Where Australia Collides with AsiaThere are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the
volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures,
which express His power.Although there was much theological argument about the interpretation of the
Bible, the description of the origin of life in the Book of Genesis was sacrosanct. The
world had been created by God in six days, man had been made in His image, all the
creatures of the earth had sprung into existence at the same instant, and had survived
the flood only because Noah had taken two of each species, a male and a female,
aboard the Ark.
While at Cambridge, Darwin moved into the same rooms as previously occupied
by the renowned theologian William Paley who had in 1802 published a book called
Natural Theology. Darwin appreciated the clarity and logic of his language and was
guided by the ideas of Paley, who had become famous because of his ‘Argument for
Design’. Design implies a designer. Something so elaborate as for instance a watch,
so perfectly functioning, could not have been produced by the operation of aimless
forces. ‘There must have existed,’ wrote Paley, ‘an artificer who formed it.’
Darwin’s lecture schedule at Cambridge was relatively undemanding and with his
friends he could follow his passions of game hunting and beetle collecting. Darwin
gives an example of his collecting zeal as when tearing off some old bark he saw two
rare beetles, then seeing a third and equally rare beetle, and having no more hands he
popped one inside his mouth, whereupon it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, forcing
him to bend over in disgust, spit it out, and consequently lose all three beetles. His
collecting led to him to make a minor contribution to an authoritative textbook and he
excitedly wrote:
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 ... No poet ever felt more delight 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.’At Cambridge, Darwin formed a friendship with the Reverend John Henslow,
the Professor of Botany, who encouraged him to attend botany lectures, weekend
naturalist outings and consider a clerical career. Darwin acknowledges his assistance
in the preface to his book The Voyage of the Beagle:
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