Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions
Encyclopedia
The life and work of Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions during the period from 1868 to 1872 continued with aspects of Charles Darwin
's intended "Big Book" on evolution
through natural selection
. He had by then hurriedly published an "abstract
" of this work as On the Origin of Species in 1859, and following the immediate reaction to Darwin's theory
the work of Darwin from Orchids to Variation
had included showing the utility of the flowers of Orchids in directing insect pollination to achieve cross fertilisation, and a summing up of thirteen years of experiments in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
which went on sale on 30 January 1868. He now published his ideas on human evolution and on how beautiful but apparently impractical features could have evolved in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
. After revising The Origin of Species as the definitive 6th edition, his major works on species culminated in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
.
This period was followed by the life and work of Darwin from Insectivorous Plants to Worms
.
was his cousin or had inherited his own illness, around early 1868 his sons had successes with William Darwin
doing well as a bank manager, Leonard Darwin
coming second in the entrance exam for the Royal Military Academy and George coming runner-up in his mathematics degree class at the University of Cambridge
, getting offered a science mastership at Eton College
but choosing to make his career in law.
, writing to scientist friends for information. He got commercial breeders to experiment with altering the appearance of their stock and recording the subject's sexual prowess. He thought that exotic creatures like hummingbirds and peacocks owed their appearance, not to divine design to please man, but to the cumulative effect of the female preferring minute differences in choosing a mate, writing that "A girl sees a handsome man, and without observing whether his nose or whiskers are the tenth or an inch longer or shorter than in some other man, admires his appearance and says she will marry him. So, I suppose, with the pea-hen."
To meet a lack of books supporting the Origin on natural selection, Darwin arranged with John Murray
to publish a translation of Für Darwin, written by Fritz Müller
exiled in Brazil
. Darwin provided £100 subsidy and arranged the translator, and Facts and Arguments for Darwin. sold well.
In the spring of 1868 Darwin got information on newt
s from St George Mivart
, a brilliant anatomist and one of Huxley's protégés who had dropped law for zoology after hearing Owen lecture. He assured Darwin that "As to "natural selection" I accepted it completely" but added that he had "doubts & difficulties.. first excited by attending Prof. Huxley's lectures".
, and was now working to include this with ape ancestry and evolution of morality and religion in a new book which he now decided to call The Descent of Man.
wrote Hereditary Talent and Character for Macmillan's Magazine emphasising the inheritance of traits, and their extension to races and classes, and calling for better breeding to ensure that the "nobler varieties of mankind" prevailed, with civilisation being saved from "intellectual anarchy" by scientific "master minds" rising to power. These views were shared by Darwin's old friend W. R. Greg
whose Fraser's Magazine
article about natural selection in society raised fears of the "unfit" and of the prudent middle classes being out-bred by the idle rich and the feckless poor.
These ideas raised a dilemma, of evolution working against progress. Darwin found help in Walter Bagehot
's essays on Physics and Politics in the Fortnightly Review which argued that progress depended on the command structure of society. Civilisation came from obedience, respect for law and a "military bond". Through tribal and imperial battles new racial and national types would emerge, selected as "The characters which do win in war are the characters which we should wish to win in war". Darwin added his comment "nations which wander & cross would be most likely to vary" in the face of wider competition, and commended to Hooker Bagehot's analysis of "prehistoric politics".
Hooker became the first Darwinian to become president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
. While Hooker was working on his initial address, Darwin with his wife Emma and daughter Henrietta
went on holiday to the Isle of Wight
on July 16 1868, and rented a cottage from the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron
who took Darwin's portrait. Hooker joined them and the Irish poet William Allingham
described "Dr. Hooker in lower room writing away at his Address... Upstairs Mrs. Darwin, Miss D. and Mr. Charles Darwin himself–, yellow, sickly, very quiet. He has his meals at his own times, sees people or not as he chooses, has invalid's privileges in full, a great help to a studious man."
Hooker's address to the Norwich
British Association was a great success for the X Club
(a dining club formed in November 1864 to support the evolutionary "new reformation" in naturalism, including Huxley, Hooker, John Tyndall
, Busk, Spencer, and Spottiswoode). Darwin arrived home on 21 August with a clutch of the day's newspapers carrying the address and editorial comments. The Guardian
said Darwinism's "reign was triumphant", and it was generally said that the disciples were "ready to push their consequences more fearlessly than the master himself". Darwin enjoyed John Tyndall's lecture in which the physicist widened the application of his theory.
Ernst Haeckel
's Darwinismus was even more universal, incorporating life, mind, society, politics and knowledge itself, though Darwin had struggled with reading his book and his efforts to get it translated were thwarted as the book proved too controversial. Haeckel, the "indomitable worker", quickly produced his History of Creation. An impressed Huxley adopted Haeckel's approach, and did what he had told Darwin was impossible and wrong, drawing up a genealogical tree for the ancestry of partridge
s and pigeons
which traced them back to the dinosaur
s. Huxley also arranged audiences for Germans arriving to pay their "devotions at the shrine of Mr. Darwin".
That autumn, the botanist
Asa Gray
came to England with his wife for a long rest from "drudgery" at Harvard. He spent the time with Hooker at Kew
, visiting the Darwins at weekends. There were many other visitors at this time, including Gray's friend Charles Eliot Norton
who brought his wife and her sister Sara Sedgwick, who caught William Darwin
's eye. Gray was theologically uncomfortable with the implications of Variation, and returned home wanting to avoid further "Darwinian discussions" or become "mixed up" with the Huxley set.
