British Culture - User contributions [en]

Sigmund Freud

2010-11-12T14:29:54Z

JB: /* Later life */

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on May 6 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia, in the Austrian Empire. He died on September 23 1939 in London. He was the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud was an acting neurologist, psychologist and psychiatrist.

== Psychoanalysis ==
He first used the term psychoanalysis in 1896, after he wrote the essay "Studien über Hysterie" ("Studies in Hysteria", 1936) with Josef Breuer in 1895. In the examination of Breuer's technique of free association, Sigmund Freud started to develop psychoanalysis. Breuer used the technique of free association on the patient Bertha Pappenheim who suffered from different mental illnesses. The patient – afterwards known under the pseudonym Anna O. – described the mental symptoms she was suffering from once more and went through her suppressed feelings once again, thus abreacting them. The basis of the method of psychoanalysis was therefore invented at the end of the 19th century. While further developing the technique, Freud asked the patients to express all of the thoughts they had at that moment. He hoped to reproduce inarticulate thoughts from the unconscious. Freud developed his psychoanalysis and wrote down its principles ''Die Traumdeutung'', first published in 1899 (''The Interpretation of Dreams'', 1913). Sigmund Freud analyses himself in this work and thus it has strong autobiographical traits. It contains fundamental psychological ideas like the Oedipus Complex or the impact of repression on the person. During the work on this book he already had ideas concerning sexuality which he developed into a proper theory in ''Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualität'', first published in 1905 (''Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality'', 1910). In ''Das Ich und das Es'' (''The Ego and the Id'', 1927), first published in 1923 he introduces the Ego, the Id and the Superego as structural characteristics of the psyche.

== Later life ==
His psychoanalysis plays an important role in the two works ''Die Zukunft einer Illusion'' (''The Future of an Illusion'', 1928) and ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'' (''Civilization and Its Discontents'', 1930). Sigmund Freud suffered from chronic pain after developing palatal cancer in 1923. Especially in the book of 1930 a very dark view on the world emerged.

"[Er] beklagte sich darüber, daß hinter dieser Arbeit kein Drang mehr stecke. 'Was sollte ich aber tun? Man kann nicht den ganzen Tag rauchen und Karten spielen, im Gehen bin ich nicht mehr ausdauernd, und das meiste, was man lesen kann, interessiert mich nicht mehr. Ich schrieb, und die Zeit verging mir dabei ganz angenehm.'" (Quoted in Gay 611)

Freud was not that optimistic for the success of this book, because he thought it did not contain anything that had not been said before. However, this was one of his most successful and influential works. Especially in the work from 1930 his religious opinions play an important role. In it he describes religion as infantile or a palliative.

Freud had to flee to London due to the ever growing influence of the German Reich and the National Socialist Party which not only persecuted Jews, but also thought Freud's theories decadent and wrong, with his family in 1938. One year later, Freud commited suicide with the aide of his doctor. He was no longer able to speak and was permanently in agonizing pain.

Sigmund Freud has forever changed the understanding of the human mind by inventing the field of psychoanalysis. Though some of his theories are outdated, many of his methods are in a modified way used in practise up until today. He coined many words such as ''the subconcious'' or ''the Oedipus Complex'' and his work plays an important part in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century.

== Sources ==
Gay, Peter. ''Freud. Eine Biographie für unsere Zeit''. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995.

Gribbin, John. ''The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Sigmund Freud.'' UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.

Sigmund Freud

2010-11-12T14:29:11Z

JB:

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on May 6 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia, in the Austrian Empire. He died on September 23 1939 in London. He was the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud was an acting neurologist, psychologist and psychiatrist.

== Psychoanalysis ==
He first used the term psychoanalysis in 1896, after he wrote the essay "Studien über Hysterie" ("Studies in Hysteria", 1936) with Josef Breuer in 1895. In the examination of Breuer's technique of free association, Sigmund Freud started to develop psychoanalysis. Breuer used the technique of free association on the patient Bertha Pappenheim who suffered from different mental illnesses. The patient – afterwards known under the pseudonym Anna O. – described the mental symptoms she was suffering from once more and went through her suppressed feelings once again, thus abreacting them. The basis of the method of psychoanalysis was therefore invented at the end of the 19th century. While further developing the technique, Freud asked the patients to express all of the thoughts they had at that moment. He hoped to reproduce inarticulate thoughts from the unconscious. Freud developed his psychoanalysis and wrote down its principles ''Die Traumdeutung'', first published in 1899 (''The Interpretation of Dreams'', 1913). Sigmund Freud analyses himself in this work and thus it has strong autobiographical traits. It contains fundamental psychological ideas like the Oedipus Complex or the impact of repression on the person. During the work on this book he already had ideas concerning sexuality which he developed into a proper theory in ''Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualität'', first published in 1905 (''Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality'', 1910). In ''Das Ich und das Es'' (''The Ego and the Id'', 1927), first published in 1923 he introduces the Ego, the Id and the Superego as structural characteristics of the psyche.

