ounger philosopher, however, imagination was always
kept in subjection by a determination to '_prove_ all things' and 'to
hold fast that which is good'; though, in other respects, there were not
wanting indications of the existence of hereditary characteristics in
the grandson.

Born at Shrewsbury and educated in the public school of that town,
Charles Darwin from the first exhibited signs of individuality in his
ideas and his tastes. The rigid classical teaching of his school did not
touch him, but, with the aid of his elder brother, he surreptitiously
started a chemical laboratory in a garden tool-house. From his earliest
infancy he was a collector, first of trifles, like seals and franks, but
later of stones, minerals and beetles.

At the outset, only the desire to possess new things animated him, then
a wish to put names to them, but, at a very early period, a passion
arose for learning all he could about them. Thus when only 9 or 10 years
of age, he had 'a desire of being able to know something about every
pebble in front of the hall-door,' and at 13 or 14, when he heard the
remark of a local naturalist, 'that the world would come to an end
before anyone would be able to explain how' a boulder (the 'bell-stone'
of local-fame) came to be brought from distant hills--the lad had such a
deep impression made on his mind, that he says in after life, 'I
_meditated_ over this wonderful stone[95].'

At the age of 16, he was sent to Edinburgh University to prepare himself
for the work of a doctor--the profession of his father and grandfather.
But here his independence of character again asserted itself. He found
most of the lectures 'intolerably dull,' so he occupied himself with
other pursuits, making many friendships among the younger naturalists
and doing a little in the way of biological research himself.

That he was not altogether destitute of ambition in the eyes of his
companions, however, is, I think, indicated by an amusing circumstance.
In the library of Charles Darwin, which is carefully preserved at
Cambridge, there is a copy of Jameson's _Manual of Mineralogy_,
published in 1821, which was evidently used by the young student in his
classwork at Edinburgh. In this a quizzical fellow-student has written
'Charles Darwin Esq., M.D., F.R.S.'--mischievously adding 'A.S.S.'! Even
for geology, the science to which in all his after life he became so
deeply devoted, young Darwin conceived the most violent aversion; an