, Darwin had supported the parish church's work and had been a friend of the Revd. John Innes since he had taken over in 1846. Darwin continued to help, though he stopped attending church after his daughter Annie died in 1851. By 1864 Innes had retired to a property he had inherited in the Scottish Highlands
, changing his name to Brodie Innes and leaving the parish in the dubious hands of his curate, the Revd. Stevens, while still remaining the patron. The meagre "living and lack of a vicarage made it hard to attract a priest of quality. Innes made Darwin treasurer of Downe village school and they continued to correspond, with Innes seeking help and advice on parish matters. The Revd. Stevens proved lax, and departed in 1867. His successors were worse, one absconding with the school's funds after Darwin mistakenly shared the treasurer's duties with him. The next was rumoured to have disgraced himself by "walking with girls at night". Darwin now became involved in helping Innes with detective work, subsequently advising him that the gossip that had reached Innes was not backed up by any reliable evidence.
's calculations giving a young age for the earth, Darwin asked his mathematical son George to check the figures, disbelieving the "brevity of the world... else my views would be wrong, which is impossible – Q.E.D.". Darwin modified the 5th edition of the Origin, speeding up the process of variation and reviving the Lamarckian
"useful inheritance" notion. In February 1869 Huxley at the Geological Society argued that '" Biology takes her time from geology...[even] if the geological clock is wrong, all the naturalist will have to do is to modify his notions of the rapidity of change accordingly".
Huxley was charged with heresy after giving a Sunday "lay sermon" in Edinburgh
"on the physical basis of life". In April the "Metaphysical Society", a group of liberal churchmen of all denominations and even atheists, attempted to reach a consensus and Huxley coined a new label for his position – agnostic. Wallace was now arguing that human brains were an over-endowment created by "spiritual forces" rather than natural selection, leading Darwin to write "I differ grievously from you, and I am very sorry for it".
Mivart gained his Fellowship of the Royal Society on 3 June with Huxley's help, then surprised him by announcing that he was going to publish his objections to Darwinian views of human nature and morality. Mivart placed anonymous articles criticising natural selection in the Catholic Month. The Duke of Argyll
published his Primeval Man arguing that man could not rise unaided from "utter barbarism", and that "savages" were degenerates forced out by fitter races. Argyll claimed that "Man must have had the human proportions of mind before he could afford to lose bestial proportions of body", contrasting a gorilla with an elder of the British Association, but Darwin noted that without remains of ancestors there was no evidence for this, and that man's vulnerability would have encouraged social cohesion and moral sense.
caught up with him and tried to persuade him that John Stuart Mill
's book The Subjection of Women
was an ideal source for his study of man's origins and sexual selection. When Darwin, who had read Cobbe's review of Mill, answered that Mill '"could learn some things" from biology, and that the "struggle for existence" produced man's special "vigour and courage" from battling "for the possession of women", she offered him a copy of Kant
on the "moral sense" to sort out his ethical problems, but he declined. He did ask his son William to read Mill and tell him what to think. On 16 July, Darwin started to work out a strategy to "trump" Cobbe, and wrote down his notes that men were superior to women because they had been "defending the tribe & hunting" for many generations and that Mill didn't think of sexual selection. When he returned home, Darwin added his notes to Descent, commenting that women seemed to show "greater tenderness and less selfishness", suggesting that this came from maternal instincts in contrast to male competitiveness. He wrote that "It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation." His views supported Victorian stereotypes.
In November the founding of Nature
gave the X Club
an outlet for their views. As well as Hooker and Huxley, it featured Darwin's cousin Francis Galton
.
at Cannes
, for editing to ensure that damaging inferences could not be drawn. He thought he was getting rather evangelical, writing "Who would ever have thought I should turn parson!"
Emma also advised, writing that the treatment of morals and religion might be "very interesting", but she would still "dislike it very much as again putting God further off". They took a break in mid May 1870 along with Henrietta and Bessy
to visit Cambridge
where Horace
had started and Frank
was graduating with a good mathematics degree. Charles was haunted by the absence of "Dear Henslow
", but on the last day met Sedgwick
who was overjoyed to see him with his "dear family party". They had a long chat, with Sedgwick not mentioning the Origin, possibly from tact though Darwin thought his brain "enfeebled". Late in the day Sedgwick insisted on showing Charles round his new geological museum, by the end of which Darwin was "utterly prostrated". As Darwin on struggled to get to the train the next day he remarked on the humiliation of being "thus killed by a man of eighty-six, who evidently never dreamed that he was thus killing me?".
The South American Missionary Society had converted and clothed the natives of Tierra del Fuego
that Darwin thought were untameable, and after Bartholomew Sulivan
sent a photograph of Jemmy Button
's son as evidence, Darwin made donations for several years. Darwin was proud to become an honorary member, but warned Sulivan that he would shortly publish "another book partly on man, which I dare say many will decry as very wicked".
Darwin's neighbour Lubbock had been elected Member of Parliament for Maidstone
in February 1870 and Darwin lobbied him to get a question added to the census to find if married cousins had as many surviving children as unrelated parents, but when it came up in July, Lubbock's amendment caused furious debate and was heavily defeated. As the Franco-Prussian war
got under way, Darwin pressed on to finish the manuscript while worrying about how it would affect his German allies. When the French surrendered at Sedan
in November he wrote that "I have not met a soul in England who does not rejoice in the splendid triumph of Germany over France... It is a most just retribution against that vainglorious, war-liking nation." An "ailing and grumbling" Darwin worked on with his corrections, and the proofs were sent off on 15 January 1871 with him doubting that the book was "worth publishing". He promptly started on his next book, using left over material on emotional expressions.
suffered under siege, Darwin sent out review copies of his book, expecting a backlash.
Just at this point parish affairs intruded. The Revd. Henry Powell had now taken over, but the two previous curates got together to sue Darwin for defamatory remarks about the first absconding with the school's cash. Darwin wrote to Brodie Innes that "being examined in court could half-kill me, but was assured that the case would never come to court.
went on sale at twenty-four shillings, with a publication date of 24 February 1871. Within three weeks a reprint had been ordered, and 4,500 copies were in print by the end of March 1871, netting Darwin almost £1,500. Darwin's name created demand for the book, but the ideas were old news. "Everybody is talking about it without being shocked" which he found "proof of the increasing liberality of England". To critics, the book was "raising a storm of mingled wrath, wonder and admiration", though they denied that "spiritual powers" had evolved from brutes in case earnest men gave up "those motives by which they have attempted to live noble and virtuous lives".
