Encyclopedia
Charles Robert Darwin was an
English naturalist who achieved lasting fame by producing considerable evidence that species originated through
evolutionary change, at the same time proposing the scientific theory that
natural selection is the mechanism by which such change occurs. This theory is now considered a cornerstone of
biology.
Darwin developed an interest in natural history while studying first
medicine, then
theology, at university. Darwin's observations on his
five-year voyage on the
Beagle brought him eminence as a
geologist and fame as a popular author. His biological finds led him to study the transmutation of species and in 1838 he conceived his theory of natural selection. Fully aware that others had been severely punished for such "heretical" ideas, he confided only in his closest friends and continued his research to meet anticipated objections. However, in 1858 the information that
Alfred Russel Wallace had developed a similar theory forced an early joint publication of the theory.
His 1859 book
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, continued his research, and wrote a series of books on plants and animals, including humankind, notably
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolution [i]ary theory by British [i] ...
and
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
In recognition of Darwin's preeminence, he was buried in
Westminster Abbey, close to
John Herschel and
Isaac Newton.
Life
Early life
Charles Darwin was born in
Shrewsbury, Shropshire,
England on 12 February 1809 at his family home, the Mount House. He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor
Robert Darwin and
Susannah Darwin . He was the grandson of
Erasmus Darwin on his father's side, and of
Josiah Wedgwood on his mother's side, both from the
Darwin — Wedgwood family, a prominent English family which supported the
Unitarian church. His mother died when he was only eight. He went to the nearby
Shrewsbury School the next year as a boarder.
In 1825, after spending the summer as an apprentice doctor, helping his father with treating the poor of
Shropshire, Darwin went to the
University of Edinburgh to study medicine. However, his revulsion at the brutality of surgery led him to neglect his medical studies. He learned
taxidermy from John Edmonstone, a freed black slave who told him exciting tales of the South American
rainforest. In Darwin's second year he became active in student societies for
naturalists. He became an avid pupil of Robert Edmund Grant, who pioneered development of the theories of
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and of Charles' grandfather Erasmus concerning evolution by acquired characteristics. Darwin took part in Grant's investigations of the life cycle of marine animals on the shores of the
Firth of Forth which found evidence for
homology, the radical theory that all animals have similar organs and differ only in complexity. In March 1827, Darwin made a presentation to the Plinian society of his own discovery that the black spores often found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech. He also sat in on
Robert Jameson's natural history course, learning about stratigraphic
geology, receiving training in
how to classify plants, and assisting with work on the extensive collections of the
Museum of Edinburgh University, one of the largest museums in Europe at the time.
In 1827, his father, unhappy that his younger son had no interest in becoming a physician, shrewdly enrolled him in a Bachelor of Arts course at
Christ's College,
University of Cambridge to qualify as a clergyman. This was a sensible career move at a time when many
Anglican parsons were provided with a comfortable income, and when most naturalists in England were clergymen who saw it as part of their duties to explore the wonders of God's creation. At Cambridge, Darwin preferred riding and shooting to studying. Along with his cousin
William Darwin Fox, he became engrossed in the craze at the time for the competitive collecting of
beetles, and Fox introduced him to the Reverend
John Stevens Henslow, professor of
botany, for expert advice on beetles. Darwin subsequently joined Henslow's natural history course, became his favourite pupil and came to be known as "the man who walks with Henslow". When exams began to loom, Darwin focused more on his studies and received private instruction from Henslow. Darwin became particularly enthused by the writings of
William Paley, including the argument of divine design in nature. In his finals in January 1831, he performed well in theology and, having scraped through in
classics,
mathematics and
physics, came tenth out of a pass list of 178.
