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

Tell Darwin all this. I will write to him when I get a chance. As I have promised, he and you shall have fair-play here… I must myself write a review[187 - On Jan. 23 Gray wrote to Darwin: "It naturally happens that my review of your book does not exhibit anything like the full force of the impression the book has made upon me. Under the circumstances I suppose I do your theory more good here, by bespeaking for it a fair and favourable consideration, and by standing non-committed as to its full conclusions, than I should if I announced myself a convert; nor could I say the latter, with truth…"What seems to me the weakest point in the book is the attempt to account for the formation of organs, the making of eyes, &c., by natural selection. Some of this reads quite Lamarckian."] of Darwin's book for Silliman's Journal (the more so that I suspect Agassiz means to come out upon it) for the next (March) number, and I am now setting about it (when I ought to be every moment working the Expl[oring] Expedition Compositæ, which I know far more about). And really it is no easy job as you may well imagine.

I doubt if I shall please you altogether. I know I shall not please Agassiz at all. I hear another reprint is in the Press, and the book will excite much attention here, and some controversy…

C. D. to Asa Gray. Down, January 28th [1860]

My dear Gray, – Hooker has forwarded to me your letter to him; and I cannot express how deeply it has gratified me. To receive the approval of a man whom one has long sincerely respected, and whose judgment and knowledge are most universally admitted, is the highest reward an author can possibly wish for; and I thank you heartily for your most kind expressions.

I have been absent from home for a few days, and so could not earlier answer your letter to me of the 10th of January. You have been extremely kind to take so much trouble and interest about the edition. It has been a mistake of my publisher not thinking of sending over the sheets. I had entirely and utterly forgotten your offer of receiving the sheets as printed off. But I must not blame my publisher, for had I remembered your most kind offer I feel pretty sure I should not have taken advantage of it; for I never dreamed of my book being so successful with general readers: I believe I should have laughed at the idea of sending the sheets to America.[188 - In a letter to Mr. Murray, 1860, my father wrote: – "I am amused by Asa Gray's account of the excitement my book has made amongst naturalists in the U. States. Agassiz has denounced it in a newspaper, but yet in such terms that it is in fact a fine advertisement!" This seems to refer to a lecture given before the Mercantile Library Association.]

After much consideration, and on the strong advice of Lyell and others, I have resolved to leave the present book as it is (excepting correcting errors, or here and there inserting short sentences), and to use all my strength, which is but little, to bring out the first part (forming a separate volume, with index, &c.) of the three volumes which will make my bigger work; so that I am very unwilling to take up time in making corrections for an American edition. I enclose a list of a few corrections in the second reprint, which you will have received by this time complete, and I could send four or five corrections or additions of equally small importance, or rather of equal brevity. I also intend to write a short preface with a brief history of the subject. These I will set about, as they must some day be done, and I will send them to you in a short time – the few corrections first, and the preface afterwards, unless I hear that you have given up all idea of a separate edition. You will then be able to judge whether it is worth having the new edition with your review prefixed. Whatever be the nature of your review, I assure you I should feel it a great honour to have my book thus preceded…

C. D. to C. Lyell. Down [February 15th, 1860]

… I am perfectly convinced (having read it this morning) that the review in the Annals[189 - Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist. third series, vol. v. p. 132. My father has obviously taken the expression "pestilent" from the following passage (p. 138): "But who is this Nature, we have a right to ask, who has such tremendous power, and to whose efficiency such marvellous performances are ascribed? What are her image and attributes, when dragged from her wordy lurking-place? Is she ought but a pestilent abstraction, like dust cast in our eyes to obscure the workings of an Intelligent First Cause of all?" The reviewer pays a tribute to my father's candour "so manly and outspoken as almost to 'cover a multitude of sins.'" The parentheses (to which allusion is made above) are so frequent as to give a characteristic appearance to Mr. Wollaston's pages.] is by Wollaston; no one else in the world would have used so many parentheses. I have written to him, and told him that the "pestilent" fellow thanks him for his kind manner of speaking about him. I have also told him that he would be pleased to hear that the Bishop of Oxford says it is the most unphilosophical[190 - Another version of the words is given by Lyell, to whom they were spoken, viz. "the most illogical book ever written." —Life and Letters of Sir C. Lyell, vol. ii. p. 358.] work he ever read. The review seems to me clever, and only misinterprets me in a few places. Like all hostile men, he passes over the explanation given of Classification, Morphology, Embryology, and Rudimentary Organs, &c. I read Wallace's paper in MS.,[191 - "On the Zoological Geography of the Malay Archipelago." —Linn. Soc. Journ. 1860.] and thought it admirably good; he does not know that he has been anticipated about the depth of intervening sea determining distribution… The most curious point in the paper seems to me that about the African character of the Celebes productions, but I should require further confirmation…

