Charles Darwin.html |
| | | ca | | | de | | | en | | | es | | | fr | | | it | | | nl | | | no | | | pl | | | pt | | | ru | | | ro | | | fi | | | sv | | | tr | | | vo | | |
| |  |
| Charles Darwin | |
 Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882). At the age of 51, Charles Darwin had just published
On the Origin of Species. |
|
| Born | 12 February 1809 Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England |
|---|---|
| Died | 19 April 1882 (aged 73) Down House, Downe, Kent, England |
| Residence | England |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Naturalist |
| Institutions | Royal Geographical Society |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh University of Cambridge |
| Academic advisors | Adam Sedgwick John Stevens Henslow |
| Known for | The Voyage of the Beagle On The Origin of Species Natural selection |
| Influences | Charles Lyell |
| Influenced | Thomas Henry Huxley George John Romanes |
| Notable awards | Royal Medal (1853) Wollaston Medal (1859) Copley Medal (1864) |
| Religious stance | Church of England, though Unitarian family background, Agnostic after 1851. |
Signature |
|
|
Notes
He was a grandson of Erasmus Darwin and a grandson of Josiah Wedgwood, and married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. |
|
Charles Robert Darwin (February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882) was an English naturalist,[I] who realised and demonstrated that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection.1 The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community and the general public in his lifetime, while his theory of natural selection came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the 1930s,1 and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. In modified form, Darwin’s scientific discovery remains the foundation of biology, as it provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.2
Darwin developed his interest in natural history while studying medicine at Edinburgh University, then theology at Cambridge.3 His five-year voyage on the Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin investigated the transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838.4 Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority.5 He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories.6
His 1859 book On the Origin of Species established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.7
In recognition of Darwin’s pre-eminence, he was one of only five 19th century UK non-royal personages to be honoured by a state funeral,8 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.9
Biography
Early life
-
For more details on this topic, see Charles Darwin's education.
Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on 12 February 1809 at his family home, the Mount.10 He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin, and Susannah Darwin (née Wedgwood). He was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin on his father’s side, and of Josiah Wedgwood on his mother’s side. Both families were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism. Robert Darwin, himself quietly a freethinker, made a nod toward convention by having baby Charles baptised in the Anglican Church. Nonetheless, Charles and his siblings attended the Unitarian chapel with their mother, and in 1817, Charles joined the day school, run by its preacher. In July of that year, when Charles was eight years old, his mother died. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder.11
Darwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire. In the autumn, he went with Erasmus to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine, but was revolted by the brutality of surgery and neglected his medical studies. He learned taxidermy from John Edmonstone, a freed black slave who had accompanied Charles Waterton in the South American rainforest. Darwin often sat with this "very pleasant and intelligent man",12 and later recalled this as evidence against "ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species".13
In Darwin’s second year he joined the Plinian Society, a student group of natural history enthusiasts,14 and assisted Dr. Robert Edmund Grant’s investigations of the anatomy and life cycle of marine animals in the Firth of Forth. In March 1827 Darwin made a presentation to the Plinian of his own discovery that the black spores often found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech.15 Grant expounded Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theory of evolution by acquired characteristics, and the evolutionary ideas of Charles’s grandfather Erasmus which Darwin had recently read. Grant found evidence for homology, the radical theory that all animals have similar organs which differ only in complexity, thus showing common descent.16 Darwin was rather bored by Robert Jameson’s natural history course which covered geology including the debate between Neptunism and Plutonism. He learnt classification of plants, and assisted with work on the extensive collections of the University Museum, one of the largest museums in Europe at the time.17
The failure to pursue medical studies annoyed his father, who shrewdly enrolled him in a Bachelor of Arts course at Christ’s College, Cambridge to qualify as a clergyman and get a good income as an Anglican parson.18 Darwin began the course in January 1828, but preferred riding and shooting to studying.19 With his cousin Fox, he became engrossed in the popular craze for beetle collecting and had some of his finds published in Stevens' Illustrations of British entomology. He became a close friend and follower of botany professor John Stevens Henslow, and met leading naturalists who saw scientific work as religious activity. His enthusiasm at Henslow’s botany course made him known to the dons as “the man who walks with Henslow”.20 When exams drew near, Darwin focused on his studies and received private instruction from Henslow, becoming delighted by the language and logic of William Paley's Evidences of Christianity.21 In his finals in January 1831, Darwin performed well in theology and scraped through in classics, mathematics and physics, coming tenth out of a pass list of 178.22
Residential requirements kept Darwin at Cambridge until June. He studied Paley's Natural Theology which made an argument for divine design in nature, explaining adaptation as God acting through laws of nature.23 He read William Herschel's new book which described the highest aim of natural philosophy as understanding these laws through inductive reasoning based on observation, and Alexander von Humboldt’s Personal Narrative of scientific travels, and was inspired with "a burning zeal" to contribute. He planned to visit Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics. In preparation, Darwin joined the geology course of the Reverend Adam Sedgwick then went with him in the summer mapping strata in Wales.24 After a fortnight with student friends at Barmouth, he returned home to find a letter from Henslow recommending Darwin as a suitable (if unfinished) naturalist for the unpaid position of gentleman’s companion to Robert FitzRoy, the captain of HMS Beagle, which was to leave in four weeks on an expedition to chart the coastline of South America. His father objected to the planned two-year 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.25
Journey of the Beagle
-
For more details on this topic, see Second voyage of HMS Beagle.
