3 Belian: Origins

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin was an English Naturalist. He was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on 12^th February 1809 at his family home, The Mount. He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin. He was a born Unitarian but later became a freethinker. He spent the summer of 1825 helping his father treat the poor of his hometown before attending the University of Edinburgh Medical School with his brother Erasmus Darwin in October 1825. Nevertheless, not long after that he quit his studies as he finds lectures and surgeries quite the bore. Then, he joined the Plinian Society, a student natural history group that supports strayed radical materialism. Soon enough, his father found out about him neglecting his studies and that annoyed him. His father later sent him to Christ’s College, Cambridge for a degree in Bachelor of Arts. That was his first step in becoming an Anglican Parson. Because of his lack of interest and unsuitability, he joined the ordinary degree course in January 1828. He preferred riding and shooting compared to studying. He had to stay at Cambridge until June. He studied Paley’s Natural Theology which created an argument for divine design in nature, an explaining adaptation as God acting through laws of nature.

He did an intensive study of the transmutation. During the study, he became mired in more work. He started taking jobs even knowing that he can’t cope. It affected his health badly. On September 20, he had ‘an uncomfortable palpitation of the heart’. So, according to the doctor, the best solution is that he cut off work for the moment. So, he decided to live in the country for a few weeks. While taking his sabbatical leave, he chose to stay with his maternal family, the Wedgewoods. There, he met his cousin, Emma Wedgwood who was busy nursing his sick aunt. Emma who was ninemonths older than him got his heart and they got married at an Anglican Church at Maer on 29^th January arranged to suit the Unitarians as the Wedgewoods are Anglicans. Soon after the marriage, they immediately took the train to London where they settle down at their new home.

Emma Wedgewood

The Darwin’s Theory, made him one of the many famous people in the Science and Nature Industry. His theory was simply explained and enlightened in the introduction of his report on his research on the evolution theory.

One of his simplified theory done by experts

“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving and thus be ‘naturally selected’. From the strong principle of inheritance, selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.

A staggered evolution based on his theories

According to Darwin, it simply means that each species are merely related somehow somewhere in the descendant. He strongly believed that Humans are the great product of the Evolutionof the OrangUtans.

However, the term ‘Evolution’ in his report got serious critics from the pious and religious people. It was quite a controversial event that time and still is at some parts of the world that still choose to continue his theory based on his well-done foundation.

Throughout his marriage with Emma, he was bestowed with 10 children. All his children were well-bred and well-educated. He was extremely devastated by the passing of the eldest of his daughters, Annie. His faith in Christianity had dwindled and as a result, he stopped going to the church. He strongly believed that God is not being fair to him, that his daughter had died.

Annie Darwin, the daughter that died

Charles Robert Darwin died at Down House on April 19^th 1882. He had planned - well, expected to be buried in St. Mary’s Churchyard at Downe, but at the request of Darwin’s colleagues, he was honoured by a major ceremonial funeral and burial in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton, both whom are as equally famous as him.