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

The Historical Sketch had already appeared in the first German edition (1860) and the American edition. Bronn states in the German edition (footnote, p. 1) that it was his critique in the N. Jahrbuch für Mineralogie that suggested to my father the idea of such a sketch.

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Hugh Falconer, born 1809, died 1865. Chiefly known as a palæontologist, although employed as a botanist during his whole career in India, where he was a medical officer in the H.E.I.C. Service.

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In his letters to Gray there are also numerous references to the American war. I give a single passage. "I never knew the newspapers so profoundly interesting. North America does not do England justice; I have not seen or heard of a soul who is not with the North. Some few, and I am one of them, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against slavery. In the long-run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. What wonderful times we live in! Massachusetts seems to show noble enthusiasm. Great God! how I should like to see the greatest curse on earth – slavery – abolished!"

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This refers to the remarkable fact that many introduced European weeds have spread over large parts of the United States.

219

Geologist, 1861, p. 132.

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The letter is published in a lecture by Professor Hutton given before the Philosoph. Institute, Canterbury, N.Z., Sept 12th, 1887.

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Mr. Bates is perhaps most widely known through his delightful The Naturalist on the Amazons. It was with regard to this book that my father wrote (April 1863) to the author: – "I have finished vol. i. My criticisms may be condensed into a single sentence, namely, that it is the best work of Natural History Travels ever published in England. Your style seems to me admirable. Nothing can be better than the discussion on the struggle for existence, and nothing better than the description of the Forest scenery. It is a grand book, and whether or not it sells quickly, it will last. You have spoken out boldly on Species; and boldness on the subject seems to get rarer and rarer. How beautifully illustrated it is."

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Mr. Bates' paper, 'Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazons Valley' (Linn. Soc. Trans. xxiii. 1862), in which the now familiar subject of mimicry was founded. My father wrote a short review of it in the Natural History Review, 1863, p. 219, parts of which occur almost verbatim in the later editions of the Origin of Species. A striking passage occurs in the review, showing the difficulties of the case from a creationist's point of view: —

"By what means, it may be asked, have so many butterflies of the Amazonian region acquired their deceptive dress? Most naturalists will answer that they were thus clothed from the hour of their creation – an answer which will generally be so far triumphant that it can be met only by long-drawn arguments; but it is made at the expense of putting an effectual bar to all further inquiry. In this particular case, moreover, the creationist will meet with special difficulties; for many of the mimicking forms of Leptalis can be shown by a graduated series to be merely varieties of one species; other mimickers are undoubtedly distinct species, or even distinct genera. So again, some of the mimicked forms can be shown to be merely varieties; but the greater number must be ranked as distinct species. Hence the creationist will have to admit that some of these forms have become imitators, by means of the laws of variation, whilst others he must look at as separately created under their present guise; he will further have to admit that some have been created in imitation of forms not themselves created as we now see them, but due to the laws of variation! Professor Agassiz, indeed, would think nothing of this difficulty; for he believes that not only each species and each variety, but that groups of individuals, though identically the same, when inhabiting distinct countries, have been all separately created in due proportional numbers to the wants of each land. Not many naturalists will be content thus to believe that varieties and individuals have been turned out all ready made, almost as a manufacturer turns out toys according to the temporary demand of the market."

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Mr. Huxley was as usual active in guiding and stimulating the growing tendency to tolerate or accept the views set forth in the Origin of Species. He gave a series of lectures to working men at the School of Mines in November, 1862. These were printed in 1863 from the shorthand notes of Mr. May, as six little blue books, price 4d. each, under the title, Our Knowledge of the Causes of Organic Nature.

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Kingsley's Life, vol. ii. p. 171.

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In the Antiquity of Man, first edition, p. 480, Lyell criticised somewhat severely Owen's account of the difference between the Human and Simian brains. The number of the Athenæum here referred to (1863, p. 262) contains a reply by Professor Owen to Lyell's strictures. The surprise expressed by my father was at the revival of a controversy which every one believed to be closed. Professor Huxley (Medical Times, Oct. 25th, 1862, quoted in Man's Place in Nature, p. 117) spoke of the "two years during which this preposterous controversy has dragged its weary length." And this no doubt expressed a very general feeling.

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The italics are not Lyell's.

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The Antiquity of Man.

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"Falconer, whom I [Lyell] referred to oftener than to any other author, says I have not done justice to the part he took in resuscitating the cave question, and says he shall come out with a separate paper to prove it. I offered to alter anything in the new edition, but this he declined." – C. Lyell to C. Darwin, March 11, 1863; Lyell's Life, vol ii. p. 364.

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Man's Place in Nature, 1863.

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This refers to a passage in which the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter's book speaks of "an operation of force," or "a concurrence of forces which have now no place in nature," as being, "a creative force, in fact, which Darwin could only express in Pentateuchal terms as the primordial form 'into which life was first breathed.'" The conception of expressing a creative force as a primordial form is the reviewer's.

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Public Opinion, April 23, 1863, A lively account of a police case, in which the quarrels of scientific men are satirised. Mr. John Bull gives evidence that —

"The whole neighbourhood was unsettled by their disputes; Huxley quarrelled with Owen, Owen with Darwin, Lyell with Owen, Falconer and Prestwich with Lyell, and Gray the menagerie man with everybody. He had pleasure, however, in stating that Darwin was the quietest of the set. They were always picking bones with each other and fighting over their gains. If either of the gravel sifters or stone breakers found anything, he was obliged to conceal it immediately, or one of the old bone collectors would be sure to appropriate it first and deny the theft afterwards, and the consequent wrangling and disputes were as endless as they were wearisome.

"Lord Mayor. – Probably the clergyman of the parish might exert some influence over them?

"The gentleman smiled, shook his head, and stated that he regretted to say that no class of men paid so little attention to the opinions of the clergy as that to which these unhappy men belonged."

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No doubt Haeckel, whose monograph on the Radiolaria was published in 1862.

233

The Marquis de Saporta.

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Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l'origine des espèces. Par P. Flourens. 8vo. Paris, 1864.

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Lay Sermons, p. 328.

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Charles Darwin und sein Verhältniss zu Deutschland, 1885.

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An article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edit., reprinted in Science and Culture, 1881, p. 298.

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