Charles and Emma Read Online Free Page A

Dr. Darwin, it seems, was not always right. But now, in the summer of 1838, Charles still wanted to get his father’s advice about marriage. He arrived at the Mount determined to talk to his father about the problem that was so big he hadn’t put it on his
Not Marry
list.

 
    Chapter 3
    Conceal Your Doubts
    Â 
    Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy
the interposition of a deity. More humble and I believe
true to consider him created from animals.
    â€”C HARLES , “C” NOTEBOOK , 1838
    Â 
    D r. Darwin had seen everything in his medical practice. He was not surprised by much. So now, in the summer of 1838, when Charles told him that he wanted to get married but was afraid about a few things, Dr. Darwin was ready to help.
    First Charles told his father that he was worried he wouldn’t be able to support a family with his current plan of pursuing science. Dr. Darwin knew Charles was going to have his first book published, an account of his voyage on the
Beagle,
and it was clear that he had a promising scientific career.
    But, Charles’s father told him, even without any income from his work, he would be fine. With family money from the doctor’s practice and wise investments, Charles would have enough to support himself and a family quite nicely while he pursued natural history and wrote books.
    This was a huge relief to Charles. But there was still a major concern holding him back. A problem so big that even Charles, who wrote down all of his thoughts, couldn’t put it on paper. This problem was as big as it got.
    The problem was God.
    Charles hadn’t always thought about God or religion as a problem. In fact, after he had given up the idea of medicine, both Charles and his father thought he was going to be a country parson. Even though Dr. Darwin was not a religious man himself, having a son who was in the church was not an anathema to him. Being a country parson was an honorable profession for a British gentleman, and one that left a good amount of time for pursuing other activities, such as collecting. So ten years earlier, Charles had left Edinburgh and had gone off to study theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge.
    While at university, Charles read theology, not just on assignment but also for pleasure. He especially enjoyed the works of William Paley. He read Paley’s
A View of the Evidences of Christianity,
his
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy,
and his
Natural Theology.
Paley wrote about natural history, arguing that if you examined specimens carefully, you could see how beautifully they were created, how perfect they were in their adaptations. This to Paley was evidence of the existence of God and proof that God was the creator of all species. Charles thought these arguments were well-written, coherent, and logical. He did not, at that point, question Paley’s premises about God’s role in creation. He later said that he had learned from Paley how to construct an argument.
    But at the same time that he devoured Paley and theology, Charles was devouring natural history and collecting specimens, especially beetles. One day he was walking around Cambridge, foraging for beetles to study. He had a beetle in one hand, and when he found a second, he put it in his otherhand. But then he saw a different kind of beetle on a tree. He wanted all three. He put the second one in his mouth and picked up the third. “Alas,” he wrote later, the one in his mouth “ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out.” He lost that one and dropped the third beetle, too. It was a lesson for him: Bugs don’t always do what you want them to, and not all beetles want to be caught.
    While at university, Charles became close friends with a botany professor, John Stevens Henslow. They would spend hours together, walking around picking up plants and insects. Charles became known as