Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter Part 20

In 1844, the pencil-sketch was enlarged to one of 230 folio pages, which is a wonderfully complete presentation of the arguments familiar to us in the _Origin_.

The following letter shows in a striking manner the value my father put on this piece of work.

_C. D. to Mrs. Darwin._ Down [July 5, 1844].

... I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If, as I believe, my theory in time be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science.

I therefore write this in case of my sudden death, as my most solemn and last request, which I am sure you will consider the same as if legally entered in my will, that you will devote 400 to its publication, and further, will yourself, or through Hensleigh,[133] take trouble in promoting it. I wish that my sketch be given to some competent person, with this sum to induce him to take trouble in its improvement and enlargement. I give to him all my books on Natural History, which are either scored or have references at the end to the pages, begging him carefully to look over and consider such pa.s.sages as actually bearing, or by possibility bearing, on this subject. I wish you to make a list of all such books as some temptation to an editor. I also request that you will hand over [to] him all those sc.r.a.ps roughly divided in eight or ten brown paper portfolios. The sc.r.a.ps, with copied quotations from various works, are those which may aid my editor. I also request that you, or some amanuensis, will aid in deciphering any of the sc.r.a.ps which the editor may think possibly of use. I leave to the editor's judgment whether to interpolate these facts in the text, or as notes, or under appendices. As the looking over the references and sc.r.a.ps will be a long labour, and as the _correcting_ and enlarging and altering my sketch will also take considerable time, I leave this sum of 400 as some remuneration, and any profits from the work, I consider that for this the editor is bound to get the sketch published either at a publisher's or his own risk. Many of the sc.r.a.ps in the portfolios contain mere rude suggestions and early views, now useless, and many of the facts will probably turn out as having no bearing on my theory.

With respect to editors, Mr. Lyell would be the best if he would undertake it; I believe he would find the work pleasant, and he would learn some facts new to him. As the editor must be a geologist as well as a naturalist, the next best editor would be Professor Forbes of London. The next best (and quite best in many respects) would be Professor Henslow. Dr. Hooker would be _very_ good. The next, Mr.

Strickland.[134] If none of these would undertake it, I would request you to consult with Mr. Lyell, or some other capable man for some editor, a geologist and naturalist. Should one other hundred pounds make the difference of procuring a good editor, I request earnestly that you will raise 500.

My remaining collections in Natural History may be given to any one or any museum where [they] would be accepted....

The following note seems to have formed part of the original letter, but may have been of later date:

"Lyell, especially with the aid of Hooker (and of any good zoological aid), would be best of all. Without an editor will pledge himself to give up time to it, it would be of no use paying such a sum."

"It there should be any difficulty in getting an editor who would go thoroughly into the subject, and think of the bearing of the pa.s.sages marked in the books and copied out [on?] sc.r.a.ps of paper, then let my sketch be published as it is, stating that it was done several years ago[135] and from memory without consulting any works, and with no intention of publication in its present form."

The idea that the Sketch of 1844 might remain, in the event of his death, as the only record of his work, seems to have been long in his mind, for in August 1854, when he had finished with the Cirripedes, and was thinking of beginning his "species work," he added on the back of the above letter, "Hooker by far best man to edit my species volume.

August 1854."

FOOTNOTES:

[125] Vol. xliv. No. 269.

[126] _Life and Letters_, vol. ii. p. 180.

[127] This letter was unaccountably overlooked in preparing the _Life and Letters_ for publication.

[128] _Obituary Notice_, p. viii.

[129] _Life and Letters_, vol. ii. p. 190. In Mr. Huxley's chapter the pa.s.sage beginning "Lyell with perfect right...." is given as a footnote: it will be seen that I have incorporated it with Mr. Huxley's text.

[130] Lyell's _Life and Letters_, Letter to Haeckel, vol. ii. p. 436.

Nov. 23, 1868.

