But he realises some of his audience-especially some of the old guard-will not be able to accept his evidence and line of reasoning. He knows his views will be seen as controversial by some of his contemporaries, and he’s out to convince.
That should be a good enough reason for anyone to read it.ĭarwin describes his masterpiece as ‘one long argument’. To read Origin is to have the theory explained to you by the man himself. Darwin’s great theory of evolution by means of natural selection forms the foundation of modern biology. True, some of the language is occasionally heavy going-Darwin wrote in haste, had a thing for double negatives and rogue commas, and occasionally embarked on convoluted, heavily nested sentences requiring several deep breaths to read out loud-but, minor stylistic concerns aside, over a century and a half after its publication, Origin is still a rewarding read for anyone wanting to get inside the mind of one of the most important figures in the history of science. As revolutionary scientific works go, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is remarkably accessible to the ordinary reader.
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