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Чарльз Дарвин
Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters

With respect to the theological view of the question. This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws. A child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by the action of even more complex laws, and I can see no reason why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws, and that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event and consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I have probably shown by this letter.

Most deeply do I feel your generous kindness and interest.

Yours sincerely and cordially

The meeting of the British Association at Oxford in 1860 is famous for two pitched battles over the Origin of Species. Both of them originated in unimportant papers. On Thursday, June 28th, Dr. Daubeny of Oxford made a communication to Section D: "On the final causes of the sexuality of plants, with particular reference to Mr. Darwin's work on the Origin of Species." Mr. Huxley was called on by the President, but tried (according to the Athenæum report) to avoid a discussion, on the ground "that a general audience, in which sentiment would unduly interfere with intellect, was not the public before which such a discussion should be carried on." However, the subject was not allowed to drop. Sir R. Owen (I quote from the Athenæum, July 7th, 1860), who "wished to approach this subject in the spirit of the philosopher," expressed his "conviction that there were facts by which the public could come to some conclusion with regard to the probabilities of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory." He went on to say that the brain of the gorilla "presented more differences, as compared with the brain of man, than it did when compared with the brains of the very lowest and most problematical of the Quadrumana." Mr. Huxley replied, and gave these assertions a "direct and unqualified contradiction," pledging himself to "justify that unusual procedure elsewhere,"²⁰⁴ a pledge which he amply fulfilled.²⁰⁵ On Friday there was peace, but on Saturday 30th, the battle arose with redoubled fury, at a conjoint meeting of three Sections, over a paper by Dr. Draper of New York, on the "Intellectual development of Europe considered with reference to the views of Mr. Darwin."

The following account is from an eye-witness of the scene.

"The excitement was tremendous. The Lecture-room, in which it had been arranged that the discussion should be held, proved far too small for the audience, and the meeting adjourned to the Library of the Museum, which was crammed to suffocation long before the champions entered the lists. The numbers were estimated at from 700 to 1000. Had it been term-time, or had the general public been admitted, it would have been impossible to have accommodated the rush to hear the oratory of the bold Bishop.²⁰⁶ Professor Henslow, the President of Section D, occupied the chair, and wisely announced in limine that none who had not valid arguments to bring forward on one side or the other, would be allowed to address the meeting: a caution that proved necessary, for no fewer than four combatants had their utterances burked by him, because of their indulgence in vague declamation.

"The Bishop was up to time, and spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness. It was evident from his handling of the subject that he had been 'crammed' up to the throat, and that he knew nothing at first hand; in fact, he used no argument not to be found in his Quarterly article.²⁰⁷ He ridiculed Darwin badly, and Huxley savagely, but all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned periods, that I who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart."

What follows is from notes most kindly supplied by the Hon. and Rev. W. H. Fremantle, who was an eye-witness of the scene.

"The Bishop of Oxford attacked Darwin, at first playfully but at last in grim earnest. It was known that the Bishop had written an article against Darwin in the last Quarterly Review: it was also rumoured that Professor Owen had been staying at Cuddesden and had primed the Bishop, who was to act as mouthpiece to the great Palæontologist, who did not himself dare to enter the lists. The Bishop, however, did not show himself master of the facts, and made one serious blunder. A fact which had been much dwelt on as confirmatory of Darwin's idea of variation, was that a sheep had been born shortly before in a flock in the North of England, having an addition of one to the vertebræ of the spine. The Bishop was declaring with rhetorical exaggeration that there was hardly any actual evidence on Darwin's side. 'What have they to bring forward?' he exclaimed. 'Some rumoured statement about a long-legged sheep.' But he passed on to banter: 'I should like to ask Professor Huxley, who is sitting by me, and is about to tear me to pieces when I have sat down, as to his belief in being descended from an ape. Is it on his grandfather's or his grandmother's side that the ape ancestry comes in?' And then taking a graver tone, he asserted in a solemn peroration that Darwin's views were contrary to the revelations of God in the Scriptures. Professor Huxley was unwilling to respond: but he was called for and spoke with his usual incisiveness and with some scorn. 'I am here only in the interests of science,' he said, 'and I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august client.' Then after showing how little competent the Bishop was to enter upon the discussion, he touched on the question of Creation. 'You say that development drives out the Creator. But you assert that God made you: and yet you know that you yourself were originally a little piece of matter no bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case.' Lastly as to the descent from a monkey, he said: 'I should feel it no shame to have risen from such an origin. But I should feel it a shame to have sprung from one who prostituted the gifts of culture and of eloquence to the service of prejudice and of falsehood.'

