\n<\/p>\n
Charles Darwin with his eldest son William Darwin, circa 1842.<\/em><\/p>\n THE WELL-KNOWN<\/strong><\/p>\n Everyone knows that Charles Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution stands as one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of scientific inquiry.\u00a0 Darwin was a prolific writer completing more than a dozen major books in his seventy-three-year lifetime, but none as famous, revolutionary, impactful and enduring as On the Origin of Species <\/em>published on November 24, 1859.<\/p>\n Darwin had long known how breeders improved their stock of race horses by the careful mating of their fastest animals.\u00a0 This process of human<\/em> selection could be seen in livestock, birds, fruits, vegetables, all designed to develop the most desired traits in each species.\u00a0 Darwin wanted to know if Mother Nature had a similar mechanism.\u00a0 The writings of economist Thomas Malthus provided a clue.\u00a0 He argued that the innate tendency of humans to breed led to populations expanding beyond their means, necessitating a fight for survival. \u00a0Darwin had found the springboard for his monumental intellectual leap to the idea of natural<\/em> selection.\u00a0 Survival of the fittest!\u00a0 One general law governing the evolution of all organic beings \u2013 multiply; vary; let the strongest live; let the weakest die<\/em>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n When it finally appeared in 1859, his theory of evolution was underpinned by a vast array of evidence.\u00a0 Darwin had spent five years aboard HMS Beagle collecting specimens throughout the Galapagos archipelago, and then another twenty-three years compiling observations from around the world and conducting his own experiments before he felt his life\u2019s work was ready for public scrutiny.\u00a0 \u00a0As Darwin said in his autobiography, \u201cscience consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n THE NOT SO WELL-KNOWN<\/strong><\/p>\n Many of those aware of Darwin\u2019s contribution to our understanding of evolution may know little else about the man.\u00a0 Other aspects of his life, however, shed light on his research and are of interest in their own right.\u00a0 The three selected here are: the unsparing criticism of his writings; his marriage; and his chronic illness.<\/p>\n Criticism<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Publication of On the Origin of Species <\/em>caused an uproar throughout England.\u00a0 Battle lines were quickly drawn between the new breed of fact-based researchers who readily embraced Darwin\u2019s ground-breaking thesis, and the old guard of religious traditionalists with their unshakeable belief in the Bible\u2019s account of God\u2019s creation of man.\u00a0 This was science pitted against religion in a life and death battle for the minds and souls of mankind.\u00a0 Darwin was bombarded with scathing reviews in academic journals, blistering editorials in the leading newspapers and crude cartoons in the cheaper broadsheets.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The Great Debate held in Oxford barely six months after the book\u2019s appearance, illustrates the ugly nature of the clash between firm-in-their-belief theologians and Darwin\u2019s band of truth-seeking scientists.\u00a0 Both factions behaved in a most unbecoming manner with tasteless taunts and simian slurs from one side answered by childish name-calling and anti-church abuse from the other.\u00a0 The city of dreaming spires was rocked to the core, buzzing with increasingly far-fetched accounts of the opening salvos in what, from then on, was all-out war.<\/p>\n Darwin, though, was a gentleman and a scholar from his time at Christ\u2019s College, Cambridge to his later years at Down House, his home in Kent, and often chose dignified silence over open warfare in press or person.\u00a0 In this he was fortunate in having Thomas Huxley, a brash but brilliant comparative anatomist, lead the charge in Darwin\u2019s defense.\u00a0 Huxley even described himself as Darwin\u2019s \u201cbulldog\u201d.\u00a0 After an offensive question addressed to him by Bishop Wilberforce at the Oxford debate, he famously replied with words to the effect that he, Huxley, would rather be an ape than a bishop.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Even mild-mannered Darwin sometimes expressed his displeasure and disappointment with his academic antagonists.\u00a0 St. George Mivart, a young biologist, was one such.\u00a0 He thoroughly savaged Darwin\u2019s Descent of Man<\/em> in the prestigious Quarterly Review<\/em>.\u00a0 Worse still, he ruthlessly criticised an innocuous article on divorce by Darwin\u2019s son. \u00a0Darwin was furious.\u00a0 As it happened, Mivart was seeking membership of the famous Athenaeum Club and Darwin and his supporters, all prominent members, scuttled his election.\u00a0 A petty response, it might seem, but this was an attack on his family.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Marriage<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Darwin had a long and happy marriage.\u00a0 He and his wife, Emma, were, however, first cousins.\u00a0 They had a common grandfather in the person of Josiah Wedgewood.