IF ever a man’s ancestors transmitted to him ability to succeed in a particular field, Charles Darwin’s did. If ever early surroundings were calculated to call out inherited ability, Charles Darwin’s were. If ever a man grew up when a ferment of thought was disturbing old convictions in the domain of knowledge for which he was adapted, Charles Darwin did. If ever a man was fitted by worldly position to undertake unbiassed and long-continued investigations, Charles Darwin was such a man. And he indisputably found realms waiting for a conqueror. Yet Darwin’s achievements far transcend his advantages of ancestry, surroundings, previous suggestion, position. He stands magnificently conspicuous as a genius of rare simplicity of soul, of unwearied patience of observation, of striking fertility and ingenuity of method, of unflinching devotion to and belief in the efficacy of truth. He revolutionised not merely half-a-dozen sciences, but the whole current of thinking men’s mental life.

The Darwins were originally a Lincolnshire family of some position, and being royalists suffered heavy losses under the Commonwealth. The third William Darwin (born 1655), whose mother was a daughter of Erasmus Earle, serjeant-at-law,1 married the heiress of Robert Waring, of Wilsford, Notts, who also inherited the manor of Elston, near Newark, in that county, which still remains in the family. Robert Darwin, second son of this William Darwin, succeeded to the Elston estate, and was described by Stukeley, the antiquary, as “a person of curiosity,” an expression conveying high commendation. His eldest son, Robert Waring Darwin, studied botany closely, and published a “Principia Botanica,” which reached a third edition; but his youngest son, Erasmus, born 1731, was destined to become the first really famous man of the family.

Erasmus Darwin’s personal characteristics, his medical talents, and his poetic writings were such as to overshadow, for his own generation, his scientific merit. We have not space here to describe his career and his works, which has been so well done by his grandson, and by Ernst Krause (“Erasmus Darwin,” 1879). Horace Walpole regarded his description of creation in “The Botanic Garden” (part i., canto 1, lines 103-114) as the most sublime passage in any language he knew: and The Edinburgh Review (vol. ii., 1803, p. 501) says of his “Temple of Nature”: “If his fame be destined in anything to outlive the fluctuating fashion of the day, it is on his merit as a poet that it is likely to rest; and his reveries in science have probably no other chance of being saved from oblivion but by having been ‘married to immortal verse.’”

The present age regards it as next to impossible to write science in poetry; although few have succeeded better in the attempt than Erasmus Darwin. It is singular that he should have partially anticipated his illustrious grandson’s theories, but without supporting them by experimental proof or by deep scientific knowledge. Suffice it to say now, that Erasmus contemplated to a great extent the same domain of science as Charles Darwin, having also a mechanical turn; and was educated at Edinburgh and Cambridge. His observations on Providence in 1754, when only twenty-three, in commenting on his father’s death, are very interesting to compare with his grandson’s attitude: “That there exists a superior Ens Entium, which formed these wonderful creatures, is a mathematical demonstration. That He influences things by a particular providence is not so evident. The probability, according to my notion, is against it, since general laws seem sufficient for that end.... The light of Nature affords us not a single argument for a future state: this is the only one, that it is possible with God, since He who made us out of nothing can surely re-create us; and that He will do this we humbly hope.” He published an ode against atheism, with which he has strangely enough often been charged, beginning—

and his moral standpoint is shown by the declaration that “the sacred maxims of the author of Christianity, ‘Do as you would be done by,’ and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’ include all our duties of benevolence and morality; and if sincerely obeyed by all nations, would a thousandfold multiply the present happiness of mankind” (“Temple of Nature,” 1803, p. 124). His principal poetical writings were “The Botanic Garden,” in two parts; Part I. containing “The Economy of Vegetation,” first published in 1790; and Part II., “The Loves of the Plants,” in 1788, before the first part had appeared. “The Temple of Nature, or the Origin of Society,” was published after his death, in 1803. His chief prose works are “Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life,” in two volumes, 1794-6, the second volume being exclusively medical; and “Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening,” 1800. All these books are in quarto, with plates. His views on species are referred to on pages 66 and 67.

