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diff --git a/2010-h/2010-h.htm b/2010-h/2010-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73418f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/2010-h/2010-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2853 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, by Charles Darwin</title> + +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, by Charles Darwin</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin<br /> + From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Charles Darwin</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editor: [Charles Darwin’s son] Francis Darwin</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December, 1999 [eBook #2010]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 26, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Sue Asscher</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DARWIN ***</div> + +<h1>THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF<br /> +CHARLES DARWIN</h1> + +<h3>From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">By Charles Darwin</h2> + +<h3>Edited by his Son Francis Darwin</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0001">CAMBRIDGE 1828-1831.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0002">“VOYAGE OF THE ‘BEAGLE’ FROM DECEMBER 27, 1831, TO OCTOBER 2, 1836.”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0003">FROM MY RETURN TO ENGLAND (OCTOBER 2, 1836) TO MY MARRIAGE (JANUARY 29, 1839.)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0004">FROM MY MARRIAGE, JANUARY 29, 1839, AND RESIDENCE IN UPPER GOWER STREET, TO OUR LEAVING LONDON AND SETTLING AT DOWN, SEPTEMBER 14, 1842.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0005">RESIDENCE AT DOWN FROM SEPTEMBER 14, 1842, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1876.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0006">MY SEVERAL PUBLICATIONS.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0007">WRITTEN MAY 1ST, 1881.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +[My father’s autobiographical recollections, given in the present +chapter, were written for his children,—and written without any thought +that they would ever be published. To many this may seem an impossibility; but +those who knew my father will understand how it was not only possible, but +natural. The autobiography bears the heading, ‘Recollections of the +Development of my Mind and Character,’ and end with the following +note:—“Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch of my life was begun about May +28th at Hopedene (Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood’s house in Surrey.), and since +then I have written for nearly an hour on most afternoons.” It will +easily be understood that, in a narrative of a personal and intimate kind +written for his wife and children, passages should occur which must here be +omitted; and I have not thought it necessary to indicate where such omissions +are made. It has been found necessary to make a few corrections of obvious +verbal slips, but the number of such alterations has been kept down to the +minimum.—F.D.] +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +A German Editor having written to me for an account of the development of my +mind and character with some sketch of my autobiography, I have thought that +the attempt would amuse me, and might possibly interest my children or their +children. I know that it would have interested me greatly to have read even so +short and dull a sketch of the mind of my grandfather, written by himself, and +what he thought and did, and how he worked. I have attempted to write the +following account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another world looking +back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life is nearly over +with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing. +</p> + +<p> +I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809, and my earliest recollection +goes back only to when I was a few months over four years old, when we went to +near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect some events and places there +with some little distinctness. +</p> + +<p> +My mother died in July 1817, when I was a little over eight years old, and it +is odd that I can remember hardly anything about her except her death-bed, her +black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed work-table. In the spring of +this same year I was sent to a day-school in Shrewsbury, where I stayed a year. +I have been told that I was much slower in learning than my younger sister +Catherine, and I believe that I was in many ways a naughty boy. +</p> + +<p> +By the time I went to this day-school (Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister of the +Unitarian Chapel in the High Street. Mrs. Darwin was a Unitarian and attended +Mr. Case’s chapel, and my father as a little boy went there with his +elder sisters. But both he and his brother were christened and intended to +belong to the Church of England; and after his early boyhood he seems usually +to have gone to church and not to Mr. Case’s. It appears (“St. +James’ Gazette”, Dec. 15, 1883) that a mural tablet has been +erected to his memory in the chapel, which is now known as the ‘Free +Christian Church.’) my taste for natural history, and more especially for +collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants (Rev. +W.A. Leighton, who was a schoolfellow of my father’s at Mr. Case’s +school, remembers his bringing a flower to school and saying that his mother +had taught him how by looking at the inside of the blossom the name of the +plant could be discovered. Mr. Leighton goes on, “This greatly roused my +attention and curiosity, and I enquired of him repeatedly how this could be +done?”—but his lesson was naturally enough not +transmissible.—F.D.), and collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, +franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting which leads a man to be +a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me, and was +clearly innate, as none of my sisters or brother ever had this taste. +</p> + +<p> +One little event during this year has fixed itself very firmly in my mind, and +I hope that it has done so from my conscience having been afterwards sorely +troubled by it; it is curious as showing that apparently I was interested at +this early age in the variability of plants! I told another little boy (I +believe it was Leighton, who afterwards became a well-known lichenologist and +botanist), that I could produce variously coloured polyanthuses and primroses +by watering them with certain coloured fluids, which was of course a monstrous +fable, and had never been tried by me. I may here also confess that as a little +boy I was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and this was always +done for the sake of causing excitement. For instance, I once gathered much +valuable fruit from my father’s trees and hid it in the shrubbery, and +then ran in breathless haste to spread the news that I had discovered a hoard +of stolen fruit. +</p> + +<p> +I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first went to the school. A +boy of the name of Garnett took me into a cake shop one day, and bought some +cakes for which he did not pay, as the shopman trusted him. When we came out I +asked him why he did not pay for them, and he instantly answered, “Why, +do you not know that my uncle left a great sum of money to the town on +condition that every tradesman should give whatever was wanted without payment +to any one who wore his old hat and moved [it] in a particular manner?” +and he then showed me how it was moved. He then went into another shop where he +was trusted, and asked for some small article, moving his hat in the proper +manner, and of course obtained it without payment. When we came out he said, +“Now if you like to go by yourself into that cake-shop (how well I +remember its exact position) I will lend you my hat, and you can get whatever +you like if you move the hat on your head properly.” I gladly accepted +the generous offer, and went in and asked for some cakes, moved the old hat and +was walking out of the shop, when the shopman made a rush at me, so I dropped +the cakes and ran for dear life, and was astonished by being greeted with +shouts of laughter by my false friend Garnett. +</p> + +<p> +I can say in my own favour that I was as a boy humane, but I owed this entirely +to the instruction and example of my sisters. I doubt indeed whether humanity +is a natural or innate quality. I was very fond of collecting eggs, but I never +took more than a single egg out of a bird’s nest, except on one single +occasion, when I took all, not for their value, but from a sort of bravado. +</p> + +<p> +I had a strong taste for angling, and would sit for any number of hours on the +bank of a river or pond watching the float; when at Maer (The house of his +uncle, Josiah Wedgwood.) I was told that I could kill the worms with salt and +water, and from that day I never spitted a living worm, though at the expense +probably of some loss of success. +</p> + +<p> +Once as a very little boy whilst at the day school, or before that time, I +acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of +power; but the beating could not have been severe, for the puppy did not howl, +of which I feel sure, as the spot was near the house. This act lay heavily on +my conscience, as is shown by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was +committed. It probably lay all the heavier from my love of dogs being then, and +for a long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs seemed to know this, for I was an +adept in robbing their love from their masters. +</p> + +<p> +I remember clearly only one other incident during this year whilst at Mr. +Case’s daily school,—namely, the burial of a dragoon soldier; and +it is surprising how clearly I can still see the horse with the man’s +empty boots and carbine suspended to the saddle, and the firing over the grave. +This scene deeply stirred whatever poetic fancy there was in me. +</p> + +<p> +In the summer of 1818 I went to Dr. Butler’s great school in Shrewsbury, +and remained there for seven years till Midsummer 1825, when I was sixteen +years old. I boarded at this school, so that I had the great advantage of +living the life of a true schoolboy; but as the distance was hardly more than a +mile to my home, I very often ran there in the longer intervals between the +callings over and before locking up at night. This, I think, was in many ways +advantageous to me by keeping up home affections and interests. I remember in +the early part of my school life that I often had to run very quickly to be in +time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt +I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my +success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marvelled how generally +I was aided. +</p> + +<p> +I have heard my father and elder sister say that I had, as a very young boy, a +strong taste for long solitary walks; but what I thought about I know not. I +often became quite absorbed, and once, whilst returning to school on the summit +of the old fortifications round Shrewsbury, which had been converted into a +public foot-path with no parapet on one side, I walked off and fell to the +ground, but the height was only seven or eight feet. Nevertheless the number of +thoughts which passed through my mind during this very short, but sudden and +wholly unexpected fall, was astonishing, and seem hardly compatible with what +physiologists have, I believe, proved about each thought requiring quite an +appreciable amount of time. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. +Butler’s school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, +except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of +education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I have been singularly +incapable of mastering any language. Especial attention was paid to +verse-making, and this I could never do well. I had many friends, and got +together a good collection of old verses, which by patching together, sometimes +aided by other boys, I could work into any subject. Much attention was paid to +learning by heart the lessons of the previous day; this I could effect with +great facility, learning forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer, whilst I was +in morning chapel; but this exercise was utterly useless, for every verse was +forgotten in forty-eight hours. I was not idle, and with the exception of +versification, generally worked conscientiously at my classics, not using +cribs. The sole pleasure I ever received from such studies, was from some of +the odes of Horace, which I admired greatly. +</p> + +<p> +When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low in it; and I +believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my father as a very +ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep +mortification my father once said to me, “You care for nothing but +shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and +all your family.” But my father, who was the kindest man I ever knew and +whose memory I love with all my heart, must have been angry and somewhat unjust +when he used such words. +</p> + +<p> +Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life, the only +qualities which at this period promised well for the future, were, that I had +strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for whatever interested me, and a keen +pleasure in understanding any complex subject or thing. I was taught Euclid by +a private tutor, and I distinctly remember the intense satisfaction which the +clear geometrical proofs gave me. I remember, with equal distinctness, the +delight which my uncle gave me (the father of Francis Galton) by explaining the +principle of the vernier of a barometer with respect to diversified tastes, +independently of science, I was fond of reading various books, and I used to +sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shakespeare, generally in an old +window in the thick walls of the school. I read also other poetry, such as +Thomson’s ‘Seasons,’ and the recently published poems of +Byron and Scott. I mention this because later in life I wholly lost, to my +great regret, all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. In +connection with pleasure from poetry, I may add that in 1822 a vivid delight in +scenery was first awakened in my mind, during a riding tour on the borders of +Wales, and this has lasted longer than any other aesthetic pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Early in my school days a boy had a copy of the ‘Wonders of the +World,’ which I often read, and disputed with other boys about the +veracity of some of the statements; and I believe that this book first gave me +a wish to travel in remote countries, which was ultimately fulfilled by the +voyage of the “Beagle”. In the latter part of my school life I +became passionately fond of shooting; I do not believe that any one could have +shown more zeal for the most holy cause than I did for shooting birds. How well +I remember killing my first snipe, and my excitement was so great that I had +much difficulty in reloading my gun from the trembling of my hands. This taste +long continued, and I became a very good shot. When at Cambridge I used to +practise throwing up my gun to my shoulder before a looking-glass to see that I +threw it up straight. Another and better plan was to get a friend to wave about +a lighted candle, and then to fire at it with a cap on the nipple, and if the +aim was accurate the little puff of air would blow out the candle. The +explosion of the cap caused a sharp crack, and I was told that the tutor of the +college remarked, “What an extraordinary thing it is, Mr. Darwin seems to +spend hours in cracking a horse-whip in his room, for I often hear the crack +when I pass under his windows.” +</p> + +<p> +I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I think +that my disposition was then very affectionate. +</p> + +<p> +With respect to science, I continued collecting minerals with much zeal, but +quite unscientifically—all that I cared about was a new-<i>named</i> +mineral, and I hardly attempted to classify them. I must have observed insects +with some little care, for when ten years old (1819) I went for three weeks to +Plas Edwards on the sea-coast in Wales, I was very much interested and +surprised at seeing a large black and scarlet Hemipterous insect, many moths +(Zygaena), and a Cicindela which are not found in Shropshire. I almost made up +my mind to begin collecting all the insects which I could find dead, for on +consulting my sister I concluded that it was not right to kill insects for the +sake of making a collection. From reading White’s ‘Selborne,’ +I took much pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and even made notes on +the subject. In my simplicity I remember wondering why every gentleman did not +become an ornithologist. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at chemistry, and +made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in the tool-house in the garden, +and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in most of his experiments. He made +all the gases and many compounds, and I read with great care several books on +chemistry, such as Henry and Parkes’ ‘Chemical Catechism.’ +The subject interested me greatly, and we often used to go on working till +rather late at night. This was the best part of my education at school, for it +showed me practically the meaning of experimental science. The fact that we +worked at chemistry somehow got known at school, and as it was an unprecedented +fact, I was nicknamed “Gas.” I was also once publicly rebuked by +the head-master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time on such useless subjects; +and he called me very unjustly a “poco curante,” and as I did not +understand what he meant, it seemed to me a fearful reproach. +</p> + +<p> +As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took me away at a rather +earlier age than usual, and sent me (Oct. 1825) to Edinburgh University with my +brother, where I stayed for two years or sessions. My brother was completing +his medical studies, though I do not believe he ever really intended to +practise, and I was sent there to commence them. But soon after this period I +became convinced from various small circumstances that my father would leave me +property enough to subsist on with some comfort, though I never imagined that I +should be so rich a man as I am; but my belief was sufficient to check any +strenuous efforts to learn medicine. +</p> + +<p> +The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were +intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry by Hope; but to my +mind there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures compared with +reading. Dr. Duncan’s lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o’clock on a +winter’s morning are something fearful to remember. Dr.—— +made his lectures on human anatomy as dull as he was himself, and the subject +disgusted me. It has proved one of the greatest evils in my life that I was not +urged to practise dissection, for I should soon have got over my disgust; and +the practice would have been invaluable for all my future work. This has been +an irremediable evil, as well as my incapacity to draw. I also attended +regularly the clinical wards in the hospital. Some of the cases distressed me a +good deal, and I still have vivid pictures before me of some of them; but I was +not so foolish as to allow this to lessen my attendance. I cannot understand +why this part of my medical course did not interest me in a greater degree; for +during the summer before coming to Edinburgh I began attending some of the poor +people, chiefly children and women in Shrewsbury: I wrote down as full an +account as I could of the case with all the symptoms, and read them aloud to my +father, who suggested further inquiries and advised me what medicines to give, +which I made up myself. At one time I had at least a dozen patients, and I felt +a keen interest in the work. My father, who was by far the best judge of +character whom I ever knew, declared that I should make a successful +physician,—meaning by this one who would get many patients. He maintained +that the chief element of success was exciting confidence; but what he saw in +me which convinced him that I should create confidence I know not. I also +attended on two occasions the operating theatre in the hospital at Edinburgh, +and saw two very bad operations, one on a child, but I rushed away before they +were completed. Nor did I ever attend again, for hardly any inducement would +have been strong enough to make me do so; this being long before the blessed +days of chloroform. The two cases fairly haunted me for many a long year. +</p> + +<p> +My brother stayed only one year at the University, so that during the second +year I was left to my own resources; and this was an advantage, for I became +well acquainted with several young men fond of natural science. One of these +was Ainsworth, who afterwards published his travels in Assyria; he was a +Wernerian geologist, and knew a little about many subjects. Dr. Coldstream was +a very different young man, prim, formal, highly religious, and most +kind-hearted; he afterwards published some good zoological articles. A third +young man was Hardie, who would, I think, have made a good botanist, but died +early in India. Lastly, Dr. Grant, my senior by several years, but how I became +acquainted with him I cannot remember; he published some first-rate zoological +papers, but after coming to London as Professor in University College, he did +nothing more in science, a fact which has always been inexplicable to me. I +knew him well; he was dry and formal in manner, with much enthusiasm beneath +this outer crust. He one day, when we were walking together, burst forth in +high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent +astonishment, and as far as I can judge without any effect on my mind. I had +previously read the ‘Zoonomia’ of my grandfather, in which similar +views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me. Nevertheless it +is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and +praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my +‘Origin of Species.’ At this time I admired greatly the +‘Zoonomia;’ but on reading it a second time after an interval of +ten or fifteen years, I was much disappointed; the proportion of speculation +being so large to the facts given. +</p> + +<p> +Drs. Grant and Coldstream attended much to marine Zoology, and I often +accompanied the former to collect animals in the tidal pools, which I dissected +as well as I could. I also became friends with some of the Newhaven fishermen, +and sometimes accompanied them when they trawled for oysters, and thus got many +specimens. But from not having had any regular practice in dissection, and from +possessing only a wretched microscope, my attempts were very poor. Nevertheless +I made one interesting little discovery, and read, about the beginning of the +year 1826, a short paper on the subject before the Plinian Society. This was +that the so-called ova of Flustra had the power of independent movement by +means of cilia, and were in fact larvae. In another short paper I showed that +the little globular bodies which had been supposed to be the young state of +Fucus loreus were the egg-cases of the wormlike Pontobdella muricata. +</p> + +<p> +The Plinian Society was encouraged and, I believe, founded by Professor +Jameson: it consisted of students and met in an underground room in the +University for the sake of reading papers on natural science and discussing +them. I used regularly to attend, and the meetings had a good effect on me in +stimulating my zeal and giving me new congenial acquaintances. One evening a +poor young man got up, and after stammering for a prodigious length of time, +blushing crimson, he at last slowly got out the words, “Mr. President, I +have forgotten what I was going to say.” The poor fellow looked quite +overwhelmed, and all the members were so surprised that no one could think of a +word to say to cover his confusion. The papers which were read to our little +society were not printed, so that I had not the satisfaction of seeing my paper +in print; but I believe Dr. Grant noticed my small discovery in his excellent +memoir on Flustra. +</p> + +<p> +I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and attended pretty +regularly; but as the subjects were exclusively medical, I did not much care +about them. Much rubbish was talked there, but there were some good speakers, +of whom the best was the present Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth. Dr. Grant took me +occasionally to the meetings of the Wernerian Society, where various papers on +natural history were read, discussed, and afterwards published in the +‘Transactions.’ I heard Audubon deliver there some interesting +discourses on the habits of N. American birds, sneering somewhat unjustly at +Waterton. By the way, a negro lived in Edinburgh, who had travelled with +Waterton, and gained his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did +excellently: he gave me lessons for payment, and I used often to sit with him, +for he was a very pleasant and intelligent man. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting of the Royal Society of +Edinburgh, where I saw Sir Walter Scott in the chair as President, and he +apologised to the meeting as not feeling fitted for such a position. I looked +at him and at the whole scene with some awe and reverence, and I think it was +owing to this visit during my youth, and to my having attended the Royal +Medical Society, that I felt the honour of being elected a few years ago an +honorary member of both these Societies, more than any other similar honour. If +I had been told at that time that I should one day have been thus honoured, I +declare that I should have thought it as ridiculous and improbable, as if I had +been told that I should be elected King of England. +</p> + +<p> +During my second year at Edinburgh I attended ——’s lectures +on Geology and Zoology, but they were incredibly dull. The sole effect they +produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on +Geology, or in any way to study the science. Yet I feel sure that I was +prepared for a philosophical treatment of the subject; for an old Mr. Cotton in +Shropshire, who knew a good deal about rocks, had pointed out to me two or +three years previously a well-known large erratic boulder in the town of +Shrewsbury, called the “bell-stone”; he told me that there was no +rock of the same kind nearer than Cumberland or Scotland, and he solemnly +assured me that the world would come to an end before any one would be able to +explain how this stone came where it now lay. This produced a deep impression +on me, and I meditated over this wonderful stone. So that I felt the keenest +delight when I first read of the action of icebergs in transporting boulders, +and I gloried in the progress of Geology. Equally striking is the fact that I, +though now only sixty-seven years old, heard the Professor, in a field lecture +at Salisbury Craigs, discoursing on a trapdyke, with amygdaloidal margins and +the strata indurated on each side, with volcanic rocks all around us, say that +it was a fissure filled with sediment from above, adding with a sneer that +there were men who maintained that it had been injected from beneath in a +molten condition. When I think of this lecture, I do not wonder that I +determined never to attend to Geology. +</p> + +<p> +From attending ——’s lectures, I became acquainted with the +curator of the museum, Mr. Macgillivray, who afterwards published a large and +excellent book on the birds of Scotland. I had much interesting natural-history +talk with him, and he was very kind to me. He gave me some rare shells, for I +at that time collected marine mollusca, but with no great zeal. +</p> + +<p> +My summer vacations during these two years were wholly given up to amusements, +though I always had some book in hand, which I read with interest. During the +summer of 1826 I took a long walking tour with two friends with knapsacks on +our backs through North Wales. We walked thirty miles most days, including one +day the ascent of Snowdon. I also went with my sister a riding tour in North +Wales, a servant with saddle-bags carrying our clothes. The autumns were +devoted to shooting chiefly at Mr. Owen’s, at Woodhouse, and at my Uncle +Jos’s (Josiah Wedgwood, the son of the founder of the Etruria Works.) at +Maer. My zeal was so great that I used to place my shooting-boots open by my +bed-side when I went to bed, so as not to lose half a minute in putting them on +in the morning; and on one occasion I reached a distant part of the Maer +estate, on the 20th of August for black-game shooting, before I could see: I +then toiled on with the game-keeper the whole day through thick heath and young +Scotch firs. +</p> + +<p> +I kept an exact record of every bird which I shot throughout the whole season. +One day when shooting at Woodhouse with Captain Owen, the eldest son, and Major +Hill, his cousin, afterwards Lord Berwick, both of whom I liked very much, I +thought myself shamefully used, for every time after I had fired and thought +that I had killed a bird, one of the two acted as if loading his gun, and cried +out, “You must not count that bird, for I fired at the same time,” +and the gamekeeper, perceiving the joke, backed them up. After some hours they +told me the joke, but it was no joke to me, for I had shot a large number of +birds, but did not know how many, and could not add them to my list, which I +used to do by making a knot in a piece of string tied to a button-hole. This my +wicked friends had perceived. +</p> + +<p> +How I did enjoy shooting! But I think that I must have been half-consciously +ashamed of my zeal, for I tried to persuade myself that shooting was almost an +intellectual employment; it required so much skill to judge where to find most +game and to hunt the dogs well. +</p> + +<p> +One of my autumnal visits to Maer in 1827 was memorable from meeting there Sir +J. Mackintosh, who was the best converser I ever listened to. I heard +afterwards with a glow of pride that he had said, “There is something in +that young man that interests me.” This must have been chiefly due to his +perceiving that I listened with much interest to everything which he said, for +I was as ignorant as a pig about his subjects of history, politics, and moral +philosophy. To hear of praise from an eminent person, though no doubt apt or +certain to excite vanity, is, I think, good for a young man, as it helps to +keep him in the right course. +</p> + +<p> +My visits to Maer during these two or three succeeding years were quite +delightful, independently of the autumnal shooting. Life there was perfectly +free; the country was very pleasant for walking or riding; and in the evening +there was much very agreeable conversation, not so personal as it generally is +in large family parties, together with music. In the summer the whole family +used often to sit on the steps of the old portico, with the flower-garden in +front, and with the steep wooded bank opposite the house reflected in the lake, +with here and there a fish rising or a water-bird paddling about. Nothing has +left a more vivid picture on my mind than these evenings at Maer. I was also +attached to and greatly revered my Uncle Jos; he was silent and reserved, so as +to be a rather awful man; but he sometimes talked openly with me. He was the +very type of an upright man, with the clearest judgment. I do not believe that +any power on earth could have made him swerve an inch from what he considered +the right course. I used to apply to him in my mind the well-known ode of +Horace, now forgotten by me, in which the words “nec vultus tyranni,* +etc.,” come in. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +* Justum et tenacem propositi virum<br /> +Non civium ardor prava jubentium<br /> +Non vultus instantis tyranni<br /> +Mente quatit solida. +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"></a> +CAMBRIDGE 1828-1831.