== Later life ==
His psychoanalysis plays an important role in the two works ''Die Zukunft einer Illusion'' (''The Future of an Illusion'', 1928) and ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'' (''Civilization and Its Discontents'', 1930). Sigmund Freud suffered from chronic pain after developing palatal cancer in 1923. Especially in the book of 1930 a very dark view on the world emerged.

"[Er] beklagte sich darüber, daß hinter dieser Arbeit kein Drang mehr stecke. 'Was sollte ich aber tun? Man kann nicht den ganzen Tag rauchen und Karten spielen, im Gehen bin ich nicht mehr ausdauernd, und das meiste, was man lesen kann, interessiert mich nicht mehr. Ich schrieb, und die Zeit verging mir dabei ganz angenehm.'" (Quoted in Gay 611)

Freud was not that optimistic for the success of this book, because he thought it did not contain anything that had not been said before. However, this was one of his most successful and influential works. Especially in the work from 1930 his religious opinions play an important role. In it he describes religion as infantile or a palliative.

Freud had to flee to London due to the ever growing influence of the German Reich and the National Socialist Party which not only persecuted Jews, but also thought Freud's theories decadent and wrong, with his family in 1938. One year later, Freud commited suicide with the aide of his doctor. He was no longer able to speak and was permanently in agonizing pain.

Sigmund Freud has forever changed the understanding of the human mind by inventing the field of psychoanalysis. Though some of his theories are outdated, many of his methods are in a modified way used in practise up until today. He coined many words such as ''the subconcious'' or ''the Oedipus Complex'' and his work is an important part in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century.

== Sources ==
Gay, Peter. ''Freud. Eine Biographie für unsere Zeit''. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995.

Gribbin, John. ''The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Sigmund Freud.'' UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.

Charles Darwin

2010-11-12T14:17:48Z

JB:

1809-1882. British scientist, mainly known for his research on Evolution.

== Early life and education ==

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12 1809 in Shropshire, England. He died at the age of 73 on April 19 1882 in Downe, Kent. He was the son of doctor Robert Waring Darwin and of Susannah Wegwood. After the death of his mother, his three older sisters took care of him and his overbearing father, who, due to his ingenious medical observations, taught him much about the human psychology. Another important influence was his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who was a physician and poet.

After studying at the traditional Anglican Shrewsbury School from 1818 to 1825, he started his studies of medicine at Edinburgh University, the leading university for studying science. Though Darwin was not interested in medicine, he got in contact with the newest ideas in the natural sciences and the consequences of deviant views. The impact of the French Revolution had not yet faded and thus one talk about the mind as a product of a material brain was officially censored for being too materialistic. At Edinburgh Darwin got in contact with Robert Edmond Grant, an evolutionist and expert on sponges, who later on became his mentor.

Darwin got in contact with evolutionary theories in Edinburgh, but he still refused to learn medicine. Therefore, his father decided that a religious education was better suited for him. He was sent to Christ College, Cambridge, in 1828. There he was educated to be an Anglican gentleman. Professor John Stevens Henslow introduced him to the conservative side of botany and enhanced the knowledge he gained in Edinburgh. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1831.

Due to the contact to Alexander von Humboldt's ''Personal Narrative of Travels'' and Henslow's suggestion to take part in a voyage to Tierra del Fuego aboard the HMS Beagle, Darwin decided to join Robert Fitzroy in his journey around the world as a gentleman companion.

