BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD
Charles Robert Darwin’s childhood was spent in the streets of Shrewsbury, England. Son of a down to earth couple Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood, Charles was born on February 12, 1809. Robert was a well-to-do country physician whose father, Erasmus Darwin was himself an author of works in biology that presented a proto-evolutionary perspective. His writings included epic poems and a treatise on zoology, which contained speculations concerning evolutionary theories. Charles mother was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, one of the founders of the Wedgwood Pottery Works known for its “Blue China” and a supporter of the movement to abolish slavery in the British Empire.
As a child, Charles was a simple and innocent boy. Once he accompanied his friend Garnett to a cake shop. Coming out of the shop Charles asked him as to why he did not pay for the cake. Garnett replied that all the traders of the town trusted him and as his uncle had left a great sum of money for the town, he never ever had to pay to any trader of the town. The only condition was that one had to wear his uncle's old hat and also move it in a particular manner. This trick was again put to test by Garnett for Charles benefit and Garnett walked out of the next shop with a few articles, without paying a penny.
Now, it was Charles turn to walk in a shop to pickup his choicest of cakes on Garnett's instigation. Moving the hat imitating Garnett's style, he began to walk out of the shop to the shopkeeper's surprise. On the shopkeeper's request for money, the frightened Charles threw the cakes on the floor and ran away to Garnett. Garnett had a big laugh about it as Charles was left panting for breath. Such was the nature of the young boy who was to be a great scientist, one day.
SCHOOLING YEARS
Darwin lost his mother at the age of eight, in July, 1817. She was described as having a "sweet and affectionate nature " - not a kind of nature likely to develop well in a household ruled by such a dominant mind as that of his father. The only recollection of his mother was 'her death-bed, her black velvet gown and her curiously constructed work-table'. Charles had also hinted at her 'previous invalid state' of which, there are no valid proofs.
In the same year, he began to attend the day school run by Rev. G. Case (a minister of the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street) at Shrewsbury, which he attended for about a year. He had noted his experience later : “By the time I went to this day-school, my taste for natural history, and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins and minerals. The passion for collecting, which leads a man to be a systematic neutralist, a virtuoso or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters or brothers ever had this taste.”
There were two events noted by Charles himself as quoted in his memoirs as follows:
Prior to his going to Shrewsbury for school, his elder sister Caroline educated him. He also recalled of being slow at learning and his younger sister Catherine being more adept at learning, than himself. Of his elder sister, he has said that she was 'extremely kind, clever and zealous; but she was too zealous in trying to improve me; for I clearly remember after long intervals of time, saying to myself when about entering a room where she was - " What will she blame me for now?" and I made myself dogged so as not to care what she might say.'
Another incident recalled by the great scientist was when he told another boy ('I believe it was Leighton, who afterwards became a well-known Lichenologist and botanist') that he could produce variously colored Polyanthuses and Primroses by watering them with certain colored fluids, which was off course a "monstrous fable", never tried by him.
He was transferred to a boarding school in summer of 1818 which was run by Dr. Butler, also in Shrewsbury, which he attended for seven years, until the summer of 1825, when he was 16. The school being in close proximity of his home, he was able to return home to meet his family frequently.
Initially, he showed lack of interest during his early education. He was considered by all his teachers as well as his father as a very ordinary boy, rather mediocre at study. But he had diverse tastes and took keen interest in all that engaged his attention. He made special efforts in understanding any complex subject or thing. With respect to diversified tastes such as in books, he would sit-up for hours reading various books and the historical plays of Shakespeare. But, later in life he lost all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. He learned Euclid’s geometry from a private tutor, studied Shakespeare and poetry, as well as Chemistry, and continued pursuing his hobby zealously, of collecting and adding insects to his list of objects collected.
AT EDINBURGH
In October 1825, his father sent him to Edinburgh University in Scotland, along with his brother. He studied there for two years. His family members expected him to follow their ancestral profession of medicine. However, he turned away from becoming a physician after witnessing several operations performed on patients without anesthesia. Moreover, even as the subject was not of his choice, he found the studies boring. Around the same time, he began to be interested in geology and natural history.