The voyage lasted almost five years and, as FitzRoy had intended, Darwin spent most of that time on land investigating geology and making natural history collections, while the Beagle surveyed and charted coasts.261 He kept careful notes of his observations and theoretical speculations, and at intervals during the voyage his specimens were sent to Cambridge together with letters including a copy of his journal for his family.27 He had some expertise in geology, beetle collecting and marine invertebrates, but in all other areas was a novice and ably collected specimens for expert appraisal.28 Despite repeatedly suffering badly from seasickness while at sea,29 most of his zoology notes are about the sea creatures he dissected, and they start with plankton collected in a calm spell.2630
On their first stop ashore at St Jago, Darwin found that a white band high in the volcanic rock cliffs included seashells. FitzRoy had given him the first volume of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology which set out uniformitarian concepts of land slowly rising or falling over immense periods,[II] and Darwin saw things Lyell's way, theorising and thinking of writing a book on geology.31 In Brazil, Darwin was delighted by the tropical forest.32 but detested the sight of slavery.33
At Punta Alta in Patagonia he made a major find of fossils of huge extinct mammals in cliffs beside modern seashells, indicating recent extinction with no signs of change in climate or catastrophe. He identified the little known Megatherium, with bony armour which seemed to him like giant versions of the armour on local armadillos. The finds brought great interest when they reached England.34 On rides with gauchos into the interior to explore geology and collect more fossils he gained social, political and anthropological insights into both native and colonial people at a time of revolution, and learnt that two types of rhea had separate but overlapping territories.3536 Further south he saw stepped plains of shingle and seashells as raised beaches showing a series of elevations. He read Lyell’s second volume and accepted its view of “centres of creation” of species, but his discoveries and theorising challenged Lyell's ideas of smooth continuity and of extinction of species.3738
Three Fuegians on board, who had been seized during the first Beagle voyage around February 1830 and spent a year in England, were taken back to Tierra del Fuego as missionaries. Darwin found them friendly and civilised, yet their relatives seemed “miserable, degraded savages”, as different as wild from domesticated animals.39 To Darwin the difference showed cultural advances, not racial inferiority. Unlike his scientist friends, he now thought there was no unbridgeable gap between humans and animals.40 A year on, the mission had been abandoned. The Fuegian they'd named Jemmy Button lived like the other natives, had a wife, and had no wish to return to England.41
Darwin experienced an earthquake in Chile and saw signs that the land had just been raised, including mussel-beds stranded above high tide. High in the Andes he saw seashells, and several fossil trees that had grown on a sand beach. He theorised that as the land rose, oceanic islands sank, and coral reefs round them grew to form atolls.4243
On the Galápagos Islands Darwin noted that mockingbirds differed depending on which island they came from.44 He also heard that local Spaniards could tell from their appearance on which island tortoises originated.45 In Australia, the marsupial rat-kangaroo and the platypus seemed so unusual that Darwin thought it was almost as though two distinct Creators had been at work.46 He found the Aborigines "good-humoured & pleasant", and noted their depletion by European settlement.47 The Beagle investigated the formation of the atolls of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and the survey supported Darwin's idea.43 FitzRoy began writing the official Narrative of the Beagle voyages, and after reading Darwin’s diary he proposed incorporating it into the account.48 Darwin's Journal was eventually rewritten as a separate third volume, on natural history.49
In Cape Town Darwin and FitzRoy met John Herschel, who had recently written to Lyell about that “mystery of mysteries”, the origin of species.50 When organising his notes as the ship sailed home, Darwin wrote that if his growing suspicions about the mockingbirds, the tortoises and the Falkland Island Fox were correct, “such facts undermine the stability of Species”, then cautiously added “would” before “undermine”.51 He later wrote that such facts “seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species”.52
Inception of Darwin’s evolutionary theory
-
For more details on this topic, see Inception of Darwin's theory.
