Buy the Book: Charles Darwin’s autobiography is a brief summary of his life. He touches on his research, learning process, writing process, and the characteristics behind his success. It was written for his family and never meant for public consumption.
The Notes
- Darwin’s autobiography was written for his children and future generations of his family. His intent was never to release it to the public.
- “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.”
- Born February 12, 1809, at Strewsbury.
- Mother died in July 1817 when Darwin was 8.
- Married in 1839.
- “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.”
- “My taste for natural history, and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants 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.”
- “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 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.”
- School Years
- “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.”
- “Much attention was paid to learning by heart the lessons of the previous day…but this exercise was utterly useless, for every verse was forgotten in forty-eight hours.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- Enjoyed reading plays and poems by Shakespeare, Byron, and Scott at an early age but lost interest in it later in life.
- “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… 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.”
- Started at Edinburgh University in 1825, with his brother. He started earlier than usual — his father sent him because he wasn’t doing well in school. He stayed on for two years.
- He studied medicine at Edinburgh to be a physician, on his father’s advice.
- “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.”
- Darwin found the class on anatomy and dissection disgusting. He regretted it because the skill of dissection would have been “invaluable for all my future work.” He also regretted not learning to draw for the same reason.
- He attended hospitals and people over the summer, discussed their symptoms with his father, and advised on a course of medicine. He had a dozen patients at one time.
- Made two minor discoveries. One was that the ova of Flustra were larvae that moved by cilia and presented a paper on it in 1826. The other was what was believed to the eggs of Fucus loreus were in fact egg sacks for the Pontobdella muricata.
- He attended the Royal Medical Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He would later be elected as an honorary member of both Societies a few years before writing his autobiography. “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.”
- Being a physician didn’t suit Darwin so his father proposed he become a clergyman.
- “Considering how fiercely I have been attacked by the orthodox, it seems ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman.”
- After 2 years at Edinburgh, he spent 3 years at Cambridge beginning in 1828. Prior to attending, he studied with a tutor to help refresh his memory on things he had forgotten.
- “During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school.”
- On Math: “The work was repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra. This impatience was very foolish, and in after years I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense.”
- “Although…there were some redeeming features in my life at Cambridge, my time was sadly wasted there, and worse than wasted.”
- “No pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles. It was the mere passion for collecting, for I did not dissect them, and rarely compared their external characters with published descriptions, but got them named anyhow.”
- He found rare species of beetles by scraping moss off old trees and rubbish from barges.
- “Looking back, I infer that there must have been something in me a little superior to the common run of youths, otherwise the above–mentioned men, so much older than me and higher in academical position, would never have allowed me to associate with them. Certainly I was not aware of any such superiority, and I remember one of my sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my beetles, saying that I should some day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the notion seemed to me preposterous.”
- “To hear of praise from an eminent person, though no doubt apt or certain to excite vanity, is, I think, good for a young man, as it helps to keep him in the right course.”
- Darwin discovered an ancient gravel bed with a large deposit of tropical volute shells (fossils) but was shocked that a Professor Sedgwick dismissed it when he told him. “Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.”
- On studying Geology: “I had a striking instance of how easy it is to overlook phenomena, however conspicuous, before they have been observed by any one… Neither of us saw a trace of the wonderful glacial phenomena all around us; we did not notice the plainly scored rocks, the perched boulders, the lateral and terminal moraines. Yet these phenomena are so conspicuous.”
- The Beagle
- Darwin heard from a friend that Captain Fitz-Roy was looking for a naturalist to join his voyage and offered a free room on the ship without pay for anyone willing to go.
- Darwin originally turned the offer down upon his father’s objection. His uncle changed his father’s mind the next morning.
- They left port on December 27, 1831, and returned on October 2, 1836.
- He found slavery “revolting.” The Captain did not.
- “Afterwards, on becoming very intimate with Fitz–Roy, I heard that I had run a very narrow risk of being rejected, on account of the shape of my nose! He was an ardent disciple of Lavater, and was convinced that he could judge of a man’s character by the outline of his features; and he doubted whether any one with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage.”