Residential requirements kept Darwin at Cambridge until June. In keeping with Henslow's example and advice, he was in no rush to take holy orders. Inspired by
Alexander von Humboldt's
Personal Narrative, he planned to visit the
Madeira Islands to study natural history in the tropics with some classmates after graduation. To prepare himself for this project, Darwin joined the geology course of the Reverend
Adam Sedgwick, a strong proponent of
divine design, then in the summer went with him to assist in mapping strata in
Wales. Darwin was surveying strata on his own when his plans to visit Madeira were dashed by a message that his intended companion had died, but on his return home he received another letter. Henslow had recommended Darwin for the unpaid position of gentleman's companion to
Robert FitzRoy, the captain of
HMS Beagle, on a two-year expedition to chart the coastline of
South America which would give Darwin valuable opportunities to develop his career as a naturalist. His father objected to the voyage, regarding it as a waste of time, but was persuaded by his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood, to agree to his son's participation. This voyage became a five-year expedition that would lead to dramatic changes in many fields of science.
Journey on the Beagle
The
Beagle survey took five years, two-thirds of which Darwin spent exploring on land. He studied a rich variety of geological features,
fossils and living organisms, and met a wide range of people, both native and colonial. He methodically collected an enormous number of specimens, many of them new to science. This established his reputation as a naturalist and made him one of the precursors of the field of
ecology, particularly the notion of biocoenosis. His extensive detailed notes showed his gift for theorising and formed the basis for his later work, as well as providing social, political and
anthropological insights into the areas he visited.
On the voyage, Darwin read
Charles Lyell's
Principles of Geology, which explained geological features as the outcome of gradual processes over huge periods of time, and wrote home that he was seeing landforms "as though he had the eyes of Lyell": he saw stepped plains of shingle and seashells in
Patagonia as raised beaches; in
Chile, he experienced an earthquake and noted
mussel-beds stranded above high tide showing that the land had been raised; and even high in the
Andes, he was able to collect seashells. He theorised that
coral atolls form on sinking volcanic mountains, an idea he confirmed when the
Beagle surveyed the Cocos Islands.
In
South America he discovered fossils of gigantic extinct mammals including
megatheria and
glyptodons in strata which showed no signs of catastrophe or change in climate. At the time, he thought them similar to African species, but after the voyage
Richard Owen showed that the remains were of animals related to living creatures in the same area. In
Argentina two species of rhea had separate but overlapping territories. On the
Galápagos Islands Darwin found that
mockingbirds differed from one island to another, and on returning to Britain he was shown that Galápagos tortoises and
finches were also in distinct species based on the individual islands they inhabited. The
Australian
marsupial rat-kangaroo and
platypus were such strikingly unusual animals that on 19 January 1836, in
New South Wales, he recorded this in his journal:
I had been lying on a sunny bank & was reflecting on the strange character of the Animals of this country as compared with the rest of the World. An unbeliever in every thing beyond his own reason, might exclaim ‘Surely two distinct Creators must have been [at] work; their object however has been the same & certainly the end in each case is complete’.
He puzzled over all he saw, and, in the first edition of
The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book [i] written by Charles Darwin [i] pub ...
, he explained species distribution in light of
Charles Lyell's ideas of "centres of creation". In later editions of this
Journal he foreshadowed his use of Galápagos Islands fauna as evidence for evolution: "one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends."
Three native missionaries were returned by the
Beagle to
Tierra del Fuego. They had become "civilised" in England over the previous two years, yet their relatives appeared to Darwin to be "miserable, degraded savages". Within a year, the missionaries had reverted to their harsh previous way of life, yet they preferred this and did not want to return to England. This experience, his detestation of the
slavery he saw elsewhere in South America, and other problems he found about such as the effect of European settlement on aborigines in
New Zealand and Australia, persuaded him that there was no moral justification for the mistreating of others based on the concept of race. He now thought that humanity was not as far removed from animals as his clerical friends believed.
While on board the ship, Darwin suffered from seasickness. In October 1833 he caught a fever in Argentina, and in July 1834, while returning from the Andes down to
Valparaíso, he fell ill and spent a month in bed. From 1837 onwards Darwin was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach pains, vomiting, severe boils, palpitations, trembling and other symptoms. These symptoms particularly affected him at times of stress, such as when attending meetings or dealing with controversy over his theory. The cause of
Darwin's illness was unknown during his lifetime, and attempts at treatment had little success. Recent speculation has suggested he caught
Chagas disease from insect bites in South America, leading to the later problems. Other possible causes include psychobiological problems and Ménière's disease.
