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Charles Darwin and His Theory of Evolution
查尔斯·达尔文与进化论
J. G. Crowther
J·G·克劳瑟
During the voyage of the Beagle,Darwin had been deeply impressed by similarities between existing South American animals and the fossil remains. He had noted how closely similar animalsreplaced one another when proceeding southward. He was struck by the South American characterof the animals on the Galapagos archipelago，differing from island to island, and yet all the islands were recent and of the same age. It seemed utterly improbable that all of these myriad different yet similar species could each have been individually created. He felt that they could only be explained by supposing that they had sprung from a few original species which had gradually become modified. The subject haunted him.
在小猎犬号的航程中，达尔文对南美洲现有的动物与动物化石之间的相似性留下了深刻印象。他注意到,一路往南，种类极为相近的动物相互取代。加拉帕哥斯群岛上南美洲动物的特性因岛而异，但所有的岛屿都是在较近的同一时期形成的，这令他大为吃惊。要说所有这许多不同却又相似的物种是被一个个单独创造出来的，这似乎根本不可能。他认为唯一的解释是假设它们源自几个最初的物种，而后再逐渐变化而成。这一问题始终萦绕在他心头。
Though Darwin said that he started collecting facts on the Origin of Species without the guidance of any theory, his first notebook on the subject shows that he was in fact grappling with1 the problem of a scientific law which would explain how these modifications occurred. His mind went out to the law of gravitation. Before Newton, men had thought that each planet was individually kept in its course by God. There was no necessary relation between all of the moving bodies. In 1837，men believed that each individual species of animal was created by God, without necessary relation with any other species.
达尔文说自己开始为《物种起源》收集论据时没有任何理论的指导，但他就此所作的第一本笔记却表明，实际上他是在努力探索一种解释这些变异如何产生的科学规律。他想到的是万有引力定律。在牛顿之前，人们认为每一颗行星由上帝规定了各自的运行轨迹。所有运动物体之间并没有必然的联系。在1837年，人们认为动物的每一种物种都是上帝创造的，物种之间没有必然的联系。
