Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter Part 40

"What you say about Teleology[264] pleases me especially, and I do not think any one else has ever noticed the point. I have always said you were the man to hit the nail on the head."

In 1877 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Cambridge. The degree was conferred on November 17, and with the customary Latin speech from the Public Orator, concluding with the words: "Tu vero, qui leges naturae tam docte ill.u.s.traveris, legum doctor n.o.bis esto."

The honorary degree led to a movement being set on foot in the University to obtain some permanent memorial of my father. In June 1879 he sat to Mr. W. Richmond for the portrait in the possession of the University, now placed in the Library of the Philosophical Society at Cambridge.

A similar wish on the part of the Linnean Society--with which my father was so closely a.s.sociated--led to his sitting in August, 1881, to Mr.

John Collier, for the portrait now in the possession of the Society. The portrait represents him standing facing the observer in the loose cloak so familiar to those who knew him, with his slouch hat in his hand. Many of those who knew his face most intimately, think that Mr. Collier's picture is the best of the portraits, and in this judgment the sitter himself was inclined to agree. According to my feeling it is not so simple or strong a representation of him as that given by Mr. Ouless.

The last-named portrait was painted at Down in 1875; it is in the possession of the family,[265] and is known to many through Rajon's fine etching. Of Mr. Ouless's picture my father wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker:

"I look a very venerable, acute, melancholy old dog; whether I really look so I do not know."

Besides the Cambridge degree, he received about the same time honours of an academic kind from some foreign societies.

On August 5, 1878, he was elected a Corresponding Member of the French Inst.i.tute in the Botanical Section,[266] and wrote to Dr. Asa Gray:--

"I see that we are both elected Corresponding Members of the Inst.i.tute.

It is rather a good joke that I should be elected in the Botanical Section, as the extent of my knowledge is little more than that a daisy is a Compositous plant and a pea a Leguminous one."

He valued very highly two photographic alb.u.ms containing portraits of a large number of scientific men in Germany and Holland, which he received as birthday gifts in 1877.

In the year 1878 my father received a singular mark of recognition in the form of a letter from a stranger, announcing that the writer intended to leave to him the reversion of the greater part of his fortune. Mr. Anthony Rich, who desired thus to mark his sense of my father's services to science, was the author of a _Dictionary of Roman and Greek Antiquities_, said to be the best book of the kind. It has been translated into French, German, and Italian, and has, in English, gone through several editions. Mr. Rich lived a great part of his life in Italy, painting, and collecting books and engravings. He finally settled, many years ago, at Worthing (then a small village), where he was a friend of Byron's Trelawny. My father visited Mr. Rich at Worthing, more than once, and gained a cordial liking and respect for him.

Mr. Rich died in April, 1891, having arranged that his bequest[267]

should not lapse in consequence of the predecease of my father.

In 1879 he received from the Royal Academy of Turin the _Bressa_ Prize for the years 1875-78, amounting to the sum of 12,000 francs. He refers to this in a letter to Dr. Dohrn (February 15th, 1880):--

"Perhaps you saw in the papers that the Turin Society honoured me to an extraordinary degree by awarding me the _Bressa_ Prize. Now it occurred to me that if your station wanted some piece of apparatus, of about the value of 100, I should very much like to be allowed to pay for it. Will you be so kind as to keep this in mind, and if any want should occur to you, I would send you a cheque at any time."

I find from my father's accounts that 100 was presented to the Naples Station.

Two years before my father's death, and twenty-one years after the publication of his greatest work, a lecture was given (April 9, 1880) at the Royal Inst.i.tution by Mr. Huxley[268] which was aptly named "The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species." The following characteristic letter, inferring to this subject, may fitly close the present chapter.

Abinger Hall, Dorking, Sunday, April 11, 1880.

MY DEAR HUXLEY,--I wished much to attend your Lecture, but I have had a bad cough, and we have come here to see whether a change would do me good, as it has done. What a magnificent success your lecture seems to have been, as I judge from the reports in the _Standard_ and _Daily News_, and more especially from the accounts given me by three of my children. I suppose that you have not written out your lecture, so I fear there is no chance of its being printed _in extenso_. You appear to have piled, as on so many other occasions, honours high and thick on my old head. But I well know how great a part you have played in establishing and spreading the belief in the descent-theory, ever since that grand review in the _Times_ and the battle royal at Oxford up to the present day.

Ever, my dear Huxley, Yours sincerely and gratefully, CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S.--It was absurdly stupid in me, but I had read the announcement of your Lecture, and thought that you meant the maturity of the subject, until my wife one day remarked, "it is almost twenty-one years since the _Origin_ appeared," and then for the first time the meaning of your words flashed on me.

