Good evening and thank you for joining me for another boring books for bedtime.

I hope tonight selection provides all the boredom your busy brain needs to quiet down and let you get some sleep.

So find a comfortable spot.

Adjust your volume.

Take a nice deep breath in.

Let it out slowly. and off we go.

This evening we're relaxing with the work that many people have opinions about,

but few have actually read,

on the origin of species by means of natural selection,

or the preservation of Favored Races in The Struggle for Life, by Charles Darwin, MA.

Fellow of the Royal Geological, Linnaian, Etcetra societies.

Author of Journal of Researchers during HMS Beagles Voyage Round the World,

From the First Edition, published by John Murray, Abemarle Street, London, 1859.

Let's begin. Introduction

When on board H. M. Beagle as naturalist. I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants

of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.

These facts seem to me to throw some light on the origin of species, that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called

by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me in 1837 that something

might perhaps be made out on this question, by patiently accumulating and reflecting

on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it.

After five years work, I allowed myself to speculate on the subject and drew up some short notes.

These I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable.

...