Charles Darwin

by Andrew Norman

  Darwin’s second cousin William D. Fox, ‘a clever and most pleasant man’, was at that time a fellow undergraduate at Christ’s College. Like Darwin, he too was preparing to become a clergyman. It was Fox who introduced Darwin to entomology.3 Said Darwin

  When I went to Cambridge … I worked like a slave at collecting. Henslow’s Society was a great charm & benefit to me, & I liked much his Lecture on Botany.4

  On a cultural note, Darwin made frequent visits to the Fitzwilliam Museum to admire the paintings in its art gallery. And, said he

  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. But no pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles.5

  Also, Darwin described his ‘passion for shooting and for hunting, and … riding across country’.

  I got into a sporting set, including some dissipated low-minded young men. We often used to dine together in the evening … 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.6

  Darwin was clearly enjoying his life at Cambridge. However, on 12 June 1828 he wrote to Fox to say, ‘I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects’.7 That October, Darwin had a request to make of his cousin

  I want to know the name of a butterfly, which you have got [i.e. in your collection], its wings are most wonderfully jagged, & of a reddish colour, [and] after an immense chase with all the servants in the house I at last captured it.8

  Darwin told Fanny, daughter of William Mostyn Owen and sister of his friend Arthur later in October,

  I have not rode [a horse] since I saw you, but have nobody to ride with so no wonder!! [Also] Not one game of Billiards have I had since I play’d with you. I can get nobody to play with & am a[fr]aid for want of practice [that I] shall forget all my fine strokes … .9

  Darwin enjoyed horse-riding and billiards, activities he could share with his friends.

  Darwin’s benign acquiescence to his father’s wishes in respect of his future career did not prevent him from pursuing his own interests, whenever the opportunity arose. For example, on 29 0ctober 1828, he tells Fox that he has ‘struck up a friendship’ with Edinburgh entomologist the Reverend Frederick William Hope, who has invited him to

  bring over all my insects to Netley [Netley Hall being the Hope family seat which was situated about 5 miles south of Shrewsbury]. I could write all day about him … he has given me a great many water [beetles].10

  Darwin wrote to Fox in glowing terms on Christmas Eve, about ‘Mr Dash’, his pointer.11

  He rises in my opinion hourly, & I would not sell him for a £5 pound note. – it would have excited your envy & spleen to have seen him on the scent of a covey of Birds … .

  Darwin indicates to Fox that Robert Darwin shares his interest in natural history

  You cannot imagine how pleased my Father was with the Death-Head’s [species of moth]; to use his own words ‘If he himself had thought for a week he could not [have] picked out a present so acceptable’.12

  On 26 February 1829, Darwin tells Fox that, the previous week, in London, he has met with the Reverend Hope, when the latter

  did little else but talk about & look at insects: his collection is most magnificent & he himself is the most generous of Entomologists he has given me about 160 new species … .

  He also tells Fox that, whilst in London, he visited the Royal Institution, the Linnaean Society (for the study and promotion of all aspects of the biological sciences), the Zoological Gardens, ‘& many other places where Naturalists are gregarious.’13

  In another letter to Fox, dated 15 March, Darwin refers to ‘some very gay parties’ which he has attended, and also ‘a night’s debauch’14 – an indication that Darwin was far from narrow-minded in his outlook on life, which was by no means all work and no play.

  Darwin wrote to Fox again on 23 April to commiserate with him over the death of his sister Mary.

  I feel most sincerely & deeply for you & all your family: But, at the same time, as far as anyone can, by his own good [principles] & religion be supported under such a misfortune, you, I am assured, well know where to look for such support.

  And he goes on to refer to ‘the pure & holy a comfort as [i.e. which] the Bible affords …’.15

  Darwin tells Fox on 3 July that his father Robert, ‘has got two Martens [weasel-like mammals], I believe both species ready-mounted at Mr Shaw’s … .’16 [Henry Shaw, taxidermist of Shrewsbury].

  In May 1830 Darwin writes aggrievedly to Fox, whom he had hoped to meet with, from Cambridge

  I am very sorry to find that all our plans are likely to vanish into air. It is most unfortunate you being obliged to go with your Father & Mother to Cheltenham, for the weather is so fine, the beetles so numerous, our zeal so ardent that the Science would have received a benefit never to have been forgotten. [And Darwin ends his letter] I have seen a good deal of [Professor] Henslow lately & the more I see of him the more I like him[.] I have some thoughts of reading divinity with him the summer after next.17

  Darwin describes how

  during the latter half of my time at Cambridge [I] took long walks with him [Henslow] on most days … . His knowledge was great in botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. His strongest taste was to draw conclusions from long-continued minute observations. His judgement was excellent, and his whole mind well-balanced; but I do not suppose that any one would say that he possessed much original genius.18

  Far from being overawed by the mighty academics of Cambridge, Darwin was intent on making his own mark!

