The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I

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The foregoing pages give, in a fragmentary manner, as much perhaps as need
be told of the family from which Charles Darwin came, and may serve as an
introduction to the autobiographical chapter which follows.

CHAPTER 1.II.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

[My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present chapter,
were written for his children,--and written without any thought that they
would ever be published. To many this may seem an impossibility; but those
who knew my father will understand how it was not only possible, but
natural. The autobiography bears the heading, 'Recollections of the
Development of my Mind and Character,' and end with the following note:--
"Aug.3, 1876. This sketch of my life was begun about May 28th at Hopedene
(Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's house in Surrey.), and since then I have written
for nearly an hour on most afternoons." It will easily be understood that,
in a narrative of a personal and intimate kind written for his wife and
children, passages should occur which must here be omitted; and I have not
thought it necessary to indicate where such omissions are made. It has
been found necessary to make a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but
the number of such alterations has been kept down to the minimum.--F.D.]

A German Editor having written to me for an account of the development of
my mind and character with some sketch of my autobiography, I have thought
that the attempt would amuse me, and might possibly interest my children or
their children. I know that it would have interested me greatly to have
read even so short and dull a sketch of the mind of my grandfather, written
by himself, and what he thought and did, and how he worked. I have
attempted to write the following account of myself, as if I were a dead man
in another world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this
difficult, for life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my
style of writing.

I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809, and my earliest
recollection goes back only to when I was a few months over four years old,
when we went to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect some events
and places there with some little distinctness.

My mother died in July 1817, when I was a little over eight years old, and
it is odd that I can remember hardly anything about her except her death-
bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed work-table. In
the spring of this same year I was sent to a day-school in Shrewsbury,
where I stayed a year. I have been told that I was much slower in learning
than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I was in many ways a
naughty boy.

By the time I went to this day-school (Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister of
the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street. Mrs. Darwin was a Unitarian and
attended Mr. Case's chapel, and my father as a little boy went there with
his elder sisters. But both he and his brother were christened and
intended to belong to the Church of England; and after his early boyhood he
seems usually to have gone to church and not to Mr. Case's. It appears
("St. James' Gazette", Dec. 15, 1883) that a mural tablet has been erected
to his memory in the chapel, which is now known as the 'Free Christian
Church.') my taste for natural history, and more especially for collecting,
was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants (Rev. W.A.
Leighton, who was a schoolfellow of my father's at Mr. Case's school,
remembers his bringing a flower to school and saying that his mother had
taught him how by looking at the inside of the blossom the name of the
plant could be discovered. Mr. Leighton goes on, "This greatly roused my
attention and curiosity, and I enquired of him repeatedly how this could be
done?"--but his lesson was naturally enough not transmissible.--F.D.), and
collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals.
The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist,
a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as
none of my sisters or brother ever had this taste.

One little event during this year has fixed itself very firmly in my mind,
and I hope that it has done so from my conscience having been afterwards
sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing that apparently I was
interested at this early age in the variability of plants! I told another
little boy (I believe it was Leighton, who afterwards became a well-known
lichenologist and botanist), that I could produce variously coloured
polyanthuses and primroses by watering them with certain coloured fluids,
which was of course a monstrous fable, and had never been tried by me. I
may here also confess that as a little boy I was much given to inventing
deliberate falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake of causing
excitement. For instance, I once gathered much valuable fruit from my
father's trees and hid it in the shrubbery, and then ran in breathless
haste to spread the news that I had discovered a hoard of stolen fruit.

I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first went to the
school. A boy of the name of Garnett took me into a cake shop one day, and
bought some cakes for which he did not pay, as the shopman trusted him.
When we came out I asked him why he did not pay for them, and he instantly
answered, "Why, do you not know that my uncle left a great sum of money to
the town on condition that every tradesman should give whatever was wanted
without payment to any one who wore his old hat and moved [it] in a
particular manner?" and he then showed me how it was moved. He then went
into another shop where he was trusted, and asked for some small article,
moving his hat in the proper manner, and of course obtained it without
payment. When we came out he said, "Now if you like to go by yourself into
that cake-shop (how well I remember its exact position) I will lend you my
hat, and you can get whatever you like if you move the hat on your head
properly." I gladly accepted the generous offer, and went in and asked for
some cakes, moved the old hat and was walking out of the shop, when the
shopman made a rush at me, so I dropped the cakes and ran for dear life,
and was astonished by being greeted with shouts of laughter by my false
friend Garnett.

