Darwin

(Charles Robert), English naturalist, b. Shrews bury, 12 Feb. 1809. Educated at Shrews bury, Edinburgh University, and Cambridge. He early evinced a taste for collecting and observing natural objects. He was intended for a clergyman, but, incited by Humboldt’s Personal Narrative , resolved to travel. He accompanied Captain Fitzroy in the “Beagle” on a voyage of exploration, ’31–36, which he narrated in his Voyage of a Naturalist Round the World , which obtained great popularity. In ’39 he married, and in ’42 left London and settled at Down, Kent. His studies, combined with the reading of Lamarck and Malthus, led to his great work on The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection , ’59, which made a great outcry and marked an epoch. Darwin took no part in the controversy raised by the theologians, but followed his work with The Fertilisation of Orchids , ’62; Cro and Self Fertilisation of Plants , ’67; Variations of Plants and Animals under Domestication , ’65; and in ’71 The Descent of Man and Selection in relation to Sex , which caused yet greater consternation in orthodox circles. The following year he i ued The Expre ion of the Emotions of Men and Animals . He also published works on the Movements of Plants , Insectivorous Plants , the Forms of Flowers , and Earthworms . He died 19 April, 1882, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, despite his expre ed unbelief in revelation. To a German student he wrote, in ’79, “Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation.” In his Life and Letters he relates that between 1836 and 1842 he had come to see “that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos.” He rejected design and said “I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”