Darwin's attempt to know himself

 Charles Darwin called his autobiography Recollections of the Development of My Mind and Character.

It’s the kind of book or essay I wish everyone would write. Darwin wrote the book for his family. My father, turning 70, wrote a similar book for his sons.

“Know thyself,” the ancient sages advised. Few of us do. We can recall events in our lives, but we usually don’t look closely at the forces that shape us.

I think a lot of people don’t start on this project because they think it would take forever. Darwin wrote his story in a little more than two months.

One passage is worth the price of the book. In it, Darwin lists his assets and liabilities.

He’s no great wit, he says. But he is good at noticing things and then observing them closely.

Indeed. That ability to pay attention to overlooked things was his first virtue, of course. His comments remind me of Guy Davenport’s great essay “Finding,” which reads like scripture to those of us who think that paying attention is important.

G.K. Chesterton got the same point in an aphorism: “The world will never starve for wonder; only for want of wonder.”

• Note: This line of thought began with “Darwin’s way with a notebook, May 29, 2022. For more on Davenport’s essay, see “Davenport’s search for arrowheads,” March 15, 2022.