ii 



Erasmus Darwin ; but he propounded an hypothesis as to the manner 

 in which the species of animals and plants have acquired their 

 characters, which is identical in principle with that subsequently 

 rendered famous by Lamarck. 



That Charles Darwin's chief intellectual inheritance came to him 

 from the paternal side then, is hardly doubtful. But there is nothing 

 to show that he was, to any sensible extent, directly influenced by 

 his grandfather's biological work. He tells us that a perusal of 

 the ' Zoonomia ' in early life produced no effect upon him, although 

 he greatly admired it — and that on reading it again, ten or fifteen 

 years afterwards, he was much disappointed, "the proportion of 

 speculation being so large to the facts given." But with his usual 

 anxious candour he adds, "Nevertheless, it is probable that the hear- 

 ing, rather early in life, such views maintained and praised, may 

 have favoured my upholding them, in a different form, in my ' Origin 

 of Species.' " (I, p. 38.) Erasmus Darwin was in fact an anticipator 

 of Lamarck, and not of Charles Darwin ; there is no trace in his 

 works of the conceptions by the addition of which his grandson 

 metamorphosed the theory of evolution as applied to living things 

 and gave it a new foundation. 



Charles Darwin's childhood and youth afforded no intimation that 

 he would be, or do, anything out of the common run. In fact, the 

 prognostications of the educational authorities into whose hands he 

 first fell, were most distinctly unfavourable ; and they counted the 

 only boy of original genius who is known to have come under their 

 hands as no better than a dunce. The history of the educational 

 experiments to which Darwin was subjected is curious, and not with- 

 out a moral for the present generation. There were four of them, 

 and three were failures. Tet it cannot be said that the materials on 

 which the pedagogic powers operated were other than good. In his 

 boyhood. Darwin was strong, well-grown, and active, taking the keen 

 delight in field sports and in every description of hard physical 

 exercise which is natural to an English country-bred lad ; and, in 

 respect of things of the mind, he was neither apathetic, nor idle, nor 

 one-sided. The 'Autobiography' tells us that he " had much zeal for 

 whatever interested" him, and he was interested in many and verv 

 diverse topics. He could work hard, and liked a complex subject better 

 than an easy one. The " clear geometrical proofs " of Euclid delighted 

 him. His interest in practical chemistry, carried out in an extem- 

 porised laboratory, in which he was permitted to assist by his elder 

 brother, kept him late at work, and earned him the nickname of 

 " gas " among his schoolfellows. And there could have been no in- 

 sensibility to literature in one who, as a boy, could sit for hours 

 reading Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, and Byron ; who greatly admired 

 some of the Odes of Horace ; and who, in later years, on board the 