I can say in my own favour that I was as a boy humane, but I owed this
entirely to the instruction and example of my sisters. I doubt indeed
whether humanity is a natural or innate quality. I was very fond of
collecting eggs, but I never took more than a single egg out of a bird's
nest, except on one single occasion, when I took all, not for their value,
but from a sort of bravado.

I had a strong taste for angling, and would sit for any number of hours on
the bank of a river or pond watching the float; when at Maer (The house of
his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood.) I was told that I could kill the worms with
salt and water, and from that day I never spitted a living worm, though at
the expense probably of some loss of success.

Once as a very little boy whilst at the day school, or before that time, I
acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the
sense of power; but the beating could not have been severe, for the puppy
did not howl, of which I feel sure, as the spot was near the house. This
act lay heavily on my conscience, as is shown by my remembering the exact
spot where the crime was committed. It probably lay all the heavier from
my love of dogs being then, and for a long time afterwards, a passion.
Dogs seemed to know this, for I was an adept in robbing their love from
their masters.

I remember clearly only one other incident during this year whilst at Mr.
Case's daily school,--namely, the burial of a dragoon soldier; and it is
surprising how clearly I can still see the horse with the man's empty boots
and carbine suspended to the saddle, and the firing over the grave. This
scene deeply stirred whatever poetic fancy there was in me.

In the summer of 1818 I went to Dr. Butler's great school in Shrewsbury,
and remained there for seven years still Midsummer 1825, when I was sixteen
years old. I boarded at this school, so that I had the great advantage of
living the life of a true schoolboy; but as the distance was hardly more
than a mile to my home, I very often ran there in the longer intervals
between the callings over and before locking up at night. This, I think,
was in many ways advantageous to me by keeping up home affections and
interests. I remember in the early part of my school life that I often had
to run very quickly to be in time, and from being a fleet runner was
generally successful; but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help
me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not
to my quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided.

I have heard my father and elder sister say that I had, as a very young
boy, a strong taste for long solitary walks; but what I thought about I
know not. I often became quite absorbed, and once, whilst returning to
school on the summit of the old fortifications round Shrewsbury, which had
been converted into a public foot-path with no parapet on one side, I
walked off and fell to the ground, but the height was only seven or eight
feet. Nevertheless the number of thoughts which passed through my mind
during this very short, but sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was
astonishing, and seem hardly compatible with what physiologists have, I
believe, proved about each thought requiring quite an appreciable amount of
time.

Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr.
Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught,
except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of
education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I have been
singularly incapable of mastering any language. Especial attention was
paid to verse-making, and this I could never do well. I had many friends,
and got together a good collection of old verses, which by patching
together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could work into any subject.
Much attention was paid to learning by heart the lessons of the previous
day; this I could effect with great facility, learning forty or fifty lines
of Virgil or Homer, whilst I was in morning chapel; but this exercise was
utterly useless, for every verse was forgotten in forty-eight hours. I was
not idle, and with the exception of versification, generally worked
conscientiously at my classics, not using cribs. The sole pleasure I ever
received from such studies, was from some of the odes of Horace, which I
admired greatly.

When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low in it; and I
believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my father as a very
ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep
mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but
shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself
and all your family." But my father, who was the kindest man I ever knew
and whose memory I love with all my heart, must have been angry and
somewhat unjust when he used such words.

Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life, the
only qualities which at this period promised well for the future, were,
that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for whatever interested
me, and a keen pleasure in understanding any complex subject or thing. I
was taught Euclid by a private tutor, and I distinctly remember the intense
satisfaction which the clear geometrical proofs gave me. I remember, with
equal distinctness, the delight which my uncle gave me (the father of
Francis Galton) by explaining the principle of the vernier of a barometer.
with respect to diversified tastes, independently of science, I was fond of
reading various books, and I used to sit for hours reading the historical
plays of Shakespeare, generally in an old window in the thick walls of the
school. I read also other poetry, such as Thomson's 'Seasons,' and the
recently published poems of Byron and Scott. I mention this because later
in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from poetry of any
kind, including Shakespeare. In connection with pleasure from poetry, I
may add that in 1822 a vivid delight in scenery was first awakened in my
mind, during a riding tour on the borders of Wales, and this has lasted
longer than any other aesthetic pleasure.

