Darwin - Portrait of Genius

162 Pages·2012·11.624 MB·English

by  Paul B. Johnson

U.S$.2 5.9C5A NADA$ 27.50
WITHH ISO RIGINO F SPECIES,
Charles Darwin forever changed our concept
of the world's creation and its evolution.
Darwin's revolutionary career is the perfect
vehicle for Paul Johnson, "the most celebrated
and best-loved British historian in America"
(Wall Street Journal), who here turns his keen
biographer's eye to Darwin, one of history's most
influential figures.
Never has a scientist been so favored by
fortune, observes Johnson. Darwin came from
a line of gifted intellectuals, with great wealth
on both sides of his family. He went to the best
schools but was a mediocre student. Though
he struggled with studies in medicine and,
later, the ministry that his father insisted on,
Darwin was rescued by a professor's recommen­
dation that he serve as the scientist on the HMS
Beagle. He set off on the five-year voyage, and by
the time they reached the Galapagos Islands, he
wrote that "we seem to be brought near the great
fact-the mystery of mysteries-the first appear­
ance of new beings on this earth."
Yet Darwin kept postponing publication of
his groundbreaking theory because he feared
society's-and his wife's-disapproval. Only
when Darwin realized that another eminent
scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, was pursuing
similar ideas and was about to publish them did
Darwin race to produce a popular treatment
of the theory. As Johnson notes, "In what we
have seen to be a remarkably lucky life, this was
the greatest stroke of good fortune he enjoyed."
The Origin of Species sealed Darwin's fate as the
discoverer of the theory.
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ALSO BY PAUL JOHNSON
Socrates
Jesus
Churchill
Modern Times: The IVorldf rom the Twenties to tlze Nineties
A History efthe Jews
The Birth efthe Modern World: World Society 1815-1830
Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky
A History efthe American People
Art: A New History
George IVashington: The Founding Father
Creators: From Chaucer and Diirer to Picasso and Disney
Napoleon: A Penguin Life
Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar
to Churchill and de Gaulle
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Contents
oN E: A Heritage of Genius, and Its Shadow
Two: Education and Self-Education of a Scientist 15
THREE: The Loss of God 37
F o u R: The Making of a Masterpiece 65
F 1v E : Among the Apes and Angels 87
s 1x : How the Great Botanist Missed an Opportunity 111
sE vE N: Evils of Social Darwinism 123
EIGHT: Triumph and the Reversal of Natural Selection 137
Further Reading 153
Index 155
DARWIN
CHAPTER ONE
......
A Heritage of Genius,
and Its Shadow
All his life, Charles Darwin believed that inheritance
was much more important in shaping a man or woman
than education or environment. Nature rather than
nurture was formative, in his view. Though he knew nothing of
the science of genetics, and never used the word gene, ·which is
first recorded in English in 1911, more than a quarter-century
after his death, he is a classic case of genetic inheritance. Indeed,
two of his grandparents and his father can reasonably be classi­
fied as geniuses.
His paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (17.31-1802) came
from an old family of modest landowners. After Cambridge, he
trained as a doctor in Edinburgh, and then practiced in Litch­
field, Dr. Johnson's town (they did not get on). He was successful
and had many patients, easily earning £1,000 a year, a handsome
income then. News of his skill reached the ears of George III,
who invited him to come to London as the royal doctor. But Dr.
Darwin declined. The Hanoverian royals were slow at paying
their doctors. In any case, Darwin was happy as he was, combin­
ing a busy provincial practice with poetry and science. The sym­
bol of this dualism was his coach, which he designed himself. It
was fitted up with a writing desk, a skylight, and a portion of his
library, so that he could carry on his intellectual pursuits while
going on his daily round of professional calls.
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