While Darwin was still on the voyage, Henslow fostered his former pupil’s reputation by giving selected naturalists access to the fossil specimens and a pamphlet of Darwin’s geological letters.53 When the Beagle returned on 2 October 1836, Darwin was a celebrity in scientific circles. After visiting his home in Shrewsbury and seeing relatives, Darwin hurried to Cambridge to see Henslow, who advised on finding naturalists available to describe and catalogue the collections, and agreed to take on the botanical specimens. Darwin’s father organised investments, enabling his son to be a self-funded gentleman scientist, and an excited Darwin went round the London institutions being fêted and seeking experts to describe the collections. Zoologists had a huge backlog of work, and there was a danger of specimens just being left in storage.54
An eager Charles Lyell met Darwin for the first time on 29 October and soon introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist Richard Owen, who had the facilities of the Royal College of Surgeons at his disposal to work on the fossil bones collected by Darwin. Owen’s surprising results included gigantic extinct sloths including a near complete skeleton of the unknown Scelidotherium, a hippopotamus-sized rodent-like skull named Toxodon resembling a giant capybara, and armour fragments from a huge armadillo (Glyptodon), as Darwin had initially surmised.55 These extinct creatures were closely related to living species in South America.56
In mid-December, Darwin moved to Cambridge to organise work on his collections and rewrite his Journal.57 He wrote his first paper, showing that the South American landmass was slowly rising, and with Lyell’s enthusiastic backing read it to the Geological Society of London on 4 January 1837. On the same day, he presented his mammal and bird specimens to the Zoological Society. The ornithologist John Gould soon revealed that the Galapagos birds that Darwin had thought a mixture of blackbirds, “gros-beaks” and finches, were, in fact, twelve separate species of finches. On 17 February 1837, Darwin was elected to the Council of the Geographical Society, and in his presidential address, Lyell presented Owen’s findings on Darwin’s fossils, stressing geographical continuity of species as supporting his uniformitarian ideas.58
On 6 March 1837, Darwin moved to London to be close to this work, and joined the social whirl around scientists and savants such as Charles Babbage, who thought that God preordained life by natural laws rather than ad hoc miraculous creations. Darwin lived near his freethinking brother Erasmus, who was part of this Whig circle and whose close friend the writer Harriet Martineau promoted the ideas of Thomas Malthus underlying the Whig “Poor Law reforms” aimed at discouraging the poor from breeding beyond available food supplies. John Herschel’s description of the origin of new species as the "mystery of mysteries" was widely discussed. Medical men even joined Grant in endorsing transmutation of species, a radical idea which Darwin’s scientist friends rejected as an incorrect idea which endangered social order.59
Gould revealed that the Galapagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and the “wrens” were yet another species of finches. Darwin had not labelled his finch specimens by island, but from the notes of others on the Beagle, including FitzRoy, he worked out that there were distinct species on each island. The zoologist Thomas Bell showed that the Galápagos tortoises were native to the islands.60 By mid-March, Darwin was speculating in his Red Notebook on the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain the geographical distribution of species both living and extinct.61 In his “B” notebook begun in mid-July his novel ideas of transmutation discarded Lamarck's independent lineages progressing to higher forms, and saw life as genealogical branching of a single evolutionary tree, in which "It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another".62
Overwork, illness, and marriage
As well as launching into this intensive study of transmutation, Darwin became mired in more work. While still rewriting his Journal, he took on editing and publishing the expert reports on his collections, and with Henslow’s help obtained a Treasury grant of £1,000 to sponsor this multi-volume Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. He agreed to unrealistic dates for this and for a book on South American Geology supporting Lyell’s ideas. Darwin finished writing his Journal around 20 June 1837 just as Queen Victoria came to the throne, but then had its proofs to correct.63
