Charles Darwin's whole life was changed by one lucky chance. In 1831, before he went on the voyage1 of the Beagle2, he was a very ordinary young man of twenty-two. No one in England—certainly not Darwin himself —had any idea of the future he had before him.
His sister Caroline gave him his first lessons. He was both lazy and naughty, and everyone was glad that he went away to school after his mother's death when he was eight.
Charles soon became a keen collector. He collected anything that caught his interest: insects3, seashells, coins and interesting stones. He said later that his collection prepared him for his work as a naturalist4.
He was not a very clever boy, but Charles was good at doing the things that interested him. He also took pleasure in carrying out experiments. But he could not learn Latin and Greek which in those days were an important part of education. He was a disappointment to his father, who was sure that he would bring nothing but shame to himself and his family.
In 1825, when Charles was sixteen, his father sent him to Edinburgh to study medicine, saying ：“As you like natural history5 so much, perhaps we can make a doctor of you.”
But Charles found the lectures boring, and the dissections6 frightening. But at Edinburgh he was able to go to natural history lectures. In 1826 he read a paper on sea-worms to the Natural History Society. This paper was his first known work on this subject.
Then his father decided to send Charles to Cambridge University to study to become a priest. With hard work, he did quite well. And, in the countryside around Cambridge, he was able to shoot, fish and collect insects.
He seemed likely to become a country priest like hundreds of others, sharing his time between his work and his interest in natural history and country life. He had a deep faith in God and a lasting interest in religion7. At this time he did not doubt that every word of the Bible was true.
Then a letter from Captain Robert FitzRoy changed his life. FitzRoy was planning to make a voyage around the world on a ship called the Beagle. He wanted a naturalist to join the ship, and Darwin was recommended8. That voyage was the start of Charles Darwin's great life work.
In those days a great many people believed that every word written in the Bible was true. Darwin hoped that the plants and animals that they found in the course of their voyage would prove the truth of the Bible story of the great Flood9.
He began to observe everything. When they got to Rio de Janeiro in South America, Charles was overcome with joy to see so many different creatures, so much life and colour. His notebooks were full of detailed observations.
Then they reached dry land at Punta Alta. There Darwin discovered his first fossils10. Why, he wondered, were there horse bones at Punta Alta, when there had been no horses in the New World until Cortez brought his from Spain11?
They came to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. It was a strange place, with terrible storms. Its people grew no food, and they slept on the wet ground. Darwin observed their looks and habits.
“How can people be so different, if all are descended12 from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?” Charles wondered.
A trip into the mountains showed Darwin seashells at a height of 12,000 feet. Lower down were fossil trees.
“So those trees once stood by the sea,” thought Darwin. “The sea came up and covered them. Then the sea-bed rose up...”. To a man who had been taught that every word in the Bible was true, this was very puzzling.
In Chile, where Darwin saw earthquakes and volcanoes, he began to see what must have happened. The centre of the earth, he decided, was very hot. The surface of the earth was thinner in some places. It was in these places that earthquakes and volcanoes developed.
As the Beagle sailed around the world, Darwin began to wonder how life had developed on earth. He saw volcanic islands in the sea, and wondered how living things had got there.
But people who believed every word of the Bible thought that God had made all creatures and Man. But, if that was true, why did some of the fossils look like “mistakes” which had failed to change and, for that reason, died out?
On went Beagle, to Tahiti13, New Zealand and Australia. There, Darwin saw coral and coral islands for the first time. How had these islands come about14? Soon, he had the answer. Coral was made up of the bodies of millions of tiny creatures, piled up over millions of years —a million years for each island. Darwin wrote it all down in his notebooks.
After five years he was home. He was never again the healthy young man who climbed mountains and carried heavy bags of fossils for miles.
He set to work, getting his collection in order. And, in 1839, he married his cousin15, Emma Wedgwood. It was a happy marriage with ten children. He could be found working in his study, with a child beside him.
His first great work The Zoology of the Beagle was well received, but he was slow to make public his ideas on the origins16 of life. He was certainly very worried about disagreeing with the accepted views of the Church.
Happily, the naturalists at Cambridge persuaded Darwin that he must make his ideas public. So Darwin and Wallace, another naturalist who had the same opinions as Darwin, produced a paper together. A year later Darwin's great book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection appeared. It attracted a storm.
People thought that Darwin was saying they were descended from monkeys. What a shameful idea! Although most scientists agreed that Darwin was right and that the story of Adam and Eve was merely a story, the Church was still so strong that Darwin never received any honours for his work.
Many years later, he published his other great work, The Descent of Man. He gave a lecture at the Royal Institution17, when the whole audience stood up and clapped18.
His health grew worse, but still he worked. “When I have to give up observation, I shall die,” he said. He was still working on 17, April, 1882. He was dead two days later.
