Inception of Darwin's Theory - Thoughts of Marriage

Thoughts of Marriage

The Hensleigh Wedgwoods were now living next door to Erasmus and were visited for a week by Catherine Darwin and Emma Wedgwood. Charles visited and found them "a very pleasant merry company", particularly noticing Emma's remarkably pleasant manners.

Illness prompted Darwin to take a break from the pressure of work and on 23 June 1838 he took the steamboat to Edinburgh to go "geologising" in Scotland. After revisiting Edinburgh on 28 June (the day that Queen Victoria had her coronation in London) he went on to Fort William. At Glen Roy in glorious weather he was convinced that he had solved the riddle of the "parallel roads" around the glen, which he identified as raised beaches, though later geologists would support the ideas of Louis Agassiz that these had been formed by glaciation.

Fully recuperated and optimistic, he returned home to The Mount, Shrewsbury. He discussed his ideas with his father and asked for advice about Emma. Speaking from experience, Doctor Robert Waring Darwin told his son to conceal religious doubts which could cause "extreme misery... Things went on pretty well until the husband or wife became out of health, and then some women suffered miserably by doubting about the salvation of their husbands, thus making them likewise to suffer." Charles drew up a list with two columns on a scrap of paper. Under Marry he listed benefits, "Children–if it please God–Constant companion & friend in old age will feel interested in one,–object to be beloved and played with, better than a dog anyhow.....Imagine living all one's day solitary in smoky dirty London House.–only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps...", while Not Marry headed "Freedom to go where one liked... Not forced to visit relatives..to have the expense and anxiety of children.. fatness & idleness... if many children forced to earn one's bread..". He jotted down further thoughts, then concluded "My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won't do. — Imagine living all one's day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro' St. Marry–Marry–Marry Q.E.D."

Then he spent his fortnight being "Very idle at Shrewsbury" which meant starting his "D" notebook on the transmutation sequence and his "M" notebook on the evolutionary basis of moral and social behaviour, filling sixty pages with notes and anecdotes from his father about experiences with patients.

Having come down in favour, he went to visit his cousin Emma on 29 July. He did not get around to proposing, but failed to conceal his ideas on transmutation. Emma noted "he is the most open, transparent man I ever saw, and every word expresses his real thoughts." When she asked about ultimate origins he steered clear of the subject, aware that "it will become necessary to show how the first eye is formed" which he could not yet do.