Natural selection will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard under nature.
 Charles Darwin, On The Origin of Species (1859). copy citation

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Author Charles Darwin
Source On The Origin of Species
Topic perfection selection
Date 1859
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2009/2009-h/2009-h.htm

Context

“The endemic productions of New Zealand, for instance, are perfect, one compared with another; but they are now rapidly yielding before the advancing legions of plants and animals introduced from Europe. Natural selection will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard under nature. The correction for the aberration of light is said by Muller not to be perfect even in that most perfect organ, the human eye. Helmholtz, whose judgment no one will dispute, after describing in the strongest terms the wonderful powers of the human eye, adds these remarkable words:” source