- “The voyage of the”Beagle” has been by far the most important event in my life, and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me thirty miles to Shrewsbury, which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose. I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real training or education of my mind; I was led to attend closely to several branches of natural history, and thus my powers of observation were improved, though they were always fairly developed.”
- “The investigation of the geology of all the places visited was far more important, as reasoning here comes into play. On first examining a new district nothing can appear more hopeless than the chaos of rocks; but by recording the stratification and nature of the rocks and fossils at many points, always reasoning and predicting what will be found elsewhere, light soon begins to dawn on the district, and the structure of the whole becomes more or less intelligible.”
- “Another of my occupations was collecting animals of all classes, briefly describing and roughly dissecting many of the marine ones; but from not being able to draw, and from not having sufficient anatomical knowledge, a great pile of MS. which I made during the voyage has proved almost useless.”
- “The above various special studies were, however, of no importance compared with the habit of energetic industry and of concentrated attention to whatever I was engaged in, which I then acquired. Everything about which I thought or read was made to bear directly on what I had seen or was likely to see; and this habit of mind was continued during the five years of the voyage. I feel sure that it was this training which has enabled me to do whatever I have done in science.”
- “I discovered, though unconsciously and insensibly, that the pleasure of observing and reasoning was a much higher one than that of skill and sport.”
- “As far as I can judge of myself, I worked to the utmost during the voyage from the mere pleasure of investigation, and from my strong desire to add a few facts to the great mass of facts in Natural Science. But I was also ambitious to take a fair place among scientific men.”
- ” I think that I can say with truth that in after years, though I cared in the highest degree for the approbation of such men as Lyell and Hooker, who were my friends, I did not care much about the general public. I do not mean to say that a favourable review or a large sale of my books did not please me greatly, but the pleasure was a fleeting one, and I am sure that I have never turned one inch out of my course to gain fame.”
- Writings
- On returning, Darwin examined everything he collected and spent 2 years finishing his journal, wrote papers for the Geological Society, the manuscript for “Geological Observations,” and published “Zoology of the Voyage of the ‘Beagle'”.
- He also published a paper which “was a great failure, and I am ashamed of it.” He attributed parallel lines in a rock formation due to the sea rather than an ancient glacier. “Because no other explanation was possible under our then state of knowledge, I argued in favour of sea–action; and my error has been a good lesson to me never to trust in science to the principle of exclusion.”
- His work on “Coral Reefs” took 20 months to complete. “No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this, for the whole theory was thought out on the west coast of South America, before I had seen a true coral reef. I had therefore only to verify and extend my views by a careful examination of living reefs.”
- “My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout life has been scientific work; and the excitement from such work makes me for the time forget, or drives quite away, my daily discomfort.”
- Darwin dealt with illness on and off from 1842 onward that hampered his writing.
- Published “Cirripedia,” 2 volumes, which took 8 years to complete. “I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so much time.”
- The Origin of Species
- “During the voyage of the”Beagle” I had been deeply impressed by discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals covered with armour like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the manner in which closely allied animals replace one another in proceeding southwards over the Continent; and thirdly, by the South American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which they differ slightly on each island of the group; none of the islands appearing to be very ancient in a geological sense.”
- “It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me.”
- “It was equally evident that neither the action of the surrounding conditions, nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of life—for instance, a woodpecker or a tree–frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until these could be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to prove by indirect evidence that species have been modified.”
- The first notebook was in 1837. He studied the domestication of plants and animals and talked to breeders and gardeners. “I soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man’s success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me.”
- October 1838: “I happened to read for amusement “Malthus on Population,” and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it.”
- “At that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg, how I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders and so forth; and I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.”
- Work began in September on 1854 by reviewing years’ worth of notes, observations, and experiments.
- Began writing in 1856.
