CHAPTER VIII. 



CHARLES DARWIN CONTINUED. 



" THE voyage of the Beayle has been by far the most 

 important event in my life, and has determined my 

 whole career. I owe to the voyage the first real train- 

 ing or education of my mind ; I was led to attend closely 

 to several branches of natural history, and thus my 

 powers of observation were improved, though they were 

 always fairly developed. The investigation of the geology 

 of all the places visited was still more important." In 

 the naming of the essential and indispensable consequence 

 of the voyage of the Beagle for the formation of the 

 naturalist and geologist which Charles Darwin alone was, 

 no other words need be added to these of his own. 



It was Mr. Darwin's uncle, Josiah Wedgewood, who 

 brought about the required crisis. The loving father 

 would not part with the son, and the loving son, who, 

 not to vex his father, had, though sorely against the grain, 

 declined the appointment, was here at Maer (September 

 1) to shoot ! The silent reserved man that Josiah was, 

 bundled his nephew into his gig, and bowled him over the 

 thirty miles at once to Shrewsbury to make his brother- 

 in-law see reason. And his brother-in-law did straightway 

 see reason when driven home by " the most sensible man 

 in the world," as was to him the somewhat " awful man " 

 who would not swerve an inch from the right course for 