The Prussians had been defeated, but 26 March an insurrection led by socialists and republicans took over Paris and set up the Paris Commune
, which was then besieged by French troops. The Times
condemned the Communards, and accused Darwin of undermining authority and principles of morality, opening the way to "the most murderous revolutions". A "man incurs a grave responsibility when, with the authority of a well-earned reputation, he advances at such a time the disintegrating speculations of this book." Darwin was able to shrug this off as from a "windbag full of metaphysics and classics". When his Tory
friend Brodie Innes taunted him that God's scheme, before being thwarted by interfering radicals, was that "Man was made a man..[split] into niggers who must be made to work [and] better men able to make them", Darwin responded that "I consider myself a good way ahead of you, as far as this goes."
He dismissed the objections raised in Wallace's review in the Academy as "almost stereotyped", but to his brother Erasmus Alvey Darwin
the generous and polite exchanges formed a "perfectly beautiful" controversy, and thought that "In future histories of science the Wallace-Darwin episode will form one of the few bright points."
underlying science, from his Roman Catholic position writing that "while combatting (as duty compels me to do) positions you adopt, I am not so much combatting you as others to whose view your scientific labours give additional currency." Darwin took this personally, feeling that Mivart's Genesis of Species was "producing a great effect against Natural Selection, and more especially against me." After completing a rough draft of Expressions in April 1871 he set it aside and turned to revising the Origin to meet Mivart's arguments and counter the claim that some divine inner force was driving evolution. Darwin told Murray of working men in Lancashire
clubbing together to buy the 5th edition at fifteen shillings, and he wanted a new cheap edition to make it more widely available.
In June Edward L. Youmans
, over from the United States to seek authors for his International Scientific Series, told Darwin about lecturing on the Descent of Man to a "clerical club" in Brooklyn
. Darwin burst out "What! Clergymen of different denominations all together? How they would fight if you should get them together here!" He was cheered by a damning analysis of Mivart's Genesis of Species by Chauncey Wright
(one of Gray's students) for the North American Review, and thought of importing it, but Wallace thought it too heavy and obscure.
Next Mivart's anonymous Quarterly Review article claimed that the Descent of Man would unsettle "our half educated classes" and talked of people doing as they pleased, breaking laws and customs. The author was obvious to a furious Darwin who thought "I shall soon be viewed as the most despicable of men". He wrote to ask Wright for permission to reprint his article as a pamphlet, then feeling "giddy and bad" was taken by Emma to recuperate at the nearby hamlet of Albury
. His head remained "rocky and wretched" and for two months he suffered giddiness and inability to work. They returned for Henrietta
's marriage after a whirlwind courtship to Richard Litchfield. She departed, leaving behind her fox terrier
"Polly" who now became Darwin's dog.
Murray sent out copies of Wright's pamphlet in September 1871. Only fourteen sold, but by then Huxley had already written a cutting review of Mivart's book and article. A relieved Darwin told him "How you do smash Mivart's theology... He may write his worst & he will never mortify me again". Hooker thought he surely would not be the happier for Mivart's humiliation, but an unrepentant Darwin responded that '"I am not so good a Christian as you think me, for I did enjoy my revenge".
In December Darwin completed extensive revisions of the Origin, using the word "evolution" for the first time and adding a new chapter to refute Mivart's guided jumps, tackling the argument of uselessness of part-evolved organs with myriad examples of gradual development or organs changing function. As 1872 began, Mivart politely inflamed the argument again, writing "wishing you very sincerely a happy new year" while wanting a disclaimer of the "fundamental intellectual errors" in the Descent of Man. This time Darwin ended the correspondence.
proposing "the extinction of faith in the Christian Confession" and a new humanist "Free Religion" for the "spiritual perfection of the individual and the spiritual unity of the race". He subscribed to Abbott's weekly The Index and allowed it to print his endorsement of the tract's "truths", "I admire them from my inmost heart & I agree to almost every word".
The 6th edition of Origin of Species was published by Murray on 19 February 1872 at a price kept down to 7s. 6d. by using minute print, and sales increased from 60 to 250 a month.
, pointing to shared evolution in contrast to Charles Bell
's Anatomy and Physiology of Expression which claimed divinely created muscles to express man's exquisite feelings. Darwin drew on world wide responses to his questionnaires, hundreds of photographs of actors, babies and "imbeciles" in an asylum, as well as his own observations, with particular empathy for the grief following a family death. The proofs, tackled by Henrietta
and Leo
, needed major revision which made him "sick of the subject, and myself, and the world". It was to be one of the first books with photographs, with seven heliotype plates, and Murray warned that this "would poke a terrible hole in the profits".
Wallace now wrote enthusing about H. Charlton Bastian's The Beginnings of Life claiming the spontaneous generation of life, but Darwin told him that "I have taken up old botanical work, and have given up all theories". By the end of September he was again near collapse, but Emma arranged three weeks away to rest, which worked well though he was still "growing old and weak".
Hooker's collections at Kew
were threatened with government cuts under Acton Smee Ayrton
. The X Club petitioned Gladstone. When Richard Owen
was found to be involved, possibly trying to bring Kew under his British Museum
, Darwin commented that "I used to be ashamed of hating him so much, but now I will carefully cherish my hatred & contempt to the last days of my life". In October Hooker sent sun-dews and Venus fly-traps for Darwin's experiments, then was devastated when his bedridden mother died. In his hot-house Darwin experimented, giving such plants from around the world a variety of foods and poisons, and began writing insectivorous Plants.
