Ɛpsilon

To A. Gapitche   24 February 1880

Down,

Feb. 24th, 1880.

I suppose that no one can prove that death is inevitable, but the evidence in favour of this belief is overwhelmingly strong from the evidence of all other living creatures.1 I do not believe that it is by any means invariably true that the higher organisms always live longer than the lower ones. Elephants, parrots, ravens, tortoises and some fish live longer than man. As evolution depends on a long succession of generations, which implies death, it seems to me in the highest degree improbable that man should cease to follow the general law of evolution, and this would follow if he were to be immortal.

This is all that I can say.

incomplete

1
According to Francis Darwin (ML 2: 444), this letter was written to the author of a pamphlet, Quelques mots sur l’éternité du corps humaine (A few words on the immortality of the human body; Gapitche 1880). The text was provided by Benjamin Vetter, the editor of Kosmos from October 1882. Francis wrote that the author’s name was a pseudonym; no further information on the identity of the author has been found. When the letter was published in German translation in Kosmos 15 (1884): 80, the author was identified as A. Panchin of Kiev, who has also not been identified. CD’s copy of the pamphlet is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12499,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12499