== Aboard the HMS Beagle 1831-1836 ==

The next five years of Charles Darwin's life were not only very strenuous but he also collected the empirical basis for his theory. On his travels he got in contact with many different aspects of the life of a discoverer. He had to fight seasickness as well as the straining weather conditions in the different parts of the world. He took part in several armed conflicts. Very important for his interest as a naturalist were the fossils he found at Bahía Blanca and Port St Julian. The corpus of finds made him think about the reason for the extinction of these giant beasts and the primeval world. Another natural phenomenon, the thrusting of the continents, occupied him in Valdiva, Chile, where he experienced an earthquake and saw traces that the ground in that area had risen. Darwin now started thinking in long-term concepts. All in all, Darwin finished a 770-page diary, wrapped up 1,750 pages of notes and collected nearly 5,500 skins, bones and carcasses. After the five years of voyage, he had enough empirical material and ideas to start on his theory of evolution.

== Analysing the findings 1836-1842 ==

Finally in a safe harbour, Darwin started on analysing his findings as a gentleman geologist. He settled in London and was funded by his father. As a new fellow of the Geological Society and a friend to Sir Charles Lyell he discussed the rising Chilean coastline. He published his diary ''Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle'' in 1839 and thus became a rising star in the scene of naturalists. In the troubled times following the [[First Reform Act]] (1832), Darwin started his work on a theory of evolution. His findings were analysed all over the world and scientists from all different fields answered some of the questions that Darwin could not, for example that several mammal species had been extinct and replaced by their own kind following some kind of “law of succession”. It was then, when he picked up the idea of evolution and started to develop his theory. The influences of his grandfather Erasmus and Robert Grant might have played an important role in the development of the theory because they taught him to think outside of the conventional patterns.

For the next two years, he followed several different leads and searched for the causes for extinctions. He accepted the idea that life is like a branching tree and cannot be seen as a ladder with one species unconnected but higher positioned than another. He feared that if he published his theory he would have to face censorship. He had seen censorship in Edinburgh and knew that the Anglican church thought of evolutionist theories as blasphemy. And he was right to be worried since he wrote mankind into the evolutionary equation and explained society and morals as part of the behaviour of mammals. Therefore he decided to wait for a new trend in the society that would allow him to express his idea.

Due to the explosion in population and the passing of the Poor Law in 1834, Darwin started to think of the social implications of a geometrically rising population and the arithmetically rising production of food (he got the idea from Thomas Malthus's ''Essay on the Principle of Population''). He then changed his opinion that the population of animals in the wild stays constant into the idea that there is a struggle for resources and that only the strongest will prevail. Thus “natural selection” was born. The idea of “survival of the fittest” was borrowed from Herbert Spencer's philosophical ideas concerning evolution.

Up to 1839, he had not published his ideas. He finished his theory in this year and married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. Though his theory left little room for a deity, Darwin believed in a lawgiving God. However he still feared publishing his ideas and left them a secret.

== At the edge of the world 1842-1854 ==

In the years from 1842 till 1854 he secluded himself from the world because of a chronic illness he suffered from. Up to this day it is unclear what illness exactly he suffered from. He bought a house in Downe, Kent, and tried to keep up his public image. He published several papers and essays on geological themes and tried to live an average life. However, he secretly never stopped working on his ideas on natural selection. Soon after the marriage, he had presented them to his wife who reacted very timidly. He wrote a sketch of his theory in 1842 and expanded it in 1844 which was to be published after his death.

== On the Origin of Species 1859 ==

The political situation in Britain in the 1850s changed to the better and Darwin had now found a society in which he could dare publish his theory of evolution. As a preparation he compared the rules of the division of labour with the evolution of animals. The competition in the marketplace would create workers that need to find a field of work with less competition in which they can earn money and animals try to do the same. As soon as there is no way to find food in the one field, animals would start to develop to exploit another one by for example developing wings, a long neck or other tools. Darwin's reputation grew steadily in the 1850s and in 1856 he started to work on a triple volume called ''Natural Selection''. At first an abstract, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'' developed into an independent book. It was published on November 22, 1859. The 1850s were also a time in which his illness took a greater toll on him and he needed to be represented by his friend Thomas Henry Huxley in public.

The public opinion on the book was in general a positive one. Darwin's fear of being censored led him to avoid certain aspects such as the connection between humans and apes and the mortality of mankind. By 1866 his theory on evolution was acknowledged by the British Association platforms.

Darwin had cleared his own way for his later publication ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' in 1871. His decision to slowly introduce his complete theory of the descent of man prevented censorship and prepared British society for a new perspective on mankind. However, Darwin still was targeted by critics and caricaturists. The discussion following his work and the influence on the western culture is invaluable.

Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882 as one of the most important scientists in the 19th century.