He wrote in affirmation of the above : “The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and those were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry by hope, but to my mind there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures compared with reading. Dr. Duncan’s lectures on Materia Medica at 8 O’ clock on a writer’s morning are something fearful to remember. Dr. Murno made his lectures on human anatomy as dull, as he was himself and the subject disgusted me.”
LOVE FOR NATURE
Darwin was inspired by his professor, Dr. Robert Edmund Grant, a zoologist, who was a follower of Jean Baptiste Lamarck. Grant’s theoretical interest was directed towards Lamarck, and his contacts with Grant provided Darwin another encounter with the evolutionary theory. One day, when Grant and he were walking together, Grant burst forth in high admiration for Lamarck and his views on evolution. Darwin was listening in silent astonishment, and as far as he could judge, without any effect on his mind. He had previously read the ‘Zoonomia’ of his grandfather in which similar views were expressed, but that did not produce any pronounced effect on him. Now, he admired greatly the ‘Zoonomia’ but on reading it the second time after an interval of 10 or 15 years, he was much disappointed, as the proportion of speculation was so large to the facts provided.
He was already interested in geology, so he continued to develop this interest at Edinburgh University. During his second year at Edinburgh, he attended Professor Robert Jameson’s lectures on geology and zoology, but found them incredibly dull. He said later on, “The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never, as long as I lived, to read a book on geology or in any way to study the science.” Jameson was a Wernerian, a supporter of theory of geology, soon to be replaced by Charles Lyell’s new principle of uniformitarianism that would so interest and influence Darwin. Through walking tours, he indulged both in his collecting habits, and an interest in studying geology through encounters with rock formations in nature.
FATHER’S DECISION
At the medical school, he was poor at dissection. However, he enjoyed medical rounds at the hospital attached to the university. He felt proud of having diagnosed patients and prescribed medications which helped the patients.
From 1828 to 1831, he was pushed to Cambridge to study for clergy. He spent two years at Edinburgh and three at Cambridge.
After having spent two sessions in Edinburgh, his father perceived or heard from his sisters, that Darwin did not like the thought of being a physician, so he proposed that Darwin should become a clergyman. Darwin wrote about his father : “He was very properly vehement against my turning an idle sporting man, which then seemed my probable destination.”
A CAMBRIDGE STUDENT
After arriving at Cambridge, he initially convinced himself that he could accept the creed of the Church of England and become a clergyman. After sermons, he devoted his spare time to nature walks and searched for specimens of local insect and plant species. Having forgotten much of his classics and ancient Greek, he read geometry along with a little algebra. Moreover, in preparation for a career as a minister, he read William Paley’s ‘Evidences of Christianity’, ‘Moral Philosophy’, and ‘Natural Theology’. The third one especially impressed him for the logic of its argumentation. Darwin was no more fitted to become a clergyman As he was inclined to become a physician. In that respect his stay at Cambridge was no more successful than his years at Edinburgh. He writes : “Although… there were some redeeming features in my life at Cambridge, my time was sadly wasted there and worse than wasted.”
At Cambridge, he added a new extracurricular passion of collecting beetles. No pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave him so much pleasure as collecting beetles. It was the mere collecting, for he did not dissect them and rarely compared their external characters with published descriptions, but got them named anyhow.
The “redeeming features” at Cambridge were significant. Darwin could meet a number of scientists who influenced his ultimate career choice. The lectures of John Henslow, a professor of Botany, gave much pleasure to him and soon they became close friends. He also enjoyed the lectures of William Whewell, a mathematician, philosopher and theologian who coined the term “scientist”. During the last year at Cambridge, he read two books, that profoundly influenced him : Alexander Von Humboldt’s ‘Personal Narrative’, a book on his travels and natural history explorations, and John Herschel’s ‘Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy’, a work on the methodology of science by the son of the astronomer Sir William Herschel. These books stirred up in him a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science.
He graduated from Cambridge in 1831, having focused in the last year on the study of geology. This was the turning point for him to decide what career he would pursue.
A LANDMARK VOYAGE
At the end of 1831, a remarkable turn of event saved Darwin from a country parsonage. His science teacher at Cambridge, John Stevens Henslow, arranged for him an invitation to join HMS Beagle during a long voyage of exploration. Against his father’s wish, Darwin got the position, and left England for a five-year voyage around the globe. The voyage began from December 27, 1831 to October 2, 1836. This was not only a crucial experience for Darwin himself, but a passage of consequence for the whole world.