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals proved very popular, selling over 5,000 copies, but an exhausted Darwin became a "confirmed invalid" and at his brother Eramus's over Christmas 1872 sat drawing up his will.
See Darwin from Insectivorous plants to Worms
for his life and work in this period.
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's intended "Big Book" on evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
through natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
. He had by then hurriedly published an "abstract
Abstract (summary)
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline, and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always appears at the beginning of a...
" of this work as On the Origin of Species in 1859, and following the immediate reaction to Darwin's theory
Reaction to Darwin's theory
The immediate reaction to Darwin's theory followed closely on his publication of On the Origin of Species, and Charles Darwin's book sparked off international debate, though the heat of controversy was less than that over earlier works such as Vestiges of Creation...
the work of Darwin from Orchids to Variation
Darwin from Orchids to Variation
The life and work of Charles Darwin from the publication of Orchids to the publication of Variation during the years between 1860 and 1868 continued with Darwin carrying out his research and experimentation on evolution as he worked sporadically on the first section of his "big book", carrying out...
had included showing the utility of the flowers of Orchids in directing insect pollination to achieve cross fertilisation, and a summing up of thirteen years of experiments in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a book written by Charles Darwin that was first published in January 1868.A large proportion of the book contains detailed information on the domestication of animals and plants but it also contains in Chapter XXVII a description of...
which went on sale on 30 January 1868. He now published his ideas on human evolution and on how beautiful but apparently impractical features could have evolved in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies...
. After revising The Origin of Species as the definitive 6th edition, his major works on species culminated in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is a book by Charles Darwin, published in 1872, concerning genetically determined aspects of behaviour. It was published thirteen years after On The Origin of Species and is, along with his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin's main consideration...
.
This period was followed by the life and work of Darwin from Insectivorous Plants to Worms
Darwin from Insectivorous plants to Worms
The life and work of Darwin from Insectivorous Plants to Worms featured a continuation from Charles Darwin's investigations into insectivorous plants and climbing plants which he had begun before his work on Descent of Man and Emotions. Worries about family illnesses contributed to his interest...
.
Family and research
Despite Darwin's concerns that his children were weakened as his wife Emma DarwinEmma Darwin
Emma Darwin was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, scientist and author of On the Origin of Species...
was his cousin or had inherited his own illness, around early 1868 his sons had successes with William Darwin
Darwin — Wedgwood family
The Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin...
doing well as a bank manager, Leonard Darwin
Leonard Darwin
Major Leonard Darwin , a son of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, was variously a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.- Biography :...
coming second in the entrance exam for the Royal Military Academy and George coming runner-up in his mathematics degree class at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, getting offered a science mastership at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
but choosing to make his career in law.
Sexual selection
Darwin turned his attention to sexual selectionSexual selection
Sexual selection, a concept introduced by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, is a significant element of his theory of natural selection...
, writing to scientist friends for information. He got commercial breeders to experiment with altering the appearance of their stock and recording the subject's sexual prowess. He thought that exotic creatures like hummingbirds and peacocks owed their appearance, not to divine design to please man, but to the cumulative effect of the female preferring minute differences in choosing a mate, writing that "A girl sees a handsome man, and without observing whether his nose or whiskers are the tenth or an inch longer or shorter than in some other man, admires his appearance and says she will marry him. So, I suppose, with the pea-hen."
To meet a lack of books supporting the Origin on natural selection, Darwin arranged with John Murray
John Murray (publisher)
John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...
to publish a translation of Für Darwin, written by Fritz Müller
Fritz Müller
Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller , better known as Fritz Müller, and also as Müller-Desterro, was a German biologist and physician who emigrated to southern Brazil, where he lived in and near the German community of Blumenau, Santa Catarina...
exiled in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. Darwin provided £100 subsidy and arranged the translator, and Facts and Arguments for Darwin. sold well.
In the spring of 1868 Darwin got information on newt
Newt
A newt is an aquatic amphibian of the family Salamandridae, although not all aquatic salamanders are considered newts. Newts are classified in the subfamily Pleurodelinae of the family Salamandridae, and are found in North America, Europe and Asia...
s from St George Mivart
George Jackson Mivart
St. George Jackson Mivart PhD M.D. FRS was an English biologist. He is famous for starting as an ardent believer in natural selection who later became one of its fiercest critics. Trying to reconcile Darwin's theory of evolution with the beliefs of the Catholic Church, he ended up being condemned...
, a brilliant anatomist and one of Huxley's protégés who had dropped law for zoology after hearing Owen lecture. He assured Darwin that "As to "natural selection" I accepted it completely" but added that he had "doubts & difficulties.. first excited by attending Prof. Huxley's lectures".
Descent of Man
The book The Reign of Law by the Duke of Argyll argued that beauty with no obvious utility, such as exotic birds' plumage, proved divine design. Darwin had to show how this was explained by his theory of sexual selectionSexual selection
Sexual selection, a concept introduced by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, is a significant element of his theory of natural selection...
, and was now working to include this with ape ancestry and evolution of morality and religion in a new book which he now decided to call The Descent of Man.
Sources
Darwin found many ideas in the quality magazines. Wallace argued that group co-operation increased fitness for survival. Darwin's cousin Francis GaltonFrancis Galton
Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
wrote Hereditary Talent and Character for Macmillan's Magazine emphasising the inheritance of traits, and their extension to races and classes, and calling for better breeding to ensure that the "nobler varieties of mankind" prevailed, with civilisation being saved from "intellectual anarchy" by scientific "master minds" rising to power. These views were shared by Darwin's old friend W. R. Greg
William Rathbone Greg
William Rathbone Greg was an English essayist.Born in Manchester, the son of Samuel Greg, the creator of Quarry Bank Mill, he was brother to Robert Hyde Greg and the junior Samuel Greg. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh. For a time, he managed a mill of his father's at Bury, and in...
whose Fraser's Magazine
Fraser's Magazine
Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely directed by Maginn under the name Oliver Yorke until about 1840...
article about natural selection in society raised fears of the "unfit" and of the prudent middle classes being out-bred by the idle rich and the feckless poor.