== Sources ==
Primary Source

Gribbin, John. ''The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Charles Darwin.'' UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.

''The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online''. Director Dr. John van Wyhe. 04.11.2010.
<http://darwin-online.org.uk/darwin.html>

Sigmund Freud

2010-11-11T13:29:59Z

JB:

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on May 6 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia, in the Austrian Empire. He died on September 23 1939 in London. He was the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud was an acting neurologist, psychologist and psychiatrist.

== Psychoanalysis ==
He first used the term psychoanalysis in 1896, after he wrote the essay "Studien über Hysterie" ("Studies in Hysteria", 1936) with Josef Breuer in 1895. In the examination of Breuer's technique of free association, Sigmund Freud started to develop psychoanalysis. Breuer used the technique of free association on the patient Bertha Pappenheim who suffered from different mental illnesses. The patient – afterwards known under the pseudonym Anna O. – described the mental symptoms she was suffering from once more and went through her suppressed feelings once again, thus abreacting them. The basis of the method of psychoanalysis was therefore invented at the end of the 19th century. While further developing the technique, Freud asked the patients to express all of the thoughts they had at that moment. He hoped to reproduce inarticulate thoughts from the unconscious. Freud developed his psychoanalysis and wrote down its principles ''Die Traumdeutung'', first published in 1899 (''The Interpretation of Dreams'', 1913). Sigmund Freud analyses himself in this work and thus it has strong autobiographical traits. It contains fundamental psychological ideas like the Oedipus Complex or the impact of repression on the person. During the work on this book he already had ideas concerning sexuality which he developed into a proper theory in ''Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualität'', first published in 1905 (''Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality'', 1910). In ''Das Ich und das Es'' (''The Ego and the Id'', 1927), first published in 1923 he introduces the Ego, the Id and the Superego as structural characteristics of the psyche.

== Later life ==
His psychoanalysis plays an important role in the two works ''Die Zukunft einer Illusion'' (''The Future of an Illusion'', 1928) and ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'' (''Civilization and Its Discontents'', 1930). Sigmund Freud suffered from chronic pain after developing palatal cancer in 1923. Especially in the book of 1930 a very dark view on the world emerged.

"[Er] beklagte sich darüber, daß hinter dieser Arbeit kein Drang mehr stecke. 'Was sollte ich aber tun? Man kann nicht den ganzen Tag rauchen und Karten spielen, im Gehen bin ich nicht mehr ausdauernd, und das meiste, was man lesen kann, interessiert mich nicht mehr. Ich schrieb, und die Zeit verging mir dabei ganz angenehm.'" (Quoted in Gay 611)

Freud was not that optimistic for the success of this book, because he thought it did not contain anything that had not been said before. However, this was one of his most successful and influential works. Especially in the work from 1930 his religious opinions play an important role. In it he describes religion as infantile or a palliative.

Freud had to flee to London due to the ever growing influence of the German Reich with his family in 1938. One year later, Freud commited suicide with the aide of his doctor. He was no longer able to speak and was permanently in agonizing pain.

== Sources ==
Gay, Peter. ''Freud. Eine Biographie für unsere Zeit''. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995.

Gribbin, John. ''The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Sigmund Freud.'' UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.

Sigmund Freud

2010-11-06T09:42:21Z

JB: moved Sigmund freud to Sigmund Freud

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia, in the Austrian Empire. He died on September 23, 1939 in London. He was the founder of the psychoanalysis. Freud was an acting neurologist, psychologist and psychiatrist.

== Psychoanalysis ==
He first used the term psychoanalysis in 1896, after he wrote the essay ''Studien über Hysterie'' (Studies in Hysteria, 1936) with Josef Breuer in 1895. In the examination of Breuer's technique of free association, Sigmund Freud started to develop the psychoanalysis. Breuer used the technique of free association on the patient Bertha Pappenheim who suffered from different mental illnesses. The patient – afterwards known under the pseudonym Anna O. – described the mental symptoms she was suffering from once more and underwent her suppressed feelings once again, thus abreacting them. The basis of the method of psychoanalysis was therefore invented in the end of the 19th century. While further developing the technique, Freud asked the patients to express all of the thoughts they had at that moment. He hoped to reproduce inarticulate thoughts from the subconscious. Freud developed his psychoanalysis and wrote down its principles in the 1899 published work ''Die Traumdeutung'' (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1913). Sigmund Freud analyses himself in this work and thus it has strong autobiographical traits. It contains fundamental psychological ideas like the Oedipus Complex or the impact of repression on the person. During the work on this book he already had ideas concerning sexuality which he then in 1905 developed into a proper theory in his work ''Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualität'' (Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1910). The last structure of his psychoanalysis introduces the Ego, the Id and the Superego as structural characteristics in the 1923 published book ''Das Ich und das Es'' (The Ego and the Id, 1927).

