Life of Charles Darwin

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Bettany George Thomas. Life of Charles Darwin

NOTE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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IF ever a man’s ancestors transmitted to him ability to succeed in a particular field, Charles Darwin’s did. If ever early surroundings were calculated to call out inherited ability, Charles Darwin’s were. If ever a man grew up when a ferment of thought was disturbing old convictions in the domain of knowledge for which he was adapted, Charles Darwin did. If ever a man was fitted by worldly position to undertake unbiassed and long-continued investigations, Charles Darwin was such a man. And he indisputably found realms waiting for a conqueror. Yet Darwin’s achievements far transcend his advantages of ancestry, surroundings, previous suggestion, position. He stands magnificently conspicuous as a genius of rare simplicity of soul, of unwearied patience of observation, of striking fertility and ingenuity of method, of unflinching devotion to and belief in the efficacy of truth. He revolutionised not merely half-a-dozen sciences, but the whole current of thinking men’s mental life.

The Darwins were originally a Lincolnshire family of some position, and being royalists suffered heavy losses under the Commonwealth. The third William Darwin (born 1655), whose mother was a daughter of Erasmus Earle, serjeant-at-law,1 married the heiress of Robert Waring, of Wilsford, Notts, who also inherited the manor of Elston, near Newark, in that county, which still remains in the family. Robert Darwin, second son of this William Darwin, succeeded to the Elston estate, and was described by Stukeley, the antiquary, as “a person of curiosity,” an expression conveying high commendation. His eldest son, Robert Waring Darwin, studied botany closely, and published a “Principia Botanica,” which reached a third edition; but his youngest son, Erasmus, born 1731, was destined to become the first really famous man of the family.

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In July, 1832, Monte Video was reached, and the Beagle was occupied in surveying the extreme southern and eastern coasts of America, south of La Plata, during the succeeding two years. During ten weeks at Maldonado an entertaining excursion to the River Polanco was made, and many a humorous remark appears in the Journal relating to it. “The greater number of the inhabitants [of European descent] had an indistinct idea that England, London, and North America were different names for the same place; but the better-informed well knew that London and North America were separate countries close together, and that England was a large town in London!” “Washing my face in the morning caused much speculation at the village of Las Minas; a superior tradesman closely cross-questioned me about so singular a practice.” Among these rich descendants of Europeans Darwin felt as if he were among the inhabitants of Central Africa; so low can the proud superior race descend, that the distance between it and the negro appeared small indeed. The remarkable absence of trees in the country could not fail to provoke comment; but it is on the old-fashioned basis, and the young student does not get beyond the conclusion “that herbaceous plants, instead of trees, were created to occupy that wide area, which, within a period not very remote, has been raised above the waters of the sea.” This appears in the first edition; but in 1845 these words were expunged, and the author says significantly “we must look to some other and unknown cause.”

At Maldonado within the distance of a morning’s walk no fewer than eighty species of birds were collected, most of them exceedingly beautiful. Darwin’s observations on the molothri (representatives of our cuckoos), the tyrant fly-catchers, and the carrion-feeding hawks are most attractive reading. Rio Negro, much further south, was next visited, and the fauna of a salt lake examined. The adaptation of creatures to live in and near brine struck him as wonderful. “Well may we affirm,” says he, “that every part of the world is habitable! Whether lakes of brine, or those subterranean ones, hidden beneath volcanic mountains – warm mineral springs – the wide expanse and depths of the ocean – the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even the surface of perpetual snow – all support organic beings.” Here he found reason to believe that all the great plains which he was surveying had been raised above the sea level in a modern geological period.

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