Early in my school days a boy had a copy of the 'Wonders of the World,'
which I often read, and disputed with other boys about the veracity of some
of the statements; and I believe that this book first gave me a wish to
travel in remote countries, which was ultimately fulfilled by the voyage of
the "Beagle". In the latter part of my school life I became passionately
fond of shooting; I do not believe that any one could have shown more zeal
for the most holy cause than I did for shooting birds. How well I remember
killing my first snipe, and my excitement was so great that I had much
difficulty in reloading my gun from the trembling of my hands. This taste
long continued, and I became a very good shot. When at Cambridge I used to
practise throwing up my gun to my shoulder before a looking-glass to see
that I threw it up straight. Another and better plan was to get a friend
to wave about a lighted candle, and then to fire at it with a cap on the
nipple, and if the aim was accurate the little puff of air would blow out
the candle. The explosion of the cap caused a sharp crack, and I was told
that the tutor of the college remarked, "What an extraordinary thing it is,
Mr. Darwin seems to spend hours in cracking a horse-whip in his room, for I
often hear the crack when I pass under his windows."

I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I think
that my disposition was then very affectionate.

With respect to science, I continued collecting minerals with much zeal,
but quite unscientifically--all that I cared about was a new-NAMED mineral,
and I hardly attempted to classify them. I must have observed insects with
some little care, for when ten years old (1819) I went for three weeks to
Plas Edwards on the sea-coast in Wales, I was very much interested and
surprised at seeing a large black and scarlet Hemipterous insect, many
moths (Zygaena), and a Cicindela which are not found in Shropshire. I
almost made up my mind to begin collecting all the insects which I could
find dead, for on consulting my sister I concluded that it was not right to
kill insects for the sake of making a collection. From reading White's
'Selborne,' I took much pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and even
made notes on the subject. In my simplicity I remember wondering why every
gentleman did not become an ornithologist.

Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at chemistry,
and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in the tool-house in the
garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in most of his
experiments. He made all the gases and many compounds, and I read with
great care several books on chemistry, such as Henry and Parkes' 'Chemical
Catechism.' The subject interested me greatly, and we often used to go on
working till rather late at night. This was the best part of my education
at school, for it showed me practically the meaning of experimental
science. The fact that we worked at chemistry somehow got known at school,
and as it was an unprecedented fact, I was nicknamed "Gas." I was also
once publicly rebuked by the head-master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my
time on such useless subjects; and he called me very unjustly a "poco
curante," and as I did not understand what he meant, it seemed to me a
fearful reproach.

As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took me away at a rather
earlier age than usual, and sent me (Oct. 1825) to Edinburgh University
with my brother, where I stayed for two years or sessions. My brother was
completing his medical studies, though I do not believe he ever really
intended to practise, and I was sent there to commence them. But soon
after this period I became convinced from various small circumstances that
my father would leave me property enough to subsist on with some comfort,
though I never imagined that I should be so rich a man as I am; but my
belief was sufficient to check any strenuous efforts to learn medicine.

The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were
intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry by Hope; but to
my mind there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures compared
with reading. Dr. Duncan's lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock on a
winter's morning are something fearful to remember. Dr.-- made his
lectures on human anatomy as dull as he was himself, and the subject
disgusted me. It has proved one of the greatest evils in my life that I
was not urged to practise dissection, for I should soon have got over my
disgust; and the practice would have been invaluable for all my future
work. This has been an irremediable evil, as well as my incapacity to
draw. I also attended regularly the clinical wards in the hospital. Some
of the cases distressed me a good deal, and I still have vivid pictures
before me of some of them; but I was not so foolish as to allow this to
lessen my attendance. I cannot understand why this part of my medical
course did not interest me in a greater degree; for during the summer
before coming to Edinburgh I began attending some of the poor people,
chiefly children and women in Shrewsbury: I wrote down as full an account
as I could of the case with all the symptoms, and read them aloud to my
father, who suggested further inquiries and advised me what medicines to
give, which I made up myself. At one time I had at least a dozen patients,
and I felt a keen interest in the work. My father, who was by far the best
judge of character whom I ever knew, declared that I should make a
successful physician,--meaning by this one who would get many patients. He
maintained that the chief element of success was exciting confidence; but
what he saw in me which convinced him that I should create confidence I
know not. I also attended on two occasions the operating theatre in the
hospital at Edinburgh, and saw two very bad operations, one on a child, but
I rushed away before they were completed. Nor did I ever attend again, for
hardly any inducement would have been strong enough to make me do so; this
being long before the blessed days of chloroform. The two cases fairly
haunted me for many a long year.

