The Voyage of the Beagle

A young Charles Darwin

I just finished reading Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. It was an excellent book, and I am more convinced than ever that I should have been born what Victorian England termed a "gentleman scholar". Darwin spent five years exploring, observing, noting, recording, pondering and contemplating everything from weather patterns, to mating rituals of insects. His job was basically to "check out" South America, and learn as much as he could about as much as possible. Awesome!
The book seemed a little daunting at first, both because of the small text and large stature, and because of some of the Latin names of things that seemed to jump off the pages as I flipped through it. But neither proved to be a detriment. The book was pleasant enough that I actually enjoyed the length of it, and it was divided into chapters that were easily readable in a sitting. Secondly, most of the Latin names were either accompanied by the more familiar one, or it turned out not to be that important. For example if he was talking about a certain kind of beetle or coral I found that most of the time it was more of an inventory and thus not important what genus or species it was. The same went for most of the birds. I could look things up when I found them particularly interesting, but most of the time it wasn't necessary.
I also got to "know" Darwin a little through his own voice. I guess because of my religious background I'd grown up with the vague impression that he was a trouble maker, subversive and sneaky, and somehow a bad person. Even after I became an adult and came to understand the truth about evolution and natural selection, and read about Darwin, I still thought of him as a rebel, an outspoken "go-against-the-grain" kind of guy. But boy-oh-boy was I wrong! He (and I mean the "he" that I can know through his writings) was the opposite of pretty much every thought I've ever had about him. He was quiet, kind, polite, sensitive and humble. He was thoughtful, observant, and ultra-sympathetic to all animals (except maybe fleas) both human and non. He loved nature, and life, and the mysteries of the earth. He was adventurous, and inquisitive, and at the time he wrote The Voyage of the Beagle, clearly religious to a certain degree. The last part was especially surprising since I kind of assumed he was sort of anti-religious. But not so.
Anyway, he just seems like a really decent human being. And I think it's unfortunate that such an admirable man has acquired such a bad rap from some religious circles.
My next book by him (since I am trying to go through them in more or less chronological order) will be On the Origin of Species. I am already sensing the difficulty with which he wrote it, on account of his nature, and his sensitivity to those around him. I know from other accounts that his wife was very religious, and I know that he (Darwin) seemed always to take great care in not offending anyone. It should be interesting!
As a naturalist and scientist he is clearly admirable, and his contribution to science is almost unfathomable. Only now I am starting to think that the human being he simply was is also worthy of our admiration and respect.