Henslow is staying here; I have had some talk with him; he is in much the same state as Bunbury,[192 - The late Sir Charles Bunbury, well known as a Paleo-botanist.] and will go a very little way with us, but brings up no real argument against going further. He also shudders at the eye! It is really curious (and perhaps is an argument in our favour) how differently different opposers view the subject. Henslow used to rest his opposition on the imperfection of the Geological Record, but he now thinks nothing of this, and says I have got well out of it; I wish I could quite agree with him. Baden Powell says he never read anything so conclusive as my statement about the eye!! A stranger writes to me about sexual selection, and regrets that I boggle about such a trifle as the brush of hair on the male turkey, and so on. As L. Jenyns has a really philosophical mind, and as you say you like to see everything, I send an old letter of his. In a later letter to Henslow, which I have seen, he is more candid than any opposer I have heard of, for he says, though he cannot go so far as I do, yet he can give no good reason why he should not. It is funny how each man draws his own imaginary line at which to halt. It reminds me so vividly [of] what I was told[193 - By Professor Henslow.] about you when I first commenced geology – to believe a little, but on no account to believe all.

Ever yours affectionately

With regard to the attitude of the more liberal representatives of the Church, the following letter from Charles Kingsley is of interest:

C. Kingsley to C. Darwin. Eversley Rectory, Winchfield, November 18th, 1859

Dear Sir, – I have to thank you for the unexpected honour of your book. That the Naturalist whom, of all naturalists living, I most wish to know and to learn from, should have sent a scientist like me his book, encourages me at least to observe more carefully, and think more slowly.

I am so poorly (in brain), that I fear I cannot read your book just now as I ought. All I have seen of it awes me; both with the heap of facts and the prestige of your name, and also with the clear intuition, that if you be right, I must give up much that I have believed and written.

In that I care little. Let God be true, and every man a liar! Let us know what is, and, as old Socrates has it, ἑπεσθαι τὡ λὁγὡ [Greek: hepesthai tô logô] – follow up the villainous shifty fox of an argument, into whatsoever unexpected bogs and brakes he may lead us, if we do but run into him at last.

From two common superstitious, at least, I shall be free while judging of your book: —

(1.) I have long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species.

(2.) I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self-development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought.

Be it as it may, I shall prize your book, both for itself, and as a proof that you are aware of the existence of such a person as

Your faithful servant,

    C. Kingsley.

My father's old friend, the Rev. J. Brodie Innes, of Milton Brodie, who was for many years Vicar of Down, in some reminiscences of my father which he was so good as to give me, writes in the same spirit:

"We never attacked each other. Before I knew Mr. Darwin I had adopted, and publicly expressed, the principle that the study of natural history, geology, and science in general, should be pursued without reference to the Bible. That the Book of Nature and Scripture came from the same Divine source, ran in parallel lines, and when properly understood would never cross…

"In [a] letter, after I had left Down, he [Darwin] writes, 'We often differed, but you are one of those rare mortals from whom one can differ and yet feel no shade of animosity, and that is a thing [of] which I should feel very proud if any one could say [it] of me.'

"On my last visit to Down, Mr. Darwin said, at his dinner-table, 'Innes and I have been fast friends for thirty years, and we never thoroughly agreed on any subject but once, and then we stared hard at each other, and thought one of us must be very ill.'"

The following extract from a letter to Lyell, Feb. 23, 1860, has a certain bearing on the points just touched on:

"With respect to Bronn's[194 - The translator of the first German edition of the Origin.] objection that it cannot be shown how life arises, and likewise to a certain extent Asa Gray's remark that natural selection is not a vera causa, I was much interested by finding accidentally in Brewster's Life of Newton, that Leibnitz objected to the law of gravity because Newton could not show what gravity itself is. As it has chanced, I have used in letters this very same argument, little knowing that any one had really thus objected to the law of gravity. Newton answers by saying that it is philosophy to make out the movements of a clock, though you do not know why the weight descends to the ground. Leibnitz further objected that the law of gravity was opposed to Natural Religion! Is this not curious? I really think I shall use the facts for some introductory remarks for my bigger book."

