Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
British naturalist, co-developer (with Alfred Russell Wallace) of the theory of evolution through natural  selection.

His youthful journey as a ship's biologist to the Pacific (recorded in Voyage of the Beagle, his reading of economist Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population, his interest in Charles Lyell's uniformitarian geological theory, his own systematic research into such arcane subjects as animal breeding and barnacles--all led to the development of his theory of "evolution through natural selection" and the publication of his epoch-making book The Origin of Species (1859), a book he reluctantly published when he learned of the development of similar views by Wallace. His later works include The Descent of Man. (1871), and The Expression of Emotions in Animals and Man (1872).

For a discussion of Barfield's views on Darwin's place in the evolution of consciousness, see Darwinism.