Darwin’s health suffered from the pressure. On 20 September 1837, he had “an uncomfortable palpitation of the heart", and his doctors urged him to "knock off all work" and live in the country for a few weeks. He went to Shrewsbury then on to visit his Wedgwood relatives at Maer Hall, but found them too eager for tales of his travels to give him much rest. His charming, intelligent, and cultured cousin Emma Wedgwood, nine months older than Darwin, was nursing his invalid aunt. 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 inspired a talk which Darwin gave to the Geological Society on 1 November, the first demonstration of the role of earthworms in soil formation.64
William Whewell pushed Darwin to take on the duties of Secretary of the Geological Society. After first declining this extra work, he accepted the post in March 1838.65 Despite the grind of writing and editing the Beagle reports, remarkable progress was made on transmutation. Darwin took every opportunity to question expert naturalists and, unconventionally, people with practical experience such as farmers and pigeon fanciers.166 Over time his research drew on information from his relatives and children, the family butler, neighbours, colonists and former shipmates.67 He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing an ape in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its child-like behaviour.68
The strain took its toll, and by June he was being laid up for days on end with stomach problems, headaches and heart symptoms.69 For the rest of his life, he was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach pains, vomiting, severe boils, palpitations, trembling and other symptoms, particularly during 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 attempts at diagnosis have suggested Chagas disease caught from insect bites in South America, Ménière’s disease, or various psychological illnesses as possible causes, without any conclusive results.70
On 23 June 1838, he took a break from the pressure of work and went “geologising” in Scotland. He visited Glen Roy in glorious weather to see the parallel “roads” cut into the hillsides at three heights. He thought that these were marine raised beaches: they were later shown to have been shorelines of a proglacial lake.71
Fully recuperated, he returned to Shrewsbury in July. Used to jotting down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts about career and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns headed “Marry” and “Not Marry”. Advantages included “constant companion and a friend in old age ... better than a dog anyhow”, against points such as “less money for books” and “terrible loss of time.”72 Having decided in favour, he discussed it with his father, then went to visit Emma on 29 July 1838. He did not get around to proposing, but against his father’s advice he mentioned his ideas on transmutation.73
Continuing his research in London, Darwin’s wide reading now included the sixth edition of Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Population
In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work...74
Malthus asserted that unless human population is kept in check, it increases in a geometrical progression and soon exceeds food supply in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe.75 Darwin was well prepared to see at once that this also applied to de Candolle’s “warring of the species” of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. This would result in the formation of new species.176 On 28 September 1838 he noted this insight, describing it as a kind of wedging, forcing adapted structures into gaps in the economy of nature as weaker structures were thrust out.1 Over the following months he compared farmers picking the best breeding stock to a Malthusian Nature selecting from variants thrown up by “chance” so that “every part of [every] newly acquired structure is fully practised and perfected”, and thought this analogy “the most beautiful part of my theory”.77
On 11 November, he returned to Maer and proposed to Emma, once more telling her his ideas. She accepted, then in exchanges of loving letters she showed how she valued his openness, but her upbringing as a very devout Anglican led her to express fears that his lapses of faith could endanger her hopes to meet in the afterlife.78 While he was house-hunting in London, bouts of illness continued 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.” He found what they called “Macaw Cottage” (because of its gaudy interiors) in Gower Street, then moved his “museum” in over Christmas. The marriage was arranged for 24 January 1839, but the Wedgwoods set the date back. On the 24th, Darwin was honoured by being elected as Fellow of the Royal Society.79
On 29 January 1839, Darwin and Emma Wedgwood were married at Maer in an Anglican ceremony arranged to suit the Unitarians, then immediately caught the train to London and their new home.80
Preparing the theory of natural selection for publication
-
For more details on this topic, see Development of Darwin's theory.