  ‘During my last year at Cambridge,’ he tells us:

  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.

  Little did Darwin know what an understatement this would prove to be!19

  (The full title of German geographer, naturalist, and explorer Alexander von Humboldt’s book, which he wrote in conjunction with Aimé Bonpland, was A Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799–1804. It was published in four volumes between 1814 and 1829. In it, he made observations on the native American people of South America, and on Aztec Art, and gave detailed descriptions of the region’s flora and fauna. The full title of astronomer, mathematician, chemist, and philosopher Sir John F. W. Herschel’s book, published in 1831, was A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. It comprised an analysis of the history and nature of science.)

  As he prepares for his final examinations, Darwin writes ruefully to Fox on 5 November.

  I have not stuck [i.e. impaled with a pin, prior to mounting] an insect this term & scarcely opened a [collection] case … . but really I have not spirits or time to do any thing. Reading makes me quite desperate, the plague of getting up [preparing and revising] for my subjects is next thing to intolerable. [And he ends the letter] I am very glad to hear … that you have at last heard of a [curacy – i.e. the post of curate] where you may read all the commandments without endangering your throat.20

  Darwin congratulated Fox on 23 January 1831 for having passed his degree examination and expressed the hope that Fox will manage to obtain a curacy at Epperstone near Nottingham – which he did. As for Darwin, he confessed that

  During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted as far as the academic studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school. [Nevertheless] in my last year I worked with some earnestness for my final degree of BA.21

  In the event,
in the Bachelor of Arts degree, ‘ordinary’ class, which he was awarded on 25 April,22 Darwin was placed a very creditable tenth out of the 178 who had succeeded in passing the examination.23

  Because Darwin’s initial entry to Cambridge University had been delayed, he was obliged to remain at that institution for another two terms, even though he had passed his final examination. It was during this period that Professor Henslow ‘persuaded me to begin the study of geology’. Darwin finally went down from (i.e. left) Cambridge on 16 June.24

  By the summer it was clear that Darwin was preoccupied, not with theology and the prospect of becoming a clergyman, but with natural history and natural science. For example, on 11 July, he wrote to Professor Henslow to inform him that he had now obtained a clinometer25 (an instrument for measuring the angle or elevation of slopes).

  I suspect, the first expedition I take, clinometer & hammer in hand, will send me back very little wiser & a good deal more puzzled than when I started. As yet I have only indulged in hypotheses; but they are such powerful ones, that I suppose, if they were put into action but for one day, the world would come to an end.

  How prophetic these words would prove to be, in view of what was to follow!26

  The Reverend Adam Sedgwick, was Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge University. Said Darwin, when Sedgwick proposed a visit to North Wales, commencing in early August 1831, in order

  to pursue his famous geological investigations amongst the older rocks … Henslow asked him [Sedgwick] to allow me to accompany him. Accordingly he came and slept at my father’s house’ [i.e. ‘The Mount’, Shrewsbury, en route from Cambridge to Wales].

  A local labourer had previously informed Darwin that he (the labourer) had discovered in ‘an old gravel-pit near Shrewsbury … a large worn tropical Volute shell …’. (Marine mollusc of the genus Voluta). But when Darwin passed this information on to Sedgwick, the latter declared that the shell

  must have been thrown away by some one into the pit … [for] 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.27

  Whereupon Darwin was

  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 realize … that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.

  Darwin also realized that because of his preconceived ideas, Sedgwick’s mind was closed to the possible significance and importance of this finding.

  In North Wales, Sedgwick and Darwin visited Cwm Idwal, a valley in Snowdonia. Here, whilst hunting for fossils, ‘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’. This, said Darwin, was a ‘striking instance [of] how easy it is to overlook phenomena, however conspicuous …28’.

  * * *

  For his degree Darwin had been examined in the works of Homer (Greek poet and man of letters), Virgil (Roman poet), Euclid (Greek mathematician), and in arithmetic and algebra. However, and not surprisingly, the syllabus was heavily weighted towards theology, viz the required reading included philosopher and physician John Locke’s An Essay concerning Human Understanding, and theologian William Paley’s View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794).29

  NOTES

  1. Darwin, Francis, op cit., pp.21–3.

  2. Ibid, pp.26–7.

  3. Ibid, p.25.

  4. Darwin to W. T. Preyer, 17 February [1870], Cor.18, p.41.

  5. Darwin, Francis, op cit., p.24.

  6. Ibid, p.23.

  7. Darwin to William Darwin Fox, 12 June 1828, Cor.1, p.56.

  8. Darwin to William Darwin Fox, October 1828, Cor.1, p.66.

  9. Darwin to Fanny Owen, 26 October 1828, Cor.1, p.69.

  10. Darwin to W. D. Fox, 29 October 1828, Cor.1, p.70.

  11. ‘Mr Dash’ was one of at least thirteen dogs which Darwin is known to have possessed, at one time or another, during his lifetime.

