1、As a child Darwin was a stammerer. “He was so quiet that relatives found it difficult to say anything about his character beyond an appreciative nod towards an exceedingly placid temperament. To them he was a self-sufficient youngster, content to wander the country paths around Shrewsbury searching
2、for birds, watching a fishing-float for hours from the banks of the Severn, or trailing helpfully after Abberley, the elderly gardener at The Mount, in his well-regulated cycle of horticultural duties.” (Browne, Vol. 1, page 10) A schoolboy friend said he was reserved and did not join in play with t
3、he other boys, but went straight home after school. But he had a kind disposition.,Darwin particularly liked the outdoors: riding ponies, shooting and fishing, collecting pebbles and plants and birds eggs (and, curiously, wax seals on letters). He would go on long, solitary walks. He collected inter
4、esting stories and liked to tell anecdotes. He was constantly proposing theories for almost everything which occurred, especially in nature. He was close to his brother Erasmus (five years older than Charles) and to his younger sister Catherine.,1817: In July, at the age of 52, Darwins mother Susann
5、ah Wedgwood Darwin died. At the age of 8 years Darwin went to “Mr. Cases school,“ a day-school at Shrewsbury kept by the Rev G. Case, Minister of the Unitarian Chapel.,1818 1825 Darwin is sent to Shrewsbury School, a boarding school in the center of town only 15 minutes away.,Shrewsbury school today
6、 an expensive “public” school was run by the noted classical scholar, Dr. Samuel Butler, grandfather of the writer Samuel Butler (Erewhon, The Way of All Flesh). The school has a top-notch reputation. Of the 54 boys who entered in Darwins class of 1818, 12 eventually went to Cambridge and 4 to Oxfor
7、d; these included most of Darwins close friends. One acquaintance was Thomas Butler, the headmasters son and father of the writer Samuel Butler.,Darwin on Dr. Butlers School “Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butlers school, as it was strictly classical, nothing e
8、lse being taught except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. Especial attention was paid to verse-making, and this I could never do well. I had many friends, and got together a grand collection of old verses, which by patching together,
9、 sometimes aided by other boys, I could work into any subject.” Autobiography,Darwin was quiet, inward-looking, good-natured, according to classmates who remembered him in later years (many didnt). He was not much interested in his studies, but survived. Rather, he was becoming increasingly interest
10、ed in natural history, and a busy collector of beetles, butterflies, birds eggs, rocks, minerals, etc. He was close to his older brother Erasmus (who attended Shrewsbury School 1815 1822), and the two became very interested in chemistry and furnished a small laboratory to carry out experiments; they
11、 owned William Henrys Elements of Experimental Chemistry (1819).,“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
12、 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
13、words.” Autobiography,Darwins father thought long and hard about what might happen to Charles, and what he should do in life. As an unbeliever (though his wife had been a believer) he did not think in terms of Charles becoming a clergyman. Since Charles disliked ancient languages (Latin and Greek) h
14、e wouldnt make a good lawyer. Since he was poor at mathematics, natural philosophy did not seem to be a good choice of a career. But medicine should work out well, and let Charles continue to maintain natural history as a hobby.,To Edinburgh University in October 1825 “As I was doing no good at scho
15、ol, 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
16、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 ef
17、forts to learn medicine.” Autobiography,Edinburgh University, attended by Darwin 1825-1827.,“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 le
18、ctures compared with reading. Dr. Duncans lectures on Materia Medica at 8 oclock on a winters morning are something fearful to remember. Dr. Munro 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
19、 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.” Autobiography,“I also attended regularly the clinical wards in the hospital. Some
20、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
21、 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 mysel
22、f. 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
23、 success was exciting confidence; but what he saw in me which convinced him that I should create confidence I know not.” Autobiography,“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
24、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.” Autobiography Anesthesia is generally considered to have begun with eth
25、er in 1846 and chloroform in 1847 about 20 years after Darwin was at Edinburgh University,At Edinburgh, Darwin attended meetings of the Plinian Society and read papers there, becoming a member in November 1826. Some of the papers presented were controversialIn February, 1827, a certain Mr. Grey had
26、submitted his theory “that the lower animals possess every faculty and propensity of the human mind,” a point of view to which Darwin subscribed in later years.In March, 1827, a member named W. A. Browne proposed that mind and thus consciousness had an entirely material basis. This was a very unorth