Darwin now had the framework of his theory of natural selection “by which to work”,81 as his “prime hobby”.82 His research subsequently included animal husbandry and extensive experiments with plants, finding evidence that species were not fixed and investigating many detailed ideas to refine and substantiate his theory.1 For more than a decade this work was in the background to his main occupation, publication of the scientific results of the Beagle voyage.83
When FitzRoy’s Narrative was published in May 1839, Darwin’s Journal and Remarks (The Voyage of the Beagle) as the third volume was such a success that later that year it was published on its own.84
Early in 1842, Darwin sent a letter about his ideas to Lyell, who was dismayed that his ally now denied “seeing a beginning to each crop of species”. In May, Darwin’s book on coral reefs was published after more than three years of work, and he then wrote a “pencil sketch” of his theory.85 To escape the pressures of London, the family moved to rural Down House in November.86 On 11 January 1844 Darwin mentioned his theorising to the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, writing with melodramatic humour “it is like confessing a murder”.8788 To his relief, Hooker replied “There may in my opinion have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject.”89
By July, Darwin had expanded his “sketch” into a 230-page “Essay”, to be expanded with his research results if he died prematurely.90 He was shocked in November to find many of his arguments anticipated in the anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, though it lacked any convincing explanation for transmutation. The book was amateurish and he scorned its geology and anatomy, but as a best-seller it widened middle-class interest in transmutation, paving the way for Darwin as well as reminding him of the need to counter all arguments.91 Darwin completed his third geological book in 1846, and turned in relief to dissecting and classifying the barnacles he had collected, using his new ideas of common descent, and the anatomy he had learnt as Grant’s student.92 In 1847, Hooker read the “Essay” and sent notes that provided Darwin with the calm critical feedback that he needed, but would not commit himself and questioned Darwin’s opposition to continuing acts of creation.93
In an attempt to improve his chronic ill health, Darwin went in 1849 to Dr. James Gully’s Malvern spa and was surprised to find some benefit from hydrotherapy.94 Then in 1851 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’s faith in Christianity dwindled away.95
In eight years of work on barnacles (Cirripedia), Darwin found “homologies” that supported his theory by showing that slightly changed body parts could serve different functions to meet new conditions.96 In 1853 it earned him the Royal Society’s Royal Medal, and it made his reputation as a biologist.97 He resumed work on his theory of species in 1854, and in November realised that divergence in the character of descendants could be explained by them becoming adapted to “diversified places in the economy of nature”.98
Publication of the theory of natural selection
-
For more details on this topic, see Publication of Darwin's theory.
By the start of 1856, Darwin was investigating whether eggs and seeds could survive travel across seawater to spread species across oceans. Hooker increasingly doubted the traditional view that species were fixed, but their young friend Thomas Henry Huxley was firmly against evolution. Lyell was intrigued by Darwin’s speculations without realising their extent. When he read a paper by Alfred Russel Wallace on the Introduction of species, he saw similarities with Darwin’s thoughts and urged him to publish to establish precedence. Though Darwin saw no threat, he began work on a short paper. Finding answers to difficult questions held him up repeatedly, and he expanded his plans to a “big book on species” titled Natural Selection. He continued his researches, obtaining information and specimens from naturalists worldwide including Wallace who was working in Borneo. In December 1857, Darwin received a letter from Wallace asking if the book would examine human origins. He responded that he would avoid that subject, “so surrounded with prejudices”, while encouraging Wallace’s theorising and adding that “I go much further than you.”99
Darwin’s book was half way when, on 18 June 1858, he received a paper from Wallace describing natural selection. Shocked that he had been “forestalled”, Darwin sent it on to Lyell, as requested, and, though Wallace had not asked for publication, he suggested he would send it to any journal that Wallace chose. His family was in crisis with children in the village dying of scarlet fever, and he put matters in the hands of Lyell and Hooker. They decided 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; however, Darwin’s baby son died of the scarlet fever and he was too distraught to attend.100
There was little immediate attention to this announcement of the theory; after the paper was published in the August journal of the society, it was reprinted in several magazines and there were some reviews and letters, but the president of the Linnean remarked in May 1859 that the year had not been marked by any revolutionary discoveries.101 Only one review rankled enough for Darwin to recall it later; Professor Samuel Haughton of Dublin claimed that “all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old.”102 Darwin struggled for thirteen months to produce an abstract of his “big book”, suffering from ill health but getting constant encouragement from his scientific friends. Lyell arranged to have it published by John Murray.103
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (usually abbreviated to On the Origin of Species) proved unexpectedly popular, with the entire stock of 1,250 copies oversubscribed when it went on sale to booksellers on 22 November 1859.104 In the book, Darwin set out “one long argument” of detailed observations, inferences and consideration of anticipated objections.105 His only allusion to human evolution was the understatement that “light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history”.106 His theory is simply stated in the introduction:
As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.107
He put a strong case for common descent, but avoided the then controversial term “evolution”, and at the end of the book concluded that;
There is 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.108
Reaction to the publication
-
For more details on this topic, see Reaction to Darwin's theory.
