The History Book

236

P

erhaps the most important

scientist of the 19th century,

Charles Darwin originally

intended to follow his father into

medicine and was subsequently

sent to Cambridge to train as an

Anglican cleric. Endlessly curious,

he was interested in almost any

scientific question.

The publication of his book On the

Origin of Species (1859) introduced

a new scientific understanding of

what gradually came to be known

as evolution. In the book, Darwin

asked a fundamental question. The

world teems with plant and animal

life: where and what had it come

from? How had it been created?

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Scientific advance

BEFORE

1831–36 The voyage of the

HMS Beagle takes the young

naturalist Charles Darwin

around the world.

AFTER

1860 Thomas Huxley defends

Darwin from an attack by the

established Anglican church.

1863 Gregor Mendel

demonstrates how genetics

influence all plant life.

1871 Darwin’s The Descent

of Man advances the view of

sexual selection, whereby the

most successful members of a

species are naturally attracted

to perpetuate the species.

1953 Discovery of DNA

demonstrates how traits are

passed on genetically.

Darwin’s book explains

the diversity of

animal species and

posits that all life on

Earth is related to a

common ancestor.

Charles Darwin

publishes On the

Origin of Species.

Geologists begin

to understand that the

Earth has existed for

previously unimaginable

eons of time.

It became clear to

scientists that the Earth

had undergone a series of

immense changes and

extinctions.

Modern science decisively reinforces the evidence and

conclusions presented in Darwin’s landmark text.

ENDLESS FORMS MOST

BEAUTIFUL AND MOST

WONDERFUL HAVE BEEN

AND ARE BEING EVOLVED

DARWIN PUBLISHES ON THE

ORIGIN OF SPECIES (1859)

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237

The finches on the Galapagos Islands

were key to Darwin’s work. The 13

species he found there all had different

types of beaks, which had evolved to

deal with the food available to the birds.

See also: The voyages of Captain Cook 189 ■ Diderot publishes the Encyclopédie 192–95 ■

Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25

CHANGING SOCIETIES

Darwin was far from the first to

propose that a process of change

over vast periods had produced this

diversity, but he was the first to

suggest an explanatory theme,

which he called “natural selection”.

Natural selection

At the heart of Darwin’s idea was

his contention that all animal life

was derived from a single, common

ancestor—that the ancestors of all

mammals, humans included, for

example, were fish. And in a natural

world that was never less than

relentlessly violent, only those most

able to adapt would survive, in the

process evolving into new species.

These views were largely formed

by the around-the-world voyage he

made as the naturalist on the British

survey vessel HMS Beagle between

1831 and 1836, most of it spent in

South America. It would take him

10 years to work up his voluminous

notes and to go through all the

samples he collected on his voyage.

Darwin’s book inevitably

generated controversy, outraging

Christian views that the world had

been created intact and unchanging

by a benevolent deity. Yet however

heated the initial debate, quite

rapidly there was widespread

acceptance of Darwin’s views and

a realization that he had made

a decisive contribution to the

understanding of the world. In

the process, the status of science

generally was immensely boosted.

The primacy of science

Despite everything, it was possible

for Darwinism to be warped. What

came to be called “the survival of

the fittest” would later prove to be

influential in justifying imperialism,

racism, and eugenics.

On the Origin of Species was

published at a time when a growing

understanding of the natural world

and rapid technological progress

meant scientific study had a greater

practical worth than ever before.

Darwin was one of the last amateur

gentleman scientists in a discipline

that was becoming professionalized

as society came to view science

more highly. Partly as a result of

Darwin’s work, but also because of

these changing attitudes, science

began to have a more central place

in public life. By the end of Darwin’s

life, continual progress in scientific

knowledge had become an almost

standard expectation. ■

Charles Darwin Charles Darwin (1809–82) was

only the fifth choice for the

position of naturalist on the

voyage of the HMS Beagle in

1831. However fortuitous his
      selection, it would transform
      his life. Although he was
      constantly seasick during his time
      aboard the craft, Darwin proved
      himself an assiduous observer of
      the world around him. He would
      take as much amazed delight in
      the jungles of Brazil as he would
      in the pampas of Argentina or in
      the arid wastes of the Galapagos
      Islands. Upon returning to
      England, he settled into a life

of persistent hard work—the

model high-Victorian scientist,

aided by considerable private

means and a notably happy

family life, despite the deaths

of three of his ten children.

Although his own health

may effectively have been

severely damaged by the time

he spent on the Beagle, his

output remained prodigious, as

did his level of intrigue at almost

any subject in the natural world.

In the absence of the exotic,

he was as fascinated by pigeons

as by parasites, barnacles as

much as earthworms.

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