[131] _Life and Letters_, vol. ii. p. 188.

[132] I have discussed in the _Life and Letters_ the statement often made that the first sketch of his theory was written in 1839.

[133] The late Mr. H. Wedgwood.

[134] After Mr. Strickland's name comes the following sentence, which has been erased, but remains legible: "Professor Owen would be very good; but I presume he would not undertake such a work."

[135] The words "several years ago and," seem to have been added at a later date.

CHAPTER X.

THE GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.'

1843-1858.

The history of the years 1843-1858 is here related in an extremely abbreviated fashion. It was a period of minute labour on a variety of subjects, and the letters accordingly abound in detail. They are in many ways extremely interesting, more especially so to professed naturalists, and the picture of patient research which they convey is of great value from a biographical point of view. But such a picture must either be given in a complete series of unabridged letters, or omitted altogether.

The limits of s.p.a.ce compel me to the latter choice. The reader must imagine my father corresponding on problems in geology, geographical distribution, and cla.s.sification; at the same time collecting facts on such varied points as the stripes on horses' legs, the floating of seeds, the breeding of pigeons, the form of bees' cells and the innumerable other questions to which his gigantic task demanded answers.

The concluding letter of the last chapter has shown how strong was his conviction of the value of his work. It is impressive evidence of the condition of the scientific atmosphere, to discover, as in the following letters to Sir Joseph Hooker, how small was the amount of encouragement that he dared to hope for from his brother-naturalists.

[January 11th, 1844.]

... I have been now ever since my return engaged in a very presumptuous work, and I know no one individual who would not say a very foolish one.

I was so struck with the distribution of the Galapagos organisms, &c.

&c., and with the character of the American fossil mammifers, &c. &c., that I determined to collect blindly every sort of fact, which could bear any way on what are species. I have read heaps of agricultural and horticultural books, and have never ceased collecting facts. At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a "tendency to progression," "adaptations from the slow willing of animals," &c.! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends. You will now groan, and think to yourself, "on what a man have I been wasting my time and writing to." I should, five years ago, have thought so....

And again (1844):--

"In my most sanguine moments, all I expect, is that I shall be able to show even to sound Naturalists, that there are two sides to the question of the immutability of species--that facts can be viewed and grouped under the notion of allied species having descended from common stocks.

With respect to books on this subject, I do not know of any systematical ones, except Lamarck's which is veritable rubbish: but there are plenty, as Lyell, Pritchard, &c., on the view of the immutability. Aga.s.siz lately has brought the strongest argument in favour of immutability.

Isidore G. St. Hilaire has written some good Essays, tending towards the mutability-side, in the _Suites a Buffon_, ent.i.tled _Zoolog. Generale_.

Is it not strange that the author of such a book as the _Animaux sans Vertebres_ should have written that insects, which never see their eggs, should will (and plants, their seeds) to be of particular forms, so as to become attached to particular objects. The other common (specially Germanic) notion is hardly less absurd, viz. that climate, food, &c., should make a Pediculus formed to climb hair, or a wood-p.e.c.k.e.r to climb trees. I believe all these absurd views arise from no one having, as far as I know, approached the subject on the side of variation under domestication, and having studied all that is known about domestication."

"I hate arguments from results, but on my views of descent, really Natural History becomes a sublimely grand result-giving subject (now you may quiz me for so foolish an escape of mouth)...."

_C. D. to L. Jenyns_[136] Down Oct. 12th [1845].

