+++ No. The act shows intelligence +++ said Hex. +++ Remember, I detected malignity. I surmise that your interference in this history has led to some counter-measure +++
`Elves again?' said Ridcully.
+++ No. They are not clever enough. I can detect nothing except natural forces +++
`Natural forces aren't animate,' said Ponder. `They can't think!' +++ pause for dramatic effect ... Perhaps the ones here have learned to +++ said Hex.
WATCH-22
IN THE STANDARD VERSION OF Roundworld history, Charles Darwin's presence on the Beagle came about only because of a highly improbable series of coincidences - so improbable that it is tempting to view them as wizardly intervention. What Darwin expected to become was not a globetrotting naturalist who revolutionised humanity's view of living creatures, but a country vicar.
And it was all Paley's fault.
Natural Theologys seductive and beautifully argued line of reasoning found considerable favour with the devout people of Georgian (III and IV) England, and after them, the equally devout subjects of William IV and Victoria. By the time Victoria ascended to the throne, in 1837, it was indeed almost compulsory for country vicars to become experts in some local moth, or bird, or flower, and the Church actively encouraged such activities because they were continuing revelations of the glory of God. The Suffolk rector William Kirby was co-author, with the businessman William Spence, of a lavish four-volume treatise An Introduction to Entomology, for example. It was fine for a clergyman to interest himself in beetles. Or geology, a relatively new branch of science that had grabbed the young Charles Darwin's attention.
The big breakthrough in geology, which turned it into a fully fledged science, was Charles Lyell's discovery of Deep Time - the idea that the Earth is enormously older than Ussher's 6000 years. Lyell argued that the rocks that we find at the Earth's surface are the product of an ongoing sequence of physical, chemical, and biological processes. By measuring the thickness of the rock layers, and estimating the rate at which those layers can form, he deduced that the Earth must be extraordinarily ancient.
Darwin had a passion for geology, and absorbed Lyell's ideas like a sponge. However, Charles was basically rather lazy, and his father knew it. He also knew, to quote Adrian Desmond and James Moore's biography Darwin, that: The Anglican Church, fat, complacent, and corrupt, lived luxuriously on tithes and endowments, as it had for a century. Desirable parishes were routinely auctioned to the highest bidder. A fine rural `living' with a commodious rectory, a few acres to rent or farm, and perhaps a tithe barn to hold the local levy worth hundreds of pounds a year, could easily be bought as an investment by a gentleman of Dr. Darwin's means and held for his son.
That, at least, was the plan.
And at first, the plan seemed to be working. In 1828 Charles was admitted to the University of Cambridge, taking his oath of matriculation one cold January morning, swearing to uphold the university's ancient statutes and customs, `so help me God and his holy Gospels'. He was enrolled at Christ's College for a degree in theology, alongside his cousin William Darwin Fox who had started the previous year. (Charles had previously attempted medicine in Edinburgh, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, but he became disillusioned and left without a degree.) After getting his Batchelor of Arts degree, he might spend a further year reading theology, ready to be ordained in the, Anglican Church. He could become a curate, marry, and take up a rural position near Shrewsbury.
It was all arranged.
Shortly after starting at Christ's, Charles was bitten by the beetle bug, as it were. An Introduction to Entomology sparked off an intense interest in beetles, when seemingly half the nation was out searching the woods and hedgerows to find new species. Since there were more species of beetle in the world than anything else, this was a serious prospect. Charles and his cousin scoured the byways of rural Cambridgeshire, pinning their catches in neat rows on large sheets of cardboard. He didn't find a new species of beetle, but he found a rare German one, seen only twice before in the whole of England.
Towards the end of his second year at university, exams loomed. Darwin had been too intent on beetles and a young lady named Fanny Owen and had neglected his academic studies. Now he had a mere two months left to do the work of two years. In particular, there would be ten questions on the book Evidences of Christianity, by one William Paley. Darwin had already read the book, but now he read it again with new attention - and loved it. He found the logic fascinating. Moreover, Paley's political leanings were distinctly leftwing, which appealed to Charles's innate sense of social justice. Bolstered by his studies of Paley, Darwin scraped through.
Next in line were the final exams. Another of Paley's books was on the syllabus: Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. The book was outdated, and sailed close to the wind of (political) heresy and well into the shallows of unorthodoxy; that was why it was on the syllabus. You had to be able to argue the case against it, where applicable. It said, for example, that an established Church formed no part of Christianity. Darwin, then a very conventional Christian, wasn't sure what to think. He needed to broaden his reading, and in so doing he selected yet another book by his idol Paley: Natural Theology. He knew that many intellectuals derided Paley's stance on design as naive. He knew that his own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, had held a radically different view, speculating about spontaneous changes in organisms in his own book Zoonomia. Darwin's sympathies were with Paley, but he started wondering how scientific laws were established, and what kind of evidence was acceptable, a quest that led him to a book by Sir John Herschel with the mind-numbing title Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. He also picked up a copy of Alexander von Humboldt's Personal Narrative, a 3754-page blockbuster about the intrepid explorer's trip to South America.
Darwin was entranced. Herschel stimulated his interest in science, and Humboldt showed him how exciting scientific discoveries could be. He determined, then and there, to visit the volcanoes of the Canary Islands and see for himself the Great Dragon Tree. His friend Marmaduke Ramsay agreed to accompany him. They would leave for the tropics once Darwin had signed the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church at his degree ceremony. To prepare for the journey, Charles went to Wales to carry out geological fieldwork. He discovered that there was no Old Red Sandstone in the Vale of Clwyd, contrary to the current national geological map. He had won his geologists' spurs.
Then a message arrived. Ramsay had died. The Canary scheme shuddered to a halt. The tropics seemed further away than ever. Could Charles go it alone? He was still trying to decide when a bulky package arrived from London. Inside was a letter, offering him the opportunity to join a voyage round the world. The ship would sail in a month.
The British Navy was planning to explore and map the coast of South America. It was to be a chronometric survey, meaning that all navigation would be done using the relatively new and not fully trusted technique of finding longitude with the aid of a very accurate watch or chronometer. A 26-year-old sea captain, Robert FitzRoy, would head the expedition; his ship would be the Beagle.
FitzRoy was worried that the solitude of his command might drive him to suicide. The risk was not far-fetched: the Beagle's former captain Pringle Stokes had shot himself while mapping a particularly convoluted bit of the coast of South America. Further, one of FitzRoy's uncles had slit his own throat in a fit of depression.' [1] So he had decided that he needed someone to talk to, to keep him sane. It was this position that was now being offered to Darwin. The job would be especially suitable for someone with an interest in natural history, and the ship had the necessary scientific equipment. Technically, Darwin would not be `ship's naturalist', as later he sometimes claimed, and that presumption would eventually lead to an almighty row with the Beagle's surgeon Robert McCormick, because by tradition the surgeon did the job of naturalist in his spare time. Darwin was being hired as a `gentleman companion' for the captain.