DARWIN, CHARLES ROBERT. — English naturalist and theorist of biology, b. at Shrewsbury on 12 February 1809, d. at Down on 19 April 1882.
A voyage, which lasted from 1851 to 1856, determined the career of D.; certain phenomena, observed especially in South America, suggested to him the first nucleus of the theory. On his return, he compiled his travel journal, now known as Journal of a Naturalist around the World (London 1839–45), and elaborated his notes on zoology and natural history.
In 1842 he settled at Down in Kent, where he devoted himself to composing a series of works, among which the Geological Observations, containing the celebrated theory on the origin of atolls, and the work on barnacles deserve mention. While collecting material on the variation of animals and plants under domestication, he received a manuscript by Wallace on the tendency of species to form varieties and
on «natural selection», in which this naturalist arrived at conclusions analogous to those that he had himself communicated to his friends several years earlier, but had not published. Wallace submitted his essay to the judgment of Lyell and D., and the latter, struck by the «surprising coincidence» (16 June 1858), consented that in July 1858 Lyell and Hooker should present to the Linnean Society the two summaries: that of his unpublished essay of 1842, mentioned above, and that of the essay Wallace had then sent him from Malaysia. The following year (London 1859) saw the publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a work that went through six editions in England before the author’s death and made him the most popular naturalist of the nineteenth century.
Two other works on the same subject followed: The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (ibid. 1868) and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (ibid. 1871). In the meantime and afterward he published others as well, in which the naturalist surpasses the theorist: on the fertilization of orchids, insectivorous plants, cross-fertilization in plants, and the formation of vegetable soil through the action of earthworms—works in which the author’s talent and the importance of the observations nevertheless remain inferior to the audacity of the theorist of his earlier works.
Having died at Down, where he had resided for 40 years, D. was buried in London, in Westminster Abbey.
(Int. Alinari)