Autobiologies: Charles Darwin and the Natural History of the Self

Life Writing ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-131
Author(s):  
Tom Smith
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins

The penultimate chapter looks at the longer-term impact of the efflorescence of evolutionary speculation in early-nineteenth-century Edinburgh on later generations of natural historians. First it examines the evangelical reaction against progressive models of the history of life and its role in the eclipse of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians.’ Next it examines to the evolutionary theory proposed by Robert Chambers in his anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) to assess its possible debt to the Edinburgh transformists of the 1820s and 1830s. Finally it turns to the important question of the possible influence of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians’ on Charles Darwin during his time as a medical student in Edinburgh in the years 1825 to 1827, during which period he rubbed shoulders with many of the key proponents of evolutionary ideas in the city.


Ethnos ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Stafford
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  

1857 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 312-314

The extinct species of large terrestrial Sloth, indicated by the above name, was first made known by portions of its fossil skeleton having been discovered by Charles Darwin, Esq., F. R. S., at Punta Alta, Northern Patagonia. These portions were described by the author in the Appendix to the 'Natural History of the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle'. The subsequent acquisition by the British Museum of the collection of Fossil Mammalia brought from Buenos Ayres by M. Bravard, has given further evidence of the generic distinction of the Scelidothere, and has supplied important characters of the osseous system, and especially of the skull, which the fragments from the hard consolidated gravel of Punta Alta did not afford.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document