The Origin of Species (Squashed Edition)

By Charles Darwin

The Squashed edition of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Abridged from the original text to read in an hour or so.

This scientific treatise not only revolutionized every branch of the natural sciences, but has profoundly influenced the literary, philosophical and religious thinkers who followed. This is what the modern philosopher Daniel Dennett called 'Darwin's dangerous idea'- that natural selection governs, not only the world's flora and fauna, but its history, economics and beliefs.

Squashed editions are precise abridgements - the original ideas, in their own words, the full beam of the book, the quotable quotes and all the famous lines, but neatly honed down to the length of a readable short story.

"Like reading the bible without all the begats" - Prof. Jim Curtis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780244545635

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin (1809–19 April 1882) is considered the most important English naturalist of all time. He established the theories of natural selection and evolution. His theory of evolution was published as On the Origin of Species in 1859, and by the 1870s is was widely accepted as fact.

Book preview

The Origin of Species (Squashed Edition)

The Origin of Species

SQUASHED EDITION

Charles Darwin

A Squashed Edition, elegantly abridged to read in a hour or so.

This abridgement, Copyright © 2017, Glyn Hughes. All rights reserved. Published by: Hughes Design Ltd, Squashed Editions, Denver House, Winster, Derbyshire, England DE4 2DH

www.thehundredbooks.com

This eBook, ISBN: 978-0-244-54563-5

(Also available in print, ISBN:978-0-244-14900-0)

INTRODUCTION

This is the Squashed Edition of The Origin of Species, abridged from the original text to read in an hour or so. Squashed editions are precise abridgements - the original ideas, in their own words, the full beam of the book, the quotable quotes and all the famous lines, but neatly honed down to the length of a readable short story.

This scientific treatise not only revolutionized every branch of the natural sciences, but has profoundly influenced the literary, philosophical and religious thinkers who followed. With it the established Western view that creatures had been created independently by a God, and indeed the whole supernatural explanation of the universe, had competition. At first, denunciation by the likes of Bishop Wilberforce was complete. But religious views gradually evolved, through Philip Grosse's theory that fossils had been planted by God to give the earth a coherent history, to today's position where only a remnant population of creationists remains.

This is what the modern philosopher Daniel Dennett called 'Darwin's dangerous idea'- that natural selection governs, not only the world's flora and fauna, but its history, economics and beliefs. Even religious ideas, it seems, are subject to the same laws of advancement as all other things, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.

The 'Origin' was banned from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1859; in Yugoslavia (1935) and Greece (1937). In 1925 in the USA, John Scopes was famously convicted of teaching from it, and it remained banned from some American schools until 1967.

Glyn Hughes, Winster, England, 2018

The Origin of Species

(Squashed Edition)

by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Charles Darwin London, 1859

Abridged by Glyn Hughes

"Let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word,