128 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



jects." Then his father, angry at findfng that he was 

 doing 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 efifect 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 sub- 

 jects grew, and its first fruits 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, pro- 

 posed 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 