"Many others spoke. Mr. Gresley, an old Oxford don, pointed out that in human nature at least orderly development was not the necessary rule; Homer was the greatest of poets, but he lived 3000 years ago, and has not produced his like.

"Admiral Fitz-Roy was present, and said that he had often expostulated with his old comrade of the Beagle for entertaining views which were contradictory to the First Chapter of Genesis.

"Sir John Lubbock declared that many of the arguments by which the permanence of species was supported came to nothing, and instanced some wheat which was said to have come off an Egyptian mummy and was sent to him to prove that wheat had not changed since the time of the Pharaohs; but which proved to be made of French chocolate.²⁰⁸ Sir Joseph (then Dr.) Hooker spoke shortly, saying that he had found the hypothesis of Natural Selection so helpful in explaining the phenomena of his own subject of Botany, that he had been constrained to accept it. After a few words from Darwin's old friend Professor Henslow who occupied the chair, the meeting broke up, leaving the impression that those most capable of estimating the arguments of Darwin in detail saw their way to accept his conclusions."

Many versions of Mr. Huxley's speech were current: the following report of his conclusion is from a letter addressed by the late John Richard Green, then an undergraduate, to a fellow-student, now Professor Boyd Dawkins: – "I asserted, and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be a man, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions, and skilled appeals to religious prejudice."²⁰⁹

The following letter shows that Mr. Huxley's presence at this remarkable scene depended on so slight a chance as that of meeting a friend in the street; that this friend should have been Robert Chambers, so that the author of the Vestiges should have sounded the war-note for the battle of the Origin, adds interest to the incident. I have to thank Mr. Huxley for allowing the story to be told in words of his not written for publication.

T. H. Huxley to Francis Darwin

June 27, 1891.

… I should say that Fremantle's account is substantially correct; but that Green has the passage of my speech more accurately. However, I am certain I did not use the word "equivocal."²¹⁰

The odd part of the business is that I should not have been present except for Robert Chambers. I had heard of the Bishop's intention to utilise the occasion. I knew he had the reputation of being a first-rate controversialist, and I was quite aware that if he played his cards properly, we should have little chance, with such an audience, of making an efficient defence. Moreover, I was very tired, and wanted to join my wife at her brother-in-law's country house near Reading, on the Saturday. On the Friday I met Chambers in the street, and in reply to some remark of his about the meeting, I said that I did not mean to attend it; did not see the good of giving up peace and quietness to be episcopally pounded. Chambers broke out into vehement remonstrances and talked about my deserting them. So I said, "Oh! if you take it that way, I'll come and have my share of what is going on."

So I came, and chanced to sit near old Sir Benjamin Brodie. The Bishop began his speech, and, to my astonishment, very soon showed that he was so ignorant that he did not know how to manage his own case. My spirits rose proportionally, and when he turned to me with his insolent question, I said to Sir Benjamin, in an undertone, "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands."

That sagacious old gentleman stared at me as if I had lost my senses. But, in fact, the Bishop had justified the severest retort I could devise, and I made up my mind to let him have it. I was careful, however, not to rise to reply, until the meeting called for me – then I let myself go.

In justice to the Bishop, I am bound to say he bore no malice, but was always courtesy itself when we occasionally met in after years. Hooker and I walked away from the meeting together, and I remember saying to him that this experience had changed my opinion as to the practical value of the art of public speaking, and that, from that time forth, I should carefully cultivate it, and try to leave off hating it. I did the former, but never quite succeeded in the latter effort.

I did not mean to trouble you with such a long scrawl when I began about this piece of ancient history.

Ever yours very faithfully

T. H. Huxley.

The eye-witness above quoted (p. 237) continues: —

"There was a crowded conversazione in the evening at the rooms of the hospitable and genial Professor of Botany, Dr. Daubeny, where the almost sole topic was the battle of the Origin, and I was much struck with the fair and unprejudiced way in which the black coats and white cravats of Oxford discussed the question, and the frankness with which they offered their congratulations to the winners in the combat."²¹¹

C. D. to J. D. Hooker. Monday night [July 2nd, 1860]

My dear Hooker, – I have just received your letter. I have been very poorly, with almost continuous bad headache for forty-eight hours, and I was low enough, and thinking what a useless burthen I was to myself and all others, when your letter came, and it has so cheered me; your kindness and affection brought tears into my eyes. Talk of fame, honour, pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with affection; and this is a doctrine with which, I know, from your letter, that you will agree with from the bottom of your heart… How I should have liked to have wandered about Oxford with you, if I had been well enough; and how still more I should have liked to have heard you triumphing over the Bishop. I am astonished at your success and audacity. It is something unintelligible to me how any one can argue in public like orators do. I had no idea you had this power. I have read lately so many hostile views, that I was beginning to think that perhaps I was wholly in the wrong, and that – was right when he said the whole subject would be forgotten in ten years; but now that I hear that you and Huxley will fight publicly (which I am sure I never could do), I fully believe that our cause will, in the long-run, prevail. I am glad I was not in Oxford, for I should have been overwhelmed, with my [health] in its present state.

