74 CHARLES DARWIN. 



Plinian Society on March 27th, 1827, being then a little over 18 

 years of age. 



In 1828 the medical profession was abandoned, and Darwin 

 entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, where his father hoped he 

 would in due time proceed to Holy Orders. This hope was, for- 

 tunately, doomed to extinction. He took his B.A. in 183 1, 

 coming out tenth among the 01 ttoXXoi, and his M.A. was granted 

 him in 1837. 



The year 1831 proved an eventful one in Darwin's life-history. 

 Inheriting, as we have seen, considerable taste for natural history, 

 coupled with an indomitable energy in its pursuit, he had the good 

 fortune to find around him at Cambridge several scientific 

 teachers, prominent among them Professor Henslow, the botanist, 

 to say nothing of Ramsay, Airy, Sedgwick, and others. It was 

 natural, therefore, that he should seize with peculiar eagerness on 

 the chances thrown in his way. He did so, and while at Cam- 

 bridge took up his first really earnest study of Geology. To this 

 partly is due, beyond doubt, his being led towards the question 

 of Evolution as opposed to special creation, and from this time to 

 his death he never lost hold of it. 



In the autumn of 1831, almost immediately after taking his 

 degree, occurred the event which made that year famous. The 

 British Government, were sending out H.M.S. Beagle^ under 

 Captain Fitzroy (a man of high scientific attainments) in order to 

 complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, to define 

 by map the shores of Chili and Peru, and of some islands of the 

 Pacific, and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements 

 round the world. Fitzroy wanted a competent naturalist to collect 

 and preserve plants and animals during the voyage. He wrote to 

 Professor Peacock, of Cambridge, asking him to recommend a fit 

 person for the post. Henslow was consulted, and instantly pro- 

 posed his diligent pupil, Charles Darwin, as one " who knew very 

 little, but wlio, he thought, would work." Darwin accepted the 

 appointment witliout salary and paid his own expenses in j)art, 

 only asking that he might retain for himself the specimens that he 

 might collect during the voyage. He left England on December 

 27th, 1 83 1, returning, after a five years' cruise, on October 2nd, 

 1836. 



