When Charles Darwin was about eight years old, he was sent to a day-school, and it seems that even at this time his taste for natural history, and especially for collecting shells and minerals, was well developed. In the summer of 1818 he entered Dr. Butler's great school in Shrewsbury, well known to the amateur makers of Latin verse by the volume entitled "Sabrinae Corolla." He expressed the opinion in later life that nothing could have been worse for the development of his mind than this school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught except a little ancient biography and history. During his whole life he was singularly incapable of mastering any language. With respect to science, he continued collecting minerals with much zeal, and after reading White's "Selborne" he took much pleasure in watching the habits of birds. Towards the close of his school life he became deeply interested in chemistry, and was allowed to assist his elder brother in some laboratory experiments. In October, 1825, he proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he stayed for two years. He found the lectures intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry. Curiously enough, while walking one day with a fellow-undergraduate, the latter burst forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. So far as Darwin could afterwards judge, no impression was made upon his own mind. He had previously read his grandfather's "Zoönomia," in which similar views had been propounded, but no discernible effect had been produced upon him. Nevertheless, it is probable enough that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favored his upholding them under a different form in the "Origin of Species."
While at Edinburgh, Darwin was a member of the Plinian Society, and read a couple of papers on some observations in natural history. After two sessions had been spent at Edinburgh, Darwin's father perceived that the young man did not like the thought of being a physician, and proposed that he should become a clergyman. In pursuance of this proposal, he went to the University of Cambridge in 1828, and three years later took a B.A. degree. In his autobiography the opinion is expressed that at Cambridge his time was wasted. It was there, however, that he became intimately acquainted with Professor Henslow, a man of remarkable acquirements in botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. During his last year at Cambridge Darwin read with care and interest Humboldt's "Personal Narrative," and Sir John Herschel's "Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy." These books influenced him profoundly, arousing in him a burning desire to make even the most humble contribution to the structure of natural science. At Henslow's suggestion he began the study of biology, and in 1831 accompanied Professor Sedgwick in the latter's investigations amongst the older rocks in North Wales.
It was Professor Henslow who secured for young Darwin the appointment of naturalist to the voyage of the "Beagle." This voyage lasted from Dec. 27, 1831, to Oct. 2, 1836. The incidents of this voyage will be found set forth in Darwin's "Public Journeys." The observations made by him in geology, natural history, and botany gave him a place of considerable distinction among scientific men. In 1844 he published a series of observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voyage of the "Beagle," and two years later "Geological Observations on South America." These two books, together with a volume entitled "Coral Reefs," required four and a half years' steady work. In October, 1846, he began the studies embodied in "Cirripedia" (barnacles). The outcome of these studies was published in two thick volumes. The time came when Darwin doubted whether the work was worth the consumption of the time employed, but probably it proved of use to him when he had to discuss in the "Origin of Species" the principles of a natural classification. From September, 1854, and during the four ensuing years, Darwin devoted himself to observing and experimenting in relation to the transmutation of species, and in arranging a huge pile of notes upon the subject. As early as October, 1838, it had occurred to him as probable, or at least possible, that amid the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on in the animal world, favorable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of new species.
It was not until June, 1842, however, that Darwin allowed himself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of his theory in thirty-five pages. This was enlarged two years later into one of 230 pages. Early in 1856, Sir Charles Lyell, the well-known geologist, advised him to write out his views upon the subject fully, and Darwin began to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed in his "Origin of Species." He got through about half the work on this scale. His plans were overthrown, owing to the curious circumstance that, in the summer of 1858, Mr. Alfred E. Wallace, who was then in the Malay archipelago, sent him an essay "On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type." It turned out upon perusal that this essay contained exactly the same theory as that which Darwin was engaged in elaborating. Mr. Wallace expressed the wish that, if Darwin thought well of the essay, he should send it to Lyell. It was Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker who insisted that Darwin should allow an abstract from his manuscript, together with a letter to Prof. Asa Gray, dated Sept. 5, 1857, to be published at the same time with Wallace's essay. Darwin was unwilling to take this course, being then unacquainted with Mr. Wallace's generous disposition. As a matter of fact, the joint productions excited very little attention, and the only published notice of them asserted that what was new in them was false, and that what was true was old. From the indifference evinced to the papers which first propounded the theory of natural selection, Darwin drew the inference that it is necessary for any new view to be explained at considerable length in order to obtain the public ear.