C. D. to J. D. Hooker. Down, March 3rd [1860]

… I think you expect too much in regard to change of opinion on the subject of Species. One large class of men, more especially I suspect of naturalists, never will care about any general question, of which old Gray, of the British Museum, may be taken as a type; and secondly, nearly all men past a moderate age, either in actual years or in mind are, I am fully convinced, incapable of looking at facts under a new point of view. Seriously, I am astonished and rejoiced at the progress which the subject has made; look at the enclosed memorandum. – says my book will be forgotten in ten years, perhaps so; but, with such a list, I feel convinced the subject will not.

[Here follows the memorandum referred to:]

1. Andrew Ramsay, late Director-General of the Geological Survey.

2. Joseph Beete Jukes, M.A., F.R.S., born 1811, died 1869. He was educated at Cambridge, and from 1842 to 1846 he acted as naturalist to H.M.S. Fly, on an exploring expedition in Australia and New Guinea. He was afterwards appointed Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland. He was the author of many papers, and of more than one good handbook of geology.

3. Professor of Geology in the University of Glasgow. Born in the United States 1809, died 1866.

4. Searles Valentine Wood, died 1880. Chiefly known for his work on the Mollusca of the Crag.

5. Dr. G. H. K. Thwaites, F.R.S., was born in 1811, or about that date, and died in Ceylon, September 11, 1882. He began life as a Notary, but his passion for Botany and Entomology ultimately led to his taking to Science as a profession. He became lecturer on Botany at the Bristol School of Medicine, and in 1849 he was appointed Director of the Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya, which he made "the most beautiful tropical garden in the world." He is best known through his important discovery of conjugation in the Diatomaceæ (1847). His Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ (1858-64) was "the first complete account, on modern lines, of any definitely circumscribed tropical area." (From a notice in Nature, October 26, 1882.)

C. D. to Asa Gray. Down, April 3 [1860]

… I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!..

You may like to hear about reviews on my book. Sedgwick (as I and Lyell feel certain from internal evidence) has reviewed me savagely and unfairly in the Spectator.[195 - Spectator, March 24, 1860. There were favourable notices of the Origin by Huxley in the Westminster Review, and Carpenter in the Medico-Chir. Review, both in the April numbers.] The notice includes much abuse, and is hardly fair in several respects. He would actually lead any one, who was ignorant of geology, to suppose that I had invented the great gaps between successive geological formations, instead of its being an almost universally admitted dogma. But my dear old friend Sedgwick, with his noble heart, is old, and is rabid with indignation… There has been one prodigy of a review, namely, an opposed one (by Pictet,[196 - François Jules Pictet, in the Archives des Science de la Bibliothèque Universelle, Mars 1860.] the palæontologist, in the Bib. Universelle of Geneva) which is perfectly fair and just, and I agree to every word he says; our only difference being that he attaches less weight to arguments in favour, and more to arguments opposed, than I do. Of all the opposed reviews, I think this the only quite fair one, and I never expected to see one. Please observe that I do not class your review by any means as opposed, though you think so yourself! It has done me much too good service ever to appear in that rank in my eyes. But I fear I shall weary you with so much about my book. I should rather think there was a good chance of my becoming the most egotistical man in all Europe! What a proud pre-eminence! Well, you have helped to make me so, and therefore you must forgive me if you can.

My dear Gray, ever yours most gratefully

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

I have just read the Edinburgh,[197 - Edinburgh Review, April, 1860.] which without doubt is by – . It is extremely malignant, clever, and I fear will be very damaging. He is atrociously severe on Huxley's lecture, and very bitter against Hooker. So we three enjoyed it together. Not that I really enjoyed it, for it made me uncomfortable for one night; but I have got quite over it to-day. It requires much study to appreciate all the bitter spite of many of the remarks against me; indeed I did not discover all myself. It scandalously misrepresents many parts. He misquotes some passages, altering words within inverted commas…

It is painful to be hated in the intense degree with which – hates me.

Now for a curious thing about my book, and then I have done. In last Saturday's Gardeners' Chronicle,[198 - April 7, 1860.] a Mr. Patrick Matthew publishes a long extract from his work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Natural Selection. I have ordered the book, as some few passages are rather obscure, but it is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation! Erasmus always said that surely this would be shown to be the case some day. Anyhow, one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on Naval Timber.

