DARWIN
her father, a wealthy and cultivated Ration-
alist of Dundee, in her infancy, but she
studied diligently and adopted his views.
At. the age of eighteen she wrote a vindica
tion of the Epicurean philosophy (A Few
Days in Athens, 1822). She went to
America in 1818, lived in France 1821-24,
then settled in the United States, where
she became a brilliant and eloquent lecturer
on reform questions and Rationalism. She
married Darusmont in 1838. She held
that " kind feeling and kind action are the
only religion," and " few have made greater
sacrifices for conviction s sake or exhibited
a more courageous independence " (Diet.
Nat. Biog.}. D. Dec. 2, 1852.
DARWIN, Charles Robert, discoverer of Natural Selection. B. (Shrewsbury) Feb. 12, 1809, grandson of Erasmus Dar win. Ed. Shrewsbury school and Edin burgh University. He disliked the medical career, for which he was prepared, and went to Cambridge (Christ s Church) in 1829 to study for the Church. His chief interest, however, was in natural history, and in 1831 he was appointed naturalist to the Beagle. It was in South America that he began to collect his evidence of evolution. He returned to England in 1836, married Emma Wedgwood in 1839, and in 1842 went to live at Down, where he began to work out his theory. From 1844 to 1858 he slowly prepared a large book on the subject, when, in the latter year, he received a letter from Wallace, and they issued a joint statement. One may doubt if Wallace s sudden glimpse of the subject would have been heeded had it not been for Darwin s twenty years of labour. The Origin of Species was published in 1859, the Descent of Man in 1871. Darwin was a man of simple life and very refined character. Although he lost his taste for poetry and paintings, his love of music and scenery remained to the end. He disliked discussing religion, but Sir Francis Darwin clearly traces his Eationalist development, which is indicated by his father in his autobiography. He was quite orthodox on
193
the Beagle, a Theist when he published the
first edition of the Origin ; but from 1860
onward he passed into Agnosticism. Chap
ter viii of the first volume of Sir F. Darwin s
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (3 vols.,
1887) is devoted to his religious develop
ment. In 1871 he told Dr. Abbott, the
editor of the American Index, that he " did
not feel that he had thought deeply
enough " on the subject to write an article
for him. He, in fact, says in the auto
biographical manuscript which he left for
his children that he paid little serious
attention to the question of a personal
God until late in life. He was, however,
Agnostic by 1873, when he said that " the
whole subject is beyond the scope of man s
intellect " (i, 307). In 1876 he wrote (in
the above autobiographical paper) : " Dis
belief crept over me at a very slow rate,
but was at last complete. The rate was
so slow that I felt no distress " (i, 309).
He then still talked of a " First Cause,"
and said : " I deserve to be called a Theist."
His gentle nature was, however, prevented
by the suffering he saw in nature from
embracing any accepted form of Theism.
In 1879 he wrote to one correspondent
that every man must decide for himself
between " conflicting vague probabilities "
as to a future life (i, 307), and to another
he said : " I think that generally (and
more and more as I grow older), but not
always, an Agnostic would be the more
correct description of my state of mind "
(i, 304). With this Agnostic profession
it is his last word he was buried in
Westminster Abbey. D. Apr. 19, 1882.
DARWIN, Erasmus, B.A., M.B., physician. B. Dec. 12, 1731. Ed. Chesterfield School, Cambridge (St. John s), and Edinburgh University. He prospered in medical practice at Lichfield, and formed there a circle of liberal thinkers. In 1880 he removed to Derby, where he founded a Philosophical Society, and later to Breadsall Priory. Darwin had been accustomed to write verse from his youth. His Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life 194 i
