CHARLES DARWIN. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE DARWTXS. 



Charles Robert Darwik was the second son of Dr. 

 Robert Waring Darwin, of Shrewsbury, where he was born 

 on February 12, 1809. Dr. Darwin was a son of Erasmus 

 Darwin, sometimes described as a poet, but more deservedly 

 known as physician and naturalist. Charles Darwin's 

 mother was Susannah, daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the 

 well-known potter of Etruria, in Staffordshire. 



If such speculations are permissible, we may hazard the 

 guess that Charles Darwin inherited his sweetness of dis- 

 position from the Wedgwood side, while the character of 

 his genius came rather from the Darwin grandfather.* 



Robert Waring Darwin was a man of well-marked char- 

 acter. He had no pretensions to being a man of science, 

 no tendency to generalise his knowledge, and though a suc- 

 cessful physician he was guided more by intuition and 

 everyday observation than by a deep knowledge of his 

 subject. His chief mental characteristics were his keen 

 powers of observation, and his knowledge of men, qualities 

 wmich led him to " read the characters and even the thoughts 

 of those whom he saw even for a short time." It is not 

 therefore surprising that his help should have been sought, 

 not merely in illness, but in cases of family trouble and 

 sorrow. This was largely the case, and his w T ise sympathy, 

 no less than his medical skill, obtained for him a strong 

 influence over the lives of a large number of people. He 



* See Charles Darwin's biographical sketch of his grandfather, prefixed 

 to Ernst Krause's Erasmus Darwin. (Translated from the German by W. 

 S. Dallas, 1878.) Also Miss Meteyard's Life of Josiah Wedgwood. 



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