Charles Darwin's Education - Background and Influences

Background and Influences

Born in 1809, Charles Darwin grew up in a conservative era when repression of revolutionary Radicalism had displaced the 18th century Enlightenment. The Church of England dominated the English scientific establishment. The Church saw natural history as revealing God's underlying plan and as supporting the existing social hierarchy. It rejected Enlightenment philosophers such as David Hume who had argued for naturalism and against belief in God.

The discovery of fossils of extinct species was explained by theories such as catastrophism. Catastrophism claimed that animals and plants were periodically annihilated as a result of natural catastrophes and then replaced by new species created ex nihilo (out of nothing). The extinct organisms could then be observed in the fossil record, and their replacements were considered to be immutable.

Darwin's extended family of Darwins and Wedgwoods was strongly Unitarian. One of his grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin, was a successful physician, and was followed in this by his sons Charles Darwin, who died while still a promising medical student at the University of Edinburgh in 1778, and Doctor Robert Darwin, Darwin's father, who named his son after his deceased brother.

Erasmus was a freethinker who hypothesized that all warm-blooded animals sprang from a single living "filament" long, long ago. He further proposed evolution by acquired characteristics, anticipating the theory later developed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Although Charles was born after his grandfather Erasmus died, his father Robert found the texts an invaluable medical guide and Charles read them as a student. Doctor Robert also followed Erasmus in being a freethinker, but as a wealthy society physician was more discreet and attended the Church of England patronised by his clients.

Read more about this topic:  Charles Darwin's Education

Famous quotes containing the words background and, background and/or influences:

    I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    Without looking, then, to those extraordinary social influences which are now acting in precisely this direction, but only at what is inevitably doing around us, I think we must regard the land as a commanding and increasing power on the citizen, the sanative and Americanizing influence, which promises to disclose new virtues for ages to come.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)