FOOTNOTES:

[258] _The Minerva Library of famous Books_, 1890, edited by G. T.

Bettany.

[259] The full t.i.tle is _The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits_, 1881.

[260] The same number contains a good biographical sketch of my father of which the material was to a large extent supplied by him to the writer, Professor Preyer of Jena. The article contains an excellent list of my father's publications.

[261] He once made an attempt to free a patient in a mad-house, who (as he wrongly supposed) was sane. He was in correspondence with the gardener at the asylum, and on one occasion he found a letter from the patient enclosed with one from the gardener. The letter was rational in tone and declared that the writer was sane and wrongfully confined.

My father wrote to the Lunacy Commissioners (without explaining the source of his information) and in due time heard that the man had been visited by the Commissioners, and that he was certainly insane. Some time afterward the patient was discharged, and wrote to thank my father for his interference, adding that he had undoubtedly been insane when he wrote his former letter.

[262] Professor of Physiology at Upsala.

[263] In 1867 he had received a distinguished honour from Germany,--the order "Pour le Merite."

[264] "Let us recognise Darwin's great service to Natural Science in bringing back to it Teleology; so that instead of Morphology _versus_ Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology." Similar remarks had been previously made by Mr. Huxley. See _Critiques and Addresses_, p. 305.

[265] A _replica_ by the artist hangs alongside of the portraits of Milton and Paley in the hall of Christ's College, Cambridge.

[266] He received twenty-six votes out of a possible thirty-nine, five blank papers were sent in, and eight votes were recorded for the other candidates. In 1872 an attempt had been made to elect him in the Section of Zoology, when, however, he only received fifteen out of forty-eight votes, and Loven was chosen for the vacant place. It appears (_Nature_, August 1st, 1872) that an eminent member of the Academy wrote to _Les Mondes_ to the following effect:--

"What has closed the doors of the Academy to Mr. Darwin is that the science of those of his books which have made his chief t.i.tle to fame--the _Origin of Species_, and still more the _Descent of Man_, is not science, but a ma.s.s of a.s.sertions and absolutely gratuitous hypotheses, often evidently fallacious. This kind of publication and these theories are a bad example, which a body that respects itself cannot encourage."

[267] Mr. Rich leaves a single near relative, to whom is bequeathed the life-interest in his property.

[268] Published in _Science and Culture_, p. 310.

BOTANICAL WORK.

"I have been making some little trifling observations which have interested and perplexed me much."

From a letter of June 1860.

CHAPTER XVI.

FERTILISATION OF FLOWERS.

The botanical work which my father accomplished by the guidance of the light cast on the study of natural history by his own work on evolution remains to be noticed. In a letter to Mr. Murray, September 24th, 1861, speaking of his book the _Fertilisation of Orchids_, he says: "It will perhaps serve to ill.u.s.trate how Natural History may be worked under the belief of the modification of species." This remark gives a suggestion as to the value and interest of his botanical work, and it might be expressed in far more emphatic language without danger of exaggeration.

In the same letter to Mr. Murray, he says: "I think this little volume will do good to the _Origin_, as it will show that I have worked hard at details." It is true that his botanical work added a ma.s.s of corroborative detail to the case for Evolution, but the chief support given to his doctrines by these researches was of another kind. They supplied an argument against those critics who have so freely dogmatised as to the uselessness of particular structures, and as to the consequent impossibility of their having been developed by means of natural selection. His observations on Orchids enabled him to say: "I can show the meaning of some of the apparently meaningless ridges and horns; who will now venture to say that this or that structure is useless?" A kindred point is expressed in a letter to Sir J. D. Hooker (May 14th, 1862):--

"When many parts of structure, as in the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to the effects of climate, &c., but when a single point alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable it may thus have arisen. I have found the study of Orchids eminently useful in showing me how nearly all parts of the flower are co-adapted for fertilisation by insects, and therefore the results of natural selection,--even the most trifling details of structure."

One of the greatest services rendered by my father to the Study of Natural History is the revival of Teleology. The evolutionist studies the purpose or meaning of organs with the zeal of the older Teleologist, but with far wider and more coherent purpose. He has the invigorating knowledge that he is gaining not isolated conceptions of the economy of the present, but a coherent view of both past and present. And even where he fails to discover the use of any part, he may, by a knowledge of its structure, unravel the history of the past vicissitudes in the life of the species. In this way a vigour and unity is given to the study of the forms of organised beings, which before it lacked. Mr.

Huxley has well remarked:[269] "Perhaps the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both, which his views offer. The teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man, or one of the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise structure it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that there is a wider teleology which is not touched by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of Evolution."

The point which here especially concerns us is to recognise that this "great service to natural science," as Dr. Gray describes it, was effected almost as much by Darwin's special botanical work as by the _Origin of Species_.