C. D. to J. D. Hooker. [July 1860.]

… I have just read the Quarterly.²¹² It is uncommonly clever; it picks out with skill all the most conjectural parts, and brings forward well all the difficulties. It quizzes me quite splendidly by quoting the Anti-Jacobin versus my Grandfather. You are not alluded to, nor, strange to say, Huxley; and I can plainly see, here and there, – 's hand. The concluding pages will make Lyell shake in his shoes. By Jove, if he sticks to us, he will be a real hero. Good-night. Your well-quizzed, but not sorrowful, and affectionate friend,

C. D.

I can see there has been some queer tampering with the review, for a page has been cut out and reprinted.

The following extract from a letter of Sept. 1st, 1860, is of interest, not only as showing that Lyell was still conscientiously working out his conversion, but also and especially as illustrating the remarkable fact that hardly any of my father's critics gave him any new objections – so fruitful had been his ponderings of twenty years: —

"I have been much interested by your letter of the 28th, received this morning. It has delighted me, because it demonstrates that you have thought a good deal lately on Natural Selection. Few things have surprised me more than the entire paucity of objections and difficulties new to me in the published reviews. Your remarks are of a different stamp and new to me."

C. D. to Asa Gray. [Hartfield, Sussex] July 22nd [1860]

My dear Gray, – Owing to absence from home at water-cure and then having to move my sick girl to whence I am now writing, I have only lately read the discussion in Proc. American Acad.,²¹³ and now I cannot resist expressing my sincere admiration of your most clear powers of reasoning. As Hooker lately said in a note to me, you are more than any one else the thorough master of the subject. I declare that you know my book as well as I do myself; and bring to the question new lines of illustration and argument in a manner which excites my astonishment and almost my envy!²¹⁴ I admire these discussions, I think, almost more than your article in Silliman's Journal. Every single word seems weighed carefully, and tells like a 32-pound shot. It makes me much wish (but I know that you have not time) that you could write more in detail, and give, for instance, the facts on the variability of the American wild fruits. The Athenæum has the largest circulation, and I have sent my copy to the editor with a request that he would republish the first discussion; I much fear he will not, as he reviewed the subject in so hostile a spirit… I shall be curious [to see], and will order the August number, as soon as I know that it contains your review of reviews. My conclusion is that you have made a mistake in being a botanist, you ought to have been a lawyer.

The following passages from a letter to Huxley (Dec. 2nd, 1860) may serve to show what was my father's view of the position of the subject, after a year's experience of reviewers, critics and converts: —

"I have got fairly sick of hostile reviews. Nevertheless, they have been of use in showing me when to expatiate a little and to introduce a few new discussions.

"I entirely agree with you, that the difficulties on my notions are terrific, yet having seen what all the Reviews have said against me, I have far more confidence in the general truth of the doctrine than I formerly had. Another thing gives me confidence, viz. that some who went half an inch with me now go further, and some who were bitterly opposed are now less bitterly opposed… I can pretty plainly see that, if my view is ever to be generally adopted, it will be by young men growing up and replacing the old workers, and then young ones finding that they can group facts and search out new lines of investigation better on the notion of descent, than on that of creation."

CHAPTER XIV.
THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION.
1861 – 1871

The beginning of the year 1861 saw my father engaged on the 3rd edition (2000 copies) of the Origin, which was largely corrected and added to, and was published in April, 1861.

On July 1, he started, with his family, for Torquay, where he remained until August 27 – a holiday which he characteristically enters in his diary as "eight weeks and a day." The house he occupied was in Hesketh Crescent, a pleasantly placed row of houses close above the sea, somewhat removed from what was then the main body of the town, and not far from the beautiful cliffed coast-line in the neighbourhood of Anstey's Cove.

During the Torquay holiday, and for the remainder of the year, he worked at the fertilisation of orchids. This part of the year 1861 is not dealt with in the present chapter, because (as explained in the preface) the record of his life, seems to become clearer when the whole of his botanical work is placed together and treated separately. The present chapter will, therefore, include only the progress of his work in the direction of a general amplification of the Origin of Species—e. g., the publication of Animals and Plants and the Descent of Man. It will also give some idea of the growth of belief in evolutionary doctrines.

