In Honor of the Dual Birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, both born this day, February 12, 1809:

“As the patriots of seventy-six (1776) did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor …  Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American …  Let it become the political religion of the nation.”

Abraham Lincoln, Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum, Springfield, Illinois, January, 1838

“And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection …  There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859