Darwin has mentioned minute details of his voyage in his MS Journal.
Captain Fitz-Roy wanted to give part of his own cabin to any young man who would volunteer to go with him without pay as naturalist on the voyage of the Beagle. Though, Fitz-Roy was not ready to select him because of his nose, which he said 'didn’t possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage', proved him wrong. Fitz-Roy was generous, determined and indomitably energetic, but not cool at temperament. He was a man very difficult to live with on intimate terms which necessarily followed from their 'messing' in the same cabin. They shared several quarrels, early in the voyage at Bahia, in Brazil and discussed many issues thereafter.
At a flashpoint, Fitz-Roy asked Darwin to leave the voyage as Charles doubted him, but later on Fitz-Roy realized his mistake and apologized by requesting him to continue. The voyage was his first real training on education of his mind. He was led to attend closely to several branches of natural history. He also deeply investigated the geology of all the places, recording the stratification and nature of the rocks and fossils. He had carried, along with him the first volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which he studied minutely and it was of a great influence to him in many ways.
When he visited St Sago in the Cape de Verde island, he displayed his superior knowledge of application of Lyell’s manner of treating geology. He also collected animals of all classes, describing them and roughly dissecting many of the marine ones. During his first two years, his passion for shooting survived equally and he shot all the birds and animals for his collection. Gradually, he gave up his gun to his servant as shooting interfered with his work, more especially with making out the geological structure of a country.
During his stay at Brazil, he made a large collection of insects. Here he also found a not so uncommon butterfly. Though a high flier, it very frequently alighted on the trunks of trees. It frequented the orange-groves, with its head invariably placed downwards, and its wings expanded in a horizontal plane, instead of being folded vertically and it was the only butterfly which he had ever seen that used its legs for running.
In July 1832, the Beagle reached Maldonado. During his ten weeks at Maldonado, on the northern bank of the Plata, he did a perfect collection of birds, animals and reptiles. He found eight kinds of mice at Monte Video. He shot the largest gnawing animal in the world – the Hydrochaerus Capybara, weighing 98 pounds. Its length from the end of the snout to the stump-like tail was three feet two inches and from its girth, three feet eight inches. Birds of various kinds were in abundance on the undulating, grassy plains around Maldonado. The Saurophagus Sulphuratus found there, was typical of the great American tribe of tyrant flycatchers. It haunted the neighborhood with water and caught small fishes, which looked like a kingfisher. The mocking bird was also remarkable.
On the wide uninhabited plains of Patagonia, another closely allied species, O Patagonica of d’Orbigny, which frequented the valleys clothed with spiny bushes, was a wilder bird and also had a slightly different tone of voice. He also found a turkey buzzard, a solitary bird that at the most flew in pairs.
Then from Maldonado they reached Rio Negro, a principal river on July 24, 1833. Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabited Patagonia, in Northern Chile and the Galapagos Islands. He then traveled to a land at Buenos Aires where he found the head and other bones of the Megatherium, a huge animal. Megalonyx is a great allied animal. The Scelidotherium is also an allied animal, of which he obtained a near perfect skeleton, as large as rhinoceros. The Mylodon Darwinii is also a closely related genus of little inferior size. He also saw another gigantic edental quadruped and a large animal with compartment in bones.
Next, he saw an extinct kind of horse and a tooth of a Pachydermatous, a huge beast with a long neck like a camel. Last was the Taxodon, one of the strongest animals ever discovered, of an elephant size. Here, he found several fragments of bones, a few of unusually large size. Among them were the teeth of a gnawer, equally in size and closely resembling those of the Capybara, an aquatic animal. Here too, he found part of the head of a Ctenomys. Further, he found eight fresh-water and one salt-water infusorial animalcule associated with 23 species of shell. He also found beds of fossils, 15 to 20 feet above the level of high water.
