DARWIN RECALLED 



Darwin was appointed naturalist to the Beagle, a vessel fitted 

 out for a voyage of scientific discoveries in the South Seas. 

 During this voyage, which lasted for almost five years, Darwin 

 took many notes and collected many specimens. These notes 

 and specimens formed the foundation of most of his scientific 

 publications. And it is during this voyage that the idea of the 

 mutability of species and its relevancy for the theory of 

 evolution began to dawn on him. 



Back in England again, Darwin immediately started to 

 work upon his findings, and published in 1839 his Journal o[ 

 Researches. The same year he married his cousin, Emma 

 Wedgwood. After living three years in London, the Darwins 

 moved to Down, a country residence in Kent, where Charles 

 remained in ill health for the rest of his life. Yet it is here in 

 Down, that he, in spite of his ailments, accomplished his 

 amazing work and published his extensive and impressive list 

 of scientific studies, including The Origin of Species. Darwin 

 died on April 19, 1882, at the age of seventy-one, and was 

 hurried in Westminster Abbey near the grave of Newton. 

 His funeral was a national event. 



The publication of The Origin o[ Species, a century ago, 

 caused a storm of controversy unequalled in the history of 

 science and thought. The Origin of Species was the result of 

 more than twenty years of painstaking research. To be sure, 

 Darwin was inspired by the studies of his grandfather Erasmus 

 Darwin, and by the works of Lamarck, Lyell and Malthus. 

 Charles, however, was the first scientist ever to establish, if 

 not the fact of evolution, then at least its great probability on 

 the basis of his great synthesis of cumulative evidence from 

 morphology, embryology, anatomy, paleontology, geographical 

 distribution, and the like. Having established the theory of 

 evolution on a factual basis, Darwin's next task was to explain 

 its mechanics. The species, he found, are not the result, as it 

 was commonly believed at the time, of special creative acts. 

 He found, instead, that the species have evolved from slight 

 variations in individuals. These variations have been per- 

 petuated in their descendants through the struggle for life. 

 The hereditary characteristics of these variations bring about 

 the survival of the fittest and a natural selection in breeding. 



By 1858 Darwin had formulated his theory of evolution, 