In September, 1858, Darwin, at the earnest advice of Lyell and Hooker, set to work to prepare a volume on the transmutation of species. The book cost him more than thirteen months' hard labor. It was published in November, 1859, under the title of "Origin of Species." This, which Darwin justly regarded as the chief work of his life, was from the first highly successful. The first edition was sold on the day of publication, and the book was presently translated into almost every European tongue. Darwin himself attributed the success of the "Origin" in large part to his having previously written two condensed sketches, and to his having finally made an abstract of a much larger manuscript, which itself was an abstract. By this winnowing process he had been enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions. As to the current assertion that the "Origin" succeeded because the subject was in the air, or because men's minds were prepared for it, Darwin was disposed to doubt whether this was strictly true. In previous years he had occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and had never come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. Probably men's minds were prepared in this sense, that innumerable well-verified facts were stored away in the memories of naturalists, ready to take their proper places as soon as any theory which would account for them should be strongly supported. Darwin himself thought that he gained much by a delay in publishing, from about 1839, when the "Darwinian" theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and that he lost nothing, because he cared very little whether men attributed most originality to him or to Wallace.
Darwin's "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication" was begun in 1860, but was not published till 1868. The book was a big one, and cost him four years and two months' hard labor. It gives in the first volume all his personal observations, and an immense number of facts, collected from various sources, about domestic productions, animal and vegetable. In the second volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, etc., are discussed. Towards the end of the work is propounded the hypothesis of Pangenesis, which has been generally rejected, and which the author himself looked upon as unverified, although by it a remarkable number of isolated facts could be connected together and rendered intelligible.
The "Descent of Man" was published in February, 1871. Touching this work, Darwin has told us that, as soon as he had become (in 1837 or 1838) convinced that species were mutable productions, he could not avoid the belief that man must come under the same law. Accordingly, he collected notes on the subject for his own satisfaction, and not for a long time with any intention of publishing. In the "Origin of Species," the derivation of any particular species is never discussed; but in order that no honorable man should accuse him of concealing his views, Darwin had thought it best to add that by that work, "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history." It would have impeded the acceptance of the theory of natural selection if Darwin had paraded, without giving any evidence, his conviction with respect to man's origin. When he found, however, that many naturalists accepted his doctrine of the evolution of species, it seemed to him advisable to work up such notes as he possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin of man. He was the more glad to do so, as it gave him an opportunity of discussing at length sexual selection, a subject which had always interested him.
Darwin's book on the "Expression of Emotion in Men and Animals" was published in the autumn of 1872. This had been intended to form a chapter on the subject in the "Descent of Man," but as soon as Darwin began to put his notes together he saw that it would require a separate treatise. In July, 1875, appeared the book on "Insectivorous Plants." The fact that a plant should secrete, when properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and ferment closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was certainly a remarkable discovery. In the autumn of 1876 appeared "The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilization," a work in which are described the endless and wonderful contrivances for the transportation of pollen from one plant to another of the same species. About the same time was brought out an enlarged edition of the "Fertilization of Orchids," originally published in 1862. Among the minor works issued during the later years of Darwin's life may be mentioned particularly the little book on "The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms." This was the outgrowth of a short paper read before the Geological Society more than fourteen years before.
In order to appreciate the enormous amount of research accomplished by Charles Darwin, it is needful to keep in mind the conditions of ill-health under which almost continually he worked. For nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of ordinary men. His life was one long struggle against the weariness and drain of sickness. During his last ten years there were signs of amendment in several particulars, but a loss of physical vigor was apparent. Writing to a friend in 1881, he complained that he no longer had the heart or strength to begin any prolonged investigations. In February and March, 1882, he frequently experienced attacks of pain in the region of the heart, attended with irregularity of the pulse. On April 18 he fainted, and was brought back to consciousness with great difficulty. He seemed to recognize the approach of death, and said, "I am not the least afraid to die." On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 19, he passed away. On April 26 he was interred in Westminster Abbey. The funeral was attended by representatives of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia, and by delegates of the universities and learned societies of which he had been a member. Among the pall-bearers were Sir John Lubbock, Sir Joseph Hooker, Professor Huxley, Mr. A.R. Wallace, Mr. James Russell Lowell, the Duke of Argyll, and the Duke of Devonshire. The grave is appropriately placed in the north aisle of the nave, only a few feet from the last resting-place of Sir Isaac Newton.