During their stay at Bahai Blanca in September–October 1833, he found four nests, out of which three contained 22 eggs each and fourth contained 27. One day, while he was hunting on horseback, 64 eggs were found, 44 of these were in two nests and the remaining 20 scattered. Here, he found a common ostrich with dark and mottled color and legs shorter and feathered lower down than those of the common ostrich. When they landed at Chatham Island, he collected as many plants as possible. The brushwood appeared leafless all throughout the winter. The commonest bush they found was of the Euphorbiaceae – an acacia and a great odd-looking cactus. He also found two interesting tortoises weighing at least 200 pounds. In the woods, there were many wild pigs and goats.
At James Island, there was rat distinct from the common kind. He found 26 kinds of land-birds, which included hawk, owls and a swallow, a wren. He found that the beak of Cactornis startling and Camarhynchus, had parrot shaped beak. Of waders and water birds, he could get only 11 kinds, the insects with small sized and dull colored. The birds, plants and insects had a desert character and more brilliantly colored than Patagonia. The species here were not numerous but the numbers of each individual species was extraordinarily great. Of sea-turtles, there were more than one species and of tortoises these were two or three species or races. Male tortoises were very large, while females rarely grew to great sizes.
The Amblyrhynchus was a remarkable genus of lizards, confined to Archipelago. Terrestrial and aquatic were the two species, resembling each other in form. The usual length of a full-grown one was as long as a yard but some even four feet long, a large one weighing 20 pounds, was found on the island of Allsemarle. Here too, he found 15 kinds of sea-fish. Of land shells, he collected 16 kinds and of the 90 shells no less than 47 were unknown elsewhere. He took great pains in collecting the insects. Of beetles, he collected 25 species. In James Island, 38 Galapageian plants were also found.
During the voyage of South America and the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, he performed his duties to study the geology and biology of these areas. His biological findings gave him a lasting place in history. On these Islands, he found an array of animal life and which were similar to those existing in geological, climatic, and other physical conditions. He collected many geological and biological specimens, studied many fossils, and made observations of the form, numbers, diversity, and living habits of different forms of life. From his meticulous researches, he arrived at the idea that species descend with modifications, from other species, or that species evolve from other species.
The voyage of the Beagle made a scientist of Darwin - an industrious collector, a keen observer, and a canny theorist. It set him upon a momentous problem that he was to spend the next twenty years struggling with the problem of The Origin of Species.
ADVISE OF FATHER
He married his cousin Emma Wedgwood, on January 29, 1839. She was the member of the family known for its pottery works and opposition to slavery in the British Empire. Before he was engaged, his father advised him to conceal carefully his doubts, for he said that he had known 'extreme misery' caused to married persons. This misery was that upon marriage, things would go on pretty well until the wife or husband fell ill and then some women suffered miserably by doubting about the salvation of their husbands, thus making them suffer likewise. His father added that he had known during his long life only three women who were skeptics, and it should be remembered that he knew well a multitude of persons and possessed extraordinary power of winning confidence.
When Darwin asked his father who the three women were whom he had known, and with respect to one of them, he named his sister-in-law Kitty Wedgwood, that he had no good evidence only the vaguest hints, aided by the conviction that was so clear-sighted that a woman could not be a believer.
VOYAGE OF RESEARCHES
He returned to England from the voyage in 1836. During next eight years he continued to write and conduct research, but waited for years to present his conclusions. He reported on some of the data he had accumulated during his trip, in his first publication : Journal of Researches in 1839.
He also wrote a brief summary of his ideas on evolution that became known to a few scientists, but for most part, Darwin turned to other work, including detailed study of barnacles.
In 1856, Darwin began to write his theory of evolution by natural selection, but before he had finished (1858), he received a paper from naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace outlining a theory similar to his own. Friends arranged for the two men to present a joint paper before the Linnaean Society of London in 1858. On Nov. 24, 1859, an abstract of Darwin’s theory – The Origin of Species was published. In this book, Darwin presented his idea that species evolve from more primitive species through the process of natural selection, which works in nature. In his account of how natural selection occurs, he pointed out that not all individuals of a species are exactly the same but, that individuals have variations and that some of these variations make their bearers better adapted to particular ecological conditions. He pointed out that most species produce more eggs and offspring than those which can ever reach maturity. He theorized that well-adapted individuals of a species have more chance of surviving and producing young ones than the less adapted and that over the passage of time the ones that are less adapted are weeded out. The accumulation of adaptations to a particular ecological way of life leads – if there is a geographic split of the population – into the development of separate species, each adapted to its own particular ecological living space.
