ABSTRACT
Charles Darwin's own reflections on his life and work, written between the ages of 67 and 73, remains on important work of reference, whether in the history of ideas or in a portrait gallery of men. The picture of the Darwin-Wedgwood ancestry, both as genetic forebears and as representatives of the Utilitarian and Whig traditions. His dominating love of natural history from his youthful passion for collecting and shooting, into the maturer passion of the theorizer, his diffidence slowly giving way to scientific assurance, though never to dogmatic finality. Darwin's faith in Natural Selection as the main agent never wavered, but this admission of other causes showed his awareness of difficulties still unsolved. The Autobiography shows how it was that he altered the whole course of Victorian thought, not by blazoning his discoveries nor by sudden iconoclasm, but rather through searching insight and pondered judgements opening up vast fields for further research.
