Map charting the course of the H.M.S. Beagle to the Galapagos Islands, during its five-year voyage in 1831-6. The Beagle carried Charles Darwin during the voyage that inspired his theory of evolution. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist and geologist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.