newton’s equations unquestionably functioned.

Although he doesn’t specifically mention Newton, Prof. John van Wyhe claimed it was known that at the time he penned the line, he had just finished reading Newton’s biography. When the genius of the 17th century published his law of universal gravitation, he also had to face the scorn of the ruling class.

The Darwin leaf that Sotheby’s is offering for sale is in flawless condition.

The auction house anticipates that the previous record for a Darwin manuscript, which stood at £400,000, will be easily surpassed.

According to Dr. Kalika Sands, a specialist at Sotheby’s on the history of 19th-century science, “what’s remarkable about this leaf is that Darwin was choosing the passage that he wanted to be connected with himself and his legacy.

“On a large piece of paper, he penned it down. He signed his name extremely firmly and with great clarity. He acknowledges natural selection, Newton, and the possibility of higher powers in this chapter, but he also asserts that none of these beliefs can be refuted.

It essentially serves as his final, authorised comment regarding his work.

The quote from Darwin says:

I have now briefly summarised the main facts and arguments that have persuaded me that species have been transformed over a lengthy period of descent by the preservation or natural selection of numerous subsequent minor favourable variants. I find it impossible to accept that a wrong theory could account for the several sizable classes of data mentioned above, which I believe the theory of natural selection does. The argument that science has not yet shed any light on the far bigger issue of the genesis or essence of life is not a valid one. Who can define the fundamental nature of gravity’s attraction? Despite the fact that Leibnitz once accused Newton of infusing “occult elements & marvels into philosophy,” no one is currently opposed to investigating the results resulting from this undiscovered factor of attraction. Charles Darwin

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