From: Darwin, Desmond & Moore 1991

Together with his friend Robert Grant he often walked along the waterside looking for animals. Grant, his 17 year older mentor, had changed from medical studies to natural history, and had become a specialist on sponges. He was a freethinker and a fierce supporter of Lamarck, the evolutionist. Grant was Darwin's teacher: Darwin asked and Grant gave the answers. It was here that Darwin made his first discovery: black grains in oysters turned out to be eggs of leeches. In the Plinian Society he revealed his find. He learned that many of the lower animals had freeswimming larvae. Grant has had a great influence on Darwin's ideas concerning evolution. Know more? Robert Grant

Darwin also spent much of his time in the museum of Edinburgh. In this way he gathered a lot of knowledge about natural history but nothing of the medical science. Father Robert was not happy with this development and he saw as the only possibility to send his son to a theological college to become a minister. Being a country clergyman of the Anglican Church and having financial means of one's own, one had a lot of time for doing research in nature. That's why Darwin did not oppose.

Darwin 7

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