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 DARWIN

her father, a wealthy and cultivated Ration- alist of Dundee, in her infancy, but she studied diligently and adopted his views. At. the age of eighteen she wrote a vindica tion of the Epicurean philosophy (A Few Days in Athens, 1822). She went to America in 1818, lived in France 1821-24, then settled in the United States, where she became a brilliant and eloquent lecturer on reform questions and Rationalism. She married Darusmont in 1838. She held that &quot; kind feeling and kind action are the only religion,&quot; and &quot; few have made greater sacrifices for conviction s sake or exhibited a more courageous independence &quot; (Diet. Nat. Biog.}. D. Dec. 2, 1852.

DARWIN, Charles Robert, discoverer of Natural Selection. B. (Shrewsbury) Feb. 12, 1809, grandson of Erasmus Dar win. Ed. Shrewsbury school and Edin burgh University. He disliked the medical career, for which he was prepared, and went to Cambridge (Christ s Church) in 1829 to study for the Church. His chief interest, however, was in natural history, and in 1831 he was appointed naturalist to the Beagle. It was in South America that he began to collect his evidence of evolution. He returned to England in 1836, married Emma Wedgwood in 1839, and in 1842 went to live at Down, where he began to work out his theory. From 1844 to 1858 he slowly prepared a large book on the subject, when, in the latter year, he received a letter from Wallace, and they issued a joint statement. One may doubt if Wallace s sudden glimpse of the subject would have been heeded had it not been for Darwin s twenty years of labour. The Origin of Species was published in 1859, the Descent of Man in 1871. Darwin was a man of simple life and very refined character. Although he lost his taste for poetry and paintings, his love of music and scenery remained to the end. He disliked discussing religion, but Sir Francis Darwin clearly traces his Eationalist development, which is indicated by his father in his autobiography. He was quite orthodox on

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the Beagle, a Theist when he published the first edition of the Origin ; but from 1860 onward he passed into Agnosticism. Chap ter viii of the first volume of Sir F. Darwin s Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (3 vols., 1887) is devoted to his religious develop ment. In 1871 he told Dr. Abbott, the editor of the American Index, that he &quot; did not feel that he had thought deeply enough &quot; on the subject to write an article for him. He, in fact, says in the auto biographical manuscript which he left for his children that he paid little serious attention to the question of a personal God until late in life. He was, however, Agnostic by 1873, when he said that &quot; the whole subject is beyond the scope of man s intellect &quot; (i, 307). In 1876 he wrote (in the above autobiographical paper) : &quot; Dis belief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress &quot; (i, 309). He then still talked of a &quot; First Cause,&quot; and said : &quot; I deserve to be called a Theist.&quot; His gentle nature was, however, prevented by the suffering he saw in nature from embracing any accepted form of Theism. In 1879 he wrote to one correspondent that every man must decide for himself between &quot; conflicting vague probabilities &quot; as to a future life (i, 307), and to another he said : &quot; I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind &quot; (i, 304). With this Agnostic profession it is his last word he was buried in Westminster Abbey. D. Apr. 19, 1882.

DARWIN, Erasmus, B.A., M.B., physician. B. Dec. 12, 1731. Ed. Chesterfield School, Cambridge (St. John s), and Edinburgh University. He prospered in medical practice at Lichfield, and formed there a circle of liberal thinkers. In 1880 he removed to Derby, where he founded a Philosophical Society, and later to Breadsall Priory. Darwin had been accustomed to write verse from his youth. His Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life 194 i