Career in science, inception of theory
While Darwin was still on the voyage,
Henslow carefully fostered his former pupil's reputation by giving selected naturalists access to the fossil specimens and printed copies of Darwin's geological writings. When the
Beagle returned on 2 October 1836, Darwin was a celebrity in scientific circles. He visited his home in Shrewsbury and his father organised investments so that Darwin could become a self-funded gentleman scientist. Darwin then went to
Cambridge and persuaded Henslow to work on botanical descriptions of modern plants he had collected. Afterwards Darwin went round the
London institutions to find the best naturalists available to describe his other collections for timely publication. An eager
Charles Lyell met Darwin on 29 October and introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist
Richard Owen. After working on Darwin's collection of fossil bones at his Royal College of Surgeons, Owen caused great surprise by revealing that some were from gigantic extinct
rodents and
sloths. This enhanced Darwin's reputation. With Lyell's enthusiastic backing, Darwin read his first paper to the Geological Society of London on 4 January 1837, arguing that the South American landmass was slowly rising. On the same day Darwin presented his mammal and bird specimens to the Zoological Society. The Mammalia were taken on by George R. Waterhouse. Though the birds seemed almost an afterthought, the ornithologist
John Gould revealed that what Darwin had taken to be wrens, blackbirds and slightly differing finches from the Galápagos were all finches, but each was a separate species. Others on the
Beagle, including FitzRoy, had also collected these birds and had been more careful with their notes, enabling Darwin to determine from which island each species had come.
In London, Darwin stayed with his
freethinking brother Erasmus and at dinner parties met inspiring savants who thought that God preordained life by natural laws rather than ad hoc miraculous creations. His brother's lady friend Miss
Harriet Martineau was a writer whose stories promoted
Malthusian Whig Poor Law reforms. Scientific circles were buzzing with ideas of transmutation of species controversially associated with
Radical unrest. Darwin preferred the respectability of his friends the Cambridge Dons, even though his ideas were pushing beyond their belief that
natural history must justify religion and social order.
On 17 February 1837, Lyell used his presidential address at the Geographical Society to present Owen's findings to date on Darwin's fossils, noting particularly the unexpected implication that extinct species were related to current species in the same locality. At the same meeting Darwin was elected to the Council of the Society. He had already been invited by FitzRoy to contribute a
Journal based on his field notes as the natural history section of the captain's account of the
Beagles voyage. He now plunged into writing a book on South American Geology. At the same time he speculated on transmutation in his Red Notebook
which he had begun on the Beagle
. Another project he started was getting the expert reports on his collection published as a multivolume Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
, and Henslow used his contacts to arrange a Treasury grant of £1,000 to sponsor this. Darwin finished writing his Journal
around 20 June when King William IV died and the Victorian era began. In mid-July he began his secret "B" notebook
on transmutation, and developed the hypothesis that where every island in the Galápagos Archipelago had its own kind of tortoise, these had originated from a single tortoise species and had adapted to life on the different islands in different ways.
Under pressure with organising Zoology
and correcting proofs of his Journal, Darwin's health suffered. On 20 September 1837 he suffered "palpitations of the heart" and left for a month of recuperation in the country. He visited Maer Hall where his invalid aunt was being cared for by her spinster daughter
Emma Wedgwood, and entertained his relatives with tales of his travels. His uncle Jos pointed out an area of ground where cinders had disappeared under loam and suggested that this might have been the work of earthworms. This led Darwin to the idea for a talk which he gave to the Geological Society on 1 November, on the unusually mundane subject of worm casts. This work is considered to be the first scholarly treatment of soil forming processes. He had avoided taking on official posts which would have taken up valuable time, but by March
William Whewell had recruited him as Secretary of the Geological Society. Illness prompted Darwin to take a break from the pressure of work and he went "geologising" in Scotland. In glorious weather he visited Glen Roy to see the phenomenon known as "roads" which he identified as raised beaches.
