The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Darwin, Charles Robert
Darwin, Charles
Robert
(
1809
–
82
), born at Shrewsbury, grandson of
E.
Darwin
, and educated at Edinburgh University and Christ's College, Cambridge. He embarked in
1831
with
Fitzroy
as naturalist on the Beagle, bound for South America, returned in
1836
, and published in
1839
his Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle. His great work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection appeared in
1859
.
Darwin
had received from
A.
R.
Wallace
a manuscript containing a sketch of his theory. Building upon the Uniformitarian geology of
Charles
Lyell
(
1797
–
1875
), which supposed a very great antiquity for the earth and slow, regular change, Darwin argued for a natural, not divine, origin of species. In the competitive struggle for existence, creatures possessing advantageous mutations would be favoured,...
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