ABSTRACT
C h arles D a r w in began to be born almost exactly one hundred years before the publication of The Origin of Species. The occasion was strictly masculine, the meeting, as doctor and patient, of Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, who were to be, though neither would live to know it, Charles Darwin’s grandfathers. The date cannot be precisely fixed. It cannot have been earlier than 1759, or later than 1764-1760 or 1761 seems most likely-and the place was doubtless Ivy House in Burslem, Wedgwood’s home.