The effect of The Origin of Species was immediate and widespread. The book upset many established patterns of thought, contradicted firmly held religious beliefs, and brought into focus the concept that humans are one species among many that had evolved from a more primitive one. Controversies and debates on the theory raged all over England, Europe, and the United States. Though the evidence Darwin presented was strong, some scientists aligned themselves with orthodox churchmen and others who opposed the theory. Other scientists enthusiastically embraced it.
Darwin continued to write and do research, expanding on ideas he had presented in The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), Darwin provided evidence for human evolution from more primitive species and discussed the role of sexual selection in evolution.
NATURALIST MERGED TO NATURE
Except for the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin’s adventures were mostly intellectual. His life was deliberately domestic. Later years of his life were spent in writing, making solid contributions in terms of scientific articles, reviews and books like : The Descent of Man (1871), The Expression of the Emotions (1872), The Formation of Vegetable Mould (1881) and so on.
In addition, he published seven volumes on plants and worms dealing with the fertilization of orchids by insects, climbing plants, insectivorous plants, cross and self-fertilization, different flowers on plants of the same species, movement of plants and the production of top-soil by worms, during last 10 years of his life.
When he died in 1882 at the age of 73, he was buried with the cordial acquiescence of the Dean, in Westminster Abbey near the grave of the other immortal British scientist, Sir Isaac Newton.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist. It was his innate curiosity, initiative originality and the ruthless application of honesty that made him such a great researcher. He was an example that extensive research is something much more than feats of logic or memory.
His Origin of Species (1859) created a major upheaval in those times. As such the church still had a stronghold on matters such as evolution.
His other published work of which Descent of Man (1871), was a revolutionary concept in itself. It set people thinking more about the relationship between Philosophy and Biology. It caused in people a seed of doubt to question age-old theories pertaining to religions, socio-political and economic issues.
Though he preferred to call himself an agnostic, deep down he believed in the concept of that power ‘God’. He was sure that the feeling of happiness that arose in one’s mind was the creation of God.
DARWINISM still continues to be in the limelight for its underlying laxities and in-spite of it all, it shall continue to be one of the most pioneering works in the field of Evolution.
FEBRUARY 12, 1809
Charles Robert Darwin was born at Shrewsbury, in England to Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood.
Spring 1817
He began to attend the Rev. Case’s Unitarian day school at Shrewsbury.
July 15, 1817
His mother died.
1818-1825
He left the day school and joined Dr. Butler’s boarding school at Shrewsbury.
1825
His father sent him to Edinburgh University in Scotland to study to become a physician. There he remained for two years.
1826
The first paper of Darwin was read before the Plinian Society, a scientific society of students at the University.
OCTOBER, 1827
Against his interest, he was sent to Cambridge, to study the theology.
DECEMBER, 1831
He passed his Baccalaureate examination and continued one more term in the college, studying geology.
Darwin was invited by Capt. Robert Fitz-Roy as an unpaid naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle which was about to begin a five year circumnavigation of the globe. Completed his major part of his research during visits to South America and the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador.
1832
The Beagle visited the island of the Cape Verde Archipelago on January 16. The Beagle crossed the Equator on February 14, and arrived at Bahia, in Brazil, on February 29. From the end of February until it sailed from Rio on July 5, Darwin traveled in Brazil, encountering slavery for the first time. In December, the Beagle arrived at Tierra del Fuego. The boat had on board three natives from that area, who had been brought to England by Fitz-Roy on a previous expedition.
1833
The Beagle visited Argentina and Darwin spent some time on land at and around Buenos Aires.
1834
The Beagle, having completed the charting of the east coast of South America, passed into the Pacific Ocean on June 9. While investigating the Andes near Santiago, he fell ill on September 19.
1835
The Beagle arrived at Galapagos Island, off the coast of Ecuador on September 7, where Darwin made many observations and collected specimens which later served as evidence for his theory of evolution by natural section. The Beagle arrived at Tahiti in November and New Zealand in December.
1836
The Beagle arrived at Australia on January 12 and set sail for England on March 14. They reached England on October 2.
JULY, 1837
He started writing his first notebook on species transmutation. He produced a series of notebooks on biology.