\u00a0 In the nineteenth century, the offspring of marriages between such close relatives were thought to suffer loss of vigour and even infertility, their frailties then passed on to future generations, the yet-to-be-born progeny already burdened by their inheritance.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Darwin was aware from correspondence with stock breeders throughout England that continued inbreeding of domesticated animals affected the general health and fertility of subsequent generations.\u00a0 But did the same law of nature apply to humans as was commonly thought?\u00a0 That was what Darwin desperately wanted to know.\u00a0 It is little wonder, then, that Darwin devoted so much time and effort to studying the effects of crossbreeding and inbreeding in plants and animals, and even canvassed, albeit unsuccessfully, for the inclusion in the 1871 population census of a question on the number of children born to parents who were first cousins. \u00a0Far from being just an intriguing line of scientific inquiry, this was, for Charles Darwin, something frighteningly personal.<\/p>\n Sadly, the Darwins lost three of their children \u2013 Mary, Anne and little Charles \u2013 in infancy.\u00a0 Death had indeed been an all-too-frequent visitor to the Darwin household, but this was not uncommon for large families in the nineteenth century, and their remaining seven children reached maturity.\u00a0 Of those, three had offspring, providing the Darwins with ten grandchildren.\u00a0 Their fears had proven unfounded.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Illness<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In youth, Darwin was a vigorous, healthy man.\u00a0 For the forty years of his adult existence, however, he suffered from bouts of a never-fully-diagnosed, gastro-intestinal illness.\u00a0 His \u201caccursed stomach\u201d as he called it, caused retching, flatulence, fatigue and vomiting to the point where he was obliged to keep a commode, hidden behind a partition, in his study.\u00a0 (The visitor to Down House, only an hour and a half\u2019s journey from Central London, can view the scientist\u2019s carefully restored study, including the partition.)<\/p>\n Darwin consulted several different doctors and tried every conceivable treatment, some prescribed by respected professionals, others by practitioners little better than quacks.\u00a0 He tried the water therapy offered at the Water Cure Establishment at Malvern which involved him being heated by a spirit lamp and then rubbed down with cold wet towels while his feet were immersed in a cold foot bath.\u00a0 Then he moved on to Dr E.W. Lane\u2019s Moor Park hydropathic establishment which was much closer to Down House.\u00a0 And after that to the Wells House hydropathic establishment in Ilkley, West Yorkshire.\u00a0 At best, these treatments provided temporary relief, but whether that was a direct result of the therapies or simply the passage of time and natural recuperation is difficult to say.\u00a0 Either way, his suffering continued.<\/p>\n His chronic illness weighed on Darwin, as attested by its frequent mention in his autobiography.\u00a0 It is a measure of the man, however, that towards the end of his personal account of his life, he was able to remark, perhaps wryly, that: \u201cEven ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Other reading<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The above not-so-well-known selections barely skim the surface.\u00a0 If you wish to learn more about Darwin, an excellent source is the two-volume biography by Janet Browne, Voyaging <\/em>and The Power of Place<\/em>, published by Princeton University Press in 1995 and 2002 respectively.\u00a0 You will find a more personal, fascinating and shorter account of his life in The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, <\/em>first published by Collins (London) in 1958.\u00a0 <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Lyn Squire is the author of Fatally Inferior (Level Best Books, December 2024 – <\/em>Amazon US<\/em><\/span><\/a> | <\/em>Amazon UK<\/em><\/span><\/a>), a story of revenge set against the uproar that greeted publication of On the Origin of Species. Mr. Squire\u2019s first novel in the Dunston Burnett Trilogy, Immortalised to Death (2023), was a First Place Category Winner in the 2023 Chanticleer International Book Awards.\u00a0 His next book, The S\u00e9ance of Murder, scheduled for publication in 2025 will complete the trilogy. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Charles Darwin with his eldest son William Darwin, circa 1842. THE WELL-KNOWN Everyone knows that Charles Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution stands as one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of scientific inquiry.\u00a0 Darwin was a prolific writer completing more than a dozen major books in his seventy-three-year lifetime, but none as famous, revolutionary, impactful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[3767,1752,4302,14396,3734,3333,2083,6247,45361],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-95603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-blog","tag-books","tag-charles","tag-darwins","tag-history","tag-life","tag-magazine","tag-podcasts","tag-wellknown"],"yoast_head":"\n