CHAPTER IX
DARWIN AND WALLACE: THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION
Charles Darwin was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, who, as we have seen, arrived independently at conclusions concerning the origin of species very similar to those of Lamarck, and embodied his views in poems, which, at the time of their publication, achieved a considerable popularity. In the younger philosopher, however, imagination was always kept in subjection by a determination to 'prove all things' and 'to hold fast that which is good'; though, in other respects, there were not wanting indications of the existence of hereditary characteristics in the grandson.
Born at Shrewsbury and educated in the public school of that town, Charles Darwin from the first exhibited signs of individuality in his ideas and his tastes. The rigid classical teaching of his school did not touch him, but, with the aid of his elder brother, he surreptitiously started a chemical laboratory in a garden tool-house. From his earliest infancy he was a collector, first of trifles, like seals and franks, but later of stones, minerals and beetles.
At the outset, only the desire to possess new things animated him, then a wish to put names to them, but, at a very early period, a passion arose for learning all he could about them. Thus when only 9 or 10 years of age, he had 'a desire of being able to know something about every pebble in front of the hall-door,' and at 13 or 14, when he heard the remark of a local naturalist, 'that the world would come to an end before anyone would be able to explain how' a boulder (the 'bell-stone' of local-fame) came to be brought from distant hills—the lad had such a deep impression made on his mind, that he says in after life, 'I meditated over this wonderful stone[95].'
At the age of 16, he was sent to Edinburgh University to prepare himself for the work of a doctor—the profession of his father and grandfather. But here his independence of character again asserted itself. He found most of the lectures 'intolerably dull,' so he occupied himself with other pursuits, making many friendships among the younger naturalists and doing a little in the way of biological research himself.
That he was not altogether destitute of ambition in the eyes of his companions, however, is, I think, indicated by an amusing circumstance. In the library of Charles Darwin, which is carefully preserved at Cambridge, there is a copy of Jameson's Manual of Mineralogy, published in 1821, which was evidently used by the young student in his classwork at Edinburgh. In this a quizzical fellow-student has written 'Charles Darwin Esq., M.D., F.R.S.'—mischievously adding 'A.S.S.'! Even for geology, the science to which in all his after life he became so deeply devoted, young Darwin conceived the most violent aversion; and as he listened to Jameson's Wernerian outpourings at Salisbury Crags, he 'determined never to attend to geology,' registering the terrible vow 'never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology, or in any way to study the science[96].'
As it became evident that Charles Darwin would never make a doctor, his father, after two years' trial, sent him to Cambridge with the object of his qualifying for a clergyman. But at Christ's College, in that University, he again took his own line—which was not that of divinity—riding, shooting and beetle-hunting being his chief delights. Nevertheless, at Cambridge as at Edinburgh, he seems to have shown an appreciation for good and instructive society, and in Henslow, the judicious and amiable Professor of Botany, the young fellow found such sympathy and kindly help that he came to be distinguished as 'the man who walks with Henslow[97].'
After achieving a 'pass degree,' Darwin went back to the University for an extra term, and by the advice of Henslow began to 'think about' the despised Science of Geology. He was introduced to that inspiring teacher, Sedgwick, with whom he made a geological excursion into Wales; but though he said he 'worked like a tiger' at geology, yet he, when he got the chance of shooting on his uncle's estate, had to make the confession, 'I should have thought myself mad to give up the first days of partridge-shooting for geology or any other science[98].'
There is a sentence in one of the letters written at this time which suggests that, even at this early period in his geological career, Darwin had begun to experience some misgivings concerning the catastrophic doctrines of his teachers and contemporaries. He says:—