Regularly we read creationists attacking Darwinism (the term they prefer to use instead of evolution) because it can’t explain the “origin of life”.

We keep pointing out to the that abiogenesis is not part of evolution, which assumes that living organisms exist, and investigates how they evolve.

I thought that it would help if Charles Darwin’s actual words on the subject of the origin of life were posted (regularly) here.

The sixth edition of “The Origin of Species” was the final one edited by Darwin. The final sentence in this (on page 429 if you can find a facsimile of the 6th edition) reads:

There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several, powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator 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.

If anyone wants to delve further into some modern developments in evolution, try the book “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”, chosen by Sean Carroll from Darwin as a lead into evolutionary developmental biology.

Salaam Ken Smith