== Later life ==
His psychoanalysis plays an important role in the two works ''Die Zukunft einer Illusion'' (The Future of an Illusion, 1928) and ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'' (Civilization and Its Discontents, 1930). Sigmund Freud suffered from chronic pain after developing palatal cancer in 1923. Especially in the book of 1930 a very dark view on the world emerged.

“[Er] beklagte sich darüber, daß hinter dieser Arbeit kein Drang mehr stecke. >> Was sollte ich aber tun? Man kann nicht den ganzen Tag rauchen und Karten spielen, im Gehen bin ich nicht mehr ausdauernd, und das meiste, was man lesen kann, interessiert mich nicht mehr. Ich schrieb, und die Zeit verging mir dabei ganz angenehm.<<” (Peter Gay p. 611)

Freud was not that optimistic for the success of this book, because he thought it did not contain anything that had not been said before. However, this was one of his most successful and influential works. Especially in the work from 1930 his religious opinions play an important role. In it he describes religion as infantile or a palliative.

== Sources ==
Gay, Peter. ''Freud. Eine Biographie für unsere Zeit''. Frankfurt am Main, 1995.

Gribbin, John. ''The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Sigmund Freud.'' UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.

Sigmund Freud

2010-11-06T09:35:47Z

JB: Created page with 'Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia, in the Austrian Empire. He died on September 23, 1939 in London. He was the founder of the psychoanalysis. F…'

Charles Darwin

2010-11-05T10:12:44Z

JB:

1809-1882. British scientist, mainly known for his research on Evolution.

== Early life and education ==

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shropshire, England. He died at the age of 73 on April 19, 1882 in Downe, Kent. He was the son of doctor Robert Waring Darwin and of Susannah Wegwood. After the death of his mother, his three older sisters took care of him and his overbearing father, who, due to his ingenious medical observations, taught him much about the human psychology. Another important influence was his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who was a physician and poet.

After studying at the traditional Anglican Shrewsbury School from 1818 to 1825, he started his studies of medicine at the Edinburgh University. Though Darwin was not interested in medicine, Edinburgh still had the leading science education in British universities. Here he got in contact with the newest ideas in the natural sciences and the consequences of deviant views. The impact of the French revolution had not yet faded and thus one talk about the mind as a product of a material brain was officially censored for being too materialistic. At Edinburgh Darwin got in contact with Robert Edmond Grant, an evolutionist and expert on sponges, who later on became his mentor.

Darwin got in contact with evolutionary theories in Edinburgh, but he still refused to learn medicine. Therefore, his father decided that a religious education was better suited for him. He was sent to Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1828. There he was educated to be an Anglican gentlemen. Professor John Stevens Henslow introduced him to the conservative side of botany and enhanced the knowledge he gained in Edinburgh. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1831.

Due to the contact to Alexander von Humboldt's ''Personal Narrative of Travels'' and Henslow's suggestion to take part in a voyage to Tierra del Fuego aboard the HMS Beagle, Darwin decided to join Robert Fitzroy in his journey around the world as a gentleman companion.

== Aboard the HMS Beagle 1831-1836 ==

The next five years of Charles Darwin's life were not only very strenuous but he also collected the empirical basis for his theory. On his travels he got in contact with many different aspects of the life of a discoverer. He had to fight seasickness as well as the straining weather conditions in the different parts of the world. He took part in several armed conflicts and discovered for himself the human evils in the savage world and its difference to the civilised world in Europe. Very important for his interest as a naturalist were the fossils he found at Bahía Blanca and Port St. Julian. The corpus of finds made him think about the reason for the extinction of these giant beasts and the primeval world. Another natural phenomenon, the thrusting of the continents, occupied him in Valdiva, Chile, where he experienced an earthquake and saw traces that the ground in that area had risen. Darwin now started thinking in concepts of deep time. All in all, Darwin finished a 770-page diary, wrapped up 1,750 pages of notes and collected nearly 5,500 skins, bones and carcasses. After the five years of voyage, he had enough empirical material and ideas to start on his theory of evolution.