- Alfred Russell Wallace sent Darwin his theory on natural selection in the summer of 1858.
- Lyel published Wallace’s essay and Darwin’s abstract of his manuscript in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society in 1858. Neither received much attention.
- Work on the finished book began in September 1858. “It cost me thirteen months and ten days’ hard labour. It was published under the title of the “Origin of Species,” in November 1859. Though considerably added to and corrected in the later editions, it has remained substantially the same book.”
- “The success of the “Origin” may, I think, be attributed in large part to my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions.”
- “I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.”
- He attributed part of its success to its shorter length. Wallace’s essay drove him to finish earlier. The original length was would have been “four to five times as large as the “Origin,” and very few would have had the patience to read it.”
- “I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I cared very little whether men attributed most originality to me or Wallace; and his essay no doubt aided in the reception of the theory.”
- “Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work on the “Origin,” as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of the embryos within the same class.”
- “On the whole I do not doubt that my works have been over and over again greatly overpraised. I rejoice that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who many years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a miserable loss of time and temper.”
- “Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that ‘I have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this.'”
- “During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my experiments, and my book on “Insectivorous Plants” was published in July 1875—that is, sixteen years after my first observations. The delay in this case, as with all my other books, has been a great advantage to me; for a man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost as well as if it were that of another person.”
- Darwin published several book on plants — fertilisation, orchids, climbing plants, and plant movements. “It has always pleased me to exalt plants in the scale of organised beings; and I therefore felt an especial pleasure in showing how many and what admirably well adapted movements the tip of a root possesses.”
- “I think that I have become a little more skilful in guessing right explanations and in devising experimental tests; but this may probably be the result of mere practice, and of a larger store of knowledge.”
- Writing Process
- “I have as much difficulty as ever in expressing myself clearly and concisely; and this difficulty has caused me a very great loss of time; but it has had the compensating advantage of forcing me to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus I have been led to see errors in reasoning and in my own observations or those of others.”
- “Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.”
- “I will add that with my large books I spend a good deal of time over the general arrangement of the matter. I first make the rudest outline in two or three pages, and then a larger one in several pages, a few words or one word standing for a whole discussion or series of facts. Each one of these headings is again enlarged and often transferred before I begin to write in extenso.”
- “As in several of my books facts observed by others have been very extensively used, and as I have always had several quite distinct subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention that I keep from thirty to forty large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or memorandum.”
- “I have bought many books, and at their ends I make an index of all the facts that concern my work; or, if the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract, and of such abstracts I have a large drawer full.”
- “Before beginning on any subject I look to all the short indexes and make a general and classified index, and by taking the one or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during my life ready for use.”
- “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts… A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”
- Self-Reflection on His Success
- “I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years.”
- “It may be worth while to try to analyse the mental qualities and the conditions on which my success has depended; though I am aware that no man can do this correctly.”
- “I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance, Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points.”
- “My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics.”
- “My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search for my authority.”
- “So poor in one sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry.”
- “I have a fair share of invention, and of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly successful lawyer or doctor must have, but not, I believe, in any higher degree.”
- “On the favourable side of the balance, I think that I am superior to the common run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully. My industry has been nearly as great as it could have been in the observation and collection of facts. What is far more important, my love of natural science has been steady and ardent.”
- “From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,—that is, to group all facts under some general laws. These causes combined have given me the patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over any unexplained problem.”
- “As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men. I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.”
- “I cannot remember a single first-formed hypothesis which had not after a time to be given up or greatly modified. This has naturally led me to distrust greatly deductive reasoning in the mixed sciences.”
- “On the other hand, I am not very sceptical,—a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the progress of science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met with not a few men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment or observations, which would have proved directly or indirectly serviceable.”
- “My habits are methodical, and this has been of not a little use for my particular line of work.”
- “Lastly, I have had ample leisure from not having to earn my own bread. Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement.”
- “Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have been—the love of science—unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject—industry in observing and collecting facts—and a fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points.”