With regard to the third edition, he wrote to Mr. Murray in December, 1860: —

"I shall be glad to hear when you have decided how many copies you will print off – the more the better for me in all ways, as far as compatible with safety; for I hope never again to make so many corrections, or rather additions, which I have made in hopes of making my many rather stupid reviewers at least understand what is meant. I hope and think I shall improve the book considerably."

An interesting feature in the new edition was the "Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species,"²¹⁵ which now appeared for the first time, and was continued in the later editions of the work. It bears a strong impress of the author's personal character in the obvious wish to do full justice to all his predecessors, – though even in this respect it has not escaped some adverse criticism.

A passage in a letter to Hooker (March 27, 1861) gives the history of one of his corrections.

"Here is a good joke: H. C. Watson (who, I fancy and hope, is going to review the new edition of the Origin) says that in the first four paragraphs of the introduction, the words 'I,' 'me,' 'my,' occur forty-three times! I was dimly conscious of the accursed fact. He says it can be explained phrenologically, which I suppose civilly means, that I am the most egotistically self-sufficient man alive; perhaps so. I wonder whether he will print this pleasing fact; it beats hollow the parentheses in Wollaston's writing.

"I am, my dear Hooker, ever yours,

"C. Darwin.

"P.S. – Do not spread this pleasing joke; it is rather too biting."

He wrote a couple of years later, 1863, to Asa Gray, in a manner which illustrates his use of the personal pronoun in the earlier editions of the Origin: —

"You speak of Lyell as a judge; now what I complain of is that he declines to be a judge… I have sometimes almost wished that Lyell had pronounced against me. When I say 'me,' I only mean change of species by descent. That seems to me the turning-point. Personally, of course, I care much about Natural Selection; but that seems to me utterly unimportant, compared to the question of Creation or Modification."

He was, at first, alone, and felt himself to be so in maintaining a rational workable theory of Evolution. It was therefore perfectly natural that he should speak of "my" theory.

Towards the end of the present year (1861) the final arrangements for the first French edition of the Origin were completed, and in September a copy of the third English edition was despatched to Mdlle. Clémence Royer, who undertook the work of translation. The book was now spreading on the Continent, a Dutch edition had appeared, and, as we have seen, a German translation had been published in 1860. In a letter to Mr. Murray (September 10, 1861), he wrote, "My book seems exciting much attention in Germany, judging from the number of discussions sent me." The silence had been broken, and in a few years the voice of German science was to become one of the strongest of the advocates of Evolution.

A letter, June 23, 1861, gave a pleasant echo from the Continent of the growth of his views: —

Hugh Falconer ²¹⁶ to C. Darwin. 31 Sackville St., W., June 23, 1861

My dear Darwin, – I have been to Adelsberg cave and brought back with me a live Proteus anguinus, designed for you from the moment I got it; i. e. if you have got an aquarium and would care to have it. I only returned last night from the Continent, and hearing from your brother that you are about to go to Torquay, I lose no time in making you the offer. The poor dear animal is still alive – although it has had no appreciable means of sustenance for a month – and I am most anxious to get rid of the responsibility of starving it longer. In your hands it will thrive and have a fair chance of being developed without delay into some type of the Columbidæ – say a Pouter or a Tumbler.

My dear Darwin, I have been rambling through the north of Italy, and Germany lately. Everywhere have I heard your views and your admirable essay canvassed – the views of course often dissented from, according to the special bias of the speaker – but the work, its honesty of purpose, grandeur of conception, felicity of illustration, and courageous exposition, always referred to in terms of the highest admiration. And among your warmest friends no one rejoiced more heartily in the just appreciation of Charles Darwin than did,

Yours very truly

My father replied: —

Down [June 24, 1861].

My dear Falconer, – I have just received your note, and by good luck a day earlier than properly, and I lose not a moment in answering you, and thanking you heartily for your offer of the valuable specimen; but I have no aquarium and shall soon start for Torquay, so that it would be a thousand pities that I should have it. Yet I should certainly much like to see it, but I fear it is impossible. Would not the Zoological Society be the best place? and then the interest which many would take in this extraordinary animal would repay you for your trouble.

Kind as you have been in taking this trouble and offering me this specimen, to tell the truth I value your note more than the specimen. I shall keep your note amongst a very few precious letters. Your kindness has quite touched me.

Yours affectionately and gratefully

My father, who had the strongest belief in the value of Asa Gray's help, was anxious that his evolutionary writings should be more widely known in England. In the autumn of 1860, and the early part of 1861, he had a good deal of correspondence with him as to the publication, in the form of a pamphlet, of Gray's three articles in the July, August, and October numbers of the Atlantic Monthly, 1860.