These ideas raised a dilemma, of evolution working against progress. Darwin found help in Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehot was an English businessman, essayist, and journalist who wrote extensively about literature, government, and economic affairs.-Early years:...
's essays on Physics and Politics in the Fortnightly Review which argued that progress depended on the command structure of society. Civilisation came from obedience, respect for law and a "military bond". Through tribal and imperial battles new racial and national types would emerge, selected as "The characters which do win in war are the characters which we should wish to win in war". Darwin added his comment "nations which wander & cross would be most likely to vary" in the face of wider competition, and commended to Hooker Bagehot's analysis of "prehistoric politics".
British Association
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
. While Hooker was working on his initial address, Darwin with his wife Emma and daughter Henrietta
Etty Darwin
Henrietta Emma "Etty" Darwin, was a daughter of Charles Darwin and his wife Emma Wedgwood.Etty was born in Down House, Downe in 1843. She was Darwin's third daughter and the eldest daughter to reach adulthood after the eldest Annie died aged 10, and second daughter Mary died before becoming a...
went on holiday to the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
on July 16 1868, and rented a cottage from the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes....
who took Darwin's portrait. Hooker joined them and the Irish poet William Allingham
William Allingham
William Allingham was an Irish man of letters and a poet.-Biography:He was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland and was the son of the manager of a local bank who was of English descent...
described "Dr. Hooker in lower room writing away at his Address... Upstairs Mrs. Darwin, Miss D. and Mr. Charles Darwin himself–, yellow, sickly, very quiet. He has his meals at his own times, sees people or not as he chooses, has invalid's privileges in full, a great help to a studious man."
Hooker's address to the Norwich
Norwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
British Association was a great success for the X Club
X Club
The X Club was a dining club of nine men who supported the theories of natural selection and academic liberalism in late 19th-century England. Thomas Henry Huxley was the initiator: he called the first meeting for November 3, 1864...
(a dining club formed in November 1864 to support the evolutionary "new reformation" in naturalism, including Huxley, Hooker, John Tyndall
John Tyndall
John Tyndall FRS was a prominent Irish 19th century physicist. His initial scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he studied thermal radiation, and produced a number of discoveries about processes in the atmosphere...
, Busk, Spencer, and Spottiswoode). Darwin arrived home on 21 August with a clutch of the day's newspapers carrying the address and editorial comments. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
said Darwinism's "reign was triumphant", and it was generally said that the disciples were "ready to push their consequences more fearlessly than the master himself". Darwin enjoyed John Tyndall's lecture in which the physicist widened the application of his theory.
Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
's Darwinismus was even more universal, incorporating life, mind, society, politics and knowledge itself, though Darwin had struggled with reading his book and his efforts to get it translated were thwarted as the book proved too controversial. Haeckel, the "indomitable worker", quickly produced his History of Creation. An impressed Huxley adopted Haeckel's approach, and did what he had told Darwin was impossible and wrong, drawing up a genealogical tree for the ancestry of partridge
Partridge
Partridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
s and pigeons
Dove
Pigeons and doves constitute the bird family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerines. In general terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably...
which traced them back to the dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s. Huxley also arranged audiences for Germans arriving to pay their "devotions at the shrine of Mr. Darwin".
That autumn, the botanist
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
Asa Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
came to England with his wife for a long rest from "drudgery" at Harvard. He spent the time with Hooker at Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
, visiting the Darwins at weekends. There were many other visitors at this time, including Gray's friend Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton, was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States.-Biography:Norton was born at...
who brought his wife and her sister Sara Sedgwick, who caught William Darwin
William Erasmus Darwin
William Erasmus Darwin was the first-born son of Charles and Emma Darwin, and the subject of psychological studies by his father. He was educated at Rugby School and Christ's College Cambridge, and later became a banker at Grant and Maddison's Union Banking Company in Southampton. In 1877 he...
's eye. Gray was theologically uncomfortable with the implications of Variation, and returned home wanting to avoid further "Darwinian discussions" or become "mixed up" with the Huxley set.
Parish affairs
Ever since moving to DowneDowne
Downe is a village in the London Borough of Bromley in London, UK.Downe is south west of Orpington and south east of Charing Cross. Downe lies in a wooded valley, and much of the centre of the village is unchanged; the former village school now acts as the village hall.-Darwin:Charles Darwin...
, Darwin had supported the parish church's work and had been a friend of the Revd. John Innes since he had taken over in 1846. Darwin continued to help, though he stopped attending church after his daughter Annie died in 1851. By 1864 Innes had retired to a property he had inherited in the Scottish Highlands
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
, changing his name to Brodie Innes and leaving the parish in the dubious hands of his curate, the Revd. Stevens, while still remaining the patron. The meagre "living and lack of a vicarage made it hard to attract a priest of quality. Innes made Darwin treasurer of Downe village school and they continued to correspond, with Innes seeking help and advice on parish matters. The Revd. Stevens proved lax, and departed in 1867. His successors were worse, one absconding with the school's funds after Darwin mistakenly shared the treasurer's duties with him. The next was rumoured to have disgraced himself by "walking with girls at night". Darwin now became involved in helping Innes with detective work, subsequently advising him that the gossip that had reached Innes was not backed up by any reliable evidence.
Thomson and Mivart
Concerned about ThomsonWilliam Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
's calculations giving a young age for the earth, Darwin asked his mathematical son George to check the figures, disbelieving the "brevity of the world... else my views would be wrong, which is impossible – Q.E.D.". Darwin modified the 5th edition of the Origin, speeding up the process of variation and reviving the Lamarckian
Lamarckism
Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...