1839
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on January 24 and married his cousin Emma Wedgwood, on January 29. His first book Journal of Researches was published.
1842
With Emma, he moved to Down, a small town outside London. They lived there to the end of their lives. The first part of the research he conducted on board the Beagle was published titled Coral Reefs. He wrote two versions of his developing theory of species evolution : the Sketch of 1842 and Essay of 1844. The work completed within two years.
1846-1854
He worked on barnacles, and devoted eight years to the study of this small marine creature which used to get attached itself to the hull of boats during the voyage on the Beagle.
1854-1857
He returned to his theorizing about species evolution. He wrote “Big Book” on species transmutation.
1858
The production of the “Big Book” was interrupted by a letter from Alfred Russell Wallace, on June 18, who had published a paper on species evolution in 1855, announced results strikingly similar to Darwin’s concept of natural selection. Darwin and Wallace jointly presented the work to the Linnaean Society of London on July 1.
November 24, 1859
An abstract of his “Big Book” was published titled The Origin of Species.
1868
The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication was published.
1871
Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex was published.
1872
The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals was published.
APRIL 19, 1882
He died at the age of 73 at Down near London, England.
HIS REMARKABLE PUBLICATIONS
Journal of Researches
1839 Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle (Vol. I to IV)
1839 –1843 Sketch of 1842, Essay of 1844
1842 – 1844 Coral Reefs
1842 Volcanic Islands
1843 Vestiges of Natural Creation
1844 Origin of Species
1859 Fertilization of Orchids
1862 Dimorphic and Trimorphic Plants
1862 – 1867 Climbing Plants
1864 Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication
1868 Descent of Man and Selection with Respect to Sex
1871 Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals
1872 Insectivorous Plants
1875 Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom
1876 The Different Forms of Flowers
1877 Life of Erasmus Darwin : Translation and Sketch
1879 Power of Movement in Plants
1880 The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms
1882
THEORY OF EVOLUTION
During the the H.M.S. Beagle voyage, Darwin noticed how species varied along the coast of South America, and especially on the Galapagos Islands. Upon returning to England, he published his observations in A Naturalist’s Voyage on the Beagle in 1939. Reflecting on his observations, he developed the theory of evolution.
According to this theory, individual variability means that some organisms have a slight advantage over others. The advantage will allow the organisms to complete better in the “struggle for existence” and produced more offspring, that will inherit the advantageous qualities. The process whereby favorable traits in the most “fit” animals allow it to survive and reproduce, was termed by Darwin as “natural selection”. He included the idea of “sexual selection” in his theory, stating that the struggle for possession of females will lead the most vigorous males producing the most progeny.
Darwin was probably influenced in his formulation of evolution theory by the Uniformitarian views expressed in Lyell’s ‘Principles of Geology’, which Darwin had brought on board the Beagle. However, Darwin put off publishing it because he knew the theory would arouse great controversy. Therefore, he continued to compile evidence until he received a letter from Wallace in 1858. This spurred him to publish his theory of natural selection in On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859, which was abbreviated as The Origin of Species. This book revolutionized biology and is one of the most original and pioneering book ever published on the subject.
THE DESCENT OF MAN
Darwin got entangled in a controversy with this publication in which he specifically addressed the evolution of the human species.
Darwin pursued study of the questions of human beings and applied his theory through his work The Descent of Man, in 1871. Far from steering himself away from the social, racial and religious consequences of his theories, he jumped right into the fray, creating a controversy that would never settle.
The conclusion arrived at from this work, was that man descended from some lowly organized form. Man may be excused for taking some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been originally placed there, may provide him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future. Man with all his noble qualities and sympathy which he feels for the most debased, with benevolence that extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect that has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system – all such exalted powers having been achieved – yet, bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
EVOLUTION IN HIS OWN WORDS
“As a record of a former state of things, I have retained in the foregoing paragraphs, and elsewhere, several sentences which imply that naturalists believe in the separate creation of each species, and I have been much censured for having thus expressed myself. But undoubtedly, this was the general belief when the first edition of the present work appeared. I formerly spoke to very many naturalists on the subject of evolution, and never once met with any sympathetic agreement. It is probable that some did then believe in evolution, but they were either silent, or expressed themselves so ambiguously that it was not easy to understand their meaning. Now things are wholly changed, and almost every naturalist admits the great principle of evolution”.
