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

My dear Huxley, – Your letter has been forwarded to me from Down. Like a good Catholic who has received extreme unction, I can now sing "nunc dimittis." I should have been more than contented with one quarter of what you have said. Exactly fifteen months ago, when I put pen to paper for this volume, I had awful misgivings; and thought perhaps I had deluded myself, like so many have done, and I then fixed in my mind three judges, on whose decision I determined mentally to abide. The judges were Lyell, Hooker, and yourself. It was this which made me so excessively anxious for your verdict. I am now contented, and can sing my "nunc dimittis." What a joke it would be if I pat you on the back when you attack some immovable creationists! You have most cleverly hit on one point, which has greatly troubled me; if, as I must think, external conditions produce little direct effect, what the devil determines each particular variation? What makes a tuft of feathers come on a cock's head, or moss on a moss-rose? I shall much like to talk over this with you…

My dear Huxley, I thank you cordially for your letter.

Yours very sincerely

Erasmus Darwin[175 - His brother.]to C. Darwin. November 23rd [1859]

Dear Charles, – I am so much weaker in the head, that I hardly know if I can write, but at all events I will jot down a few things that the Dr.[176 - Dr., afterwards Sir Henry, Holland.] has said. He has not read much above half, so, as he says, he can give no definite conclusion, and keeps stating that he is not tied down to either view, and that he has always left an escape by the way he has spoken of varieties. I happened to speak of the eye before he had read that part, and it took away his breath – utterly impossible – structure – function, &c., &c., &c., but when he had read it he hummed and hawed, and perhaps it was partly conceivable, and then he fell back on the bones of the ear, which were beyond all probability or conceivability. He mentioned a slight blot, which I also observed, that in speaking of the slave-ants carrying one another, you change the species without giving notice first, and it makes one turn back…

… For myself I really think it is the most interesting book I ever read, and can only compare it to the first knowledge of chemistry, getting into a new world or rather behind the scenes. To me the geographical distribution, I mean the relation of islands to continents is the most convincing of the proofs, and the relation of the oldest forms to the existing species. I dare say I don't feel enough the absence of varieties, but then I don't in the least know if everything now living were fossilized whether the palæontologists could distinguish them. In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling. My ague has left me in such a state of torpidity that I wish I had gone through the process of natural selection.

Yours affectionately

A. Sedgwick[177 - Rev. Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian Professor of Geology in the University of Cambridge. Born 1785, died 1873.]to C. Darwin. [November 1859.]

My dear Darwin, – I write to thank you for your work on the Origin of Species. It came, I think, in the latter part of last week; but it may have come a few days sooner, and been overlooked among my book-parcels, which often remain unopened when I am lazy or busy with any work before me. So soon as I opened it I began to read it, and I finished it, after many interruptions, on Tuesday. Yesterday I was employed – 1st, in preparing for my lecture; 2ndly, in attending a meeting of my brother Fellows to discuss the final propositions of the Parliamentary Commissioners; 3rdly, in lecturing; 4thly, in hearing the conclusion of the discussion and the College reply, whereby, in conformity with my own wishes, we accepted the scheme of the Commissioners; 5thly, in dining with an old friend at Clare College; 6thly, in adjourning to the weekly meeting of the Ray Club, from which I returned at 10 P.M., dog-tired, and hardly able to climb my staircase. Lastly, in looking through the Times to see what was going on in the busy world.

