Grandeur

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

I was raised in a fundamentalist cult that taught evolution only as an evil, stupid, dehumanizing lie of the devil. When I grew old enough to think for myself, I was deeply moved by the beautiful and reverent framing with which Darwin explained his view of our origins.