The reader will find these articles republished in Dr. Gray's Darwiniana, p. 87, under the title "Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology." The pamphlet found many admirers, and my father believed that it was of much value in lessening opposition, and making converts to Evolution. His high opinion of it is shown not only in his letters, but by the fact that he inserted a special notice of it in a prominent place in the third edition of the Origin. Lyell, among others, recognised its value as an antidote to the kind of criticism from which the cause of Evolution suffered. Thus my father wrote to Dr. Gray: "Just to exemplify the use of your pamphlet, the Bishop of London was asking Lyell what he thought of the review in the Quarterly, and Lyell answered, 'Read Asa Gray in the Atlantic.'"

On the same subject he wrote to Gray in the following year: —

"I believe that your pamphlet has done my book great good; and I thank you from my heart for myself: and believing that the views are in large part true, I must think that you have done natural science a good turn. Natural Selection seems to be making a little progress in England and on the Continent; a new German edition is called for, and a French one has just appeared."

The following may serve as an example of the form assumed between these friends of the animosity at that time so strong between England and America²¹⁷: —

"Talking of books, I am in the middle of one which pleases me, though it is very innocent food, viz. Miss Cooper's Journal of a Naturalist. Who is she? She seems a very clever woman, and gives a capital account of the battle between our and your weeds.²¹⁸ Does it not hurt your Yankee pride that we thrash you so confoundedly? I am sure Mrs. Gray will stick up for your own weeds. Ask her whether they are not more honest, downright good sort of weeds. The book gives an extremely pretty picture of one of your villages; but I see your autumn, though so much more gorgeous than ours, comes on sooner, and that is one comfort."

A question constantly recurring in the letters to Gray is that of design. For instance: —

"Your question what would convince me of design is a poser. If I saw an angel come down to teach us good, and I was convinced from others seeing him that I was not mad, I should believe in design. If I could be convinced thoroughly that life and mind was in an unknown way a function of other imponderable force, I should be convinced. If man was made of brass or iron and no way connected with any other organism which had ever lived, I should perhaps be convinced. But this is childish writing.

"I have lately been corresponding with Lyell, who, I think, adopts your idea of the stream of variation having been led or designed. I have asked him (and he says he will hereafter reflect and answer me) whether he believes that the shape of my nose was designed. If he does I have nothing more to say. If not, seeing what Fanciers have done by selecting individual differences in the nasal bones of pigeons, I must think that it is illogical to suppose that the variations, which natural selection preserves for the good of any being, have been designed. But I know that I am in the same sort of muddle (as I have said before) as all the world seems to be in with respect to free will, yet with everything supposed to have been foreseen or preordained."

The shape of his nose would perhaps not have been used as an illustration, if he had remembered Fitz-Roy's objection to that feature (see Autobiography, p. 26). He should, too, have remembered the difficulty of predicting the value to an organism of an apparently unimportant character.

In England Professor Huxley was at work in the evolutionary cause. He gave, in 1862, two lectures at Edinburgh on Man's Place in Nature. My father wrote: —

"I am heartily glad of your success in the North. By Jove, you have attacked Bigotry in its stronghold. I thought you would have been mobbed. I am so glad that you will publish your Lectures. You seem to have kept a due medium between extreme boldness and caution. I am heartily glad that all went off so well."

A review,²¹⁹ by F. W. Hutton, afterwards Professor of Biology and Geology at Canterbury, N. Z., gave a hopeful note of the time not far off when a broader view of the argument for Evolution would be accepted. My father wrote to the author²²⁰: —

Down, April 20th, 1861.

Dear Sir, – I hope that you will permit me to thank you for sending me a copy of your paper in the Geologist, and at the same time to express my opinion that you have done the subject a real service by the highly original, striking, and condensed manner with which you have put the case. I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce direct evidence of one species changing into another, but that I believe that this view in the main is correct, because so many phenomena can be thus grouped together and explained.

But it is generally of no use, I cannot make persons see this. I generally throw in their teeth the universally admitted theory of the undulations of light – neither the undulations, nor the very existence of ether being proved – yet admitted because the view explains so much. You are one of the very few who have seen this, and have now put it most forcibly and clearly. I am much pleased to see how carefully you have read my book, and what is far more important, reflected on so many points with an independent spirit. As I am deeply interested in the subject (and I hope not exclusively under a personal point of view) I could not resist venturing to thank you for the right good service which you have done. Pray believe me, dear sir,