Robert Waring Darwin, third son of Erasmus by his first wife, Mary Howard, was born in 1766. As a boy he was brought much into association with the Wedgwoods of Stoke, Josiah Wedgwood being one of Erasmus Darwin’s most intimate friends. In 1779 Robert, already destined to be a doctor, stayed at Etruria for some time, sharing with Wedgwood’s children in Warltire’s private chemical instruction; and Josiah Wedgwood wrote at this time: “The boys drink in knowledge like water, with great avidity.” Before he was twenty Robert Darwin had taken his medical degree with distinction at Edinburgh, where he had the advantage of the lectures of Black, Cullen, and Gregory, and had also studied at Leyden, and travelled in Germany. In 1786 his father set him up in practice at Shrewsbury, leaving him with twenty pounds, which was afterwards supplemented by a similar sum from his uncle, John Darwin, Rector of Elston. On this slender capital he contrived to establish himself, in spite of severe competition; and his burly form and countenance, as he sat in his invariable yellow chaise, became well known to every man, woman, and child around Shrewsbury for many miles. Before long, no one thought of sending to Birmingham for a consultant, and Dr. Darwin was for many years the leading Shropshire physician, and accumulated an abundant fortune.

According to his son Charles, Robert Darwin “did not inherit any aptitude for poetry or mechanics, nor did he possess, as I think, a scientific mind. He published, in vol. lxxvi. of the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ a paper on Ocular Spectra, which Wheatstone told me was a remarkable production for the period; but I believe that he was largely aided in writing it by his father. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1788. I cannot tell why my father’s mind did not appear to me fitted for advancing science, for he was fond of theorising, and was incomparably the most acute observer whom I ever knew. But his powers in this direction were exercised almost wholly in the practice of medicine and in the observation of human character. He intuitively recognised the disposition or character, and even read the thoughts, of those with whom he came into contact, with extraordinary astuteness. This skill partly accounts for his great success as a physician, for it impressed his patients with belief in him; and my father used to say that the art of gaining confidence was the chief element in a doctor’s worldly success.”

Sensitive, sociable, a good talker, high-spirited and somewhat irascible, a man who admitted no one to his friendship whom he could not thoroughly respect, the friend of the poor, prescribing gratuitously to all who were needy, pre-eminent for sympathy, which for a time made him hate his profession for the constant suffering it brought before his eyes—such was Charles Darwin’s father. Miss Meteyard, in her “Group of Englishmen,” 1871, gives a vivid picture of the old doctor, his acknowledged supremacy in Shrewsbury, his untiring activity and ubiquity, his great dinner parties, his liberal and rather unpopular opinions, tolerated for the sake of his success in curing his patients. His face, powerful, unimpassioned, mild, and thoughtful, was always the same as he rolled through the streets and lanes, for he sat “as though carved in stone.” His love of children was marked. “He would address them in his small, high-pitched falsetto voice, and if their answers pleased him he would reply; and occasionally, lifting them on to a chair or table, he would measure their heads with his broad hand, as though reading character, and mentally prognosticating their future fate.”

The successful doctor bought a piece of land near the Holyhead road, and built on it a large square house, of plain architecture, which from its charming position, a hundred feet above the Severn, received the name of “The Mount.”2 Having thus provided the nest, in 1796 he brought home his wife, Susannah Wedgwood, eldest daughter of the celebrated potter, to whom he was married at Marylebone Church on April 18th.

The character and education of Charles Darwin’s mother is a matter of considerable interest, notwithstanding that her death when he was only eight years old cut short her opportunities of influencing him. She was born at Burslem in January, 1765, and a year after her father describes her as a “fine, sprightly lass:” she became his best-beloved child. She was partly educated in London, under the eye of her father’s partner, the accomplished Thomas Bentley, in whose heart she won as tender a place as in her father’s. Later she continued her education at home with her brothers, under good tuition. Many visits were exchanged between the Darwins and the Wedgwoods, and old Erasmus Darwin became very fond of Miss Wedgwood. By the time of her marriage she was matured by much intercourse with notable people, as well as by extensive reading, and from her experience of London society and varied travel in England was well fitted to shine as the county doctor’s wife. From her father, who died in 1795, she had doubtless inherited, in addition to a handsome fortune, many valuable faculties, and probably she transmitted more of them to her son Charles than she herself manifested. Josiah Wedgwood, over whose career it would be delightful to linger, is well described by Miss Meteyard in words which might be precisely applied to Charles Darwin, as “patient, stedfast, humble, simple, unconscious of half his own greatness, and yet by this very simplicity, patience, and stedfastness displaying the high quality of his moral and intellectual characteristics, even whilst insuring that each step was in the right direction, and firmly planted.” A truly experimental genius in artistic manufacture, Wedgwood foreshadowed a far greater experimental genius in science.

