On the Origin of Species the publication of "On the Origin of Species" and the bicentenary of Darwin's birth were scheduled for 2009. They celebrated the ideas which "over the last 150 years have revolutionised our understanding of nature and our place within it". In a survey conducted by a group of academic booksellers, publishers and librarians in advance of Academic Book Week in the United Kingdom, "On the Origin of Species" was voted the most influential academic book ever written. It was hailed as "the supreme demonstration of why academic books matter" and "a book which has changed the way we think about everything".
On the Origin of Species under way, Darwin wrote to Lyell offering the suggested publisher John Murray assurances "That I do not discuss origin of man". In the final chapter of "On the Origin of Species", "Recapitulation and Conclusion", Darwin briefly highlights the human implications of his theory: In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." Discussing this in January 1860, Darwin assured Lyell that "by the