Darwin did not use the noun ‘evolution’ to describe his theory in the Origin; in fact he only used the word ‘evolved’ once in his book. The pre-Darwinian connotations of the word concerned a predictable unfolding of possibilities, as seen for example in the processes of embryonic development.
Darwin would not have chosen the word because his theory is based upon variants which occur in an undirected way, and are then selected for or against by an environment which may also alter irregularly, not on a ladder of progress. However, by the time of the publication of The Expression of the Emotions in 1872, he had started to use the term.
See also the rhetoric of Darwinism.
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link | Feedback | Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate and Dr. Michael Robert Negus
Source: God, Humanity and the Cosmos (T&T Clark, 1999)