Charles Darwin

1809-1882. British scientist, mainly known for his research on Evolution.

Early life and education

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shropshire, England. He died at the age of 73 on April 19, 1882 in Downe, Kent. He was the son of doctor Robert Waring Darwin and of Susannah Wegwood. After the death of his mother, his three older sisters took care of him and his overbearing father, who, due to his ingenious medical observations, taught him much about the human psychology. Another important influence was his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who was a physician and poet.

After studying at the traditional Anglican Shrewsbury School from 1818 to 1825, he started his studies of medicine at the Edinburgh University. Though Darwin was not interested in medicine, Edinburgh still had the leading science education in British universities. Here he got in contact with the newest ideas in the natural sciences and the consequences of deviant views. The impact of the French revolution had not yet faded and thus one talk about the mind as a product of a material brain was officially censored for being too materialistic. At Edinburgh Darwin got in contact with Robert Edmond Grant, an evolutionist and expert on sponges, who later on became his mentor.

Darwin got in contact with evolutionary theories in Edinburgh, but he still refused to learn medicine. Therefore, his father decided that a religious education was better suited for him. He was sent to Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1828. There he was educated to be an Anglican gentlemen. Professor John Stevens Henslow introduced him to the conservative side of botany and enhanced the knowledge he gained in Edinburgh. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1831.

Due to the contact to Alexander von Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels and Henslow's suggestion to take part in a voyage to Tierra del Fuego aboard the HMS Beagle, Darwin decided to join Robert Fitzroy in his journey around the world as a gentleman companion.

Aboard the HMS Beagle 1831-1836

The next five years of Charles Darwin's life were not only very strenuous but he also collected the empirical basis for his theory. On his travels he got in contact with many different aspects of the life of a discoverer. He had to fight seasickness as well as the straining weather conditions in the different parts of the world. He took part in several armed conflicts and discovered for himself the human evils in the savage world and its difference to the civilised world in Europe. Very important for his interest as a naturalist were the fossils he found at Bahía Blanca and Port St. Julian. The corpus of finds made him think about the reason for the extinction of these giant beasts and the primeval world. Another natural phenomenon, the thrusting of the continents, occupied him in Valdiva, Chile, where he experienced an earthquake and saw traces that the ground in that area had risen. Darwin now started thinking in concepts of deep time. All in all, Darwin finished a 770-page diary, wrapped up 1,750 pages of notes and collected nearly 5,500 skins, bones and carcasses. After the five years of voyage, he had enough empirical material and ideas to start on his theory of evolution.

Analysing the findings 1836-1842

Finally in a safe harbour, Darwin started on analysing his findings as a gentleman geologist. He settled in London and was funded by his father. As a new fellow of the Geological Society and a friend to Sir Charles Lyell he discussed the rising Chilean coastline. He published his diary Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle in 1839 and thus became a rising star in the scene of naturalists. In the troubled times following the First Reform Act (1832), Darwin started his work on a theory of evolution. His findings were analysed all over the world and scientists from all different fields answered some of the questions that Darwin could not. Several mammal species had been extinct and replaced by their own kind following some kind of “law of succession”. It was then, when he picked up the idea of evolution and started to develop his theory. The influences of his grandfather Erasmus and Robert Grant might have played an important role to develop the theory.

For the next two years, he followed several different leads and searched for the causes for extinctions. He accepted the idea that life is like a branching tree and cannot be seen as a ladder with one species unconnected but higher positioned than another. He feared that if he published his theory he would have to face censorship. He had seen censorship in Edinburgh and knew that the Anglican church thought of evolutionist theories as blasphemy. And he was right to be worried since he wrote mankind into the evolutionary equation and explained society and morals as part of the troop behaviour of mammals.

Due to the explosion in population and the passing of the Poor Law in 1834, Darwin started to think of the social implications of a geometrically rising population and the arithmetically rising production of food (he got the idea of Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population). He then changed his opinion that the population of animals in the wild stays constant into the idea that there is a struggle for resources and that only the strongest will prevail “survival of the fittest”. Thus “natural selection” was born.

Up to 1839, he had not published his ideas. He finished his theory in this year and married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. Though his theory left little room for a deity, Darwin believed in a lawgiving God. However he still feared publishing his ideas and them a secret.

At the edge of the world 1842-1854

In the years from 1842 till 1854 he secluded himself from the world because of a chronic illness. He bought a house in Downe, Kent and tried to keep up his public image. He published several papers and essays on geological themes and tried to live an average life. However, he secretly never stopped working on his ideas on natural selection. Soon after the marriage, he had presented them to his wife who reacted very timidly. He wrote a sketch of his theory in 1842 and expanded it in 1844 which was to be published after his death.

On the Origin of Species 1859

The political situation in Britain 1850's changed to the better and Darwin had now found a society in which he could dare publishing his theory of evolution. As a preparation he compared the rules of the division of labour with the evolution of animals. The competition in the marketplaces would create workers that exploit another field of work and so would animals. As soon as there is no way to find food in the one field, animals would start to develop to exploit another one. Darwins reputation grew steadily in the 50's and in 1856 he started to work on a triple volume called Natural Selection. At first an abstract, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life developed into an independent book. It was published on November 22, 1859. The 50's were also a time in which his illness took a greater toll on him and he needed to be represented by his friend Thomas Henry Huxley in public.

The public opinion on the book was in general a positive one. Darwins fear of being censored led him to avoid certain aspects such as the connection between humans and apes and the mortality of mankind. By 1866 his theory on evolution was acknowledged by the British Association platforms.

Darwin had cleared his own way for his later publication The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex in 1871. His decision to slowly introduce his complete theory of the descent of man prevented its censorship and prepared the British society for a new perspective on mankind. However, Darwin still was targeted by critics and caricaturists. The discussion following his work and the influence on the western culture is invaluable.

Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882 as one of the most important scientists in the 19th century.

Sources

Primary Source

Gribbin, John. The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Charles Darwin. UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.

The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. Director Dr. John van Wyhe. 04.11.2010. <http://darwin-online.org.uk/darwin.html>