27、odox proposal, and the members found it so offensive and even blasphemous that the Society expunged from its records all trace of the paper and the ensuing discussion, and even Brownes announcement of this paper at the previous meeting of the society! Darwin was present at this meeting and presumabl
28、y heard the presentation.,Leonard Horner, Lyells father-in-law, once took Darwin to a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where the famous novelist Sir Walter Scott was presiding:“Sir Walter Scott sat in the chair as President, and he apologised to the meeting as not feeling fitted for such a
29、 position. I looked at him and at the whole scene with some awe and reverence 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.”,“By the
30、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.” Autobiography Waterton was Charles Waterton (178
31、2-1865), a noted (and eccentric) naturalist and expert taxidermist who had visited South America and written about it. The Negro is known to have been John Edmonstone, a freed slave originally from Guyana, who had been taught taxidermy by Waterton.,Burke and Hare By leaving the medical school at Edi
32、nburgh University in the fall of 1827, Charles Darwin just missed being there during the infamous Burke and Hare “body-snatching” episode of November 1827 to November 1828. William Burke and William Hare, who lived in Edinburgh, discovered that the medical school would pay up to 15 for fresh cadaver
33、s for medical students to use in their studies. They sold about 17 cadavers to Robert Knox, lecturer in anatomy at Edinburgh, some of them old persons who had died but most of them persons (old persons, prostitutes, etc.) they had murdered. They were found out in November 1828.,“Burke the Butcher, H
34、are the Thief, Knox the boy who buys the beef.” Burke was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was hanged on January 28,1829. Hare was given immunity for testifying against Burke and was released in February 1829 and disappeared from the history books. Robert Knox was not prosecuted because
35、there was no evidence that he knew that Burke and Hare were killing to secure the corpses, but his career was ruined and he was dismissed from the University, eventually becoming a doctor in London. Knox had a young assistant, Thomas Wharton-Jones, whose career was not affected by the Burke-Hare aff
36、air. He would later exert a powerful positive influence on Thomas H. Huxley.,1828: Began residence at Christs College, Cambridge. “I went to Cambridge early in the year 1828, and soon became acquainted with Professor John Stevens Henslow.Nothing could be more simple, cordial and unpretending than th
37、e encouragement which he afforded to all young naturalists.” “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.”,Christs College, Cambridge, attended by Darwin 1828-1831.,Darwins room at
38、 Christs College, Cambridge (1909 photo).,“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. Thi
39、s 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
40、 a very low grade.” Darwins Autobiography,John Stevens Henslow (1796 1861) A very popular professor of mineralogy and of botany at Cambridge, and also a clergyman. He had a tremendous influence on Darwins development as a naturalist (recommending him for the naturalist position on the Beagle, for in
41、stance).,Adam Sedgwick (1785 1873) One of the founders of modern geology. The Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge from 1818 to his death 55 years later in 1873. Worked on (and proposed) Devonian and Cambrian periods.,Charles Darwin was one of Sedgwicks geology students, and the two were cl
42、ose friends for nearly half a century, until Sedgwicks death in 1873 at the age of 88. Sedgwick was a catastrophist and believed that God was continually creating throughout history. He was a very religious man, though not a fundamentalist as the term is understood today. He strongly opposed Darwins
43、 theory of evolution and attacked his books: “It repudiates all reasoning from final causes; and seems to shut the door on any view (however feeble) of the God of Nature as manifested in His works. From first to last it is a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked and served up.” Yet they remained
44、friends!,1831: “In order to pass the B.A. Examination, it was.necessary to get up William Paleys Evidences of Christianity and his Moral Philosophy . The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course which.was of the least use
45、to me in the education of my mind.“ Darwin passed the examination for the B.A. degree in January. “I gained a good place among the oi polloi or crowd of men who do not go in for honours.”,William Paley (1743 1805) Noted Anglican clergyman, writer and philosopher; Archdeacon of Carlisle. Major books:
46、 Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy View of the Evidences of Christianity Natural Theology,William Paleys Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (1802) A well-written, easy-to-read book on “natural theology” (as opposed to “revealed theology”), more or
47、 less what is now referred to as “intelligent design.” It popularized the Watchmaker Analogy still discussed today. “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 ma
48、y add, of his Natural Theology, gave me as much delight as did Euclid. I did not at that time trouble myself about Paleys premises; and taking these on trust, I was charmed and convinced by the long line of argumentation.” Darwins Autobiography,The first sentences of Paleys Natural Theology: “In cro
49、ssing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a
50、watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? continued,