DARWIN STILL SURVIVES
According to the Darwinian doctrine, evolution is essentially a continuous process and selection is also essentially creative in the sense that no change would occur if selection were to be removed.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is considered the most central and the most important solution addressing problems of biology. Darwin was the first to apply the same to the study of evolution. He was concerned both ways; to establish the fact of evolution and to discover the mechanism by which it operated and precisely so, because he tackled simultaneously both aspects of the problem simultaneously, that he was so successful.
The death of Darwinism has been proclaimed not only from the pulpit, but from the biological laboratory. The reaction against Darwinism set in during the 90s of the 19th century. The young zoologists of the time were discontented with the trends of their science. The Darwinism has reborn as a modified Darwinism since it must operate with facts unknown to Darwin, but it is still Darwinism in the sense that it aims at giving a naturalistic interpretation of evolution, and that its upholders while constantly striving for more facts and more experimental results, do not like some cautious spirits, reject the method of deduction.
VIEWS ON DARWIN
“He succeeded in putting the whole of past life into every aspect of every form of present life. In this respect Darwin has no precursor”. - Bert James Loewenberg
“Mental testing was one of many responses within psychology to Darwin’s theory of evolution. In fact, the connection here is intimate and direct, for the idea of measuring mental ability objectively was first set forth by Francis Galton, the younger cousin of Charles Darwin… In 1869, just a decade after Darwin launched modern biology with the ‘Origin of Species’, Galton published ‘Hereditary Genius’, which applied evolutionary thinking to the question of intellect”. - Richard Herrnstein
“It was characteristic of Darwin on his journeys that when he saw a mountain he always tried to climb it.” - Sir Gavin de Beer
“Darwin’s essential achievement was the demonstration that the almost incredible variety of life, with all its complex and puzzling relations to its environment, was explicable in scientific terms.” - Julian Huxley
“Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, and reversion ever dragging evolution in the mud”. - Alfred Tennyson
“The theatre is much older than the doctrine of evolution, but its one faith, asseverated again and again for every age and every year, is a faith in evolution, in the reaching and the climb of man toward distant goals, glimpsed but never seen, perhaps never achieved, or achieved only to be passed impatiently on the way to a more distant horizon.” - Maxwell Anderson.
• Pain or suffering of any kind, if long continued, causes depression and lessens the power of action.
• Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
• According to my judgement happiness decidedly prevails, though this would be very difficult to prove.
• All sentiment beings have been formed so as to enjoy, as a general rule, happiness.
• We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.
• It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.
• A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe.
• As for myself I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to science. I feel no remorse from having committed any great sin, but have often and often regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures.
• A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.
• I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire.
• A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe.
• The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble to us, and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.
• Whenever I have found that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticized, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that “I have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this.
• When on board H.M.S. “Beagle”, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species – that mystery of mysteries, as it greatest philosophers.
• Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the creator into a few forms or into one, and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from a simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
• At the present day the most unusual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep in ward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons.
• The State of mind which grand scenes formerly excited in me, and which was intimately connected with a belief in God, did not essentially differ from that which is often called the sense of sublimity; and however difficult it may be to explain the genesis of this sense, it can hardly be advanced as an argument for the existence of God, any more than the powerful though vague and similar feelings excited by music.
• With respect to immortality, nothing shows me (so clearly) how strong and almost instinctive a belief it is as the consideration of the view now held by most physicists, namely, that the sun with all the planets will in time grow too cold for life, unless indeed some great body dashes into the sun and thus gives it fresh life.
• Man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is.
• To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of out world will not appear so dreadful.
VOYAGE OF BEAGLE
It was Darwin’s most famous voyage, and was the historical event in his life. The voyage during the year 1831 to 1836, was highly adventurous. To travel in ship from one land to another was a great achievement on those days. The events section carry a detailed travelogue of the voyage.
COLLECTION OF SPECIES
Darwin had collected enormous masses of details regarding to species and supporting his theory of natural selection. This great work as far as biological discoveries are concerned was published in 1859. His ‘The Origin of Species’ is one of the significant texts of modern science.