Darwin’s book sparked off international debate, though the heat of controversy was less than that over earlier works such as Vestiges of Creation.110 He monitored the debate closely, keeping press cuttings of reviews, articles, satires, parodies and caricatures.111 Darwin had carefully said no more than "Light will be thrown on the origin of man",112 but the first review claimed it made a creed of the “men from monkeys” idea from Vestiges.113 Amongst favourable responses were Huxley’s reviews which included swipes at Richard Owen, leader of the scientific establishment Huxley was trying to overthrow, and when Owen's review appeared it joined those that condemned the book.114
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 liberal clergymen who interpreted natural selection as an instrument of God's design, with the cleric Charles Kingsley seeing it as "just as noble a conception of Deity".115 In 1860, the publication of Essays and Reviews by seven liberal Anglican theologians diverted clerical attention from Darwin, with its ideas including higher criticism attacked by church authorities as heresy. It included Baden Powell's argument that miracles broke God’s laws, so belief in them was atheistic, and his praise for “Mr Darwin’s masterly volume [supporting] the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature”.116
The most famous confrontation took place at the public 1860 Oxford evolution debate during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor John William Draper delivered a long lecture about Darwin and social progress. The Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce, who was not opposed to transmutation, then argued against Darwin's explanation. In the ensuing debate Joseph Hooker argued strongly for Darwin and Thomas Huxley established himself as “Darwin’s bulldog” – the fiercest defender of evolutionary theory on the Victorian stage. Both sides came away feeling victorious, but Huxley went on to make much of his claim that on being asked by Wilberforce whether he was descended from monkeys on his grandfather’s side or his grandmother’s side, Huxley muttered: “The Lord has delivered him into my hands” and replied that he “would rather be descended from an ape than from a cultivated man who used his gifts of culture and eloquence in the service of prejudice and falsehood”.117 Huxley portrayed a polarisation between religion and science and used Darwinism to campaign against the authority of the clergy in education.115
Darwin’s illness kept him away from the public debates, though he read eagerly about them and mustered support through correspondence. Asa Gray persuaded a publisher in the United States to pay royalties, and Darwin imported and distributed Gray’s pamphlet Natural Selection is not inconsistent with Natural Theology.118 In Britain, friends including Hooker119 and Lyell120 took part in the scientific debates which Huxley pugnaciously led to overturn the dominance of clergymen and aristocratic amateurs under Owen in favour of a new generation of professional scientists. Owen mistakenly claimed certain anatomical differences between ape and human brains, and accused Huxley of advocating “Ape Origin of Man”. Huxley gladly did just that, and his campaign over two years was devastatingly successful in ousting Owen and the “old guard”.121 Darwin’s friends formed The X Club and helped to gain him the honour of the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1864.120
Broader public interest had already been stimulated by Vestiges, and the Origin of Species was translated into many languages and went through numerous reprints, becoming a staple scientific text accessible both to a newly curious middle class and to “working men” who flocked to Huxley’s lectures.122 Darwin’s theory also resonated with various movements at the time[III] and became a key fixture of popular culture.[IV]
Descent of Man, sexual selection, and botany
- More detailed articles cover Darwin’s life from Orchids to Variation, from Descent of Man to Emotions and from Insectivorous plants to Worms
Despite repeated bouts of illness during the last twenty-two years of his life, Darwin pressed on with his work. He had published On the Origin of Species as an abstract of his theory, but more controversial aspects of his “big book” were still incomplete, including his views on humankind’s descent from earlier animals, and possible causes underlying the development of society and of human mental abilities. He had yet to explain features with decorative beauty but no obvious utility. His experiments, research and writing continued.
