{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/the-natural-history", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/the-natural-history.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/the-natural-history.md", "id": "fb0cefdd-edfc-4cc4-a340-18c7982e1b8a", "slug": "the-natural-history", "text": "The natural history of this archipelago is very remarkable: it seems to be a little world within itself; the greater number of its inhabitants, both vegetable and animal, being found nowhere else.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Darwin", "slug": "charles-darwin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin" }, "book": { "title": "The Voyage of the Beagle", "slug": "the-voyage-of-the-beagle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 393, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle#XIX._Galapagos_Archipelago", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "f754ff9e-1d1b-48fc-b634-f72a8c4861e3", "slug": "i-thank-god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/i-thank-god", "text": "I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye. ... It is argued that self-interest will prevent excessive cruelty; as if self-interest protected our domestic animals, which are far less likely than degraded slaves, to stir up the rage of their savage masters. It is an argument long since protested against with noble feeling, and strikingly exemplified, by the ever illustrious Humboldt. It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter;—what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children—those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own—being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 499, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "slavery", "slug": "slavery", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/slavery" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle#XXIII._Mauritius_to_England", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21" }, { "id": "d1a69888-2686-4055-ba77-8c4a53e21566", "slug": "the-natural-history-of", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/the-natural-history-of", "text": "The natural history of these islands is eminently curious, and well deserves attention. Most of the organic productions are aboriginal creations, found nowhere else; there is even a difference between the inhabitants of the different islands; yet all show a marked relationship with those of America, though separated from that continent by an open space of ocean, between 500 and 600 miles in width. The archipelago is a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists, and has received the general character of its indigenous productions. Considering the small size of these islands, we feel the more astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range. Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still distinct, we are led to believe that within a period, geologically recent, the unbroken ocean was here spread out. Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact — that mystery of mysteries — the first appearance of new beings on this earth.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 377, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle#XIX._Galapagos_Archipelago", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21" }, { "id": "b6278857-37a7-4faa-b01e-f8d073040fb4", "slug": "among-the-scenes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/among-the-scenes", "text": "Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature:—no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 604, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle#XXIII._Mauritius_to_England", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21" } ] }