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.
Page 318 · printed citation: Charles Darwin (Letter to von Müller, June 5, 1879)
Page 318 · printed citation: Charles Darwin
Life and writing
The checked catalogue gives Charles Darwin’s lifetime as 1809–1882 and credits Sue Asscher and David Widger for this electronic text. The book is written in English, and the linked text includes a preface to the second edition. The catalogue HTML ISBN identifies this digital reading. It is a historical scientific work, containing obsolete classifications and racial hierarchies; its catalogue description is not evidence that all its claims represent current science.
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.
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.
Subjects to explore
Editorial reading connections, distinct from the archive’s word matching.
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.
Checked identity/lifetime, specific digital edition, any supplied HTML ISBN and US-public-domain basis. Automatic synopsis and digital dates do not establish quotation wording or composition dates. Reference checked 2026-10-05.
Complete selected English extracts, adjacent speaker/context and available edition credits checked. Limited normalization; no whole-corpus authentication or human review. Reference checked 2026-10-05.