Fully recuperated, he returned home to Shrewsbury. Scientifically pondering his career and prospects he drew up a list with columns headed
"Marry" and
"Not Marry". Entries in the pro-marriage column included "constant companion and a friend in old age ... better than a dog anyhow," while listed among the cons were "less money for books" and "terrible loss of time." The pros won out. He discussed the prospect of marriage with his father then went to visit his cousin Emma on 29 July 1838. He did not get around to proposing, but against his father's advice he told her of his ideas on transmutation. While his thoughts and work continued in London over the autumn he suffered repeated bouts of illness. On 11 November he returned and proposed to Emma, once more telling her his ideas. She accepted, but later wrote beseeching him to read from the Gospel of St. John a section on love and following
the Way which also states that
"If a man abide not in me...they are burned". He sent a warm reply which eased her concern, but she would continue to worry that his lapses of faith could endanger her hope that they would meet in afterlife.
Darwin considered
Malthus's argument that human population increases more quickly than food production, leaving people competing for food and making charity useless. He later formulated this in the terms of his biological theory as: "Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence; consequently he is occasionally subjected to a severe struggle for existence, and natural selection will have effected whatever lies within its scope." He related this to the findings about species relating to localities, his enquiries into animal breeding, and ideas of Natural "laws of harmony". Towards the end of November 1838 he compared breeders selecting traits to a Malthusian Nature selecting from variants thrown up by "chance" so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practised and perfected", and thought this "the most beautiful part of my theory" of how species originated. He went house-hunting and eventually found "Macaw Cottage" in Gower Street, London, then moved his "museum" in over Christmas. He was showing the stress, and Emma wrote urging him to get some rest, almost prophetically remarking "So don't be ill any more my dear Charley till I can be with you to nurse you." On 24 January 1839 he was honoured by being elected as Fellow of the
Royal Society and presented his paper on the Roads of Glen Roy.
Marriage and children
On 29 January 1839, Darwin married his cousin
Emma Wedgwood at Maer in an
Anglican ceremony arranged to also suit the
Unitarians.
After first living in Gower Street,
London, the couple moved on 17 September 1842 to
Down House in
Downe. The Darwins had ten children, three of whom died early. Many of his surviving children and their grandchildren would later achieve notability themselves
Several of their children suffered illness or weaknesses, and Charles Darwin's fear that this might be due to the closeness of his and Emma's lineage was expressed in his writings on the ill effects of inbreeding and advantages of crossing.
Development of theory
Darwin was now an eminent geologist in the scientific élite of clerical naturalists, settled with a private income, while privately working on his theory. He had a vast amount of work to do, writing up all his findings and supervising the preparation of the multivolume
Zoology, which would describe his collections. He embarked on extensive experiments with plants and consultations with
animal husbanders, including pigeon and pig breeders, trying to find soundly based answers to all the arguments he anticipated when he presented his theory in public.
When FitzRoy's account was published in May 1839, Darwin's
Journal and Remarks was a great success. Later that year it was published on its own, becoming the bestseller today known as
The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book [i] written by Charles Darwin [i] pub ...
. In December 1839, as Emma's first pregnancy progressed, Darwin suffered more illness and accomplished little during the following year.
Darwin tried to explain his theory to close friends, but they were slow to show interest and thought that selection must need a divine selector. In 1842 the family moved to rural
Down House to escape the pressures of London. Darwin formulated a short "Pencil Sketch" of his theory, and by 1844 had written a 240-page "Essay" that expanded his early ideas on natural selection. Darwin completed his third
Geological book in 1846. Assisted by his friend, the young botanist
Joseph Dalton Hooker, he embarked on a huge study of
barnacles. In 1847, Hooker read the "Essay" and sent notes that provided Darwin with the calm critical feedback that he needed.
Darwin feared putting the theory out in an incomplete form, as his ideas about evolution would be highly controversial if any attention was paid to them at all. Other ideas about evolution — especially the work of
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck — had been soundly dismissed by the British scientific community, and were associated with political radicalism. The anonymous publication of
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1844 created another controversy over radicalism and evolution, and was severely attacked by Darwin's friends who stressed that no reputable scientist would want to be associated with such ideas.
