10 CHARLES DARWIN. 



for their ultimate recovery, for he said that Darwin 

 had written a courteous reply accepting the correction. 



Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin 

 (1731-1802), was a man of great genius. He 

 speculated upon the origin of species, and arrived 

 at views which were afterwards independently enun- 

 ciated by Lamarck. He resembled this great zoologist 

 in fertility of imagination, and also in the boldness 

 with which he put forward suggestions, many of 

 which were crude and entirely untested by an appeal 

 to facts. The poetical form in which a part of 

 his work was written was, doubtless, largely due 

 to the traditions and customs of the age in which 

 he lived. 



Robert Waring (1766-1848), the father of Charles 

 Darwin, was the second son of Erasmus. He married 

 a daughter of the great Josiah Wedgwood. Although 

 his mother died when he was only eight years old, 

 and Darwin remembered very little of her, there is 

 evidence that she directed his attention to Nature 

 ("Autobiography," p. 28, footnote). Dr. Darwin fol- 

 lowed his father's profession, commencing a very 

 successful medical practice at Shrewsbury before he 

 was twenty-one. He was a man of great penetration, 

 especially in the discernment of character a power 

 which was of the utmost value to him in his pro- 

 fession. Dr. Darwin had two sons and four daughters : 

 Charles was the younger son and fourth child, his 

 brother Erasmus being the third. 



Even in this mere outline there is evidence of 