C. D. to J. D. Hooker. Down [April 13th, 1860]

My dear Hooker, – Questions of priority so often lead to odious quarrels, that I should esteem it a great favour if you would read the enclosed.[199 - My father wrote (Gardeners' Chronicle, April 21, 1860, p. 362): "I have been much interested by Mr. Patrick Matthew's communication in the number of your paper dated April 7th. I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species, under the name of natural selection. I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr. Matthew's views, considering how briefly they are given, and that they appeared in the appendix to a work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture. I can do no more than offer my apologies to Mr. Matthew for my entire ignorance of his publication. If another edition of my work is called for, I will insert to the foregoing effect." In spite of my father's recognition of his claims, Mr. Matthew remained unsatisfied, and complained that an article in the Saturday Analyst and Leader, Nov. 24, 1860, was "scarcely fair in alluding to Mr. Darwin as the parent of the origin of species, seeing that I published the whole that Mr. Darwin attempts to prove, more than twenty-nine years ago." It was not until later that he learned that Matthew had also been forestalled. In October 1865, he wrote Sir J. D. Hooker: – "Talking of the Origin, a Yankee has called my attention to a paper attached to Dr. Wells' famous Essay on Dew, which was read in 1813 to the Royal Soc., but not [then] printed, in which he applies most distinctly the principle of Natural Selection to the races of Man. So poor old Patrick Matthew is not the first, and he cannot, or ought not, any longer to put on his title-pages, 'Discoverer of the principle of Natural Selection'!"] If you think it proper that I should send it (and of this there can hardly be any question), and if you think it full and ample enough, please alter the date to the day on which you post it, and let that be soon. The case in the Gardeners' Chronicle seems a little stronger than in Mr. Matthew's book, for the passages are therein scattered in three places; but it would be mere hair-splitting to notice that. If you object to my letter, please return it; but I do not expect that you will, but I thought that you would not object to run your eye over it. My dear Hooker, it is a great thing for me to have so good, true, and old a friend as you. I owe much for science to my friends.

… I have gone over [the Edinburgh] review again, and compared passages, and I am astonished at the misrepresentations. But I am glad I resolved not to answer. Perhaps it is selfish, but to answer and think more on the subject is too unpleasant. I am so sorry that Huxley by my means has been thus atrociously attacked. I do not suppose you much care about the gratuitous attack on you.

Lyell in his letter remarked that you seemed to him as if you were overworked. Do, pray, be cautious, and remember how many and many a man has done this – who thought it absurd till too late. I have often thought the same. You know that you were bad enough before your Indian journey.

C. D. to C. Lyell. Down, April [1860]

… I was particularly glad to hear what you thought about not noticing [the Edinburgh] review. Hooker and Huxley thought it a sort of duty to point out the alteration of quoted citations, and there is truth in this remark; but I so hated the thought that I resolved not to do so. I shall come up to London on Saturday the 14th, for Sir B. Brodie's party, as I have an accumulation of things to do in London, and will (if I do not hear to the contrary) call about a quarter before ten on Sunday morning, and sit with you at breakfast, but will not sit long, and so take up much of your time. I must say one more word about our quasi-theological controversy about natural selection, and let me have your opinion when we meet in London. Do you consider that the successive variations in the size of the crop of the Pouter Pigeon, which man has accumulated to please his caprice, have been due to "the creative and sustaining powers of Brahma?" In the sense that an omnipotent and omniscient Deity must order and know everything, this must be admitted; yet, in honest truth, I can hardly admit it. It seems preposterous that a maker of a universe should care about the crop of a pigeon solely to please man's silly fancies. But if you agree with me in thinking such an interposition of the Deity uncalled for, I can see no reason whatever for believing in such interpositions in the case of natural beings, in which strange and admirable peculiarities have been naturally selected for the creature's own benefit. Imagine a Pouter in a state of nature wading into the water and then, being buoyed up by its inflated crop, sailing about in search of food. What admiration this would have excited – adaptation to the laws of hydrostatic pressure, &c. &c. For the life of me, I cannot see any difficulty in natural selection producing the most exquisite structure, if such structure can be arrived at by gradation, and I know from experience how hard it is to name any structure towards which at least some gradations are not known.

Ever yours