ABSTRACT
Life. Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was descended from a well-known British family that made major contributions in the fields of medicine and natural science. Darwin himself studied first medicine, then theology, and finally natural science. The great transformation of his ideas occurred when, as a young scientist (in 1831), he sailed with the research ship the Beagle on a voyage of almost five years. Before the voyage he thought that the biological species were immutable. But as a result of the material that he collected during this voyage to South America and to certain Pacific islands, he changed his view. For example, as a result of his studies of the variation among the birds on the various islands of the Galápagos, and of the mammalian fossils in South America, he fiund that the best hypothesis to explain the relationship between the various species and their environment was the view that species are not permanent and unchangeable, but that they have evolved by adjusting to the environment. The theory based on this hypothesis is still called ‘Darwinism’. Darwin was young when he collected his material and arrived at this hypothesis, and it took a long time for him to systematize it all. During this endeavour he became acquainted with Malthus' theory that population growth follows a geometric progression, while food production can only increase in an arithmetic progression. According to this theory, more people will always be born than the given resources can sustain. Therefore, the lower classes will always live in poverty. For Darwin, this suggested an explanation of the evolution of species: the species that survive the struggle for limited resources are the ones best able to adapt to these conditions. In 1859 Darwin completed his work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. This work sparked a lively debate. Darwin himself chose to stay in the background. His health was poor, and until the end, he devoted himself to further studies of plants and animals. In 1881 he published a book about the importance of the earthworm for the soil. His other writings include The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).
