Albert Heiligman's Charles And Emm The Darwins Leap Of Faith
893 Words4 Pages
In the words of Albert Einstein, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” In other words, while people often encounter obstacles and predicaments, they push themselves because the outcome offers opportunity. In the biography Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith, written by Deborah Heiligman, Charles Darwin finds life opportunities as he bridges himself between the religious and scientific cultures. Darwin’s disbeliefs of religion convert him to concurring with the world of reason, or the scientific culture. Charles is raised as a Unitarian; a faith that is “easy to live with if you [feel] uncomfortable with a more serious, stricter branch of Christianity” (Heiligman 19). However, as he grows older, he acquires strong doubts…show more content… This motivates Charles to complete his projects quickly and efficiently; however, once he shares his projects, they receive multiple negative reviews. Among the high competition, Alfred Russel Wallace publishes an essay called “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type” (Heiligman 169). Coincidently, the essay is similar to Charles’ initial theory of natural selection. Darwin is left with disappointment for not completing his theory quick enough. However, he finds the opportunity to now build upon their similar theories; coming up with stronger facts and thoughts. The outcome is the published book The Origin of Species of November 24, 1859. After the book sells rapidly in Britain, Charles receives numerous amounts of positive and negative reviews. Dealing with the negative reviews gives Darwin the opportunity to create a new edition of the book; using criticism to improve his work. He adds one sentence: “‘There is grandeur [high rank or social importance] in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one’” (Heiligman 194). The addition of God puts a majority of his religious audience at ease, causing his book to sell more copies. Charles Darwin succeeds in bringing the worlds of science and religion together and becoming a famous figure in our