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Darwin's Diary |
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Introduction | 1809-1825 | 1826-1829 | 1831 | 1832 | 1833 | 1835 | 1836 1837 |
1838 | 1842-1854 | 1856 | 1858-1859 | 1881 | 1882 |
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1826-1827 (Birth of a Theory)
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Charles is in Edinburgh,
Scotland, ostensibly to study medicine. This is an age of heroic surgery, before
anesthetics. Brutal operations are performed quickly, with screaming patients strapped
to tables.
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"I ... 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 ... The two cases fairly haunted me for many a long year."
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Watching the grisly operations
turns Darwin from medicine. He later regrets that he never
properly learned the art of dissection.
He finds other diversions in the cosmopolitan city -- including
student societies, where fiery "freethinkers" explore scientific ideas. And he goes
on collecting excursions along the rocky shore with his new mentor, Robert Grant, an
expert on marine life whose intellectual passion captivates Darwin.
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"He one day ... burst
forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent
astonishment ... I had previously read the Zoonomia of my grandfather, in
which similar views are maintained ... 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 ..."
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In tidal pools along the
Firth of Forth, Darwin and Grant collect sea mats, animals that resemble plants. Grant
suspects that such creatures lie close to the roots of the animal kingdom. Grant
pushes Darwin to see similarities in seemingly unrelated animals, such as the bones
of a bird's wing and a man's hand. Grant believes that all creatures in the far
distant past have a common ancestor, and that higher animals evolved from simpler
forms.
Darwin learns the art of taxidermy at Edinburgh's natural history
museum. He later writes, "a negro lives in Edinburgh, who ... gained his livelihood
by stuffing birds, which he did excellently; he gave me lessons for a payment, and I
used often to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and intelligent man."
Darwin is not yet a convert to the idea of evolution. But these
days in Edinburgh stoke his passion for collecting, dissecting, and striving to
understand nature.
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Fall 1827-Spring 1828 (Darwin's Struggle with Faith)
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Queasy at the sight of
blood and smell of camphor, Darwin clearly isn't fit for a medical career. His father
has another idea.
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"After having spent
two sessions in Edinburgh, my father perceived ... 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 an idle sporting man, which then seemed my
probable destination. I asked for some time to consider ..."
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To test his piety
before plunging too far, Charles reads Sumner's Evidences of Christianity,
and scribbles pages of notes.
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There is "no other
way except by [Jesus's] divinity" to explain the miracles of the past. And, even
if miracles could be dismissed, Jesus's religion is "wonderfully suitable ... to
our ideas of happiness in this & the next world."
"I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth
of every word in the Bible."
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So 19-year-old Charles
charts a new career path. Darwin will spend three years at Cambridge University as
a member of Christ's College. The university is a seminary for the Anglican Church.
Proctors patrol the town, a campus vice squad; young women seen walking alone are
committed to the university's own jail, just down the road. In his second year at
Cambridge, Darwin lives in the former rooms of William Paley, then the most famous
natural theologian, whose works were required reading. In this era, the word
"scientist" has not been coined, and the study of nature and religion are
inextricably linked.
Darwin embraces natural theology, a philosophical system that
aims to understand God through study of the natural world. Through this lens, he
sees the stunning adaptations of creatures to their environments as irrefutable
evidence of God's plan. Nature, with its complex and beautiful designs, is a
glorious expression of divine will.
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Spring 1828-Summer 1831 (Birth of a Theory)
In his years at Cambridge, now studying for the clergy, Darwin
is swept up by beetlemania. His cousin, William Darwin Fox, teaches him the art of
hunting for rare insects. The collecting craze leads Darwin to marvel at how diverse
and varied creatures can be. It also pays off with Darwin's first "publication."
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"No poet ever felt more
delight at seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing in Stephen's
Illustrations of British Insects the magic words 'captured by C. Darwin, Esq.'"
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Years later, Darwin
writes of his beetling days, "[N]o pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so
much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles ... I can remember
the exact appearance of certain posts, old trees and banks where I made a good
capture."
William Darwin Fox also introduces Charles to a group of mentors
who change the course of his life. Reverend John Stevens Henslow, a 32-year-old
professor of botany, becomes his idol and role model. Darwin spends so much time
with Henslow that he is called "the man who walks with Henslow." For Darwin's
mentor, like other ordained naturalists, studying nature is studying God's work.
Henslow hosts parties where young naturalists mix with senior men
of science. Darwin is thrilled to hear them "conversing on all sorts of subjects with
the most varied and brilliant powers."
One of the most brilliant of all, geologist Reverend Adam Sedgwick,
takes Darwin on an excursion to explore the hills of Wales. Eager to impress, Darwin
learns to identify geological strata on his own.
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"[T]he Welch
expedition ... has given me an interest in geology which I would not give up
for any consideration."
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Sedgwick will later
become one of the harshest critics of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Like other
geologists of the day, he is no biblical literalist -- he accepts that Earth is
ancient. Yet to him the notion that living species evolve is blasphemy.
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May 1829 (Darwin's Struggle with Faith)
While Darwin is studying for the clergy, two atheist rabble-rousers
charge into Cambridge. They hand out and post a call-to-arms against the church, which
Darwin likely reads: "The Rev. Robert Taylor ... and Mr. Richard Carlile ... present
their compliments as Infidel missionaries, to ... most respectfully and earnestly
invite discussion on the merits of the Christian religion."
Robert Taylor's blasphemy is notorious. He publishes his revolutionary
gospel in a pamphlet called "The Devil's Pulpit."
Blasphemy is a crime in England. Taylor and Carlile have been arrested
before, and now the powers in Cambridge act quickly. They force the two radicals from town
and, to the horror of many students, revoke the license of the landlord who housed them.
The landlord pleads for mercy on his wife and six children, but to no avail.
Darwin sees the danger of speaking out against the established order
and of challenging the Christian faith. Later, he remembers Taylor's nickname, "the
Devil's Chaplain." But he will also, half-jokingly, apply the title to himself.
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-> Go to 1831
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|
Introduction | 1809-1825 | 1826-1829 | 1831 | 1832 | 1833 | 1835 | 1836 1837 |
1838 | 1842-1854 | 1856 | 1858-1859 | 1881 | 1882 |
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