Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man

5. Maturity

[ 34 ] five v฀ Maturity uPon LanDing in faLmoutH on 2 October, Darwin made a beeline for home, where he was greeted by his father and three sisters. Ten days later, he was back at Cambridge with Professor Henslow. He was now a confident young man with a new direction in life. He no longer wanted to be a clergyman, having earned the approval of the scientific community and, most importantly, of his father. Henslow had shown Darwin’s specimens and descriptive letters to the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and Darwin was well known and admired among scientists because of his work during the Beagle voyage. When Darwin moved to London fifteen days after arriving back in England, he was astonished to learn that his Megatherium had been displayed at the 1833 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and had generated a great deal of excitement. He was befriended by some of London’s most notable scientists and was introduced to Charles Lyell, who was then president of the Geological Society. Lyell subsequently introduced him to famous comparative anatomist Richard Owen. Darwin was presented for membership in the Geological Society and was elected to the Athenaeum Club at the same time as Charles Dickens. Darwin ’s presentation to the Geological Society (with Lyell in the audience) on 4 January 1837, on the elevation of the coast of Chile, made a significant impression. [ 35 ] Darwin sent back 1,529 species bottled in alcohol and 3,907 dried specimens, and he sought out various taxonomic experts to deal with his collections of fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals, and fossils. He kept the rocks, invertebrates, and plants to describe himself. He moved to Cambridge for three months to deal with the specimens and work on the Journal of Researches, based on his daily journal during the voyage, and later completed the Journal in London. This book was first published as volume 3 of a narrative edited by FitzRoy, and then in its own right in 1839, as the Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of Various Countries Visited by Erasmus Alvey Darwin, Charles’s elder and only brother, by George Richmond, in 1841. Erasmus trained as a physician, but never practiced. He lived the life of a London socialite, off his allowance and inheritance from Robert Darwin. (Darwin Museum, Downe) [ 36 ] Darwin’s “tree of life” from his transmutation notebook B, page 36 (1837). This was the first evolutionary tree ever sketched by anyone and is Darwin’s first attempt to show the relatedness of all animal life. (Cambridge University Library) [ 37 ] H. M. S. Beagle Round the World. It was Darwin’s first book and is now universally known as The Voyage of the Beagle. The Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle, edited by Darwin, was published in five parts, from 1838 to 1843, and Darwin continued to work on The Geology of the Beagle. In London, Darwin resided in Great Marlborough Street to be close to his socialite brother, Erasmus. Although he earned a medical degree from Edinburgh, Erasmus basically lived off his inheritance from Dr. Darwin. Charles also socialized with Lyell, often patronized the Athenaeum Club, and was a guest in the home of Harriet Martineau, feminist, social reformer, and author, who was an intimate friend of Erasmus. Darwin’s social life was not the only thing that had altered since he set sail on the Beagle. During his absence, Britain had changed greatly with the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, which gave real political power to the middle class. In July 1837, Darwin secretly entered his ideas about the transmutation of species (the word “evolution” was not commonly employed in the way we use it today), although he had not yet thought of the concept of natural selection. He was to fill four “transmutation notebooks.” In notebook B, he drew an irregularly branching tree to represent the common ancestry of all animals, a famous sketch that is the first representation of an evolutionary tree. At the top of the page, he penned, “I think.” At this time he also noticed the heart palpitations he was to experience for the rest of his life, especially during periods of stress—such as when he considered his heretical evolutionary ideas. ...