I do not state this to fill space (though I believe that Nature does abhor a vacuum), but to prove that my reply and my thanks are sent to you by the earliest leisure I have, though that is but a very contracted opportunity. If I did not think you a good-tempered and truth-loving man, I should not tell you that (spite of the great knowledge, store of facts, capital views of the correlation of the various parts of organic nature, admirable hints about the diffusion, through wide regions, of many related organic beings, &c. &c.) I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous. You have deserted– after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth – the true method of induction, and started us in machinery as wild, I think, as Bishop Wilkins's locomotive that was to sail with us to the moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved, why then express them in the language and arrangement of philosophical induction? As to your grand principle —natural selection– what is it but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts? Development is a better word, because more close to the cause of the fact? For you do not deny causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the will of God; and I can prove that He acts for the good of His creatures. He also acts by laws which we can study and comprehend. Acting by law, and under what is called final causes, comprehends, I think, your whole principle. You write of "natural selection" as if it were done consciously by the selecting agent. 'Tis but a consequence of the pre-supposed development, and the subsequent battle for life. This view of nature you have stated admirably, though admitted by all naturalists and denied by no one of common-sense. We all admit development as a fact of history: but how came it about? Here, in language, and still more in logic, we are point-blank at issue. There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. 'Tis the crown and glory of organic science that it does through final cause, link material and moral; and yet does not allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, and our classification of such laws, whether we consider one side of nature or the other. You have ignored this link; and, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which, thank God, it is not) to break it, humanity, in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history. Take the case of the bee-cells. If your development produced the successive modification of the bee and its cells (which no mortal can prove), final cause would stand good as the directing cause under which the successive generations acted and gradually improved. Passages in your book, like that to which I have alluded (and there are others almost as bad), greatly shocked my moral taste. I think, in speculating on organic descent, you over-state the evidence of geology; and that you under-state it while you are talking of the broken links of your natural pedigree: but my paper is nearly done, and I must go to my lecture-room. Lastly, then, I greatly dislike the concluding chapter – not as a summary, for in that light it appears good – but I dislike it from the tone of triumphant confidence in which you appeal to the rising generation (in a tone I condemned in the author of the Vestiges) and prophesy of things not yet in the womb of time, nor (if we are to trust the accumulated experience of human sense and the inferences of its logic) ever likely to be found anywhere but in the fertile womb of man's imagination. And now to say a word about a son of a monkey and an old friend of yours: I am better, far better, than I was last year. I have been lecturing three days a week (formerly I gave six a week) without much fatigue, but I find by the loss of activity and memory, and of all productive powers, that my bodily frame is sinking slowly towards the earth. But I have visions of the future. They are as much a part of myself as my stomach and my heart, and these visions are to have their anti-type in solid fruition of what is best and greatest. But on one condition only – that I humbly accept God's revelation of Himself both in His works and in His word, and do my best to act in conformity with that knowledge which He only can give me, and He only can sustain me in doing. If you and I do all this, we shall meet in heaven.

I have written in a hurry, and in a spirit of brotherly love, therefore forgive any sentence you happen to dislike; and believe me, spite of any disagreement in some points of the deepest moral interest, your true-hearted old friend,

    A. Sedgwick.

The following extract from a note to Lyell (Nov. 24) gives an idea of the conditions under which the second edition was prepared: "This morning I heard from Murray that he sold the whole edition[178 - First edition, 1250 copies.] the first day to the trade. He wants a new edition instantly, and this utterly confounds me. Now, under water-cure, with all nervous power directed to the skin, I cannot possibly do head-work, and I must make only actually necessary corrections. But I will, as far as I can without my manuscript, take advantage of your suggestions: I must not attempt much. Will you send me one line to say whether I must strike out about the secondary whale,[179 - The passage was omitted in the second edition.] it goes to my heart. About the rattle-snake, look to my Journal, under Trigonocephalus, and you will see the probable origin of the rattle, and generally in transitions it is the premier pas qui coûte."

Here follows a hint of the coming storm (from a letter to Lyell, Dec. 2): —

"Do what I could, I fear I shall be greatly abused. In answer to Sedgwick's remark that my book would be 'mischievous,' I asked him whether truth can be known except by being victorious over all attacks. But it is no use. H. C. Watson tells me that one zoologist says he will read my book, 'but I will never believe it.' What a spirit to read any book in! Crawford[180 - John Crawford, orientalist, ethnologist, &c., b. 1783, d. 1868. The review appeared in the Examiner, and, though hostile, is free from bigotry, as the following citation will show: "We cannot help saying that piety must be fastidious indeed that objects to a theory the tendency of which is to show that all organic beings, man included, are in a perpetual progress of amelioration and that is expounded in the reverential language which we have quoted."] writes to me that his notice will be hostile, but that 'he will not calumniate the author.' He says he has read my book, 'at least such parts as he could understand.'[181 - A letter of Dec. 14, gives a good example of the manner in which some naturalists received and understood it. "Old J. E. Gray of the British Museum attacked me in fine style: 'You have just reproduced Lamarck's doctrine, and nothing else, and here Lyell and others have been attacking him for twenty years, and because you (with a sneer and laugh) say the very same thing, they are all coming round; it is the most ridiculous inconsistency, &c. &c.'"] He sent me some notes and suggestions (quite unimportant), and they show me that I have unavoidably done harm to the subject, by publishing an abstract… I have had several notes from – , very civil and less decided. Says he shall not pronounce against me without much reflection, perhaps will say nothing on the subject. X. says he will go to that part of hell, which Dante tells us is appointed for those who are neither on God's side nor on that of the devil."

But his friends were preparing to fight for him. Huxley gave, in Macmillan's Magazine for December, an analysis of the Origin, together with the substance of his Royal Institution lecture, delivered before the publication of the book.

Carpenter was preparing an essay for the National Review, and negotiating for a notice in the Edinburgh free from any taint of odium theologicum.

