The voices / 86 fragments
Charles Darwin
1809 AD — 1882 AD
Darwin challenges confident claims that human origins cannot be investigated and distinguishes unreliable facts from hypotheses open to correction. Read both passages as parts of a historical scientific argument.
Author and source reference ↗Life and writing
In the Introduction, Darwin answers those who assert confidently that science cannot solve the question of human origins. His contrast between ignorance and knowledge addresses that particular claim of impossibility. In Chapter XXI, he acknowledges that some of his own views may be erroneous, then distinguishes persistent false facts from views that can be refuted. The selected second extract stops within a longer source sentence, whose continuation describes correction opening a path toward truth. These passages invite scrutiny of evidence; they do not prove that all confidence is ignorance or that false hypotheses never cause harm.
Checked related reading — The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex ↗ Introduction; confidence about the limits of scientific inquiry; Chapter XXI, General Summary and Conclusion; false facts, false views and correction
Reading this voice
Read the Introduction beside the concluding admission of possible error. Follow the second extract into its next clause. Distinguish Darwin’s argument for scientific investigation from the book’s obsolete social and biological assumptions.
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Profile sources and editorial status
Original agent-assisted editorial profile, checked 2026-10-05. No human review is recorded. Life dates are recorded to the year; they do not date individual quotations.