To try to deal with his illness, Darwin went to a spa in
Malvern in 1849, and to his surprise found that the two months of water treatment helped. In his work on barnacles he found "homologies" that supported his theory by showing that slightly changed body parts could serve different functions to meet new conditions. Then his treasured daughter Annie fell ill, reawakening his fears that his illness might be hereditary. After a long series of crises, she died and Darwin lost all faith in a beneficent God.
He met the young freethinking naturalist
Thomas Huxley who was to become a close friend and ally. Darwin's work on barnacles earned him the
Royal Society's Royal Medal in 1853, establishing his reputation as a
biologist. He completed this study in 1854 and turned his attention to his theory of species.
Announcement and publication of theory
Darwin found an answer to the problem of how genera forked in an analogy with industrial ideas of division of labour, with specialised varieties each finding their niche so that species could diverge. He experimented with seeds, testing their ability to survive sea-water to transfer species to isolated islands, and bred pigeons to test his ideas of natural selection being comparable to the "artificial selection" used by pigeon breeders.
In the spring of 1856, Lyell read a paper on the
Introduction of species by
Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist working in
Borneo. Lyell urged Darwin to publish his theory to establish precedence. Despite illness, Darwin began a 3-volume book titled
Natural Selection, getting specimens and information from naturalists including Wallace and
Asa Gray. In December 1857 as Darwin worked on the book he received a letter from Wallace asking if it would delve into human origins. Sensitive to Lyell's fears, Darwin responded that "I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices, though I fully admit that it is the highest & most interesting problem for the naturalist." He encouraged Wallace's theorising, saying "without speculation there is no good & original observation." Darwin added that "I go much further than you." His manuscript reached 250,000 words, then on 18 June 1858 he received a paper in which Wallace described the evolutionary mechanism and requested him to send it on to Lyell. Darwin did so, shocked that he had been "forestalled". Though Wallace had not asked for publication, Darwin offered to send it to any journal that Wallace chose. He put matters in the hands of Lyell and Hooker. They agreed on a joint presentation at the Linnean Society on 1 July of
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. Darwin's infant son died and he was unable to attend.
The initial announcement of the theory gained little immediate attention. It was mentioned briefly in a few small reviews, but to most people it seemed much the same as other varieties of
evolutionary thought. For the next thirteen months Darwin suffered from ill health and struggled to produce an abstract of his "big book on species". Receiving constant encouragement from his scientific friends, Darwin finally finished his abstract and Lyell arranged to have it published by John Murray. The title was agreed as
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by English [i] naturalist [i] ...
, and when the book went on sale to the trade on 22 November 1859, the stock of 1,250 copies was oversubscribed. At the time "Evolutionism" implied creation without divine intervention, and Darwin avoided using the words "evolution" or "evolve", though the book ends by stating that "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." The book only briefly alluded to the idea that human beings, too, would evolve in the same way as other organisms. Darwin wrote in deliberate understatement that "light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."
Reaction
Darwin's book set off a public controversy which he monitored closely, keeping press cuttings of thousands of reviews,
articles,
satires,
parodies and
caricatures. Reviewers were quick to pick out the unstated implications of "men from monkeys", though a
Unitarian review was favourable and
The Times is a national newspaper [i] published daily in the United Kingdom [i] since 1785, and unde ...
published a glowing review by Huxley which included swipes at
Richard Owen, leader of the scientific establishment Huxley was trying to overthrow. Owen initially appeared neutral, but then wrote a review condemning the book.
The
Church of England scientific establishment including Darwin's old Cambridge tutors
Sedgwick and
Henslow reacted against the book, though it was well received by a younger generation of professional naturalists. Then
Essays and Reviews by seven liberal
Anglican theologians declared that miracles were irrational , distracting attention away from Darwin.
The most famous confrontation took place at a meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science in
Oxford. Professor John William Draper delivered a long lecture about Darwin and social progress, then
Samuel Wilberforce, the
Bishop of Oxford, argued against Darwin. In the ensuing debate
Joseph Hooker argued strongly for Darwin and