C. D. to C. Lyell. Down [December 12th, 1859]

… I had very long interviews with – , which perhaps you would like to hear about… I infer from several expressions that, at bottom, he goes an immense way with us…

He said to the effect that my explanation was the best ever published of the manner of formation of species. I said I was very glad to hear it. He took me up short: "You must not at all suppose that I agree with you in all respects." I said I thought it no more likely that I should be right in nearly all points, than that I should toss up a penny and get heads twenty times running. I asked him what he thought the weakest part. He said he had no particular objection to any part. He added: —

"If I must criticise, I should say, we do not want to know what Darwin believes and is convinced of, but what he can prove." I agreed most fully and truly that I have probably greatly sinned in this line, and defended my general line of argument of inventing a theory and seeing how many classes of facts the theory would explain. I added that I would endeavour to modify the "believes" and "convinceds." He took me up short: "You will then spoil your book, the charm of it is that it is Darwin himself." He added another objection, that the book was too teres atque rotundus– that it explained everything, and that it was improbable in the highest degree that I should succeed in this. I quite agree with this rather queer objection, and it comes to this that my book must be very bad or very good…

I have heard, by a roundabout channel, that Herschel says my book "is the law of higgledy-piggledy." What this exactly means I do not know, but it is evidently very contemptuous. If true this is a great blow and discouragement.

J. D. Hooker to C. Darwin. Kew [1859]

Dear Darwin, – You have, I know, been drenched with letters since the publication of your book, and I have hence forborne to add my mite.[182 - See, however, p. 211.] I hope now that you are well through Edition II., and I have heard that you were flourishing in London. I have not yet got half-through the book, not from want of will, but of time – for it is the very hardest book to read, to full profits, that I ever tried – it is so cram-full of matter and reasoning.[183 - Mr. Huxley has made a similar remark: – "Long occupation with the work has led the present writer to believe that the Origin of Species is one of the hardest of books to master." —Obituary Notice, Proc. R. Soc. No. 269, p. xvii.] I am all the more glad that you have published in this form, for the three volumes, unprefaced by this, would have choked any Naturalist of the nineteenth century, and certainly have softened my brain in the operation of assimilating their contents. I am perfectly tired of marvelling at the wonderful amount of facts you have brought to bear, and your skill in marshalling them and throwing them on the enemy; it is also extremely clear as far as I have gone, but very hard to fully appreciate. Somehow it reads very different from the MS., and I often fancy that I must have been very stupid not to have more fully followed it in MS. Lyell told me of his criticisms. I did not appreciate them all, and there are many little matters I hope one day to talk over with you. I saw a highly flattering notice in the English Churchman, short and not at all entering into discussion, but praising you and your book, and talking patronizingly of the doctrine!.. Bentham and Henslow will still shake their heads, I fancy…

Ever yours affectionately

C. D. to T. H. Huxley. Down, Dec. 28th [1859]

My dear Huxley, – Yesterday evening, when I read the Times of a previous day, I was amazed to find a splendid essay and review of me. Who can the author be? I am intensely curious. It included an eulogium of me which quite touched me, though I am not vain enough to think it all deserved. The author is a literary man, and German scholar. He has read my book very attentively; but, what is very remarkable, it seems that he is a profound naturalist. He knows my Barnacle-book, and appreciates it too highly. Lastly, he writes and thinks with quite uncommon force and clearness; and what is even still rarer, his writing is seasoned with most pleasant wit. We all laughed heartily over some of the sentences… Who can it be? Certainly I should have said that there was only one man in England who could have written this essay, and that you were the man. But I suppose I am wrong, and that there is some hidden genius of great calibre. For how could you influence Jupiter Olympus and make him give three and a half columns to pure science? The old fogies will think the world will come to an end. Well, whoever the man is, he has done great service to the cause, far more than by a dozen reviews in common periodicals. The grand way he soars above common religious prejudices, and the admission of such views into the Times, I look at as of the highest importance, quite independently of the mere question of species. If you should happen to be acquainted with the author, for Heaven-sake tell me who he is?

My dear Huxley, yours most sincerely

There can be no doubt that this powerful essay, appearing in the leading daily Journal, must have had a strong influence on the reading public. Mr. Huxley allows me to quote from a letter an account of the happy chance that threw into his hands the opportunity of writing it: —

"The Origin was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff of the Times writers at that day, in what I suppose was the ordinary course of business. Mr. Lucas, though an excellent journalist, and, at a later period, editor of Once a Week, was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe, and bewailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with such a book. Whereupon he was recommended to ask me to get him out of his difficulty, and he applied to me accordingly, explaining, however, that it would be necessary for him formally to adopt anything I might be disposed to write, by prefacing it with two or three paragraphs of his own.

"I was too anxious to seize upon the opportunity thus offered of giving the book a fair chance with the multitudinous readers of the Times to make any difficulty about conditions; and being then very full of the subject, I wrote the article faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my life, and sent it to Mr. Lucas, who duly prefixed his opening sentences.