"useful inheritance" notion. In February 1869 Huxley at the Geological Society argued that '" Biology takes her time from geology...[even] if the geological clock is wrong, all the naturalist will have to do is to modify his notions of the rapidity of change accordingly".
Huxley was charged with heresy after giving a Sunday "lay sermon" in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
"on the physical basis of life". In April the "Metaphysical Society", a group of liberal churchmen of all denominations and even atheists, attempted to reach a consensus and Huxley coined a new label for his position – agnostic. Wallace was now arguing that human brains were an over-endowment created by "spiritual forces" rather than natural selection, leading Darwin to write "I differ grievously from you, and I am very sorry for it".
Mivart gained his Fellowship of the Royal Society on 3 June with Huxley's help, then surprised him by announcing that he was going to publish his objections to Darwinian views of human nature and morality. Mivart placed anonymous articles criticising natural selection in the Catholic Month. The Duke of Argyll
George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll
George John Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll KG, KT, PC, FRS, FRSE , styled Marquess of Lorne until 1847, was a Scottish peer, Liberal politician as well as a writer on science, religion, and the politics of the 19th century.-Background:Argyll was born at Ardencaple Castle, Dunbartonshire, the...
published his Primeval Man arguing that man could not rise unaided from "utter barbarism", and that "savages" were degenerates forced out by fitter races. Argyll claimed that "Man must have had the human proportions of mind before he could afford to lose bestial proportions of body", contrasting a gorilla with an elder of the British Association, but Darwin noted that without remains of ancestors there was no evidence for this, and that man's vulnerability would have encouraged social cohesion and moral sense.
Holiday in Wales
On 10 June "his ladies" took Darwin away on holiday to Caerdon in the Barmouth valley, but he was depressed to be barely able to walk half a mile. On one walk the feminist Frances Power CobbeFrances Power Cobbe
Frances Power Cobbe was an Irish writer, social reformer, and suffragist. She founded a number of animal advocacy groups, including the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898, and was a member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage.Frances was...
caught up with him and tried to persuade him that John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
's book The Subjection of Women
The Subjection of Women
The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...
was an ideal source for his study of man's origins and sexual selection. When Darwin, who had read Cobbe's review of Mill, answered that Mill '"could learn some things" from biology, and that the "struggle for existence" produced man's special "vigour and courage" from battling "for the possession of women", she offered him a copy of Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
on the "moral sense" to sort out his ethical problems, but he declined. He did ask his son William to read Mill and tell him what to think. On 16 July, Darwin started to work out a strategy to "trump" Cobbe, and wrote down his notes that men were superior to women because they had been "defending the tribe & hunting" for many generations and that Mill didn't think of sexual selection. When he returned home, Darwin added his notes to Descent, commenting that women seemed to show "greater tenderness and less selfishness", suggesting that this came from maternal instincts in contrast to male competitiveness. He wrote that "It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation." His views supported Victorian stereotypes.
In November the founding of Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
gave the X Club
X Club
The X Club was a dining club of nine men who supported the theories of natural selection and academic liberalism in late 19th-century England. Thomas Henry Huxley was the initiator: he called the first meeting for November 3, 1864...
an outlet for their views. As well as Hooker and Huxley, it featured Darwin's cousin Francis Galton
Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
.
Editing and translation
Darwin continued to slog away at the Descent of Man, feeling "as dull as a duck". He dreaded publication, telling Mivart that "I can see that I shall meet with universal disapprobation, if not execution". As he wrote, he posted chapters to his daughter HenriettaDarwin — Wedgwood family
The Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin...
at Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
, for editing to ensure that damaging inferences could not be drawn. He thought he was getting rather evangelical, writing "Who would ever have thought I should turn parson!"
Emma also advised, writing that the treatment of morals and religion might be "very interesting", but she would still "dislike it very much as again putting God further off". They took a break in mid May 1870 along with Henrietta and Bessy
Darwin — Wedgwood family
The Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin...
to visit Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
where Horace
Horace Darwin
Sir Horace Darwin, KBE, FRS , a son of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, was a civil engineer.Darwin was born in Down House in 1851, the fifth son and ninth child of the British naturalist Charles Darwin and his wife Emma, the youngest of their seven children that survived to adulthood.He was...
had started and Frank
Francis Darwin
Sir Francis "Frank" Darwin, FRS , a son of the British naturalist and scientist Charles Darwin, followed his father into botany.-Biography:Francis Darwin was born in Down House, Downe, Kent in 1848...
was graduating with a good mathematics degree. Charles was haunted by the absence of "Dear Henslow
John Stevens Henslow
John Stevens Henslow was an English clergyman, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin.- Early life :...
", but on the last day met Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
who was overjoyed to see him with his "dear family party". They had a long chat, with Sedgwick not mentioning the Origin, possibly from tact though Darwin thought his brain "enfeebled". Late in the day Sedgwick insisted on showing Charles round his new geological museum, by the end of which Darwin was "utterly prostrated". As Darwin on struggled to get to the train the next day he remarked on the humiliation of being "thus killed by a man of eighty-six, who evidently never dreamed that he was thus killing me?".
The South American Missionary Society had converted and clothed the natives of Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...
that Darwin thought were untameable, and after Bartholomew Sulivan
Bartholomew Sulivan
Sir Bartholomew James Sulivan was a British sailor and hydrographer, born at Tregew, Flushing, near Falmouth, Cornwall.He was a leading advocate of the value of nautical surveying in relation to naval operations...
sent a photograph of Jemmy Button
Jemmy Button
Orundellico, known as "Jeremy Button" or "Jemmy Button", was a native Fuegian of the Yaghan people from islands around Tierra del Fuego, in modern Chile and Argentina...
's son as evidence, Darwin made donations for several years. Darwin was proud to become an honorary member, but warned Sulivan that he would shortly publish "another book partly on man, which I dare say many will decry as very wicked".
