Charles Darwin had a scientific upbringing that influenced his studies of natural history and evolution. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge where he was fascinated by natural theology. Darwin's five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle allowed him to extensively study wildlife and fossils. Upon returning, he began developing his theory of evolution by natural selection, inspired by thinkers like Malthus, Lyell, and Lamarck. Darwin proposed that species evolve over generations through inherited traits that provide advantages in survival and reproduction within local environments. His theory of natural selection through variation and the struggle for existence challenged religious orthodoxy but became widely accepted by the scientific community.

1. DARWIN AND DARWINISM
John Collier.
Charles Robert
Darwin. 1883.
National Portrait
Gallery, London.

2. I.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
A. Family
1. Middling Sorts
2. Science and the
Birmingham Lunar
Society (1765-1813)
3. Abolition
Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
1809-1882, ed. Nora Barlow (London, 1958), pg. 10.

3. I.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
A. Family
B. University
1. University of Edinburgh (1825-1827) and Medicine
a. John Edmonstone and taxidermy
b. Plinian Society and natural history (joins in 1826)
2. Christ’s College, Cambridge (1828-1831) and Theology
J. Palmer Clarke. Darwin’s Room at Christ’s College. 1909.
Christ’s College Magazine.

4. I.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
A. Family
B. University
1. University of Edinburgh (1825-1827)
a. John Edmonstone and taxidermy
b. Plinian Society and natural history (joins in 1826)
2. Christ’s College, Cambridge (1828-1831)
3. Natural History in Darwin’s Youth
a. Creation
b. Earth approximately 6000 years old
c. Fixity of species
d. Providence and the Clockwork universe
e. William Paley and Natural Theology (1802)

5. [I]n my last year I worked with some earnestness
for my final degree of B.A., and brushed up my
Classics together with a little Algebra and Euclid,
which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did
whilst at school. In order to pass the B.A.
examination, it was, also, necessary to get up
Paley's Evidences of Christianity, and his Moral
Philosophy. This was done in a thorough
manner, and 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 may add of his Natural Theology gave
me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful
study of these works, without attempting to learn
any part by rote, was the only part of the
Academical Course which, as I then felt and as I
still believe, was of the least use to me in the
education of my mind. I did not at that time
trouble myself about Paley's premises; and
taking these on trust I was charmed and
convinced by the long line of argumentation.
Charles Darwin, Autobiography, ed. Barlow
(1958), p. 598-59
. . . when we come to inspect the watch, we
perceive. . . that its several parts are framed and
put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so
formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and
that motion so regulated as to point out the hour
of the day; that if the different parts had been
differently shaped from what they are, or placed
after any other manner or in any other order than
that in which they are placed, either no motion at
all would have been carried on in the machine, or
none which would have answered the use that is
now served by it. . . . the inference we think is
inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker
-- that there must have existed, at some time and
at some place or other, an artificer or artificers
who formed it for the purpose which we find it
actually to answer, who comprehended its
construction and designed its use . . . .
The marks of design are too strong to be got
over. Design must have had a designer. That
designer must have been a person. That person
is God.
William Paley, Natural Theology (1829 [1802]),
pp. 5, 249.

6. I.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
A. Family
B. University
C. Voyage of the Beagle (1831-1836)

7. I.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
A. Family
B. University
C. Voyage of the Beagle (1831-1836)
“BAHIA, OR SAN SALVADOR. BRAZIL, Feb. 29th. -- The day has
passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the
feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in
a Brazilian forest. The elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the
parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the glossy green of the
foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of the vegetation, filled me
with admiration. A most paradoxical mixture of sound and silence
pervades the shady parts of the wood. The noise from the insects is so
loud, that it may be heard even in a vessel anchored several hundred
yards from the shore; yet within the recesses of the forest a universal
silence appears to reign. To a person fond of natural history, such a day
as this brings with it a deeper pleasure than he can ever hope to
experience again.”

8. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
A. Influences
1. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)
a. Physiological change
b. Comparative anatomy

9. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
A. Influences
1. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)
2. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) and Zoonomia (1794)
Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.
The Temple of Nature (1803)

10. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
A. Influences
1. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)
2. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) and Zoonomia (1794)
3. Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la
Marck (1744-1829)
a) Le pouvoir de la vie (complexifying force): a natural
process through which organisms became more
complex
b) L'influence des circonstances (adaptive force):
organisms adapt to their environment, passing these
traits to next generation
See Stephen Jay Gould, The structure of evolutionary theory (2002), esp. pp 18689.

11. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
A. Influences
1. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)
2. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) and Zoonomia (1794)
3. Lamarck (1744-1829)
4. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

12. Thomas Malthus’s Ideas about Population
Carrying Capacity
Resources
Population

13. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
A. Influences
1. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)
2. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) and Zoonomia (1794)
3. Lamarck (1744-1829)
4. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)
5. Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
a. Problems of geology: fossils, extinctions,
stratigraphy
b. Principles of Geology, 3 vols. (1830-33)
c. Uniformitarianism
d. Old Earth Theory (but not that old, since he
proposed .3 billion years as opposed to 4.54 billion
years)

14. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
A. Influences
B. Darwin’s Contribution
1. Defining the process of Evolution: Natural Selection
a. In any environment, there are limited resources for
which organisms compete
b. There are mutations in species from generation to
generation, some beneficial and some harmful
c. Those with traits more useful for survival will be
better equipped to survive and reproduce, passing
these traits to their offspring
d. Over long periods of time, these adaptations may
lead to new species

15. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
A. Influences
B. Darwin’s Contribution
1. Defining the process of Evolution: Natural Selection
2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/11/2/quicktime/

16. I. Charles Darwin’s Youth
II. Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
III. Darwinism: Readings and Misreadings

17. I.
II.
III.
IV.
Charles Darwin’s Youth
Natural History in the Early Nineteenth Century
Darwinism: Readings and Misreadings
For more information, see
http://darwin-online.org.uk/