</h2> + +<p> +After having spent two sessions in Edinburgh, my father perceived, or he heard +from my sisters, that I did not like the thought of being a physician, so he +proposed that I should become a clergyman. He was very properly vehement +against my turning into an idle sporting man, which then seemed my probable +destination. I asked for some time to consider, as from what little I had heard +or thought on the subject I had scruples about declaring my belief in all the +dogmas of the Church of England; though otherwise I liked the thought of being +a country clergyman. Accordingly I read with care ‘Pearson on the +Creed,’ and a few other books on divinity; and as I did not then in the +least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible, I soon +persuaded myself that our Creed must be fully accepted. +</p> + +<p> +Considering how fiercely I have been attacked by the orthodox, it seems +ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman. Nor was this intention and my +father’s wish ever formerly given up, but died a natural death when, on +leaving Cambridge, I joined the “Beagle” as naturalist. If the +phrenologists are to be trusted, I was well fitted in one respect to be a +clergyman. A few years ago the secretaries of a German psychological society +asked me earnestly by letter for a photograph of myself; and some time +afterwards I received the proceedings of one of the meetings, in which it +seemed that the shape of my head had been the subject of a public discussion, +and one of the speakers declared that I had the bump of reverence developed +enough for ten priests. +</p> + +<p> +As it was decided that I should be a clergyman, it was necessary that I should +go to one of the English universities and take a degree; but as I had never +opened a classical book since leaving school, I found to my dismay, that in the +two intervening years I had actually forgotten, incredible as it may appear, +almost everything which I had learnt, even to some few of the Greek letters. I +did not therefore proceed to Cambridge at the usual time in October, but worked +with a private tutor in Shrewsbury, and went to Cambridge after the Christmas +vacation, early in 1828. I soon recovered my school standard of knowledge, and +could translate easy Greek books, such as Homer and the Greek Testament, with +moderate facility. +</p> + +<p> +During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as +the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at +school. I attempted mathematics, and even went during the summer of 1828 with a +private tutor (a very dull man) to Barmouth, but I got on very slowly. The work +was repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the +early steps in algebra. This impatience was very foolish, and in after years I +have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand +something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed +seem to have an extra sense. But I do not believe that I should ever have +succeeded beyond a very low grade. With respect to Classics I did nothing +except attend a few compulsory college lectures, and the attendance was almost +nominal. In my second year I had to work for a month or two to pass the +Little-Go, which I did easily. Again, in my last year I worked with some +earnestness for my final degree of B.A., and brushed up my Classics, together +with a little Algebra and Euclid, which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did +at school. In order to pass the B.A. examination, it was also necessary to get +up Paley’s ‘Evidences of Christianity,’ and his ‘Moral +Philosophy.’ This was done in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that +I could have written out the whole of the ‘Evidences’ with perfect +correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of +this book and, as I may add, of his ‘Natural Theology,’ gave me as +much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these works, without +attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical +course which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me +in the education of my mind. I did not at that time trouble myself about +Paley’s premises; and taking these on trust, I was charmed and convinced +by the long line of argumentation. By answering well the examination questions +in Paley, by doing Euclid well, and by not failing miserably in Classics, I +gained a good place among the oi polloi or crowd of men who do not go in for +honours. Oddly enough, I cannot remember how high I stood, and my memory +fluctuates between the fifth, tenth, or twelfth, name on the list. (Tenth in +the list of January 1831.) +</p> + +<p> +Public lectures on several branches were given in the University, attendance +being quite voluntary; but I was so sickened with lectures at Edinburgh that I +did not even attend Sedgwick’s eloquent and interesting lectures. Had I +done so I should probably have become a geologist earlier than I did. I +attended, however, Henslow’s lectures on Botany, and liked them much for +their extreme clearness, and the admirable illustrations; but I did not study +botany. Henslow used to take his pupils, including several of the older members +of the University, field excursions, on foot or in coaches, to distant places, +or in a barge down the river, and lectured on the rarer plants and animals +which were observed. These excursions were delightful. +</p> + +<p> +Although, as we shall presently see, there were some redeeming features in my +life at Cambridge, my time was sadly wasted there, and worse than wasted. From +my passion for shooting and for hunting, and, when this failed, for riding +across country, I got into a sporting set, including some dissipated low-minded +young men. We used often to dine together in the evening, though these dinners +often included men of a higher stamp, and we sometimes drank too much, with +jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards. I know that I ought to feel +ashamed of days and evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very +pleasant, and we were all in the highest spirits, I cannot help looking back to +these times with much pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a widely different +nature. I was very intimate with Whitley (Rev. C. Whitley, Hon. Canon of +Durham, formerly Reader in Natural Philosophy in Durham University.), who was +afterwards Senior Wrangler, and we used continually to take long walks +together. He inoculated me with a taste for pictures and good engravings, of +which I bought some. I frequently went to the Fitzwilliam Gallery, and my taste +must have been fairly good, for I certainly admired the best pictures, which I +discussed with the old curator. I read also with much interest Sir Joshua +Reynolds’ book. This taste, though not natural to me, lasted for several +years, and many of the pictures in the National Gallery in London gave me much +pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity. +</p> + +<p> +I also got into a musical set, I believe by means of my warm-hearted friend, +Herbert (The late John Maurice Herbert, County Court Judge of Cardiff and the +Monmouth Circuit.), who took a high wrangler’s degree. From associating +with these men, and hearing them play, I acquired a strong taste for music, and +used very often to time my walks so as to hear on week days the anthem in +King’s College Chapel. This gave me intense pleasure, so that my backbone +would sometimes shiver. I am sure that there was no affectation or mere +imitation in this taste, for I used generally to go by myself to King’s +College, and I sometimes hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. +Nevertheless I am so utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a +discord, or keep time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could +possibly have derived pleasure from music. +</p> + +<p> +My musical friends soon perceived my state, and sometimes amused themselves by +making me pass an examination, which consisted in ascertaining how many tunes I +could recognise when they were played rather more quickly or slowly than usual. +‘God save the King,’ when thus played, was a sore puzzle. There was +another man with almost as bad an ear as I had, and strange to say he played a +little on the flute. Once I had the triumph of beating him in one of our +musical examinations. +</p> + +<p> +But no pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave +me so much pleasure as collecting beetles. It was the mere passion for +collecting, for I did not dissect them, and rarely compared their external +characters with published descriptions, but got them named anyhow. I will give +a proof of my zeal: one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare +beetles, and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I +could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand +into my mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my +tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the +third one. +</p> + +<p> +I was very successful in collecting, and invented two new methods; I employed a +labourer to scrape during the winter, moss off old trees and place it in a +large bag, and likewise to collect the rubbish at the bottom of the barges in +which reeds are brought from the fens, and thus I got some very rare species. +No poet ever felt more delighted at seeing his first poem published than I did +at seeing, in Stephens’ ‘Illustrations of British Insects,’ +the magic words, “captured by C. Darwin, Esq.” I was introduced to +entomology by my second cousin W. Darwin Fox, a clever and most pleasant man, +who was then at Christ’s College, and with whom I became extremely +intimate. Afterwards I became well acquainted, and went out collecting, with +Albert Way of Trinity, who in after years became a well-known archaeologist; +also with H. Thompson of the same College, afterwards a leading agriculturist, +chairman of a great railway, and Member of Parliament. It seems therefore that +a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of future success in life! +</p> + +<p> +I am surprised what an indelible impression many of the beetles which I caught +at Cambridge have left on my mind. I can remember the exact appearance of +certain posts, old trees and banks where I made a good capture. The pretty +Panagaeus crux-major was a treasure in those days, and here at Down I saw a +beetle running across a walk, and on picking it up instantly perceived that it +differed slightly from P. crux-major, and it turned out to be P. +quadripunctatus, which is only a variety or closely allied species, differing +from it very slightly in outline. I had never seen in those old days Licinus +alive, which to an uneducated eye hardly differs from many of the black +Carabidous beetles; but my sons found here a specimen, and I instantly +recognised that it was new to me; yet I had not looked at a British beetle for +the last twenty years. +</p> + +<p> +I have not as yet mentioned a circumstance which influenced my whole career +more than any other. This was my friendship with Professor Henslow. Before +coming up to Cambridge, I had heard of him from my brother as a man who knew +every branch of science, and I was accordingly prepared to reverence him. He +kept open house once every week when all undergraduates, and some older members +of the University, who were attached to science, used to meet in the evening. I +soon got, through Fox, an invitation, and went there regularly. Before long I +became well acquainted with Henslow, and during the latter half of my time at +Cambridge took long walks with him on most days; so that I was called by some +of the dons “the man who walks with Henslow;” and in the evening I +was very often asked to join his family dinner. His knowledge was great in +botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. His strongest taste was +to draw conclusions from long-continued minute observations. His judgment was +excellent, and his whole mind well balanced; but I do not suppose that any one +would say that he possessed much original genius. He was deeply religious, and +so orthodox that he told me one day he should be grieved if a single word of +the Thirty-nine Articles were altered. His moral qualities were in every way +admirable. He was free from every tinge of vanity or other petty feeling; and I +never saw a man who thought so little about himself or his own concerns. His +temper was imperturbably good, with the most winning and courteous manners; +yet, as I have seen, he could be roused by any bad action to the warmest +indignation and prompt action. +</p> + +<p> +I once saw in his company in the streets of Cambridge almost as horrid a scene +as could have been witnessed during the French Revolution. Two body-snatchers +had been arrested, and whilst being taken to prison had been torn from the +constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who dragged them by their legs along +the muddy and stony road. They were covered from head to foot with mud, and +their faces were bleeding either from having been kicked or from the stones; +they looked like corpses, but the crowd was so dense that I got only a few +momentary glimpses of the wretched creatures. Never in my life have I seen such +wrath painted on a man’s face as was shown by Henslow at this horrid +scene. He tried repeatedly to penetrate the mob; but it was simply impossible. +He then rushed away to the mayor, telling me not to follow him, but to get more +policemen. I forget the issue, except that the two men were got into the prison +without being killed. +</p> + +<p> +Henslow’s benevolence was unbounded, as he proved by his many excellent +schemes for his poor parishioners, when in after years he held the living of +Hitcham. My intimacy with such a man ought to have been, and I hope was, an +inestimable benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a trifling incident, which +showed his kind consideration. Whilst examining some pollen-grains on a damp +surface, I saw the tubes exserted, and instantly rushed off to communicate my +surprising discovery to him. Now I do not suppose any other professor of botany +could have helped laughing at my coming in such a hurry to make such a +communication. But he agreed how interesting the phenomenon was, and explained +its meaning, but made me clearly understand how well it was known; so I left +him not in the least mortified, but well pleased at having discovered for +myself so remarkable a fact, but determined not to be in such a hurry again to +communicate my discoveries. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men who sometimes visited +Henslow, and on several occasions I walked home with him at night. Next to Sir +J. Mackintosh he was the best converser on grave subjects to whom I ever +listened. Leonard Jenyns (The well-known Soame Jenyns was cousin to Mr. +Jenyns’ father.), who afterwards published some good essays in Natural +History (Mr. Jenyns (now Blomefield) described the fish for the Zoology of the +“Beagle”; and is author of a long series of papers, chiefly +Zoological.), often stayed with Henslow, who was his brother-in-law. I visited +him at his parsonage on the borders of the Fens [Swaffham Bulbeck], and had +many a good walk and talk with him about Natural History. I became also +acquainted with several other men older than me, who did not care much about +science, but were friends of Henslow. One was a Scotchman, brother of Sir +Alexander Ramsay, and tutor of Jesus College: he was a delightful man, but did +not live for many years. Another was Mr. Dawes, afterwards Dean of Hereford, +and famous for his success in the education of the poor. These men and others +of the same standing, together with Henslow, used sometimes to take distant +excursions into the country, which I was allowed to join, and they were most +agreeable. +</p> + +<p> +Looking back, I infer that there must have been something in me a little +superior to the common run of youths, otherwise the above-mentioned men, so +much older than me and higher in academical position, would never have allowed +me to associate with them. Certainly I was not aware of any such superiority, +and I remember one of my sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my +beetles, saying that I should some day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and +the notion seemed to me preposterous. +</p> + +<p> +During my last year at Cambridge, I read with care and profound interest +Humboldt’s ‘Personal Narrative.’ This work, and Sir J. +Herschel’s ‘Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy,’ +stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the +noble structure of Natural Science. No one or a dozen other books influenced me +nearly so much as these two. I copied out from Humboldt long passages about +Teneriffe, and read them aloud on one of the above-mentioned excursions, to (I +think) Henslow, Ramsay, and Dawes, for on a previous occasion I had talked +about the glories of Teneriffe, and some of the party declared they would +endeavour to go there; but I think that they were only half in earnest. I was, +however, quite in earnest, and got an introduction to a merchant in London to +enquire about ships; but the scheme was, of course, knocked on the head by the +voyage of the “Beagle”. +</p> + +<p> +My summer vacations were given up to collecting beetles, to some reading, and +short tours. In the autumn my whole time was devoted to shooting, chiefly at +Woodhouse and Maer, and sometimes with young Eyton of Eyton. Upon the whole the +three years which I spent at Cambridge were the most joyful in my happy life; +for I was then in excellent health, and almost always in high spirits. +</p> + +<p> +As I had at first come up to Cambridge at Christmas, I was forced to keep two +terms after passing my final examination, at the commencement of 1831; and +Henslow then persuaded me to begin the study of geology. Therefore on my return +to Shropshire I examined sections, and coloured a map of parts round +Shrewsbury. Professor Sedgwick intended to visit North Wales in the beginning +of August to pursue his famous geological investigations amongst the older +rocks, and Henslow asked him to allow me to accompany him. (In connection with +this tour my father used to tell a story about Sedgwick: they had started from +their inn one morning, and had walked a mile or two, when Sedgwick suddenly +stopped, and vowed that he would return, being certain “that damned +scoundrel” (the waiter) had not given the chambermaid the sixpence +intrusted to him for the purpose. He was ultimately persuaded to give up the +project, seeing that there was no reason for suspecting the waiter of especial +perfidy.—F.D.) Accordingly he came and slept at my father’s house. +</p> + +<p> +A short conversation with him during this evening produced a strong impression +on my mind. Whilst examining an old gravel-pit near Shrewsbury, a labourer told +me that he had found in it a large worn tropical Volute shell, such as may be +seen on the chimney-pieces of cottages; and as he would not sell the shell, I +was convinced that he had really found it in the pit. I told Sedgwick of the +fact, and he at once said (no doubt truly) that it must have been thrown away +by some one into the pit; but then added, if really embedded there it would be +the greatest misfortune to geology, as it would overthrow all that we know +about the superficial deposits of the Midland Counties. These gravel-beds +belong in fact to the glacial period, and in after years I found in them broken +arctic shells. But I was then utterly astonished at Sedgwick not being +delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical shell being found near the +surface in the middle of England. Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly +realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in +grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning we started for Llangollen, Conway, Bangor, and Capel Curig. This +tour was of decided use in teaching me a little how to make out the geology of +a country. Sedgwick often sent me on a line parallel to his, telling me to +bring back specimens of the rocks and to mark the stratification on a map. I +have little doubt that he did this for my good, as I was too ignorant to have +aided him. On this tour I had a striking instance of how easy it is to overlook +phenomena, however conspicuous, before they have been observed by any one. We +spent many hours in Cwm Idwal, examining all the rocks with extreme care, as +Sedgwick was anxious to find fossils in them; but neither of us saw a trace of +the wonderful glacial phenomena all around us; we did not notice the plainly +scored rocks, the perched boulders, the lateral and terminal moraines. Yet +these phenomena are so conspicuous that, as I declared in a paper published +many years afterwards in the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ +(‘Philosophical Magazine,’ 1842.), a house burnt down by fire did +not tell its story more plainly than did this valley. If it had still been +filled by a glacier, the phenomena would have been less distinct than they now +are. +</p> + +<p> +At Capel Curig I left Sedgwick and went in a straight line by compass and map +across the mountains to Barmouth, never following any track unless it coincided +with my course. I thus came on some strange wild places, and enjoyed much this +manner of travelling. I visited Barmouth to see some Cambridge friends who were +reading there, and thence returned to Shrewsbury and to Maer for shooting; for +at that time I should have thought myself mad to give up the first days of +partridge-shooting for geology or any other science. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></a> +“VOYAGE OF THE ‘BEAGLE’ FROM DECEMBER 27, 1831, TO OCTOBER 2, +1836.”</h2> + +<p> +On returning home from my short geological tour in North Wales, I found a +letter from Henslow, informing me that Captain Fitz-Roy was willing to give up +part of his own cabin to any young man who would volunteer to go with him +without pay as naturalist to the Voyage of the “Beagle”. I have +given, as I believe, in my MS. Journal an account of all the circumstances +which then occurred; I will here only say that I was instantly eager to accept +the offer, but my father strongly objected, adding the words, fortunate for me, +“If you can find any man of common sense who advises you to go I will +give my consent.” So I wrote that evening and refused the offer. On the +next morning I went to Maer to be ready for September 1st, and, whilst out +shooting, my uncle (Josiah Wedgwood.) sent for me, offering to drive me over to +Shrewsbury and talk with my father, as my uncle thought it would be wise in me +to accept the offer. My father always maintained that he was one of the most +sensible men in the world, and he at once consented in the kindest manner. I +had been rather extravagant at Cambridge, and to console my father, said, +“that I should be deuced clever to spend more than my allowance whilst on +board the ‘Beagle’;” but he answered with a smile, “But +they tell me you are very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +Next day I started for Cambridge to see Henslow, and thence to London to see +Fitz-Roy, and all was soon arranged. Afterwards, on becoming very intimate with +Fitz-Roy, I heard that I had run a very narrow risk of being rejected, on +account of the shape of my nose! He was an ardent disciple of Lavater, and was +convinced that he could judge of a man’s character by the outline of his +features; and he doubted whether any one with my nose could possess sufficient +energy and determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well +satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely. +</p> + +<p> +Fitz-Roy’s character was a singular one, with very many noble features: +he was devoted to his duty, generous to a fault, bold, determined, and +indomitably energetic, and an ardent friend to all under his sway. He would +undertake any sort of trouble to assist those whom he thought deserved +assistance. He was a handsome man, strikingly like a gentleman, with highly +courteous manners, which resembled those of his maternal uncle, the famous Lord +Castlereagh, as I was told by the Minister at Rio. Nevertheless he must have +inherited much in his appearance from Charles II., for Dr. Wallich gave me a +collection of photographs which he had made, and I was struck with the +resemblance of one to Fitz-Roy; and on looking at the name, I found it Ch. E. +Sobieski Stuart, Count d’Albanie, a descendant of the same monarch. +</p> + +<p> +Fitz-Roy’s temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in the +early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect something amiss +about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame. He was very kind to me, +but was a man very difficult to live with on the intimate terms which +necessarily followed from our messing by ourselves in the same cabin. We had +several quarrels; for instance, early in the voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he +defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just +visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked +them whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all +answered “No.” I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he +thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth +anything? This made him excessively angry, and he said that as I doubted his +word we could not live any longer together. I thought that I should have been +compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which it did +quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by +abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an invitation from all the +gun-room officers to mess with them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his +usual magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request +that I would continue to live with him. +</p> + +<p> +His character was in several respects one of the most noble which I have ever +known. +</p> + +<p> +The voyage of the “Beagle” has been by far the most important event +in my life, and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so small a +circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me thirty miles to Shrewsbury, which +few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose. I +have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real training or education +of my mind; I was led to attend closely to several branches of natural history, +and thus my powers of observation were improved, though they were always fairly +developed. +</p> + +<p> +The investigation of the geology of all the places visited was far more +important, as reasoning here comes into play. On first examining a new district +nothing can appear more hopeless than the chaos of rocks; but by recording the +stratification and nature of the rocks and fossils at many points, always +reasoning and predicting what will be found elsewhere, light soon begins to +dawn on the district, and the structure of the whole becomes more or less +intelligible. I had brought with me the first volume of Lyell’s +‘Principles of Geology,’ which I studied attentively; and the book +was of the highest service to me in many ways. The very first place which I +examined, namely St. Jago in the Cape de Verde islands, showed me clearly the +wonderful superiority of Lyell’s manner of treating geology, compared +with that of any other author, whose works I had with me or ever afterwards +read. +</p> + +<p> +Another of my occupations was collecting animals of all classes, briefly +describing and roughly dissecting many of the marine ones; but from not being +able to draw, and from not having sufficient anatomical knowledge, a great pile +of MS. which I made during the voyage has proved almost useless. I thus lost +much time, with the exception of that spent in acquiring some knowledge of the +Crustaceans, as this was of service when in after years I undertook a monograph +of the Cirripedia. +</p> + +<p> +During some part of the day I wrote my Journal, and took much pains in +describing carefully and vividly all that I had seen; and this was good +practice. My Journal served also, in part, as letters to my home, and portions +were sent to England whenever there was an opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +The above various special studies were, however, of no importance compared with +the habit of energetic industry and of concentrated attention to whatever I was +engaged in, which I then acquired. Everything about which I thought or read was +made to bear directly on what I had seen or was likely to see; and this habit +of mind was continued during the five years of the voyage. I feel sure that it +was this training which has enabled me to do whatever I have done in science. +</p> + +<p> +Looking backwards, I can now perceive how my love for science gradually +preponderated over every other taste. During the first two years my old passion +for shooting survived in nearly full force, and I shot myself all the birds and +animals for my collection; but gradually I gave up my gun more and more, and +finally altogether, to my servant, as shooting interfered with my work, more +especially with making out the geological structure of a country. I discovered, +though unconsciously and insensibly, that the pleasure of observing and +reasoning was a much higher one than that of skill and sport. That my mind +became developed through my pursuits during the voyage is rendered probable by +a remark made by my father, who was the most acute observer whom I ever saw, of +a sceptical disposition, and far from being a believer in phrenology; for on +first seeing me after the voyage, he turned round to my sisters, and exclaimed, +“Why, the shape of his head is quite altered.” +</p> + +<p> +To return to the voyage. On September 11th (1831), I paid a flying visit with +Fitz-Roy to the “Beagle” at Plymouth. Thence to Shrewsbury to wish +my father and sisters a long farewell. On October 24th I took up my residence +at Plymouth, and remained there until December 27th, when the +“Beagle” finally left the shores of England for her +circumnavigation of the world. We made two earlier attempts to sail, but were +driven back each time by heavy gales. These two months at Plymouth were the +most miserable which I ever spent, though I exerted myself in various ways. I +was out of spirits at the thought of leaving all my family and friends for so +long a time, and the weather seemed to me inexpressibly gloomy. I was also +troubled with palpitation and pain about the heart, and like many a young +ignorant man, especially one with a smattering of medical knowledge, was +convinced that I had heart disease. I did not consult any doctor, as I fully +expected to hear the verdict that I was not fit for the voyage, and I was +resolved to go at all hazards. +</p> + +<p> +I need not here refer to the events of the voyage—where we went and what +we did—as I have given a sufficiently full account in my published +Journal. The glories of the vegetation of the Tropics rise before my mind at +the present time more vividly than anything else; though the sense of +sublimity, which the great deserts of Patagonia and the forest-clad mountains +of Tierra del Fuego excited in me, has left an indelible impression on my mind. +The sight of a naked savage in his native land is an event which can never be +forgotten. Many of my excursions on horseback through wild countries, or in the +boats, some of which lasted several weeks, were deeply interesting: their +discomfort and some degree of danger were at that time hardly a drawback, and +none at all afterwards. I also reflect with high satisfaction on some of my +scientific work, such as solving the problem of coral islands, and making out +the geological structure of certain islands, for instance, St. Helena. Nor must +I pass over the discovery of the singular relations of the animals and plants +inhabiting the several islands of the Galapagos archipelago, and of all of them +to the inhabitants of South America. +</p> + +<p> +As far as I can judge of myself, I worked to the utmost during the voyage from +the mere pleasure of investigation, and from my strong desire to add a few +facts to the great mass of facts in Natural Science. But I was also ambitious +to take a fair place among scientific men,—whether more ambitious or less +so than most of my fellow-workers, I can form no opinion. +</p> + +<p> +The geology of St. Jago is very striking, yet simple: a stream of lava formerly +flowed over the bed of the sea, formed of triturated recent shells and corals, +which it has baked into a hard white rock. Since then the whole island has been +upheaved. But the line of white rock revealed to me a new and important fact, +namely, that there had been afterwards subsidence round the craters, which had +since been in action, and had poured forth lava. It then first dawned on me +that I might perhaps write a book on the geology of the various countries +visited, and this made me thrill with delight. That was a memorable hour to me, +and how distinctly I can call to mind the low cliff of lava beneath which I +rested, with the sun glaring hot, a few strange desert plants growing near, and +with living corals in the tidal pools at my feet. Later in the voyage, Fitz-Roy +asked me to read some of my Journal, and declared it would be worth publishing; +so here was a second book in prospect! +</p> + +<p> +Towards the close of our voyage I received a letter whilst at Ascension, in +which my sisters told me that Sedgwick had called on my father, and said that I +should take a place among the leading scientific men. I could not at the time +understand how he could have learnt anything of my proceedings, but I heard (I +believe afterwards) that Henslow had read some of the letters which I wrote to +him before the Philosophical Society of Cambridge (Read at the meeting held +November 16, 1835, and printed in a pamphlet of 31 pages for distribution among +the members of the Society.), and had printed them for private distribution. My +collection of fossil bones, which had been sent to Henslow, also excited +considerable attention amongst palaeontologists. After reading this letter, I +clambered over the mountains of Ascension with a bounding step, and made the +volcanic rocks resound under my geological hammer. All this shows how ambitious +I was; but I think that I can say with truth that in after years, though I +cared in the highest degree for the approbation of such men as Lyell and +Hooker, who were my friends, I did not care much about the general public. I do +not mean to say that a favourable review or a large sale of my books did not +please me greatly, but the pleasure was a fleeting one, and I am sure that I +have never turned one inch out of my course to gain fame. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"></a> +FROM MY RETURN TO ENGLAND (OCTOBER 2, 1836) TO MY MARRIAGE (JANUARY 29, 1839.)</h2> + +<p> +These two years and three months were the most active ones which I ever spent, +though I was occasionally unwell, and so lost some time. After going backwards +and forwards several times between Shrewsbury, Maer, Cambridge, and London, I +settled in lodgings at Cambridge (In Fitzwilliam Street.) on December 13th, +where all my collections were under the care of Henslow. I stayed here three +months, and got my minerals and rocks examined by the aid of Professor Miller. +</p> + +<p> +I began preparing my ‘Journal of Travels,’ which was not hard work, +as my MS. Journal had been written with care, and my chief labour was making an +abstract of my more interesting scientific results. I sent also, at the request +of Lyell, a short account of my observations on the elevation of the coast of +Chile to the Geological Society. (‘Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838, pages +446-449.) +</p> + +<p> +On March 7th, 1837, I took lodgings in Great Marlborough Street in London, and +remained there for nearly two years, until I was married. During these two +years I finished my Journal, read several papers before the Geological Society, +began preparing the MS. for my ‘Geological Observations,’ and +arranged for the publication of the ‘Zoology of the Voyage of the +“Beagle”.’ In July I opened my first note-book for facts in +relation to the Origin of Species, about which I had long reflected, and never +ceased working for the next twenty years. +</p> + +<p> +During these two years I also went a little into society, and acted as one of +the honorary secretaries of the Geological Society. I saw a great deal of +Lyell. One of his chief characteristics was his sympathy with the work of +others, and I was as much astonished as delighted at the interest which he +showed when, on my return to England, I explained to him my views on coral +reefs. This encouraged me greatly, and his advice and example had much +influence on me. During this time I saw also a good deal of Robert Brown; I +used often to call and sit with him during his breakfast on Sunday mornings, +and he poured forth a rich treasure of curious observations and acute remarks, +but they almost always related to minute points, and he never with me discussed +large or general questions in science. +</p> + +<p> +During these two years I took several short excursions as a relaxation, and one +longer one to the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, an account of which was published +in the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ (1839, pages 39-82.) This +paper was a great failure, and I am ashamed of it. Having been deeply impressed +with what I had seen of the elevation of the land of South America, I +attributed the parallel lines to the action of the sea; but I had to give up +this view when Agassiz propounded his glacier-lake theory. Because no other +explanation was possible under our then state of knowledge, I argued in favour +of sea-action; and my error has been a good lesson to me never to trust in +science to the principle of exclusion. +</p> + +<p> +As I was not able to work all day at science, I read a good deal during these +two years on various subjects, including some metaphysical books; but I was not +well fitted for such studies. About this time I took much delight in +Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s poetry; and can boast that I read the +‘Excursion’ twice through. Formerly Milton’s ‘Paradise +Lost’ had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage +of the “Beagle”, when I could take only a single volume, I always +chose Milton. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"></a> +FROM MY MARRIAGE, JANUARY 29, 1839, AND RESIDENCE IN UPPER GOWER STREET, +TO OUR LEAVING LONDON AND SETTLING AT DOWN, SEPTEMBER 14, 1842.</h2> + +<p> +(After speaking of his happy married life, and of his children, he +continues:—) +</p> + +<p> +During the three years and eight months whilst we resided in London, I did less +scientific work, though I worked as hard as I possibly could, than during any +other equal length of time in my life. This was owing to frequently recurring +unwellness, and to one long and serious illness. The greater part of my time, +when I could do anything, was devoted to my work on ‘Coral Reefs,’ +which I had begun before my marriage, and of which the last proof-sheet was +corrected on May 6th, 1842. This book, though a small one, cost me twenty +months of hard work, as I had to read every work on the islands of the Pacific +and to consult many charts. It was thought highly of by scientific men, and the +theory therein given is, I think, now well established. +</p> + +<p> +No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this, for the whole +theory was thought out on the west coast of South America, before I had seen a +true coral reef. I had therefore only to verify and extend my views by a +careful examination of living reefs. But it should be observed that I had +during the two previous years been incessantly attending to the effects on the +shores of South America of the intermittent elevation of the land, together +with denudation and the deposition of sediment. This necessarily led me to +reflect much on the effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace in +imagination the continued deposition of sediment by the upward growth of +corals. To do this was to form my theory of the formation of barrier-reefs and +atolls. +</p> + +<p> +Besides my work on coral-reefs, during my residence in London, I read before +the Geological Society papers on the Erratic Boulders of South America +(‘Geolog. Soc. Proc.’ iii. 1842.), on Earthquakes (‘Geolog. +Trans. v. 1840.), and on the Formation by the Agency of Earth-worms of Mould. +(‘Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838.) I also continued to superintend the +publication of the ‘Zoology of the Voyage of the +“Beagle”.’ Nor did I ever intermit collecting facts bearing +on the origin of species; and I could sometimes do this when I could do nothing +else from illness. +</p> + +<p> +In the summer of 1842 I was stronger than I had been for some time, and took a +little tour by myself in North Wales, for the sake of observing the effects of +the old glaciers which formerly filled all the larger valleys. I published a +short account of what I saw in the ‘Philosophical Magazine.’ +(‘Philosophical Magazine,’ 1842.) This excursion interested me +greatly, and it was the last time I was ever strong enough to climb mountains +or to take long walks such as are necessary for geological work. +</p> + +<p> +During the early part of our life in London, I was strong enough to go into +general society, and saw a good deal of several scientific men, and other more +or less distinguished men. I will give my impressions with respect to some of +them, though I have little to say worth saying. +</p> + +<p> +I saw more of Lyell than of any other man, both before and after my marriage. +His mind was characterised, as it appeared to me, by clearness, caution, sound +judgment, and a good deal of originality. When I made any remark to him on +Geology, he never rested until he saw the whole case clearly, and often made me +see it more clearly than I had done before. He would advance all possible +objections to my suggestion, and even after these were exhausted would long +remain dubious. A second characteristic was his hearty sympathy with the work +of other scientific men. (The slight repetition here observable is accounted +for by the notes on Lyell, etc., having been added in April, 1881, a few years +after the rest of the ‘Recollections’ were written.) +</p> + +<p> +On my return from the voyage of the “Beagle”, I explained to him my +views on coral-reefs, which differed from his, and I was greatly surprised and +encouraged by the vivid interest which he showed. His delight in science was +ardent, and he felt the keenest interest in the future progress of mankind. He +was very kind-hearted, and thoroughly liberal in his religious beliefs, or +rather disbeliefs; but he was a strong theist. His candour was highly +remarkable. He exhibited this by becoming a convert to the Descent theory, +though he had gained much fame by opposing Lamarck’s views, and this +after he had grown old. He reminded me that I had many years before said to +him, when discussing the opposition of the old school of geologists to his new +views, “What a good thing it would be if every scientific man was to die +when sixty years old, as afterwards he would be sure to oppose all new +doctrines.” But he hoped that now he might be allowed to live. +</p> + +<p> +The science of Geology is enormously indebted to Lyell—more so, as I +believe, than to any other man who ever lived. When [I was] starting on the +voyage of the “Beagle”, the sagacious Henslow, who, like all other +geologists, believed at that time in successive cataclysms, advised me to get +and study the first volume of the ‘Principles,’ which had then just +been published, but on no account to accept the views therein advocated. How +differently would anyone now speak of the ‘Principles’! I am proud +to remember that the first place, namely, St. Jago, in the Cape de Verde +archipelago, in which I geologised, convinced me of the infinite superiority of +Lyell’s views over those advocated in any other work known to me. +</p> + +<p> +The powerful effects of Lyell’s works could formerly be plainly seen in +the different progress of the science in France and England. The present total +oblivion of Elie de Beaumont’s wild hypotheses, such as his +‘Craters of Elevation’ and ‘Lines of Elevation’ (which +latter hypothesis I heard Sedgwick at the Geological Society lauding to the +skies), may be largely attributed to Lyell. +</p> + +<p> +I saw a good deal of Robert Brown, “facile Princeps Botanicorum,” +as he was called by Humboldt. He seemed to me to be chiefly remarkable for the +minuteness of his observations, and their perfect accuracy. His knowledge was +extraordinarily great, and much died with him, owing to his excessive fear of +ever making a mistake. He poured out his knowledge to me in the most unreserved +manner, yet was strangely jealous on some points. I called on him two or three +times before the voyage of the “Beagle”, and on one occasion he +asked me to look through a microscope and describe what I saw. This I did, and +believe now that it was the marvellous currents of protoplasm in some vegetable +cell. I then asked him what I had seen; but he answered me, “That is my +little secret.” +</p> + +<p> +He was capable of the most generous actions. When old, much out of health, and +quite unfit for any exertion, he daily visited (as Hooker told me) an old +man-servant, who lived at a distance (and whom he supported), and read aloud to +him. This is enough to make up for any degree of scientific penuriousness or +jealousy. +</p> + +<p> +I may here mention a few other eminent men, whom I have occasionally seen, but +I have little to say about them worth saying. I felt a high reverence for Sir +J. Herschel, and was delighted to dine with him at his charming house at the +Cape of Good Hope, and afterwards at his London house. I saw him, also, on a +few other occasions. He never talked much, but every word which he uttered was +worth listening to. +</p> + +<p> +I once met at breakfast at Sir R. Murchison’s house the illustrious +Humboldt, who honoured me by expressing a wish to see me. I was a little +disappointed with the great man, but my anticipations probably were too high. I +can remember nothing distinctly about our interview, except that Humboldt was +very cheerful and talked much. +</p> + +<p> +—reminds me of Buckle whom I once met at Hensleigh Wedgwood’s. I +was very glad to learn from him his system of collecting facts. He told me that +he bought all the books which he read, and made a full index, to each, of the +facts which he thought might prove serviceable to him, and that he could always +remember in what book he had read anything, for his memory was wonderful. I +asked him how at first he could judge what facts would be serviceable, and he +answered that he did not know, but that a sort of instinct guided him. From +this habit of making indices, he was enabled to give the astonishing number of +references on all sorts of subjects, which may be found in his ‘History +of Civilisation.’ This book I thought most interesting, and read it +twice, but I doubt whether his generalisations are worth anything. Buckle was a +great talker, and I listened to him saying hardly a word, nor indeed could I +have done so for he left no gaps. When Mrs. Farrer began to sing, I jumped up +and said that I must listen to her; after I had moved away he turned around to +a friend and said (as was overheard by my brother), “Well, Mr. +Darwin’s books are much better than his conversation.” +</p> + +<p> +Of other great literary men, I once met Sydney Smith at Dean Milman’s +house. There was something inexplicably amusing in every word which he uttered. +Perhaps this was partly due to the expectation of being amused. He was talking +about Lady Cork, who was then extremely old. This was the lady who, as he said, +was once so much affected by one of his charity sermons, that she +<i>borrowed</i> a guinea from a friend to put in the plate. He now said +“It is generally believed that my dear old friend Lady Cork has been +overlooked,” and he said this in such a manner that no one could for a +moment doubt that he meant that his dear old friend had been overlooked by the +devil. How he managed to express this I know not. +</p> + +<p> +I likewise once met Macaulay at Lord Stanhope’s (the historian’s) +house, and as there was only one other man at dinner, I had a grand opportunity +of hearing him converse, and he was very agreeable. He did not talk at all too +much; nor indeed could such a man talk too much, as long as he allowed others +to turn the stream of his conversation, and this he did allow. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Stanhope once gave me a curious little proof of the accuracy and fulness +of Macaulay’s memory: many historians used often to meet at Lord +Stanhope’s house, and in discussing various subjects they would sometimes +differ from Macaulay, and formerly they often referred to some book to see who +was right; but latterly, as Lord Stanhope noticed, no historian ever took this +trouble, and whatever Macaulay said was final. +</p> + +<p> +On another occasion I met at Lord Stanhope’s house, one of his parties of +historians and other literary men, and amongst them were Motley and Grote. +After luncheon I walked about Chevening Park for nearly an hour with Grote, and +was much interested by his conversation and pleased by the simplicity and +absence of all pretension in his manners. +</p> + +<p> +Long ago I dined occasionally with the old Earl, the father of the historian; +he was a strange man, but what little I knew of him I liked much. He was frank, +genial, and pleasant. He had strongly marked features, with a brown complexion, +and his clothes, when I saw him, were all brown. He seemed to believe in +everything which was to others utterly incredible. He said one day to me, +“Why don’t you give up your fiddle-faddle of geology and zoology, +and turn to the occult sciences!” The historian, then Lord Mahon, seemed +shocked at such a speech to me, and his charming wife much amused. +</p> + +<p> +The last man whom I will mention is Carlyle, seen by me several times at my +brother’s house, and two or three times at my own house. His talk was +very racy and interesting, just like his writings, but he sometimes went on too +long on the same subject. I remember a funny dinner at my brother’s, +where, amongst a few others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of whom liked to +talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing during the whole +dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage, in his grimmest +manner, thanked Carlyle for his very interesting lecture on silence. +</p> + +<p> +Carlyle sneered at almost every one: one day in my house he called +Grote’s ‘History’ “a fetid quagmire, with nothing +spiritual about it.” I always thought, until his +‘Reminiscences’ appeared, that his sneers were partly jokes, but +this now seems rather doubtful. His expression was that of a depressed, almost +despondent yet benevolent man; and it is notorious how heartily he laughed. I +believe that his benevolence was real, though stained by not a little jealousy. +No one can doubt about his extraordinary power of drawing pictures of things +and men—far more vivid, as it appears to me, than any drawn by Macaulay. +Whether his pictures of men were true ones is another question. +</p> + +<p> +He has been all-powerful in impressing some grand moral truths on the minds of +men. On the other hand, his views about slavery were revolting. In his eyes +might was right. His mind seemed to me a very narrow one; even if all branches +of science, which he despised, are excluded. It is astonishing to me that +Kingsley should have spoken of him as a man well fitted to advance science. He +laughed to scorn the idea that a mathematician, such as Whewell, could judge, +as I maintained he could, of Goethe’s views on light. He thought it a +most ridiculous thing that any one should care whether a glacier moved a little +quicker or a little slower, or moved at all. As far as I could judge, I never +met a man with a mind so ill adapted for scientific research. +</p> + +<p> +Whilst living in London, I attended as regularly as I could the meetings of +several scientific societies, and acted as secretary to the Geological Society. +But such attendance, and ordinary society, suited my health so badly that we +resolved to live in the country, which we both preferred and have never +repented of. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"></a> +RESIDENCE AT DOWN FROM SEPTEMBER 14, 1842, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1876.</h2> + +<p> +After several fruitless searches in Surrey and elsewhere, we found this house +and purchased it. I was pleased with the diversified appearance of vegetation +proper to a chalk district, and so unlike what I had been accustomed to in the +Midland counties; and still more pleased with the extreme quietness and +rusticity of the place. It is not, however, quite so retired a place as a +writer in a German periodical makes it, who says that my house can be +approached only by a mule-track! Our fixing ourselves here has answered +admirably in one way, which we did not anticipate, namely, by being very +convenient for frequent visits from our children. +</p> + +<p> +Few persons can have lived a more retired life than we have done. Besides short +visits to the houses of relations, and occasionally to the seaside or +elsewhere, we have gone nowhere. During the first part of our residence we went +a little into society, and received a few friends here; but my health almost +always suffered from the excitement, violent shivering and vomiting attacks +being thus brought on. I have therefore been compelled for many years to give +up all dinner-parties; and this has been somewhat of a deprivation to me, as +such parties always put me into high spirits. From the same cause I have been +able to invite here very few scientific acquaintances. +</p> + +<p> +My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout life has been scientific +work; and the excitement from such work makes me for the time forget, or drives +quite away, my daily discomfort. I have therefore nothing to record during the +rest of my life, except the publication of my several books. Perhaps a few +details how they arose may be worth giving. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"></a> +MY SEVERAL PUBLICATIONS.</h2> + +<p> +In the early part of 1844, my observations on the volcanic islands visited +during the voyage of the “Beagle” were published. In 1845, I took +much pains in correcting a new edition of my ‘Journal of +Researches,’ which was originally published in 1839 as part of +Fitz-Roy’s work. The success of this, my first literary child, always +tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books. Even to this day it +sells steadily in England and the United States, and has been translated for +the second time into German, and into French and other languages. This success +of a book of travels, especially of a scientific one, so many years after its +first publication, is surprising. Ten thousand copies have been sold in England +of the second edition. In 1846 my ‘Geological Observations on South +America’ were published. I record in a little diary, which I have always +kept, that my three geological books (‘Coral Reefs’ included) +consumed four and a half years’ steady work; “and now it is ten +years since my return to England. How much time have I lost by illness?” +I have nothing to say about these three books except that to my surprise new +editions have lately been called for. (‘Geological Observations,’ +2nd Edit.1876. ‘Coral Reefs,’ 2nd Edit. 1874.) +</p> + +<p> +In October, 1846, I began to work on ‘Cirripedia.’ When on the +coast of Chile, I found a most curious form, which burrowed into the shells of +Concholepas, and which differed so much from all other Cirripedes that I had to +form a new sub-order for its sole reception. Lately an allied burrowing genus +has been found on the shores of Portugal. To understand the structure of my new +Cirripede I had to examine and dissect many of the common forms; and this +gradually led me on to take up the whole group. I worked steadily on this +subject for the next eight years, and ultimately published two thick volumes +(Published by the Ray Society.), describing all the known living species, and +two thin quartos on the extinct species. I do not doubt that Sir E. Lytton +Bulwer had me in his mind when he introduced in one of his novels a Professor +Long, who had written two huge volumes on limpets. +</p> + +<p> +Although I was employed during eight years on this work, yet I record in my +diary that about two years out of this time was lost by illness. On this +account I went in 1848 for some months to Malvern for hydropathic treatment, +which did me much good, so that on my return home I was able to resume work. So +much was I out of health that when my dear father died on November 13th, 1848, +I was unable to attend his funeral or to act as one of his executors. +</p> + +<p> +My work on the Cirripedia possesses, I think, considerable value, as besides +describing several new and remarkable forms, I made out the homologies of the +various parts—I discovered the cementing apparatus, though I blundered +dreadfully about the cement glands—and lastly I proved the existence in +certain genera of minute males complemental to and parasitic on the +hermaphrodites. This latter discovery has at last been fully confirmed; though +at one time a German writer was pleased to attribute the whole account to my +fertile imagination. The Cirripedes form a highly varying and difficult group +of species to class; and my work was of considerable use to me, when I had to +discuss in the ‘Origin of Species’ the principles of a natural +classification. Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was worth the +consumption of so much time. +</p> + +<p> +From September 1854 I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile of notes, +to observing, and to experimenting in relation to the transmutation of species. +During the voyage of the “Beagle” I had been deeply impressed by +discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals covered with armour +like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the manner in which closely +allied animals replace one another in proceeding southwards over the Continent; +and thirdly, by the South American character of most of the productions of the +Galapagos archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which they differ +slightly on each island of the group; none of the islands appearing to be very +ancient in a geological sense. +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be +explained on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the +subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that neither the action of the +surrounding conditions, nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case +of plants) could account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every +kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of life—for instance, a +woodpecker or a tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or +plumes. I had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until these +could be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to prove by +indirect evidence that species have been modified. +</p> + +<p> +After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of +Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in any way on the +variation of animals and plants under domestication and nature, some light +might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My first note-book was opened in +July 1837. I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory +collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to +domesticated productions, by printed enquiries, by conversation with skilful +breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books +of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals +and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that +selection was the keystone of man’s success in making useful races of +animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a +state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me. +</p> + +<p> +In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic +enquiry, I happened to read for amusement ‘Malthus on Population,’ +and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which +everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and +plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable +variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. +The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at +last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, +that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In +June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief +abstract of my theory in pencil in 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the +summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and still +possess. +</p> + +<p> +But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is +astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg, how I could +have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the tendency in organic +beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become +modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which +species of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, +families under sub-orders and so forth; and I can remember the very spot in the +road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and +this was long after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the +modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted +to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature. +</p> + +<p> +Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began +at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as that which was +afterwards followed in my ‘Origin of Species;’ yet it was only an +abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I got through about half +the work on this scale. But my plans were overthrown, for early in the summer +of 1858 Mr. Wallace, who was then in the Malay archipelago, sent me an essay +“On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original +Type;” and this essay contained exactly the same theory as mine. Mr. +Wallace expressed the wish that if I thought well of his essay, I should sent +it to Lyell for perusal. +</p> + +<p> +The circumstances under which I consented at the request of Lyell and Hooker to +allow of an abstract from my MS., together with a letter to Asa Gray, dated +September 5, 1857, to be published at the same time with Wallace’s Essay, +are given in the ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean +Society,’ 1858, page 45. I was at first very unwilling to consent, as I +thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I did not +then know how generous and noble was his disposition. The extract from my MS. +and the letter to Asa Gray had neither been intended for publication, and were +badly written. Mr. Wallace’s essay, on the other hand, was admirably +expressed and quite clear. Nevertheless, our joint productions excited very +little attention, and the only published notice of them which I can remember +was by Professor Haughton of Dublin, whose verdict was that all that was new in +them was false, and what was true was old. This shows how necessary it is that +any new view should be explained at considerable length in order to arouse +public attention. +</p> + +<p> +In September 1858 I set to work by the strong advice of Lyell and Hooker to +prepare a volume on the transmutation of species, but was often interrupted by +ill-health, and short visits to Dr. Lane’s delightful hydropathic +establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the MS. begun on a much larger scale +in 1856, and completed the volume on the same reduced scale. It cost me +thirteen months and ten days’ hard labour. It was published under the +title of the ‘Origin of Species,’ in November 1859. Though +considerably added to and corrected in the later editions, it has remained +substantially the same book. +</p> + +<p> +It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly +successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies was sold on the day of +publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies soon afterwards. Sixteen +thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in England; and considering how stiff +a book it is, this is a large sale. It has been translated into almost every +European tongue, even into such languages as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and +Russian. It has also, according to Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese +(Miss Bird is mistaken, as I learn from Prof. Mitsukuri.