== Analysing the findings 1836-1842 ==

Finally in a safe harbour, Darwin started on analysing his findings as a gentleman geologist. He settled in London and was funded by his father. As a new fellow of the Geological Society and a friend to Sir Charles Lyell he discussed the rising Chilean coastline. He published his diary ''Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle'' in 1839 and thus became a rising star in the scene of naturalists. In the troubled times following the First Reform Act (1832), Darwin started his work on a theory of evolution. His findings were analysed all over the world and scientists from all different fields answered some of the questions that Darwin could not. Several mammal species had been extinct and replaced by their own kind following some kind of “law of succession”. It was then, when he picked up the idea of evolution and started to develop his theory. The influences of his grandfather Erasmus and Robert Grant might have played an important role to develop the theory.

For the next two years, he followed several different leads and searched for the causes for extinctions. He accepted the idea that life is like a branching tree and cannot be seen as a ladder with one species unconnected but higher positioned than another. He feared that if he published his theory he would have to face censorship. He had seen censorship in Edinburgh and knew that the Anglican church thought of evolutionist theories as blasphemy. And he was right to be worried since he wrote mankind into the evolutionary equation and explained society and morals as part of the troop behaviour of mammals.

Due to the explosion in population and the passing of the Poor Law in 1834, Darwin started to think of the social implications of a geometrically rising population and the arithmetically rising production of food (he got the idea of Thomas Malthus's ''Essay on the Principle of Population''). He then changed his opinion that the population of animals in the wild stays constant into the idea that there is a struggle for resources and that only the strongest will prevail “survival of the fittest”. Thus “natural selection” was born.

Up to 1839, he had not published his ideas. He finished his theory in this year and married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. Though his theory left little room for a deity, Darwin believed in a lawgiving God. However he still feared publishing his ideas and them a secret.

== At the edge of the world 1842-1854 ==

In the years from 1842 till 1854 he secluded himself from the world because of a chronic illness. He bought a house in Downe, Kent and tried to keep up his public image. He published several papers and essays on geological themes and tried to live an average life. However, he secretly never stopped working on his ideas on natural selection. Soon after the marriage, he had presented them to his wife who reacted very timidly. He wrote a sketch of his theory in 1842 and expanded it in 1844 which was to be published after his death.

== On the Origin of Species 1859 ==

The political situation in Britain 1850's changed to the better and Darwin had now found a society in which he could dare publishing his theory of evolution. As a preparation he compared the rules of the division of labour with the evolution of animals. The competition in the marketplaces would create workers that exploit another field of work and so would animals. As soon as there is no way to find food in the one field, animals would start to develop to exploit another one. Darwins reputation grew steadily in the 50's and in 1856 he started to work on a triple volume called ''Natural Selection''. At first an abstract, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'' developed into an independent book. It was published on November 22, 1859. The 50's were also a time in which his illness took a greater toll on him and he needed to be represented by his friend Thomas Henry Huxley in public.

The public opinion on the book was in general a positive one. Darwins fear of being censored led him to avoid certain aspects such as the connection between humans and apes and the mortality of mankind. By 1866 his theory on evolution was acknowledged by the British Association platforms.

Darwin had cleared his own way for his later publication ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' in 1871. His decision to slowly introduce his complete theory of the descent of man prevented its censorship and prepared the British society for a new perspective on mankind. However, Darwin still was targeted by critics and caricaturists. The discussion following his work and the influence on the western culture is invaluable.

Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882 as one of the most important scientists in the 19th century.

== Sources ==
Primary Source

Gribbin, John. ''The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Charles Darwin.'' UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.

''The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online''. Director Dr. John van Wyhe. 04.11.2010.
<http://darwin-online.org.uk/darwin.html>

Charles Darwin

2010-11-03T10:35:16Z

JB: Created page with '== '''Charles Darwin''' == == '''Early life and education''' == Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shropshire, England. He died in the age of 73 on April 1…'

== '''Charles Darwin''' ==

== '''Early life and education''' ==

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shropshire, England. He died in the age of 73 on April 19, 1882 in Downe, Kent. He was the son of doctor Robert Waring Darwin and of Susannah Wegwood. After the death of his mother, he was cared for by his three elder sisters and his overbearing father, who, due to his ingenious medical observations, taught him much about the human psychology. Another important influence was his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who was a freethinking physician and poet.
To be continued.