Charles Darwin is centrally important in the development of scientific and humanist ideas because he first made people aware of their place in the evolutionary process when the most powerful and intelligent form of life discovered how humanity had evolved. The theory of evolution by natural selection was first put forward by Darwin in On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, and his theory is still generally accepted as the best available explanation of the way life on this planet developed.
Darwin’s father was a country doctor in and around Shrewsbury, and the young Charles grew up in an extended family who knew the countryside and its pursuits well. His grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, an eminent naturalist and poet. As a boy he collected beetles, moths and other objects of curiosity, and he and his brother did simple chemistry experiments in the attic of their large house. He attended Shrewsbury School where he did not do particularly well – he was more interested in beetles than in Latin grammar. Neither was he a very successful university student. He was persuaded by his father to study medicine, but did not complete his medical studies at Edinburgh, because he found it “intolerably dull” and could not stand the sight of blood. So he went to Cambridge University to study theology, but here too there were more interesting pursuits than his studies. At Cambridge he met a prime mover in the developing science of Geology, Adam Sedgwick, whom he accompanied on field trips to North Wales and other places. He also met and learned a great deal from Professor Henslow, a wonderful teacher and friend, with whom he chased moths and butterflies across the fens with a big net, and learned to classify plants.
