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Encyclopedia > Tree of life (science)
Darwin's work was originally entitled Phylogeny via Oogeny.
Darwin's work was originally entitled Phylogeny via Oogeny.

Charles Darwin believed that phylogeny, the ascent of all species through time, was expressable as a metaphor he termed the Tree of Life. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an eminent English naturalist who achieved lasting fame by convincing the scientific community that species develop over time from a common origin. ... In biology, phylogenetics (Greek: phylon = tribe, race and genetikos = relative to birth, from genesis = birth) is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e. ...


An excerpt from Darwin's Origin of the Species explaining his views on the Tree of Life follows:


"The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have at all times overmastered other species in the great battle for life.

Page from Dawins notebooks around July 1837 showing the first-known sketch by Charles Darwin of an evolutionary tree.
Page from Dawins notebooks around July 1837 showing the first-known sketch by Charles Darwin of an evolutionary tree.

The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was young, budding twigs; and this connexion of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few have left living and modified descendants.

The nineteenth century conception of the Tree of Life as seen by Ernst Haeckel in the The Evolution of Man (1879)
The nineteenth century conception of the Tree of Life as seen by Ernst Haeckel in the The Evolution of Man (1879)

From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these fallen branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin, straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favoured and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus or Lepidosiren, which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications." Ernst Haeckel. ...


Darwin, C. (1872), pp. 170-171. The Origin of Species. Sixth Edition. The Modern Library, New York. // Darwin most commonly refers to: Charles Darwin (1809–1882), renowned naturalist and thinker associated with the theory of evolution by natural selection Darwin, Northern Territory, Australian city and the capital of the Northern Territory Darwin (operating system), a low level computer operating system used as the lower layer of Apple...


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