When Darwin’s daughter fell ill, he set aside his experiments with seedlings and domestic animals to accompany her to a seaside resort where he became interested in wild orchids. This developed into an innovative study of how their beautiful flowers served to control insect pollination and ensure cross fertilisation. As with the barnacles, homologous parts served different functions in different species. Back at home, he lay on his sickbed in a room filled with experiments on climbing plants. Visitors included Ernst Haeckel who had spread a version of Darwinismus in Germany.123 Wallace remained supportive, though he increasingly turned to Spiritualism.124
The first part of Darwin's planned “big book”, Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication, grew to two huge volumes, forcing him to leave out human evolution and sexual selection. It sold briskly in 1868 despite its size, but interest tailed off.125 He wrote most of a second section on natural selection, but it remained unpublished in his lifetime.126
In 1863 Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man had popularised prehistory, though his caution on evolution disappointed Darwin. Weeks later Huxley's Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature had shown that anatomically humans are apes, and both books had enormous influence.127 With The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex published in 1871, Darwin set out evidence from numerous sources that humans are animals, showing continuity of physical and mental attributes, and presented sexual selection to explain impractical animal features such as the peacock's plumage as well as human evolution of culture, differences between sexes, and physical and cultural racial characteristics, while emphasising that humans are all one species.128 His research using images was expanded in his 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, one of the first books to feature printed photographs, which discussed the evolution of human psychology and its continuity with the behaviour of animals. Both books proved very popular, and Darwin was impressed by the general assent with which his views had been received, remarking that "everybody is talking about it without being shocked."129 His conclusion was "that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system–with all these exalted powers–Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”130
His evolution-related experiments and investigations culminated in books on the movement of climbing plants, insectivorous plants, the effects of cross and self fertilisation of plants, different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, and The Power of Movement in Plants. In his last book, he returned to the effect earthworms have on soil formation.
He died in Downe, Kent, England, on 19 April 1882. He had expected to be buried in St Mary’s churchyard at Downe, but at the request of Darwin’s colleagues, William Spottiswoode (President of the Royal Society) arranged for Darwin to be given a state funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.131 Only five non-royal personages were granted that honour of a UK state funeral during the 19th century.8
Darwin’s children
 |
|
|
|
|
|---|---|
| William Erasmus Darwin | (27 December 1839–1914) |
| Anne Elizabeth Darwin | (2 March 1841–22 April 1851) |
| Mary Eleanor Darwin | (23 September 1842–16 October 1842) |
| Henrietta Emma “Etty” Darwin | (25 September 1843–1929) |
| George Howard Darwin | (9 July 1845–7 December 1912) |
| Elizabeth “Bessy” Darwin | (8 July 1847–1926) |
| Francis Darwin | (16 August 1848–19 September 1925) |
| Leonard Darwin | (15 January 1850–26 March 1943) |
| Horace Darwin | (13 May 1851–29 September 1928) |
| Charles Waring Darwin | (6 December 1856–28 June 1858) |
The Darwins had ten children: two died in infancy, and Annie's death at the age of ten had a devastating effect on her parents. Charles was a devoted father and uncommonly attentive to his children.3 Whenever they fell ill he feared that they might have inherited weaknesses from inbreeding due to the close family ties he shared with his wife and cousin, Emma Wedgwood. He examined this topic in his writings, contrasting it with the advantages of crossing amongst many organisms.132 Despite his fears, most of the surviving children went on to have distinguished careers as notable members of the prominent Darwin-Wedgwood family.133
Of his surviving children, George, Francis and Horace became Fellows of the Royal Society, distinguished as astronomer,134 botanist and civil engineer, respectively.135 His son Leonard, on the other hand, went on to be a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.136
Religious views
-
For more details on this topic, see Charles Darwin's views on religion.
Though Charles Darwin’s family background was Nonconformist, and his father, grandfather and brother were Freethinkers,137 at first he did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible.138 He attended a Church of England school, then at Cambridge studied Anglican theology to become a clergyman.139 He was convinced by William Paley’s teleological argument that design in nature proved the existence of God,140 but during the Beagle voyage he questioned, for example, why deep-ocean plankton had been created with so much beauty for little purpose as no one could see them,30 or the problem of evil of how the ichneumon wasp paralysing caterpillars as live food for its eggs could be reconciled with Paley’s vision of beneficent design.141 He was still quite orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on morality, but was critical of the history in the Old Testament.142
When investigating transmutation of species he knew that his naturalist friends thought this a bestial heresy undermining miraculous justifications for the social order, the kind of radical argument then being used by Dissenters and atheists to attack the Church of England’s privileged position as the established church.143 Though Darwin wrote of religion as a tribal survival strategy, he still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver.144 His belief dwindled, and his grief at the death of his daughter Annie in 1851 made him more certain in his scepticism.145 He continued to help the local church with parish work, but on Sundays would go for a walk while his family attended church.146 He now thought it better to look at pain and suffering as the result of general laws rather than direct intervention by God.147 When asked about his religious views, he wrote that he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God, and that generally “an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.”148
The “Lady Hope Story”, published in 1915, claimed that Darwin had reverted back to Christianity on his sickbed. The claims were refuted by Darwin’s children and have been dismissed as false by historians.149 His daughter, Henrietta, who was at his deathbed, said that he did not convert to Christianity.150 His last words were, in fact, directed at Emma: “Remember what a good wife you have been.”151
Political interpretations
Darwin’s theories and writings, combined with Gregor Mendel’s genetics (the “modern synthesis”), form the basis of all modern biology.152 However, Darwin’s fame and popularity led to his name being associated with ideas and movements which at times had only an indirect relation to his writings, and sometimes went directly against his express comments.