Before her famous son was born, however, Mrs. Darwin’s health had begun to fail, and in 1807 she wrote to a friend: “Every one seems young but me.” Her second son (four daughters having preceded him) was born at The Mount on February 12, 1809, and christened “Charles Robert,” at St. Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury, on November 17th following. No doubt her declining health emphasised her attachment to home pursuits, to quiet reading, to the luxuriant garden, and to her numerous domestic pets. The beauty, variety, and lameness of The Mount pigeons was well known in the town and far beyond. Mr. Woodall states that one of Darwin’s schoolfellows, the Rev. W. A. Leighton, remembers him plucking a plant and recalling one of his mother’s elementary lessons in botany. Too soon however the mother was taken from The Mount; she died in July, 1817, when Charles was between eight and nine years old.

The eldest son of Dr. Robert Darwin, on whom the grandfather’s name of Erasmus had been bestowed, is notable as the intimate friend of the Carlyles. “He had something of original and sarcastically ingenious in him,” says Carlyle, in his “Reminiscences,” “one of the sincerest, naturally truest, and most modest of men.... E. Darwin it was who named the late Whewell, seeing him sit, all ear (not all assent), at some of my lectures, ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith.’ My dear one had a great favour for this honest Darwin always; many a road to shops, and the like, he drove her in his cab, in those early days when even the charge of omnibuses was a consideration, and his sparse utterances, sardonic often, were a great amusement to her. ‘A perfect gentleman,’ she at once discerned him to be, and of sound worth and kindliness, in the most unaffected form.” He died in 1881, aged 77, leaving no memorial to the public of his undoubtedly great abilities. Like his younger brother, he was a member of Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.B., in 1828.

Early in 1817, the closing year of his mother’s life, Charles Darwin was placed at school with the Rev. George Case, minister of the Shrewsbury Unitarian church, to which the Darwins were attached, in this resembling the Wedgwoods. At midsummer, 1818, however, the boy entered Shrewsbury Grammar School, then under Samuel Butler, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. Classics, as ever, formed the staple of the instruction there afforded, and proved but little to the future naturalist’s taste. Unfortunately for the repute of English schools, Charles Darwin was little benefited by his schooling; and Euclid, then an extra subject, constituted, to his mind, the only bit of real education Shrewsbury school gave him. Seventy years later, the study of mother earth and her teeming productions, which Darwin made so attractive, is still but scantily represented in the instruction afforded by our great schools.

Thus out of sympathy with the prevalent studies, the youth showed no fondness for his schoolfellows’ sports. He was reserved, frequently lost in thought, and fond of long solitary rambles, according to one schoolfellow, the Rev. W. A. Leighton; another, the Rev. John Yardley, Vicar of St. Chad’s, Shrewsbury, remembers him as cheerful, good-tempered, and communicative. One of the recorded incidents of his boyish days is a fall from the old Shrewsbury wall, while walking in a “brown study.” Even at this early period he was fond of collecting objects which many schoolboys delight in, such as shells and minerals, seals, franks, and coins; and the mechanical aptitude derived from both the Darwins and the Wedgwoods was manifested by keen interest in mechanism. One especially remembered youthful treat was when his uncle Josiah Wedgwood explained to him the principle of the vernier. No doubt the pigeons, the exotics, the shrubs and flowers of his father’s grounds impressed themselves indelibly on the boy’s mind and unconsciously prepared him for his future. Schooldays were for him fortunately not protracted, for in 1825, at the age of sixteen, he went to Edinburgh University, where his father and grandfather had likewise studied, with the idea of devoting himself to medicine. The youth of sixteen was well equipped with the results of long thinking and observing rather than with book-learning, and was prepared to play an independent part without noise and show, assimilating that which commended itself to his mind, and rejecting that which found no appropriate soil in him, in a manner characteristic of genuine originality.