Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter Part 22

[139] In _Bleak House_.

[140] Sir Joseph Hooker's _Himalayan Journal_.

[141] The Philosophical Club, to which my father was elected (as Professor Bonney is good enough to inform me) on April 24, 1854. He resigned his membership in 1864. The Club was founded in 1847. The number of members being limited to 47, it was proposed to christen it "the Club of 47," but the name was never adopted. The nature of the Club may be gathered from its first rule: "The purpose of the Club is to promote as much as possible the scientific objects of the Royal Society; to facilitate intercourse between those Fellows who are actively engaged in cultivating the various branches of Natural Science, and who have contributed to its progress; to increase the attendance at the evening meetings, and to encourage the contribution and discussion of papers."

The Club met for dinner at 6, and the chair was to be quitted at 8.15, it being expected that members would go to the Royal Society. Of late years the dinner has been at 6.30, the Society meeting in the afternoon.

[142] _The Vestiges of Creation_, by R. Chambers.

[143] A few words asking for information. The results were published in the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, May 26, Nov. 24, 1855. In the same year (p.

789) he sent a postscript to his former paper, correcting a misprint and adding a few words on the seeds of the Leguminosae. A fuller paper on the germination of seeds after treatment in salt water, appeared in the _Linnean Soc. Journal_, 1857, p. 130.

[144] The interval of eighteen years, from 1837 when he began to collect facts, would bring the date of this letter to 1855, not 1856, nevertheless the latter seems the more probable date.

[145] "On the Law that has regulated the Introduction of New Species."--_Ann. Nat. Hist._, 1855.

[146] Simon Bernard was tried in April 1858 as an accessory to Orsini's attempt on the life of the Emperor of the French. The verdict was "not guilty."

CHAPTER XI.

THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.'

"I have done my best. If you had all my material I am sure you would have made a splendid book."--From a letter to Lyell, June 21, 1859.

JUNE 18, 1858, TO NOVEMBER 1859.

_C. D. to C. Lyell._ Down, 18th [June 1858].

MY DEAR LYELL--Some year or so ago you recommended me to read a paper by Wallace in the _Annals_,[147] which had interested you, and as I was writing to him, I knew this would please him much, so I told him. He has to-day sent me the enclosed, and asked me to forward it to you. It seems to me well worth reading. Your words have come true with a vengeance--that I should be forestalled. You said this, when I explained to you here very briefly my views of 'Natural Selection' depending on the struggle for existence. I never saw a more striking coincidence; if Wallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters.

Please return me the MS., which he does not say he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write and offer to send to any journal.

So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed, though my book, if it will ever have any value, will not be deteriorated; as all the labour consists in the application of the theory.

I hope you will approve of Wallace's sketch, that I may tell him what you say.

My dear Lyell, yours most truly.

_C. D. to C. Lyell._ Down, [June 25, 1858].

MY DEAR LYELL--I am very sorry to trouble you, busy as you are, in so merely personal an affair; but if you will give me your deliberate opinion, you will do me as great a service as ever man did, for I have entire confidence in your judgment and honour....

There is nothing in Wallace's sketch which is not written out much fuller in my sketch, copied out in 1844, and read by Hooker some dozen years ago. About a year ago I sent a short sketch, of which I have a copy, of my views (owing to correspondence on several points) to Asa Gray, so that I could most truly say and prove that I take nothing from Wallace. I should be extremely glad now to publish a sketch of my general views in about a dozen pages or so; but I cannot persuade myself that I can do so honourably. Wallace says nothing about publication, and I enclose his letter. But as I had not intended to publish any sketch, can I do so honourably, because Wallace has sent me an outline of his doctrine? I would far rather burn my whole book, than that he or any other man should think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit. Do you not think his having sent me this sketch ties my hands?... If I could honourably publish, I would state that I was induced now to publish a sketch (and I should be very glad to be permitted to say, to follow your advice long ago given) from Wallace having sent me an outline of my general conclusions. We differ only, [in] that I was led to my views from what artificial selection has done for domestic animals. I would send Wallace a copy of my letter to Asa Gray, to show him that I had not stolen his doctrine. But I cannot tell whether to publish now would not be base and paltry. This was my first impression, and I should have certainly acted on it had it not been for your letter.

