CHARLES DARWIN 319 



Darwin as an eminent investigator of life, in the same 

 category as the great investigators whom we have considered 

 from past times. 



Charles Darwin, who came from a well-to-do landed 

 family, was born at Shrewsbury in the West of England, as 

 the fifth child of a physician.^ From his earliest youth he 

 was an enthusiastic observer of all kinds of living creatures, 

 and showed also a lively interest for all sciences. When he 

 was studying at the universities of Edinburgh and Cam- 

 bridge, first medicine, then botany, and at his father's wish 

 also theology, he made use of the opportunities of university 

 life mainly in a free manner, and obtained by his own choice 

 and responsibility a many-sided education. At the age of 

 twenty-two, stimulated by the study of Humboldt's works, 

 and with a desire to see the tropics, he made a voyage round 

 the earth on a small vessel, which lasted for five years. 

 From this he brought back so much experience, and such a 

 mass of plant and animal collections, that he was occupied 

 for several years in working over them. Thus began his 

 very industrious, and from that point onwards, very retired 

 life, first in a small house in London, and then permanently 

 on a country estate, which he bought (having meantime 

 married) and made into a fine country seat with garden, 

 park, and hot-houses. 



The idea soon came to him that it should be possible to 

 find out something about the origin of species. After 

 spending five years in collecting appropriate facts, he al- 

 lowed himself to give them a thorough consideration, which 

 led after two further years to the first definite conclusions, 

 which he regarded as probable, and then subjected to con- 

 tinued further tests. Not until after a lapse of a further 

 fifteen years was the work already named published. Many 

 special papers and works by him which appeared before and 

 after, containing a rich mass of new observations, also 



^ See Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by his son Francis Darwin. 



