This is not a difficult book to read, and I would encourage readers to read the original work of Darwin.
"The Origin of Species" is considered to be an important work in both world literature and science. An interesting aspect of the book was the pressure for Darwin to publish the book. Prior to publishing, he had spent almost 30 years developing and testing his ideas. The book is a combination of argument and debate along with descriptions of Darwin's own experiments with birds and plants, including his own cabbage garden. In short, according to Darwin, the evolution of species takes place over a long time period and is a series of random events with survival of the fitest, or what is called "natural selection."
Darwin was born in 1809, trained as a botanist and zoologist at Cambridge University, and made his famous trip on the H.M.S. Beagle from 1831 to 1836. He was first inspired by the writings of the geologist Sir Charles Lyell. This same geologist would play an important role in pushing Darwin to publish his findings in 1856.
Darwin - as he writes in his book - was not working alone. He was not the first to come up with the ideas. Darwin was preceded by many before him with similar ideas. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire wrote as early as 1795 that species are "degenerations of the same type." Lamarck was in fact the first person to suggest that "all species, including man, are descended from other species." He published his ideas in 1801, 1809, and 1815. W.C. Wells presented a paper on human skin colors in 1813 and published his results in 1818. This was followed by The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert published in the "Horticultural Transactions" in 1822 that "botanical species are only a higher and more permanent class of varieties." In 1826 professor Grant "declares his belief that species are descendent from other species." Also, Von Bush in 1836 "expresses his belief that varieties slowly become changed into permanent species." And, in 1846 M.J. d'Omalius d'Halloy published a paper with his opinion "that it is more probable that new species have been produced by descent with modification than they have been separately created."
After the Beagle trip, Darwin's main pre-occupation was to prepare his five volume work "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle" over the years 1840 - 1843. Also, he undertook a series of experiments on evolution and wrote shorter papers. But in 1856 geologist Sir Charles Lyell persuaded Darwin to take his notes and publish "The Origin of Species." As he prepared the book, Alfred Russel Wallace sent him a manuscript with an identical or similar theory. The two men decided to present their works simultaneously to the Linnaean Society. Wallace had visited Malaysia and come up with similar conclusions to Darwin, but he had not yet prepared an impresive large book, as had Darwin.
Darwin had been very cautious, and in the years 1840 to 1856 he had undertaken a number of experiments himself with pigeons and various plants. He had even joined two pigeon clubs and had his own garden in the country. He describes some of the slightly amusing details in the book. For example, he was able to grow over 200 varieties of cabbages by cross breeding. Among the findings, he had come to the conclusion that domestic pigeons were probably all related back to the rock-pigeon (Columba livia). He undertook a number of experiments including one where he mated two mongrel pigeons, and the resulting offspring looked like rock-pigeons.
So, although Wallace had the same ideas at the same time, Darwin had a fifteen years accumulation of notes, observations, and his own experiments that he could put into the book. Once the book came out it was an instant best seller and Wallace was largely forgotten, along with his other predecessors. Darwin was very cautious with his findings, and the many years researching and thinking about his ideas - almost two decades - paid off for him when he finally released the near 700 page book.
Darwin published a second well known book in 1871: "The Descent of Man."
"The Origin of Species" is a well crafted and interesting book. There are just a few figures in the book. It is an easy read, although some parts have many small details. Darwin lectures us on a variety of subjects such as flower reproduction. The heart of the book is Chapter IV: Natural Selection. He has fifteen chapters covering a range of topics including geology and fossils.
It must be remembered that when the book came out in 1859 it was generally assumed that only God could create life. The book was revolutionary, and too detailed to refute. It was a comprehensive book and came as a major challenge to the accepted norm. At the end in the conclusion Darwin tells the reader that his findings just give a different explanation in the way "the Creator" works, and it does not imply a lack of a God.
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