This is a trumpery affair to trouble you with, but you cannot tell how much obliged I should be for your advice.

By the way, would you object to send this and your answer to Hooker to be forwarded to me? for then I shall have the opinion of my two best and kindest friends. This letter is miserably written, and I write it now, that I may for a time banish the whole subject; and I am worn out with musing....

My good dear friend, forgive me. This is a trumpery letter, influenced by trumpery feelings.

Yours most truly.

I will never trouble you or Hooker on the subject again.

_C. D. to C. Lyell._ Down, 26th [June 1858].

MY DEAR LYELL--Forgive me for adding a P.S. to make the case as strong as possible against myself.

Wallace might say, "You did not intend publishing an abstract of your views till you received my communication. Is it fair to take advantage of my having freely, though unasked, communicated to you my ideas, and thus prevent me forestalling you?" The advantage which I should take being that I am induced to publish from privately knowing that Wallace is in the field. It seems hard on me that I should be thus compelled to lose my priority of many years' standing, but I cannot feel at all sure that this alters the justice of the case. First impressions are generally right, and I at first thought it would be dishonourable in me now to publish.

Yours most truly.

P.S.--I have always thought you would make a first-rate Lord Chancellor; and I now appeal to you as a Lord Chancellor.

_C. D. to J. D. Hooker._ Tuesday night [June 29, 1858].

MY DEAR HOOKER--I have just read your letter, and see you want the papers at once. I am quite prostrated,[148] and can do nothing, but I send Wallace, and the abstract[149] of my letter to Asa Gray, which gives most imperfectly only the means of change, and does not touch on reasons for believing that species do change. I dare say all is too late. I hardly care about it. But you are too generous to sacrifice so much time and kindness. It is most generous, most kind. I send my sketch of 1844 solely that you may see by your own handwriting that you did read it. I really cannot bear to look at it. Do not waste much time. It is miserable in me to care at all about priority.

The table of contents will show what it is.

I would make a similar, but shorter and more accurate sketch for the _Linnean Journal_.

I will do anything. G.o.d bless you, my dear kind friend.

I can write no more. I send this by my servant to Kew.

The joint paper[150] of Mr. Wallace and my father was read at the Linnean Society on the evening of July 1st. Mr. Wallace's Essay bore the t.i.tle, "On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type."

My father's contribution to the paper consisted of (1) Extracts from the sketch of 1844; (2) part of a letter, addressed to Dr. Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857. The paper was "communicated" to the Society by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker, in whose prefatory letter a clear account of the circ.u.mstances of the case is given.

Referring to Mr. Wallace's Essay, they wrote:--

"So highly did Mr. Darwin appreciate the value of the views therein set forth, that he proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr.

Wallace's consent to allow the Essay to be published as soon as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Mr. Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly inclined to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he had himself written on the same subject, and which, as before stated, one of us had perused in 1844, and the contents of which we had both of us been privy to for many years. On representing this to Mr. Darwin, he gave us permission to make what use we thought proper of his memoir, &c.; and in adopting our present course, of presenting it to the Linnean Society, we have explained to him that we are not solely considering the relative claims to priority of himself and his friend, but the interests of science generally."

Sir Charles Lyell and Sir J. D. Hooker were present at the reading of the paper, and both, I believe, made a few remarks, chiefly with a view of impressing on those present the necessity of giving the most careful consideration to what they had heard. There was, however, no semblance of a discussion. Sir Joseph Hooker writes to me: "The interest excited was intense, but the subject was too novel and too ominous for the old school to enter the lists, before armouring. After the meeting it was talked over with bated breath: Lyell's approval and perhaps in a small way mine, as his lieutenant in the affair, rather overawed the Fellows, who would otherwise have flown out against the doctrine. We had, too, the vantage ground of being familiar with the authors and their theme."

Mr. Wallace has, at my request, been so good as to allow me to publish the following letter. Professor Newton, to whom the letter is addressed, had submitted to Mr. Wallace his recollections of what the latter had related to him many years before, and had asked Mr. Wallace for a fuller version of the story. Hence the few corrections in Mr. Wallace's letter, for instance _bed_ for _hammock_.

_A. R. Wallace to A. Newton._ Frith Hill, G.o.dalming, Dec. 3rd, 1887.