HUMANITIES: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities
Feature
Darwin the Young Adventurer
The budding naturalist avoids life as a minister and finds himself aboard the Beagle.
Janet Browne
HUMANITIES, May/June 2009, Volume 30, Number 3
Photo caption
Charles Darwin (1840) by George Richmond.
–Down House, Kent, UK/Bridgeman Art Library
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In 2009 two important commemorative events coincide—the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth, coincidentally on the same day as Abraham Lincoln’s, and the sesquicentennial of publication of Darwin’s pioneering work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Universities and natural history museums around the world are celebrating Darwin’s achievement throughout the year. Here we take a fresh look at the voyage that turned Darwin into one of science’s greatest thinkers.
Charles Darwin was only twenty-two years old when he was offered the opportunity of a lifetime. Those years afloat have become part of history. Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle is famous for turning his mind toward evolutionary theory, for giving him the intellectual stamina and materials to support such a theory, and for the romantic symbolism of his movement toward such an unexpected yet magnificent goal.
Darwin himself certainly appreciated the impact of the voyage. For him, the Beagle voyage opened the door to exceptional sights and opportunities—the impressive landscapes of South America, the fecundity of the tropics, dramatic encounters with other cultures and ways of life, hazardous travels off the beaten track, exotic islands, and countless moments when his imagination was powerfully stirred. On his return, his Beagle successes enabled him to join the world of natural history experts, and inspired the evolutionary views that he expressed in 1859 in On the Origin of Species. “The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career,” he declared in his autobiography.
