DARWIN AND WALLACE 23 
inherited tastes, for he was a grandson of both. Born 
in 1809, on the banks of the Severn in England, 
Charles Darwin was the delicate son of a practicing 
physician of modest but sufficient means. Owing to 
his lack of early vigor, Darwin spent much time in 
the open air, and in his excursions about his home was 
chiefly interested in collecting beetles. This taste, 
which lasted through all his young manhood, is the 
one early indication of the traits that were later to 
develop. At first in the day-school and later in the 
preparatory school Charles Darwin was anything but 
a satisfactory student. Even a kindly desire later to 
make the most of him makes it impossible to find 
traces of any especial fondness for earnest study. 
He himself believed his education to have been nearly 
useless, although he doubtless under-estimated its 
value. At the age of sixteen he went to Edinburgh 
at his father’s desire, to study medicine. The sight 
of the dissecting-room nauseated him completely, and 
he refused to continue working in it. Later an opera- 
tion which he witnessed in a clinic at the hospital 
sickened him so thoroughly that he declined to attend 
further operations. It became evident that the young 
man was not adapted to the life of a physician. The 
next move was to educate him for the church, and 
for this purpose, at the age of nineteen, he went to 
Cambridge. Here it soon appeared that he was no 