—F.D.), and is +there much studied. Even an essay in Hebrew has appeared on it, showing that +the theory is contained in the Old Testament! The reviews were very numerous; +for some time I collected all that appeared on the ‘Origin’ and on +my related books, and these amount (excluding newspaper reviews) to 265; but +after a time I gave up the attempt in despair. Many separate essays and books +on the subject have appeared; and in Germany a catalogue or bibliography on +“Darwinismus” has appeared every year or two. +</p> + +<p> +The success of the ‘Origin’ may, I think, be attributed in large +part to my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having +finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an abstract. By +this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions. I +had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a +published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed +to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for +I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to +escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few +objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and +attempted to answer. +</p> + +<p> +It has sometimes been said that the success of the ‘Origin’ proved +“that the subject was in the air,” or “that men’s minds +were prepared for it.” I do not think that this is strictly true, for I +occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a +single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. Even Lyell and +Hooker, though they would listen with interest to me, never seemed to agree. I +tried once or twice to explain to able men what I meant by Natural Selection, +but signally failed. What I believe was strictly true is that innumerable +well-observed facts were stored in the minds of naturalists ready to take their +proper places as soon as any theory which would receive them was sufficiently +explained. Another element in the success of the book was its moderate size; +and this I owe to the appearance of Mr. Wallace’s essay; had I published +on the scale in which I began to write in 1856, the book would have been four +or five times as large as the ‘Origin,’ and very few would have had +the patience to read it. +</p> + +<p> +I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the theory was +clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I cared very little +whether men attributed most originality to me or Wallace; and his essay no +doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I was forestalled in only one +important point, which my vanity has always made me regret, namely, the +explanation by means of the Glacial period of the presence of the same species +of plants and of some few animals on distant mountain summits and in the arctic +regions. This view pleased me so much that I wrote it out in extenso, and I +believe that it was read by Hooker some years before E. Forbes published his +celebrated memoir (‘Geolog. Survey Mem.,’ 1846.) on the subject. In +the very few points in which we differed, I still think that I was in the +right. I have never, of course, alluded in print to my having independently +worked out this view. +</p> + +<p> +Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work on the +‘Origin,’ as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes +between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of the +embryos within the same class. No notice of this point was taken, as far as I +remember, in the early reviews of the ‘Origin,’ and I recollect +expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa Gray. Within late years +several reviewers have given the whole credit to Fritz Muller and Hackel, who +undoubtedly have worked it out much more fully, and in some respects more +correctly than I did. I had materials for a whole chapter on the subject, and I +ought to have made the discussion longer; for it is clear that I failed to +impress my readers; and he who succeeds in doing so deserves, in my opinion, +all the credit. +</p> + +<p> +This leads me to remark that I have almost always been treated honestly by my +reviewers, passing over those without scientific knowledge as not worthy of +notice. My views have often been grossly misrepresented, bitterly opposed and +ridiculed, but this has been generally done, as I believe, in good faith. On +the whole I do not doubt that my works have been over and over again greatly +overpraised. I rejoice that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to +Lyell, who many years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly +advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good +and caused a miserable loss of time and temper. +</p> + +<p> +Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has been +imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even when I have +been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest +comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that “I have worked as hard +and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this.” I remember +when in Good Success Bay, in Tierra del Fuego, thinking (and, I believe, that I +wrote home to the effect) that I could not employ my life better than in adding +a little to Natural Science. This I have done to the best of my abilities, and +critics may say what they like, but they cannot destroy this conviction. +</p> + +<p> +During the two last months of 1859 I was fully occupied in preparing a second +edition of the ‘Origin,’ and by an enormous correspondence. On +January 1st, 1860, I began arranging my notes for my work on the +‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication;’ but it was +not published until the beginning of 1868; the delay having been caused partly +by frequent illnesses, one of which lasted seven months, and partly by being +tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time interested me more. +</p> + +<p> +On May 15th, 1862, my little book on the ‘Fertilisation of +Orchids,’ which cost me ten months’ work, was published: most of +the facts had been slowly accumulated during several previous years. During the +summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend +to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come +to the conclusion in my speculations on the origin of species, that crossing +played an important part in keeping specific forms constant. I attended to the +subject more or less during every subsequent summer; and my interest in it was +greatly enhanced by having procured and read in November 1841, through the +advice of Robert Brown, a copy of C.K. Sprengel’s wonderful book, +‘Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur.’ For some years before 1862 I +had specially attended to the fertilisation of our British orchids; and it +seemed to me the best plan to prepare as complete a treatise on this group of +plants as well as I could, rather than to utilise the great mass of matter +which I had slowly collected with respect to other plants. +</p> + +<p> +My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my book, a surprising +number of papers and separate works on the fertilisation of all kinds of +flowers have appeared: and these are far better done than I could possibly have +effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so long overlooked, are now fully +recognised many years after his death. +</p> + +<p> +During the same year I published in the ‘Journal of the Linnean +Society’ a paper “On the Two Forms, or Dimorphic Condition of +Primula,” and during the next five years, five other papers on dimorphic +and trimorphic plants. I do not think anything in my scientific life has given +me so much satisfaction as making out the meaning of the structure of these +plants. I had noticed in 1838 or 1839 the dimorphism of Linum flavum, and had +at first thought that it was merely a case of unmeaning variability. But on +examining the common species of Primula I found that the two forms were much +too regular and constant to be thus viewed. I therefore became almost convinced +that the common cowslip and primrose were on the high road to become +dioecious;—that the short pistil in the one form, and the short stamens +in the other form were tending towards abortion. The plants were therefore +subjected under this point of view to trial; but as soon as the flowers with +short pistils fertilised with pollen from the short stamens, were found to +yield more seeds than any other of the four possible unions, the +abortion-theory was knocked on the head. After some additional experiment, it +became evident that the two forms, though both were perfect hermaphrodites, +bore almost the same relation to one another as do the two sexes of an ordinary +animal. With Lythrum we have the still more wonderful case of three forms +standing in a similar relation to one another. I afterwards found that the +offspring from the union of two plants belonging to the same forms presented a +close and curious analogy with hybrids from the union of two distinct species. +</p> + +<p> +In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on ‘Climbing Plants,’ +and sent it to the Linnean Society. The writing of this paper cost me four +months; but I was so unwell when I received the proof-sheets that I was forced +to leave them very badly and often obscurely expressed. The paper was little +noticed, but when in 1875 it was corrected and published as a separate book it +sold well. I was led to take up this subject by reading a short paper by Asa +Gray, published in 1858. He sent me seeds, and on raising some plants I was so +much fascinated and perplexed by the revolving movements of the tendrils and +stems, which movements are really very simple, though appearing at first sight +very complex, that I procured various other kinds of climbing plants, and +studied the whole subject. I was all the more attracted to it, from not being +at all satisfied with the explanation which Henslow gave us in his lectures, +about twining plants, namely, that they had a natural tendency to grow up in a +spire. This explanation proved quite erroneous. Some of the adaptations +displayed by Climbing Plants are as beautiful as those of Orchids for ensuring +cross-fertilisation. +</p> + +<p> +My ‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’ was begun, +as already stated, in the beginning of 1860, but was not published until the +beginning of 1868. It was a big book, and cost me four years and two +months’ hard labour. It gives all my observations and an immense number +of facts collected from various sources, about our domestic productions. In the +second volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, etc., are +discussed as far as our present state of knowledge permits. Towards the end of +the work I give my well-abused hypothesis of Pangenesis. An unverified +hypothesis is of little or no value; but if anyone should hereafter be led to +make observations by which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall +have done good service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus +connected together and rendered intelligible. In 1875 a second and largely +corrected edition, which cost me a good deal of labour, was brought out. +</p> + +<p> +My ‘Descent of Man’ was published in February, 1871. As soon as I +had become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were mutable +productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the same +law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject for my own satisfaction, and +not for a long time with any intention of publishing. Although in the +‘Origin of Species’ the derivation of any particular species is +never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order that no honourable man should +accuse me of concealing my views, to add that by the work “light would be +thrown on the origin of man and his history.” It would have been useless +and injurious to the success of the book to have paraded, without giving any +evidence, my conviction with respect to his origin. +</p> + +<p> +But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the doctrine of the +evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable to work up such notes as I +possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin of man. I was the +more glad to do so, as it gave me an opportunity of fully discussing sexual +selection—a subject which had always greatly interested me. This subject, +and that of the variation of our domestic productions, together with the causes +and laws of variation, inheritance, and the intercrossing of plants, are the +sole subjects which I have been able to write about in full, so as to use all +the materials which I have collected. The ‘Descent of Man’ took me +three years to write, but then as usual some of this time was lost by ill +health, and some was consumed by preparing new editions and other minor works. +A second and largely corrected edition of the ‘Descent’ appeared in +1874. +</p> + +<p> +My book on the ‘Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals’ was +published in the autumn of 1872. I had intended to give only a chapter on the +subject in the ‘Descent of Man,’ but as soon as I began to put my +notes together, I saw that it would require a separate treatise. +</p> + +<p> +My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced to make +notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he exhibited, for I +felt convinced, even at this early period, that the most complex and fine +shades of expression must all have had a gradual and natural origin. During the +summer of the following year, 1840, I read Sir C. Bell’s admirable work +on expression, and this greatly increased the interest which I felt in the +subject, though I could not at all agree with his belief that various muscles +had been specially created for the sake of expression. From this time forward I +occasionally attended to the subject, both with respect to man and our +domesticated animals. My book sold largely; 5267 copies having been disposed of +on the day of publication. +</p> + +<p> +In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near Hartfield, where two +species of Drosera abound; and I noticed that numerous insects had been +entrapped by the leaves. I carried home some plants, and on giving them insects +saw the movements of the tentacles, and this made me think it probable that the +insects were caught for some special purpose. Fortunately a crucial test +occurred to me, that of placing a large number of leaves in various nitrogenous +and non-nitrogenous fluids of equal density; and as soon as I found that the +former alone excited energetic movements, it was obvious that here was a fine +new field for investigation. +</p> + +<p> +During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my experiments, and +my book on ‘Insectivorous Plants’ was published in July +1875—that is, sixteen years after my first observations. The delay in +this case, as with all my other books, has been a great advantage to me; for a +man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost as well as if it +were that of another person. 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. +</p> + +<p> +During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the ‘Effects of Cross and +Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom.’ This book will form a +complement to that on the ‘Fertilisation of Orchids,’ in which I +showed how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall +show how important are the results. I was led to make, during eleven years, the +numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental observation; +and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was +thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised +parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in height and vigour to +seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage. I hope also to republish a revised +edition of my book on Orchids, and hereafter my papers on dimorphic and +trimorphic plants, together with some additional observations on allied points +which I never have had time to arrange. My strength will then probably be +exhausted, and I shall be ready to exclaim “Nunc dimittis.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"></a> +WRITTEN MAY 1ST, 1881.