Charles Darwin

DARWIN, Charles (Charles Darwin, 1809–1882), the greatest naturalist of the 19th century, founder of evolutionary doctrine, and author of the theory of the origin of species by means of natural selection. Darwin belonged to a well-to-do English family, having among his ancestors not a few highly gifted and talented people: his father and grandfather were physicians; his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was the author of poems in which he set forth his scientific views. (It is curious that, like his grandson, being an evolutionist, he developed the view that all living creatures possess the ability to adapt to external conditions, achieving this often through the exercise of organs. Higher organisms arose, in his opinion, from lower ones through gradual transformation and perfection; the beginning of all was "a living fiber created by the creator." These purely speculative views of his grandfather had, according to Darwin himself, no influence on him.) Darwin held a low opinion of his school and university education. The classical school in Shrewsbury (his birthplace), which he considered "harmful to the development of his mind," the medical faculty in Edinburgh, where he spent two years, and the theological faculty in Cambridge, to which his father transferred him to make a clergyman of him, had little influence on the development of Darwin's mind and character. In these years his tastes and pursuits were determined: he was a passionate collector (especially of beetles), a tireless hunter, undertook distant walks on horseback and on foot, and made numerous excursions, carrying out zoological, botanical, and geological observations under the guidance of the botanist Henslow and the geologist Sedgwick. All this came in handy for him during the voyage around the world (1831–1836), which was of immense importance for Darwin's development as a naturalist. The corvette Beagle was sent to South America to take soundings along its shores. Darwin had the opportunity to constantly leave the ship and, making excursions into the interior of the country, followed rivers flowing into the ocean, studied the natural history of the waters, deserts, steppes, and forests of South America, climbed its highest mountains, and visited islands. From a sportsman, hunter, and passionate collector of beetles, he gradually developed into the greatest of naturalists. Following the Beagle for two years along the eastern and southern shores of South America and for two years along the western, Darwin during the following year visited the coral islands of the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand, Australia, and Tasmania on the Beagle and returned to England after an absence of five years. In this journey, Darwin strove "to miss nothing, to compare everything, to reason, and to clarify." Lyell's book Principles of Geology, which had just been published at that time and which he took with him on the road, had a great influence on Darwin. Its ideas directed Darwin's attention to the important significance of those forces in nature that are composed of the prolonged action of many small and at first glance barely noticeable causes. Thus, Darwin found a simple and understandable explanation for the origin of various forms of coral islands and reefs through the prolonged slow subsidence of land, during which coral polyps managed to build up their structures. Of even greater importance were the impressions that convinced him that animal species change. These were: 1) the finds in South America of fossil armadillos, sloths, and other paleontological remains of animals close to modern South American forms; 2) the gradual replacement of similar species when moving across the mainland of South America (e.g., the replacement from north to south of one species of ostrich by another, the replacement of one mouse on the western side of the Andes by another on their eastern side); 3) the South American character of animals on nearby islands, especially the Galapagos Archipelago, and at the same time slight differences between the inhabitants of each island; 4) the find of living and fossil animals with mixed characteristics of different families and even different

orders, as if connecting separate groups of animals among themselves. All these phenomena could be explained and understood only under the condition of recognizing the evolution of animals. Upon returning from his journey, Darwin set about putting his collections in order, processing them, and preparing for publication his Journal of Researches, Geological Observations on Volcanic Islands, and Geological Observations on South America. At this time he became very close to Lyell. In 1839, Darwin married Emma Wedgwood. Darwin had ten children, of whom three became prominent people: George, a famous astronomer; Francis, a known botanist; and Leonard, chairman of the English Eugenics Society. A severe illness, which allowed Darwin to work no more than three hours a day, forced him to live almost without leaving the estate he bought in 1842 in Down near London, where all his other works were written. In this seclusion, he was visited only by a few close friends, who included Lyell, the botanist Hooker, and Huxley. In the years following his marriage, Darwin published his geological works, including the work on coral reefs (1842), on which he worked long and diligently. Then he devoted 8 years to processing a very interesting group of marine sessile crustaceans (cirripedes). Already in the year following his return from the journey, Darwin began the first of his notebooks, where he entered everything that had relation to the question of the origin of species. Those qualities of Darwin's character that he calls "boundless patience in long reflecting on a subject and industry in observing and collecting facts" led to the accumulation over twenty years of a huge amount of various notes on this issue. Darwin found the solution to the problem of the cause of evolution, as is known, in the theory of natural selection. The Origin of Species, published in 1859, seemed to Darwin only a "brief abstract" of everything he could write on this topic. Over subsequent years, Darwin continued to develop extensive botanical and zoological material. One after another, his books appeared, in which not only was his theory developed in more detail as applied to this or that biological topic, but a whole series of new excellent observations and studies was also set forth. In 1862, his work On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects was published; in 1868, the extensive work The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication; in 1871, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, where the question of the origin of individual human races is interpreted in connection with the question of the origin of secondary sexual characteristics; in 1872, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals; in 1875, The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants; in 1877–1880, several more works devoted to plants, among others a very interesting treatise on insectivorous plants, and finally in 1881, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms. Thus, Darwin continued his energetic scientific activity almost until his death. In the last ten years of life, according to the testimony of his son, his health even improved, and only in the very last year did his strength begin to fail, and cardiac attacks began to appear, which brought him to the grave (Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey).

Among Darwin's character traits, one should note unusual gentleness, humanity, and a great love of truth; Darwin's conscientiousness is extraordinary. This left a stamp on the "tone" of his books (e.g., The Origin of Species). Not only did he not hide the difficulties standing before his theory, but, on the contrary, he always strived to put them forward and express a whole series of considerations about them. Darwin nowhere forcefully imposed his views, nowhere harshly condemned opposing ones, citing only a multitude of proofs, observations, reviews, reflections, and leaving it to the reader himself to judge the conclusions. His books are not always easy to read: they are too rich in facts, digressions, considerations, and objections to possible objections. This partly depended on the cast of Darwin's mind; his son said that there was one peculiarity in his father's conversation: "From the first words of some phrase, he would remember an exception or an argument against what he wanted to say, which led him to another subject, so that a string of remarks in parentheses was obtained, which prevented one from understanding before the end where his speech was leading." A complete collected edition of Darwin's works in Russian in 4 volumes has been published under the editorship of M. Menzbier since 1925 (Moscow-Leningrad). In 1907–1909, an eight-volume collection was published under the editorship of K. Timiryazev (Moscow).

Darwin, Erasmus (Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin, physician, naturalist, philosopher, and poet. He presented his pantheistic worldview in an extensive natural philosophy poem ("Botanic garden", v. 1-2, 1781-99), in which he sought to give a synthesis of science and poetry. The most important scientific works of D.: "Zoonomia or the laws of organic life" (L., 1794-96, translated into several languages); "Phytologia, or the philosophy of agriculture" (London, 1800-1801) and "The temple of nature" (London, 1803, posthumous edition). In his works, D. expressed a number of ideas about the change of species, the adaptation of living beings, and rudimentary organs. D. saw the cause of the development of organisms on the one hand in the action of internal factors, and on the other hand in the struggle for existence and in the survival of the most adapted. Erasmus D. can be considered a predecessor of the ideas of Lamarck and Charles Darwin. Among his contemporaries, the ideas of D. were known and duly appreciated by Cuvier.