Eugenics
-
For more details on this topic, see Eugenics.
Darwin was interested by his half-cousin Francis Galton's argument, introduced in 1865, that statistical analysis of heredity showed that moral and mental human traits could be inherited, and principles of animal breeding could apply to humans. In The Descent of Man Darwin noted that aiding the weak to survive and have families could lose the benefits of natural selection, but cautioned that withholding such aid would endanger the instinct of sympathy, "the noblest part of our nature", and factors such as education could be more important. When Galton suggested that publishing research could encourage intermarriage within a "caste" of "those who are naturally gifted", Darwin foresaw practical difficulties, and thought it "the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race", preferring to simply publicise the importance of inheritance and leave decisions to individuals.153
Galton named the field of study Eugenics in 1883, after Darwin’s death, and developed biometrics. Eugenics movements were widespread at a time when Darwin's natural selection was eclipsed by Mendelian genetics, and in some countries including the United States compulsory sterilisation laws in were imposed. Nazi eugenics in Germany discredited the idea.[V]
Social Darwinism
-
For more details on this topic, see Social Darwinism.
The ideas of Thomas Malthus and Herbert Spencer which applied ideas of evolution and “survival of the fittest” to societies, nations and businesses became popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, and were used to defend various, sometimes contradictory, ideological perspectives including laissez-faire economics,154 colonialism,155 racism and imperialism.155 The term “Social Darwinism” originated around the 1890s, but became popular as a derogatory term in the 1940s with Richard Hofstadter’s critique of laissez-faire conservatism.156 The concepts predate Darwin’s publication of the Origin in 1859:155 Malthus died in 1834 and Spencer published his books on economics in 1851 and on evolution in 1855.157 Darwin himself insisted that social policy should not simply be guided by concepts of struggle and selection in nature.158 He did not share the racism common at his time, and was strongly against slavery, against "ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species", and against ill-treatment of native people.[VI]
Commemoration
During Darwin’s lifetime, many species and geographical features were given his name. An expanse of water adjoining the Beagle Channel was named Darwin Sound by Robert FitzRoy after Darwin’s prompt action, along with two or three of the men, saved them from being marooned on a nearby shore when a collapsing glacier caused a large wave that would have swept away their boats,159 and the nearby Mount Darwin in the Andes was named in celebration of Darwin’s 25th birthday.160 When the Beagle was surveying Australia in 1839, Darwin’s friend John Lort Stokes sighted a natural harbour which the ship’s captain Wickham named Port Darwin.161 The settlement of Palmerston founded there in 1869 was officially renamed Darwin in 1911. It became the capital city of Australia’s Northern Territory,161 which also boasts Charles Darwin University162 and Charles Darwin National Park.163 Darwin College, Cambridge, founded in 1964, was named in honour of the Darwin family, partially because they owned some of the land it was on.164
The 14 species of finches he collected in the Galápagos Islands are affectionately named “Darwin’s finches” in honour of his legacy.165 In 1992, Darwin was ranked #16 on Michael H. Hart’s list of the most influential figures in history.166 Darwin came fourth in the 100 Greatest Britons poll sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public.167 In 2000 Darwin’s image appeared on the Bank of England ten pound note, replacing Charles Dickens. His impressive, luxuriant beard (which was reportedly difficult to forge) was said to be a contributory factor to the bank’s choice.168
The Linnean Society of London has commemorated Darwin's achievements by the award of the Darwin-Wallace Medal since 1908.
As a humorous celebration of evolution, the annual Darwin Award is bestowed on individuals who “improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.”