Darwin's neighbour Lubbock had been elected Member of Parliament for Maidstone
Maidstone
Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...
in February 1870 and Darwin lobbied him to get a question added to the census to find if married cousins had as many surviving children as unrelated parents, but when it came up in July, Lubbock's amendment caused furious debate and was heavily defeated. As the Franco-Prussian war
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
got under way, Darwin pressed on to finish the manuscript while worrying about how it would affect his German allies. When the French surrendered at Sedan
Battle of Sedan
The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War on 1 September 1870. It resulted in the capture of Emperor Napoleon III and large numbers of his troops and for all intents and purposes decided the war in favour of Prussia and its allies, though fighting continued under a new French...
in November he wrote that "I have not met a soul in England who does not rejoice in the splendid triumph of Germany over France... It is a most just retribution against that vainglorious, war-liking nation." An "ailing and grumbling" Darwin worked on with his corrections, and the proofs were sent off on 15 January 1871 with him doubting that the book was "worth publishing". He promptly started on his next book, using left over material on emotional expressions.
Mivart's Genesis
Within a week Mivart had published On the Genesis of Species, the cleverest and most devastating critique of natural selection in Darwin's lifetime. Mivart wrote expressing "sympathy and esteem" for Darwin, blaming "irreligious deductions" on overzealous supporters and adding "God grant that we in England may not be approaching a religious decay at all similar to that of the middle of the 18th century in France which Frenchmen are now paying for in blood & tears!" As ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
suffered under siege, Darwin sent out review copies of his book, expecting a backlash.
Just at this point parish affairs intruded. The Revd. Henry Powell had now taken over, but the two previous curates got together to sue Darwin for defamatory remarks about the first absconding with the school's cash. Darwin wrote to Brodie Innes that "being examined in court could half-kill me, but was assured that the case would never come to court.
Publication
The two 450-page volumes of The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to SexThe Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies...
went on sale at twenty-four shillings, with a publication date of 24 February 1871. Within three weeks a reprint had been ordered, and 4,500 copies were in print by the end of March 1871, netting Darwin almost £1,500. Darwin's name created demand for the book, but the ideas were old news. "Everybody is talking about it without being shocked" which he found "proof of the increasing liberality of England". To critics, the book was "raising a storm of mingled wrath, wonder and admiration", though they denied that "spiritual powers" had evolved from brutes in case earnest men gave up "those motives by which they have attempted to live noble and virtuous lives".
The Prussians had been defeated, but 26 March an insurrection led by socialists and republicans took over Paris and set up the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
, which was then besieged by French troops. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
condemned the Communards, and accused Darwin of undermining authority and principles of morality, opening the way to "the most murderous revolutions". A "man incurs a grave responsibility when, with the authority of a well-earned reputation, he advances at such a time the disintegrating speculations of this book." Darwin was able to shrug this off as from a "windbag full of metaphysics and classics". When his Tory
Tory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
friend Brodie Innes taunted him that God's scheme, before being thwarted by interfering radicals, was that "Man was made a man..[split] into niggers who must be made to work [and] better men able to make them", Darwin responded that "I consider myself a good way ahead of you, as far as this goes."
He dismissed the objections raised in Wallace's review in the Academy as "almost stereotyped", but to his brother Erasmus Alvey Darwin
Erasmus Alvey Darwin
Erasmus Alvey Darwin , nicknamed Eras or Ras, was the older brother of Charles Darwin, born five years earlier, and also brought up at the family home, The Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England...
the generous and polite exchanges formed a "perfectly beautiful" controversy, and thought that "In future histories of science the Wallace-Darwin episode will form one of the few bright points."
6th Edition of the Origin
Mivart wrote wishing "with all my heart that we did not differ so widely", but challenging Darwin to debate the basic metaphysicsMetaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
underlying science, from his Roman Catholic position writing that "while combatting (as duty compels me to do) positions you adopt, I am not so much combatting you as others to whose view your scientific labours give additional currency." Darwin took this personally, feeling that Mivart's Genesis of Species was "producing a great effect against Natural Selection, and more especially against me." After completing a rough draft of Expressions in April 1871 he set it aside and turned to revising the Origin to meet Mivart's arguments and counter the claim that some divine inner force was driving evolution. Darwin told Murray of working men in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
clubbing together to buy the 5th edition at fifteen shillings, and he wanted a new cheap edition to make it more widely available.
In June Edward L. Youmans
Edward L. Youmans
Edward Livingston Youmans was an American scientific writer, editor, and lecturer and founder of Popular Science magazine.-Biography:...
, over from the United States to seek authors for his International Scientific Series, told Darwin about lecturing on the Descent of Man to a "clerical club" in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. Darwin burst out "What! Clergymen of different denominations all together? How they would fight if you should get them together here!" He was cheered by a damning analysis of Mivart's Genesis of Species by Chauncey Wright
Chauncey Wright
Chauncey Wright , American philosopher and mathematician, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts.In 1852 he graduated at Harvard, and became computer to the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac. He made his name by contributions on mathematical and physical subjects in the Mathematical Monthly...
(one of Gray's students) for the North American Review, and thought of importing it, but Wallace thought it too heavy and obscure.
Next Mivart's anonymous Quarterly Review article claimed that the Descent of Man would unsettle "our half educated classes" and talked of people doing as they pleased, breaking laws and customs. The author was obvious to a furious Darwin who thought "I shall soon be viewed as the most despicable of men". He wrote to ask Wright for permission to reprint his article as a pamphlet, then feeling "giddy and bad" was taken by Emma to recuperate at the nearby hamlet of Albury
Albury, Surrey
Albury is a village and civil parish in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England, about south-east of Guildford town centre. The village is within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Site of Special Scientific Interest....
. His head remained "rocky and wretched" and for two months he suffered giddiness and inability to work. They returned for Henrietta
Darwin — Wedgwood family
The Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin...