"When the article appeared, there was much speculation as to its authorship. The secret leaked out in time, as all secrets will, but not by my aid; and then I used to derive a good deal of innocent amusement from the vehement assertions of some of my more acute friends, that they knew it was mine from the first paragraph!

"As the Times some years since referred to my connection with the review, I suppose there will be no breach of confidence in the publication of this little history, if you think it worth the space it will occupy."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES' – REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS – ADHESIONS AND ATTACKS

"You are the greatest revolutionist in natural history of this century, if not of all centuries." – H. C. Watson to C. Darwin, Nov. 21, 1859.

1860

The second edition, 3000 copies, of the Origin was published on January 7th; on the 10th, he wrote with regard to it, to Lyell: —

C. D. to C. Lyell. Down, January 10th [1860]

… It is perfectly true that I owe nearly all the corrections to you, and several verbal ones to you and others; I am heartily glad you approve of them, as yet only two things have annoyed me; those confounded millions[184 - This refers to the passage in the Origin of Species (2nd edit. p. 285) in which the lapse of time implied by the denudation of the Weald is discussed. The discussion closes with the sentence: "So that it is not improbable that a longer period than 300 million years has elapsed since the latter part of the Secondary period." This passage is omitted in the later editions of the Origin, against the advice of some of his friends, as appears from the pencil notes in my father's copy of the 2nd edition.] of years (not that I think it is probably wrong), and my not having (by inadvertence) mentioned Wallace towards the close of the book in the summary, not that any one has noticed this to me. I have now put in Wallace's name at p. 484 in a conspicuous place. I shall be truly glad to read carefully any MS. on man, and give my opinion. You used to caution me to be cautious about man. I suspect I shall have to return the caution a hundred fold! Yours will, no doubt, be a grand discussion; but it will horrify the world at first more than my whole volume; although by the sentence (p. 489, new edition[185 - In the first edition, the passages occur on p. 488.]) I show that I believe man is in the same predicament with other animals. It is in fact impossible to doubt it. I have thought (only vaguely) on man. With respect to the races, one of my best chances of truth has broken down from the impossibility of getting facts. I have one good speculative line, but a man must have entire credence in Natural Selection before he will even listen to it. Psychologically, I have done scarcely anything. Unless, indeed, expression of countenance can be included, and on that subject I have collected a good many facts, and speculated, but I do not suppose I shall ever publish, but it is an uncommonly curious subject.

A few days later he wrote again to the same correspondent:

"What a grand immense benefit you conferred on me by getting Murray to publish my book. I never till to-day realised that it was getting widely distributed; for in a letter from a lady to-day to E., she says she heard a man enquiring for it at the Railway Station!!! at Waterloo Bridge; and the bookseller said that he had none till the new edition was out. The bookseller said he had not read it, but had heard it was a very remarkable book!!!"

C. D. to J. D. Hooker. Down, 14th [January, 1860]

… I heard from Lyell this morning, and he tells me a piece of news. You are a good-for-nothing man; here you are slaving yourself to death with hardly a minute to spare, and you must write a review on my book! I thought it[186 - Gardeners' Chronicle, 1860. Sir J. D. Hooker took the line of complete impartiality, so as not to commit the editor, Lindley.] a very good one, and was so much struck with it, that I sent it to Lyell. But I assumed, as a matter of course, that it was Lindley's. Now that I know it is yours, I have re-read it, and my kind and good friend, it has warmed my heart with all the honourable and noble things you say of me and it. I was a good deal surprised at Lindley hitting on some of the remarks, but I never dreamed of you. I admired it chiefly as so well adapted to tell on the readers of the Gardeners' Chronicle; but now I admire it in another spirit. Farewell, with hearty thanks…

Asa Gray to J. D. Hooker. Cambridge, Mass., January 5th, 1860

My dear Hooker, – Your last letter, which reached me just before Christmas, has got mislaid during the upturnings in my study which take place at that season, and has not yet been discovered. I should be very sorry to lose it, for there were in it some botanical mems. which I had not secured…

The principal part of your letter was high laudation of Darwin's book.

Well, the book has reached me, and I finished its careful perusal four days ago; and I freely say that your laudation is not out of place.

It is done in a masterly manner. It might well have taken twenty years to produce it. It is crammed full of most interesting matter – thoroughly digested – well expressed – close, cogent, and taken as a system it makes out a better case than I had supposed possible…

Agassiz, when I saw him last, had read but a part of it. He says it is poor – very poor!! (entre nous). The fact [is] he is very much annoyed by it, … and I do not wonder at it. To bring all ideal systems within the domain of science, and give good physical or natural explanations of all his capital points, is as bad as to have Forbes take the glacier materials … and give scientific explanation of all the phenomena.