of the world should appear in a certain order and in certain areas; that He
has impressed on them the most extraordinary resemblances, and has classed
them in groups subordinate to groups. But by such statements we gain no new
knowledge; we do not connect together facts and laws; we explain nothing.

It was the consideration of such large groups of facts as these which first
led me to take up the present subject. When I visited during the voyage of
H.M.S. "Beagle," the Galapagos Archipelago, situated in the Pacific Ocean
about 500 miles from South America, I found myself surrounded by peculiar
species of birds, reptiles, and plants, existing nowhere else in the world.
Yet they nearly all bore an American stamp. In the song of the mocking-
thrush, in the harsh cry of the carrion-hawk, in the great candlestick-like
opuntias, I clearly perceived the neighbourhood of America, though the
islands were separated by so many miles of ocean from the mainland, and
differed much in their geological constitution and climate. Still more
surprising was the fact that most of the inhabitants of each separate
island in this small archipelago were specifically different, though most
closely related to each other. The archipelago, with its innumerable
craters and bare streams of lava, appeared to be of recent origin; and thus
I fancied myself brought near to the very act of creation. I often asked
myself how these many peculiar animals and plants had been produced: the
simplest answer seemed to be that the inhabitants of the several islands
had descended from each other, undergoing modification in the course of
their descent; and that all the inhabitants of the archipelago were
descended from those of the nearest land, namely America, whence colonists
would naturally have been derived. But it long remained to me an
inexplicable problem how the necessary degree of modification could have
been effected, and it would have thus remained for ever, had I not studied
domestic productions, and thus acquired a just idea of the power of
Selection. As soon as I had fully realised this idea, I saw, on reading