's marriage after a whirlwind courtship to Richard Litchfield. She departed, leaving behind her fox terrier
Fox Terrier
Fox Terrier refers primarily to two different breeds of the terrier dog type: the Smooth Fox Terrier and the Wire Fox Terrier. Both of these breeds originated in the 19th century from a handful of dogs who are descended from earlier varieties of British terriers, and are related to other modern...
"Polly" who now became Darwin's dog.
Murray sent out copies of Wright's pamphlet in September 1871. Only fourteen sold, but by then Huxley had already written a cutting review of Mivart's book and article. A relieved Darwin told him "How you do smash Mivart's theology... He may write his worst & he will never mortify me again". Hooker thought he surely would not be the happier for Mivart's humiliation, but an unrepentant Darwin responded that '"I am not so good a Christian as you think me, for I did enjoy my revenge".
In December Darwin completed extensive revisions of the Origin, using the word "evolution" for the first time and adding a new chapter to refute Mivart's guided jumps, tackling the argument of uselessness of part-evolved organs with myriad examples of gradual development or organs changing function. As 1872 began, Mivart politely inflamed the argument again, writing "wishing you very sincerely a happy new year" while wanting a disclaimer of the "fundamental intellectual errors" in the Descent of Man. This time Darwin ended the correspondence.
The Index
Darwin reacted positively to a tract by the American Francis AbbottFrancis Abbott
Francis Abbott was an Australian astronomer.-Biography:Abbott was born in Derby, England and became a watchmaker there. In 1831 he moved to Manchester and manufactured timepieces and astronomical machinery. In 1844, he was found guilty of obtaining two watches under false pretenses, and was sent...
proposing "the extinction of faith in the Christian Confession" and a new humanist "Free Religion" for the "spiritual perfection of the individual and the spiritual unity of the race". He subscribed to Abbott's weekly The Index and allowed it to print his endorsement of the tract's "truths", "I admire them from my inmost heart & I agree to almost every word".
Publication
Darwin told Haeckel "I doubt whether my strength will last for much more serious work. I shall continue to work for as long as I can, but it does not much signify when I stop, as there are so many good men fully as capable, perhaps more capable than myself, of carrying on our work; and of these you rank as the first." With "the little strength left in me" he reopened his enquiries into earthworms, requesting information from correspondents.The 6th edition of Origin of Species was published by Murray on 19 February 1872 at a price kept down to 7s. 6d. by using minute print, and sales increased from 60 to 250 a month.
Emotions
Through the spring Darwin pressed on with The Expression of the Emotions in Man and AnimalsThe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is a book by Charles Darwin, published in 1872, concerning genetically determined aspects of behaviour. It was published thirteen years after On The Origin of Species and is, along with his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin's main consideration...
, pointing to shared evolution in contrast to Charles Bell
Charles Bell
Sir Charles Bell was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist, neurologist and philosophical theologian.His three older brothers included John Bell , also a noted surgeon and writer; and the advocate George Joseph Bell .-Life:...
's Anatomy and Physiology of Expression which claimed divinely created muscles to express man's exquisite feelings. Darwin drew on world wide responses to his questionnaires, hundreds of photographs of actors, babies and "imbeciles" in an asylum, as well as his own observations, with particular empathy for the grief following a family death. The proofs, tackled by Henrietta
Darwin — Wedgwood family
The Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin...
and Leo
Leonard Darwin
Major Leonard Darwin , a son of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, was variously a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.- Biography :...
, needed major revision which made him "sick of the subject, and myself, and the world". It was to be one of the first books with photographs, with seven heliotype plates, and Murray warned that this "would poke a terrible hole in the profits".
Wallace now wrote enthusing about H. Charlton Bastian's The Beginnings of Life claiming the spontaneous generation of life, but Darwin told him that "I have taken up old botanical work, and have given up all theories". By the end of September he was again near collapse, but Emma arranged three weeks away to rest, which worked well though he was still "growing old and weak".
Hooker's collections at Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
were threatened with government cuts under Acton Smee Ayrton
Acton Smee Ayrton
Acton Smee Ayrton was a British barrister and Liberal Party politician. Considered a radical and champion of the working classes, he served as First Commissioner of Works under William Ewart Gladstone between 1869 and 1873...
. The X Club petitioned Gladstone. When Richard Owen
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
was found to be involved, possibly trying to bring Kew under his British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, Darwin commented that "I used to be ashamed of hating him so much, but now I will carefully cherish my hatred & contempt to the last days of my life". In October Hooker sent sun-dews and Venus fly-traps for Darwin's experiments, then was devastated when his bedridden mother died. In his hot-house Darwin experimented, giving such plants from around the world a variety of foods and poisons, and began writing insectivorous Plants.
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals proved very popular, selling over 5,000 copies, but an exhausted Darwin became a "confirmed invalid" and at his brother Eramus's over Christmas 1872 sat drawing up his will.
New edition of The Descent of Man
Darwin recovered and pressed on with several projects. He subsequently tackled a new edition of the Descent of Man, incorporating ideas from Galton and new anecdotes. The manuscript was completed in April 1874, and the new edition was published on 13 November.See Darwin from Insectivorous plants to Worms
Darwin from Insectivorous plants to Worms
The life and work of Darwin from Insectivorous Plants to Worms featured a continuation from Charles Darwin's investigations into insectivorous plants and climbing plants which he had begun before his work on Descent of Man and Emotions. Worries about family illnesses contributed to his interest...
for his life and work in this period.
Further reading
- The Complete Works of Charles Darwin OnlineThe Complete Works of Charles Darwin OnlineThe Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online is a freely-accessible website containing the complete print and manuscript works of Charles Darwin, as well as related supplementary material.- Overview :...
– Darwin Online; Darwin's publications, private papers and bibliography, supplementary works including biographies, obituaries and reviews. Free to use, includes items not in public domain.; public domain - Darwin Correspondence Project Text and notes for most of his letters