There is a mystery surrounding Darwin: How did this quiet, respectable gentleman, a pillar of his parish, come to embrace one of the most radical ideas in the history of human thought? Darwin risked a great deal in publishing his theory of evolution, so something very powerful--a moral fire--must have propelled him. That moral fire, argue authors Desmond and Moore, was a passionate hatred of slavery. They draw on a wealth of fresh manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks, diaries, and even ships logs to show how Darwins abolitionism had deep roots in his mothers family and was reinforced by his voyage on the Beagle as well as by events in America. Leading apologists for slavery in Darwins time argued that blacks and whites were separate species, with whites created superior. Darwin believed that the races belonged to the same human family, and slavery was therefore a sin.--From publisher description.Explores the important influence of abolitionism and Darwins hatred of slavery on the development of his theory of evolution, in a study that examines the scientists theories about human origins and the moral center of his evolutionary work.