My brother stayed only one year at the University, so that during the
second year I was left to my own resources; and this was an advantage, for
I became well acquainted with several young men fond of natural science.
One of these was Ainsworth, who afterwards published his travels in
Assyria; he was a Wernerian geologist, and knew a little about many
subjects. Dr. Coldstream was a very different young man, prim, formal,
highly religious, and most kind-hearted; he afterwards published some good
zoological articles. A third young man was Hardie, who would, I think,
have made a good botanist, but died early in India. Lastly, Dr. Grant, my
senior by several years, but how I became acquainted with him I cannot
remember; he published some first-rate zoological papers, but after coming
to London as Professor in University College, he did nothing more in
science, a fact which has always been inexplicable to me. I knew him well;
he was dry and formal in manner, with much enthusiasm beneath this outer
crust. He one day, when we were walking together, burst forth in high
admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent
astonishment, and as far as I can judge without any effect on my mind. I
had previously read the 'Zoonomia' of my grandfather, in which similar
views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me. Nevertheless
it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained
and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in
my 'Origin of Species.' At this time I admired greatly the 'Zoonomia;' but
on reading it a second time after an interval of ten or fifteen years, I
was much disappointed; the proportion of speculation being so large to the
facts given.

Drs. Grant and Coldstream attended much to marine Zoology, and I often
accompanied the former to collect animals in the tidal pools, which I
dissected as well as I could. I also became friends with some of the
Newhaven fishermen, and sometimes accompanied them when they trawled for
oysters, and thus got many specimens. But from not having had any regular
practice in dissection, and from possessing only a wretched microscope, my
attempts were very poor. Nevertheless I made one interesting little
discovery, and read, about the beginning of the year 1826, a short paper on
the subject before the Plinian Society. This was that the so-called ova of
Flustra had the power of independent movement by means of cilia, and were
in fact larvae. In another short paper I showed that the little globular
bodies which had been supposed to be the young state of Fucus loreus were
the egg-cases of the wormlike Pontobdella muricata.

The Plinian Society was encouraged and, I believe, founded by Professor
Jameson: it consisted of students and met in an underground room in the
University for the sake of reading papers on natural science and discussing
them. I used regularly to attend, and the meetings had a good effect on me
in stimulating my zeal and giving me new congenial acquaintances. One
evening a poor young man got up, and after stammering for a prodigious
length of time, blushing crimson, he at last slowly got out the words, "Mr.
President, I have forgotten what I was going to say." The poor fellow
looked quite overwhelmed, and all the members were so surprised that no one
could think of a word to say to cover his confusion. The papers which were
read to our little society were not printed, so that I had not the
satisfaction of seeing my paper in print; but I believe Dr. Grant noticed
my small discovery in his excellent memoir on Flustra.

I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and attended pretty
regularly; but as the subjects were exclusively medical, I did not much
care about them. Much rubbish was talked there, but there were some good
speakers, of whom the best was the present Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth. Dr.
Grant took me occasionally to the meetings of the Wernerian Society, where
various papers on natural history were read, discussed, and afterwards
published in the 'Transactions.' I heard Audubon deliver there some
interesting discourses on the habits of N. American birds, sneering
somewhat unjustly at Waterton. By the way, a negro lived in Edinburgh, who
had travelled with Waterton, and gained his livelihood by stuffing birds,
which he did excellently: he gave me lessons for payment, and I used often
to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and intelligent man.

Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, where I saw Sir Walter Scott in the chair as President, and he
apologised to the meeting as not feeling fitted for such a position. I
looked at him and at the whole scene with some awe and reverence, and I
think it was owing to this visit during my youth, and to my having attended
the Royal Medical Society, that I felt the honour of being elected a few
years ago an honorary member of both these Societies, more than any other
similar honour. If I had been told at that time that I should one day have
been thus honoured, I declare that I should have thought it as ridiculous
and improbable, as if I had been told that I should be elected King of
England.

During my second year at Edinburgh I attended --'s lectures on Geology and
Zoology, but they were incredibly dull. The sole effect they produced on
me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on
Geology, or in any way to study the science. Yet I feel sure that I was
prepared for a philosophical treatment of the subject; for an old Mr.
Cotton in Shropshire, who knew a good deal about rocks, had pointed out to
me two or three years previously a well-known large erratic boulder in the
town of Shrewsbury, called the "bell-stone"; he told me that there was no
rock of the same kind nearer than Cumberland or Scotland, and he solemnly
assured me that the world would come to an end before any one would be able
to explain how this stone came where it now lay. This produced a deep
impression on me, and I meditated over this wonderful stone. So that I
felt the keenest delight when I first read of the action of icebergs in
transporting boulders, and I gloried in the progress of Geology. Equally
striking is the fact that I, though now only sixty-seven years old, heard
the Professor, in a field lecture at Salisbury Craigs, discoursing on a
trapdyke, with amygdaloidal margins and the strata indurated on each side,
with volcanic rocks all around us, say that it was a fissure filled with
sediment from above, adding with a sneer that there were men who maintained
that it had been injected from beneath in a molten condition. When I think
of this lecture, I do not wonder that I determined never to attend to
Geology.