ii8 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



no good at school, reproved him for caring for 

 nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and 

 declared that he would be a disgrace to the family ! 

 He sent him to Edinburgh University with his 

 brother to study medicine, but Darwin found the 

 dulness of the lectures intolerable, and the sight of 

 blood sickened him, as it did his father. Although 

 the effect of the ' incredibly ' dry lectures on geology 

 made him the future Secretary of the Geological 

 Society ! vow never to read a book on the science, 

 or in any way study it, his interest in biological 

 subjects grew, and its firstfruits were shown in a 

 paper read before the Plinian Society at Edinburgh 

 in 1826, in which he reported his discovery that the 

 so-called ova of Flustra, or the sea-mat, were larvae. 

 But his father had to accept the fact that Darwin 

 disliked the idea of being a doctor, and fearing that 

 he would degenerate into an idle sporting- man, 

 proposed that he should become a clergyman ! 

 Darwin says upon this : 



I asked for some time to consider, as from what little I 

 had heard or thought on the subject I had scruples about 

 declaring my belief in all the dogmas of the Church of 

 England, though otherwise I liked the thought of being a 

 country clergyman. Accordingly I read with care Pearson 

 on the Creed, and a few other books on divinity ; and, as 

 I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth 

 of every word in the Bible, I soon persuaded myself that 

 our creed must be fully accepted. Considering how 

 fiercely I have been attacked by the orthodox, it seems 

 ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman. Nor 

 was this intention and my father's wish ever formally given 

 up, but died a natural death when, on leaving Cambridge, 

 I joined the Beagle as naturalist. If the phrenologists are 