MY DEAR JENYNS--Thanks for your note. I am sorry to say I have not even the tail-end of a fact in English Zoology to communicate. I have found that even trifling observations require, in my case, some leisure and energy, [of] both of which ingredients I have had none to spare, as writing my Geology thoroughly expends both. I had always thought that I would keep a journal and record everything, but in the way I now live I find I observe nothing to record. Looking after my garden and trees, and occasionally a very little walk in an idle frame of my mind, fill up every afternoon in the same manner. I am surprised that with all your parish affairs, you have had time to do all that which you have done. I shall be very glad to see your little work[137] (and proud should I have been if I could have added a single fact to it). My work on the species question has impressed me very forcibly with the importance of all such works as your intended one, containing what people are pleased generally to call trifling facts. These are the facts which make one understand the working or economy of nature. There is one subject, on which I am very curious, and which perhaps you may throw some light on, if you have ever thought on it; namely, what are the checks and what the periods of life--by which the increase of any given species is limited. Just calculate the increase of any bird, if you a.s.sume that only half the young are reared, and these breed: within the _natural_ (i.e. if free from accidents) life of the parents the number of individuals will become enormous, and I have been much surprised to think how great destruction _must_ annually or occasionally be falling on every species, yet the means and period of such destruction are scarcely perceived by us.

I have continued steadily reading and collecting facts on variation of domestic animals and plants, and on the question of what are species. I have a grand body of facts, and I think I can draw some sound conclusions. The general conclusions at which I have slowly been driven from a directly opposite conviction, is that species are mutable, and that allied species are co-descendants from common stocks. I know how much I open myself to reproach for such a conclusion, but I have at least honestly and deliberately come to it. I shall not publish on this subject for several years.

_C. Darwin to L. Jenyns._[138] Down [1845?].

With respect to my far distant work on species, I must have expressed myself with singular inaccuracy if I led you to suppose that I meant to say that my conclusions were inevitable. They have become so, after years of weighing puzzles, to myself _alone_; but in my wildest day-dream, I never expect more than to be able to show that there are two sides to the question of the immutability of species, i.e. whether species are _directly_ created or by intermediate laws (as with the life and death of individuals). I did not approach the subject on the side of the difficulty in determining what are species and what are varieties, but (though why I should give you such a history of my doings it would be hard to say) from such facts as the relationship between the living and extinct mammifers in South America, and between those living on the Continent and on adjoining islands, such as the Galapagos. It occurred to me that a collection of all such a.n.a.logous facts would throw light either for or against the view of related species being co-descendants from a common stock. A long searching amongst agricultural and horticultural books and people makes me believe (I well know how absurdly presumptuous this must appear) that I see the way in which new varieties become exquisitely adapted to the external conditions of life and to other surrounding beings. I am a bold man to lay myself open to being thought a complete fool, and a most deliberate one. From the nature of the grounds which make me believe that species are mutable in form, these grounds cannot be restricted to the closest-allied species; but how far they extend I cannot tell, as my reasons fall away by degrees, when applied to species more and more remote from each other.

Pray do not think that I am so blind as not to see that there are numerous immense difficulties in my notions, but they appear to me less than on the common view. I have drawn up a sketch and had it copied (in 200 pages) of my conclusions; and if I thought at some future time that you would think it worth reading, I should, of course, be most thankful to have the criticism of so competent a critic. Excuse this very long and egotistical and ill-written letter, which by your remarks you have led me into.

_C. D. to J. D. Hooker._ Down [1849-50?].

... How painfully (to me) true is your remark, that no one has hardly a right to examine the question of species who has not minutely described many. I was, however, pleased to hear from Owen (who is vehemently opposed to any mutability in species), that he thought it was a very fair subject, and that there was a ma.s.s of facts to be brought to bear on the question, not hitherto collected. My only comfort is (as I mean to attempt the subject), that I have dabbled in several branches of Natural History, and seen good specific men work out my species, and know something of geology (an indispensable union); and though I shall get more kicks than half-pennies, I will, life serving, attempt my work.

Lamarck is the only exception, that I can think of, of an accurate describer of species at least in the Invertebrate Kingdom, who has disbelieved in permanent species, but he in his absurd though clever work has done the subject harm, as has Mr. Vestiges, and, as (some future loose naturalist attempting the same speculations will perhaps say) has Mr. D....