  12. Darwin to W. D. Fox, 24 December 1828, Cor.1, p.71.

  13. Darwin to W. D. Fox, 26 February 1829, Cor.1, pp.75–6.

  14. Darwin to W. D. Fox, 15 March 1829, Cor.1, pp.79–80.

  15. Darwin to W. D. Fox, 23 April 1829, Cor.1, p.84.

  16. Darwin to W.D. Fox, 3 July 1829, Cor.1, p.88.

  17. Darwin to W.D. Fox, 9 May 1830, Cor.1, p.103.

  18. Darwin, Francis, op cit., pp.26–7.

  19. Ibid, p.30.

  20. Darwin to Fox, 5 November 1830, Cor.1, pp.109–10.

  21. Darwin, Francis, op cit., p.21.

  22. Christ’s College, Cambridge, Record Book.

  23. Darwin to W. D. Fox, 23 January 1831, Cor.1, pp. 111–12.

  24. Christ’s College, Cambridge, Record Book.

  25. Oxford Dictionaries Online.

  26. Darwin to J. S. Henslow, 11 July 1831. Cor.1, p.125.

  27. Darwin, Francis, op cit., p.31.

  28. Ibid, p.32.

  29. Cambridge University Calendar, 1831, in Cor.1, p.112, and Darwin, Francis, op cit., pp.21–2.

  Chapter 6

  John Locke and William Paley

  Anyone who believed that the syllabus for Darwin’s BA degree would entail a comparative and objective study of various world religions, or even a genuine debate on the merits or demerits of Christianity itself, would be sadly disappointed. The syllabus was specifically designed to include only Anglican theology, as put forward by theologists/philosophers whose minds were already made up.

  John Locke (1632–1704)

  Chapter X of Book IV of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) is entitled ‘Of Our Knowledge of the Existence of a God’. It reads as follows

  1. We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God. Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself; though he has stamped no original characters on our minds, wherein we may read his being; yet having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without witness: since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a clear proof of him, as long as we carry ourselves about us.

  In other words, the very fact of man’s existence is proof of the existence of God. Locke then takes his argument a step further

  2. For man knows that he himself exists. I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear idea of his own being; he knows certainly he exists, and that he is something.

  This, then, I think I may take for a truth, which every one’s certain knowledge assures him of, beyond the liberty of doubting, viz that he is something that actually exists.

  3. He knows also that nothing cannot produce a being; therefore something must have existed from eternity.

  In other words, who else but God could have created man?

  4. And that eternal Being must be most powerful.

  5. … a man finds in himself perception and knowledge. We have then got one step further; and we are certain now that there is not only some being, but some knowing, intelligent being in the world. [For it was impossible] that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception, should produce a knowing being … .

  Therefore, that is, as man is intelligent, God must also be intelligent.

  6. Thus, from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, That there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being; which whether any one will please to call God, it matters not. [And finally] From what has been said, it is plain to me we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of anything our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presume I may say, that we more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is anything else without us.1

  Despite his
assuredness, Locke produces no evidence to support his theory of the existence and nature of God, his arguments being based solely on supposition.

  William Paley (1743–1805)

  In the preface to A View of the Evidences of Christianity, published in 1746, Paley declared that he was moved to write the book because of his ‘earnest wish to promote the religious part of an academic education’.2 Said he

  I deem it unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in need of a Revelation [the disclosure of knowledge by a divine], because I have met with no serious person who thinks that even under the Christian revelation we have too much light, or any degree of assurance which is superfluous. I desire moreover that in judging of Christianity it may be remembered, that the question lies between this religion and none: for, if the Christian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions of any other.3

  In other words, man requires a ‘god’, the Christian god provides him with both enlightenment and certainty, and all other religions are irrelevant. Paley then asks, ‘In what way can a revelation be made but by miracles?’ To this he answers, ‘In none which we are able to conceive’.4

  We are in possession of letters written by St Paul himself upon the subject of his ministry, and either written during the period which the history comprises, or, if written afterwards, reciting and referring to the transactions of that period.5

  This was a reference to the Christian missionary Paul, otherwise known as Saul of Tarsus (in modern south-east Turkey). His dates are believed to be circa AD1–10 to circa AD64–68, and there is no evidence that he ever met Jesus Christ, nor did he ever claim to have done so.