</h2> + +<p> +‘The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation’ was published in the +autumn of 1876; and the results there arrived at explain, as I believe, the +endless and wonderful contrivances for the transportal of pollen from one plant +to another of the same species. I now believe, however, chiefly from the +observations of Hermann Muller, that I ought to have insisted more strongly +than I did on the many adaptations for self-fertilisation; though I was well +aware of many such adaptations. A much enlarged edition of my +‘Fertilisation of Orchids’ was published in 1877. +</p> + +<p> +In this same year ‘The Different Forms of Flowers, etc.,’ appeared, +and in 1880 a second edition. This book consists chiefly of the several papers +on Heterostyled flowers originally published by the Linnean Society, corrected, +with much new matter added, together with observations on some other cases in +which the same plant bears two kinds of flowers. As before remarked, no little +discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the meaning +of heterostyled flowers. The results of crossing such flowers in an +illegitimate manner, I believe to be very important, as bearing on the +sterility of hybrids; although these results have been noticed by only a few +persons. +</p> + +<p> +In 1879, I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause’s ‘Life of Erasmus +Darwin’ published, and I added a sketch of his character and habits from +material in my possession. Many persons have been much interested by this +little life, and I am surprised that only 800 or 900 copies were sold. +</p> + +<p> +In 1880 I published, with [my son] Frank’s assistance, our ‘Power +of Movement in Plants.’ This was a tough piece of work. The book bears +somewhat the same relation to my little book on ‘Climbing Plants,’ +which ‘Cross-Fertilisation’ did to the ‘Fertilisation of +Orchids;’ for in accordance with the principle of evolution it was +impossible to account for climbing plants having been developed in so many +widely different groups unless all kinds of plants possess some slight power of +movement of an analogous kind. This I proved to be the case; and I was further +led to a rather wide generalisation, viz. that the great and important classes +of movements, excited by light, the attraction of gravity, etc., are all +modified forms of the fundamental movement of circumnutation. It has always +pleased me to exalt plants in the scale of organised beings; and I therefore +felt an especial pleasure in showing how many and what admirably well adapted +movements the tip of a root possesses. +</p> + +<p> +I have now (May 1, 1881) sent to the printers the MS. of a little book on +‘The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms.’ +This is a subject of but small importance; and I know not whether it will +interest any readers (Between November 1881 and February 1884, 8500 copies have +been sold.), but it has interested me. It is the completion of a short paper +read before the Geological Society more than forty years ago, and has revived +old geological thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +I have now mentioned all the books which I have published, and these have been +the milestones in my life, so that little remains to be said. I am not +conscious of any change in my mind during the last thirty years, excepting in +one point presently to be mentioned; nor, indeed, could any change have been +expected unless one of general deterioration. But my father lived to his +eighty-third year with his mind as lively as ever it was, and all his faculties +undimmed; and I hope that I may die before my mind fails to a sensible extent. +I think that I have become a little more skilful in guessing right explanations +and in devising experimental tests; but this may probably be the result of mere +practice, and of a larger store of knowledge. I have as much difficulty as ever +in expressing myself clearly and concisely; and this difficulty has caused me a +very great loss of time; but it has had the compensating advantage of forcing +me to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus I have been led to +see errors in reasoning and in my own observations or those of others. +</p> + +<p> +There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at first my +statement or proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think +about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found +that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I +possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. +Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written +deliberately. +</p> + +<p> +Having said thus much about my manner of writing, I will add that with my large +books I spend a good deal of time over the general arrangement of the matter. I +first make the rudest outline in two or three pages, and then a larger one in +several pages, a few words or one word standing for a whole discussion or +series of facts. Each one of these headings is again enlarged and often +transferred before I begin to write in extenso. As in several of my books facts +observed by others have been very extensively used, and as I have always had +several quite distinct subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention that I +keep from thirty to forty large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, +into which I can at once put a detached reference or memorandum. I have bought +many books, and at their ends I make an index of all the facts that concern my +work; or, if the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract, and of such +abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before beginning on any subject I look to +all the short indexes and make a general and classified index, and by taking +the one or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during +my life ready for use. +</p> + +<p> +I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or +thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such +as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave +me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in +Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly +pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many +years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read +Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also +almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking +too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me +pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the +exquisite delight which it formerly did. On the other hand, novels which are +works of the imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for years +a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless all novelists. A +surprising number have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately +good, and if they do not end unhappily—against which a law ought to be +passed. A novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class +unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if a pretty +woman all the better. +</p> + +<p> +This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all the +odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels (independently of any +scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts of subjects +interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of +machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why +this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which +the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly +organised or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus +suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read +some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the +parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. +The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious +to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the +emotional part of our nature. +</p> + +<p> +My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many +languages, and passed through several editions in foreign countries. I have +heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its +enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this +standard my name ought to last for a few years. Therefore it may be worth while +to try to analyse the mental qualities and the conditions on which my success +has depended; though I am aware that no man can do this correctly. +</p> + +<p> +I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some +clever men, for instance, Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or +book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it is only after +considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a +long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore I +could never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is +extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that +I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, +or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally +recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one sense is my memory, +that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date +or a line of poetry. +</p> + +<p> +Some of my critics have said, “Oh, he is a good observer, but he has no +power of reasoning!” I do not think that this can be true, for the +‘Origin of Species’ is one long argument from the beginning to the +end, and it has convinced not a few able men. No one could have written it +without having some power of reasoning. I have a fair share of invention, and +of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly successful lawyer or doctor +must have, but not, I believe, in any higher degree. +</p> + +<p> +On the favourable side of the balance, I think that I am superior to the common +run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing +them carefully. My industry has been nearly as great as it could have been in +the observation and collection of facts. What is far more important, my love of +natural science has been steady and ardent. +</p> + +<p> +This pure love has, however, been much aided by the ambition to be esteemed by +my fellow naturalists. From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to +understand or explain whatever I observed,—that is, to group all facts +under some general laws. These causes combined have given me the patience to +reflect or ponder for any number of years over any unexplained problem. As far +as I can judge, I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men. I have +steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, +however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as +soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it. Indeed, I have had no choice but +to act in this manner, for with the exception of the Coral Reefs, I cannot +remember a single first-formed hypothesis which had not after a time to be +given up or greatly modified. This has naturally led me to distrust greatly +deductive reasoning in the mixed sciences. On the other hand, I am not very +sceptical,—a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the +progress of science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is advisable +to avoid much loss of time, but I have met with not a few men, who, I feel +sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment or observations, which +would have proved directly or indirectly serviceable. +</p> + +<p> +In illustration, I will give the oddest case which I have known. A gentleman +(who, as I afterwards heard, is a good local botanist) wrote to me from the +Eastern counties that the seed or beans of the common field-bean had this year +everywhere grown on the wrong side of the pod. I wrote back, asking for further +information, as I did not understand what was meant; but I did not receive any +answer for a very long time. I then saw in two newspapers, one published in +Kent and the other in Yorkshire, paragraphs stating that it was a most +remarkable fact that “the beans this year had all grown on the wrong +side.” So I thought there must be some foundation for so general a +statement. Accordingly, I went to my gardener, an old Kentish man, and asked +him whether he had heard anything about it, and he answered, “Oh, no, +sir, it must be a mistake, for the beans grow on the wrong side only on +leap-year, and this is not leap-year.” I then asked him how they grew in +common years and how on leap-years, but soon found that he knew absolutely +nothing of how they grew at any time, but he stuck to his belief. +</p> + +<p> +After a time I heard from my first informant, who, with many apologies, said +that he should not have written to me had he not heard the statement from +several intelligent farmers; but that he had since spoken again to every one of +them, and not one knew in the least what he had himself meant. So that here a +belief—if indeed a statement with no definite idea attached to it can be +called a belief—had spread over almost the whole of England without any +vestige of evidence. +</p> + +<p> +I have known in the course of my life only three intentionally falsified +statements, and one of these may have been a hoax (and there have been several +scientific hoaxes) which, however, took in an American Agricultural Journal. It +related to the formation in Holland of a new breed of oxen by the crossing of +distinct species of Bos (some of which I happen to know are sterile together), +and the author had the impudence to state that he had corresponded with me, and +that I had been deeply impressed with the importance of his result. The article +was sent to me by the editor of an English Agricultural Journal, asking for my +opinion before republishing it. +</p> + +<p> +A second case was an account of several varieties, raised by the author from +several species of Primula, which had spontaneously yielded a full complement +of seed, although the parent plants had been carefully protected from the +access of insects. This account was published before I had discovered the +meaning of heterostylism, and the whole statement must have been fraudulent, or +there was neglect in excluding insects so gross as to be scarcely credible. +</p> + +<p> +The third case was more curious: Mr. Huth published in his book on +‘Consanguineous Marriage’ some long extracts from a Belgian author, +who stated that he had interbred rabbits in the closest manner for very many +generations, without the least injurious effects. The account was published in +a most respectable Journal, that of the Royal Society of Belgium; but I could +not avoid feeling doubts—I hardly know why, except that there were no +accidents of any kind, and my experience in breeding animals made me think this +very improbable. +</p> + +<p> +So with much hesitation I wrote to Professor Van Beneden, asking him whether +the author was a trustworthy man. I soon heard in answer that the Society had +been greatly shocked by discovering that the whole account was a fraud. (The +falseness of the published statements on which Mr. Huth relied has been pointed +out by himself in a slip inserted in all the copies of his book which then +remained unsold.) The writer had been publicly challenged in the Journal to say +where he had resided and kept his large stock of rabbits while carrying on his +experiments, which must have consumed several years, and no answer could be +extracted from him. +</p> + +<p> +My habits are methodical, and this has been of not a little use for my +particular line of work. Lastly, I have had ample leisure from not having to +earn my own bread. Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of +my life, has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, +has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental +qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have been—the love +of science—unbounded patience in long reflecting over any +subject—industry in observing and collecting facts—and a fair share +of invention as well as of common sense. With such moderate abilities as I +possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable +extent the belief of scientific men on some important points. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DARWIN ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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