一次偶然的机遇改变了查尔斯·达尔文的一生。1831年踏上贝格尔号的航程之前，他还是个普普通通的22岁青年。没有人，当然也包括他自己，知道他的未来是什么样子。
姐姐卡罗琳教会了他许多人生第一课。他是个懒惰又淘气的孩子，8岁那年母亲去世后他总算进了学校，人人都为此而高兴。
不久查尔斯爱上了收集，收集所有他感兴趣的东西：昆虫呀、海贝呀，还有硬币和奇形怪状的石头。他后来说这些收集为他成为博物学家打下了基础。
查尔斯并不是个特别聪明的孩子，但只要感兴趣的事情他都做得很棒。他还喜欢做各种试验，但却学不好拉丁文和希腊文，这在当时的教育中可是很重要的一部分。父亲对他颇感失望，认定他只会一事无成，辱没家门。
1825年，查尔斯16岁，父亲将他送到爱丁堡学医，说“既然你如此喜欢博物学，或许我们可以把你培养成一名医生。”
但是查尔斯却烦透了那些讲座，也惧怕解剖，不过在爱丁堡他可以去听博物学方面的讲座。1826年，他在博物学社宣读了一篇有关海船蛀虫的文章，这是该领域中他第一篇为人所知的作品。
随后他父亲决定送他去剑桥大学学习，将来当一名牧师。由于刻苦努力，他学得相当不错，而且得以在剑桥附近的乡村射猎、钓鱼以及收集各种昆虫。
看来，他像数以百计的其他学生一样可能成为一位乡村牧师，工作的同时，还可以兼顾自己对博物学和乡村生活的兴趣。他笃信上帝，对宗教有不减的热情。当时他毫不怀疑《圣经》字字真实。
可是一封来自罗伯特·菲茨洛伊船长的信改变了他的一生。菲茨洛伊计划驾驶“贝格尔号”海船做一次环球航行，他想要一位博物学家加盟，有人推荐了达尔文。此次航海成为查尔斯终生伟业的起点。
那时很多人笃信《圣经》。达尔文希望航海过程中发现的各种动植物能证明《圣经》中有关那场洪水的文字确有其事。
他开始对万物进行观察。他们到达南美洲的里约热内卢时，看到种类如此繁多的生物，那么生机盎然而色彩斑斓，查尔斯欣喜若狂，他的笔记本上全是详细的观察记录。
随后他们到了Punta Alta 的干旱地带，达尔文在那儿发现了首批化石。奇怪的是，Cortez将马从西班牙带进美洲之前，Punta Alta是没有马的，为什么却有马骨化石呢？
他们又去了南美洲南端的火地岛。那是个奇异的地方，狂风暴雨不断，当地人不种粮食作物，而且在湿漉漉的地上席地而眠。达尔文仔细观察他们的相貌和习惯。
“如果人类都是伊甸园亚当和夏娃的后代，为什么又如此不同呢？”查尔斯感到纳闷。
在海拔一万两千英尺的山上，达尔文发现了海贝，稍低处还有树木化石。
达尔文想：“这么说这些树原来长在海边，海水上涨淹没了它们，后来海底上升了……。”对一个向来接受《圣经》字字箴言灌输的人来说，这真让人疑惑不解。
在智利，达尔文亲眼目睹了地震和火山，他开始明白其中的原因。他认为，地球中心非常炽热，地球表面某些地方要薄一些，地震和火山往往爆发于这些地方。
跟随着贝格尔号做环球航行，达尔文开始思考地球上生命的演变。他看到海中的火山岛，就会对那里生物的由来感到好奇。
而笃信《圣经》的人认为所有的生物和人类都是上帝创造的。可果真如此，为什么有的化石看起来像是上帝的“失误”？它们未能适应变化，也因此而绝迹了。
贝格尔号继续航行至塔希提岛、新西兰和澳大利亚。达尔文在那些地方第一次见到了珊瑚和珊瑚岛。这些岛是怎么形成的？很快，他就有了答案。珊瑚由数百万微小生物的遗骸组成，经过数百万年的堆积，每一百万年就形成了一座岛屿。达尔文将这一切写进他的笔记里。
五年后他回到家，不再是那个能翻山越岭、并扛着沉重的化石一口气行走数英里的健康小伙儿了。
他着手整理他的收集物。1839年，他和表妹艾玛·维奇伍德结婚，婚后生活幸福，育有十个孩子。人们发现他在书房工作时，总有一个孩子在身旁。
他的第一部大作《贝格尔号的生态园》颇受欢迎，但他却不急于将自己对生命起源的看法公诸于世，他确实非常担心自己的理论与教会广为接受的观点发生冲突。
所幸剑桥大学的博物学家们都劝说达尔文公开他的观点，因此达尔文和另一位持相同观点的博物学家瓦雷斯共同发表了一篇文章。一年后，他的巨著《物竞天择，物种起源》问世并掀起了轩然大波。
人们认为达尔文在说人是猴子的后代，这种观点简直有失体面！虽然大多数科学家同意达尔文是对的，亚当和夏娃之说仅仅是故事而已，但教会的力量如此强大，这部著作没有给达尔文带来任何荣誉。
许多年后，他出版了另一部名著《人类的演化》。他在皇家研究院作了一次演讲，全场听众一致起立为之鼓掌。
他的健康每况愈下，但他工作不止，并说“我不得不放弃观察的时候，我也就完了。”1882年4月17日还在工作的他，两天以后与世长辞。
1． voyage n． 航海，航程
2． Beagle n． 帆船“贝格尔号”。
3． insect n． 昆虫
4． naturalist n． 博物学家
5． natural history 博物学
6． dissection n． 解剖
7． religion n． 宗教
8． recommend v． 记载
9． the great Flood （圣经中的）大洪水
10． fossil n． 化石
11． the New World 新世界，即美洲，相对于欧洲the Old World而言
12． descend v． 遗传
be descended from 为…的后裔
13． Tahiti 塔希提岛(位于南太平洋)
14． come about 发生，产生
15． cousin n． 表（堂）兄弟姐妹
16． origin n． 起源
17． the Royal Institution 英国皇家研究院
18． clap v． 鼓掌