Darwin from Insectivorous plants to Worms
Encyclopedia
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 in Galton
's ideas of "hereditary improvement" (which would later be called Eugenics
). He continued to help with the work of Downe
parish church and associated village amenities, despite problems with control being seized by a new High Church vicar, and he remained on good terms with the Church's patron, the Revd. John Brodie Innes. There was continuing interest in Charles Darwin's views on religion
, but he remained reticent.
Despite repeated problems and delays caused by Charles Darwin's illness
, his work on evolution-related experiments and investigations continued, with the production of books on the movement of climbing plants, insectivorous plants, the effects of cross
and self fertilisation
of plants, different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, and The Power of Movement in Plants
. His ideas on evolution were increasingly accepted in scientific circles despite some bitter disputes, and he received numerous honours. As well as writing out his own autobiography for his family, he wrote an introduction to a biography of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin
. In his last book, he returned to the effect earthworm
s have on soil formation.
He died in Downe, Kent
, England, on 19 April 1882. He had expected to be buried in St Mary’s churchyard at Downe, but at the request of Darwin’s colleagues, William Spottiswoode
(President of the Royal Society
) arranged for Darwin to be given a major ceremonial funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey
, close to John Herschel
and Isaac Newton
.
's allies Charles Lyell
, Joseph Dalton Hooker
, Thomas Huxley
, Alfred Russel Wallace
and Asa Gray
in America worked to spread acceptance of its ideas despite difficulty in coming to terms with natural selection
and man's descent from animals.
Darwin's research and experiments on plants and animals continued, and his extensive writings countered the arguments against evolution, particularly those put by the Duke of Argyll and St George Mivart
.
were ill and arrived home at Christmas 1872 for nursing. Darwin turned from his insectivorous plants to a more leisurely update of his monograph on climbing plants.
He was intrigued by Galton
's latest "hereditary improvement" ideas (which would be called Eugenics
after 1883), proposing that society should breed out mental and physical disability and improve the nation's stock by introducing "a sentiment of caste among those who are naturally gifted". Families would be registered and incentives offered so that the best children chosen from each "superior family" would marry and reproduce. Darwin, aware that of his brood only William
had good health, had already dismissed the aims as too "utopian" in the Descent of Man. He thought these new proposals impractical if voluntary and politically horrifying if enforced by compulsory registration, even were they the "sole feasible" way of "improving the human race". He felt it better simply to publicise the "all-important principle of inheritance" and let people pursue the "grand" objective for themselves. In any case it was too late for his own infirm offspring.
Huxley was also ill, needing a rest and harried by a neighbour suing over a damp basement. 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) raised a £2,000 collection for him, primed by Darwin with £300. Darwin's spirits were again downcast when Lyell's wife died.
In June 1873 Darwin resumed work on his insectivorous plants, with some distractions as his wife Emma
took care of the seven Huxley children while Huxley and Hooker went on holiday to the continent. Having young children in the house was like the 1850s again.
of the Anglican faith, an unwelcome move from the point of view of the Baptists in the village. Darwin withdrew from the committee and cut his annual donation to the church, but continued with the Friendly Society work.
Hensleigh Wedgwood
's daughter Effie had married Thomas "Theta" Farrer in May, and on 5 August 1873 the Darwins went to visit them for a few days. They arrived to hear that a fortnight previously the Farrer's servants had been called to an accident. Earl Granville's riding companion Samuel Wilberforce
had been killed in a fall from his horse, and was subsequently laid out in state for two days in the Farrer's drawing room. Although an opponent of the Origin, Wilberforce had always thought Darwin a "capital fellow".
, which Darwin had difficulty in following, but hoped that both their efforts towards "the extension of knowledge... [would] add to the happiness of mankind".
Frank
struggled with his medical studies, and after finishing his thesis on animal tissues he was to assist with plant tissues at Downe. George's legal career had been ended by stomach illness and he had spent two years going to spas. He began writing topical essays, the first in the Contemporary Review on Galton. His latest essay boldly dismissed prayer, divine morals and "future rewards & punishments". Darwin urged him not to publish it for some months, and "to pause, pause, pause."
in New York
warning him "What, that 'orrid hold hinfidel 'Uxley? Why, we don't think hanythink of 'im in Hingland! We think 'e's 'orrid!", himself writing that "I am quite wild over Huxley... what a pleasure to meet such a clean-cut mind! It is like Saladin's sword which cut through the cushion." and "Old Darwin is the dearest, sweetest, loveliest old grandpa that ever was. And on the whole he impresses me with his strength more than any man I have seen yet. There is a charming kind of quiet strength about him and about everything he does. He isn't burning and eager like Huxley. He has a mild blue eye, and is the gentlest of gentle old fellows. [his] long white hair and enormous white beard [made him] very picturesque... guileless simplicity... I am afraid I shall never see him again, for his health is very bad. Of all my days in England I prize today the most."
". In 1873 the Revd. Ffinden opposed it, as "Coffee drinking, bagatelle & other games" had been allowed and "the effects of tobacco smoke & spitting" were seen when the children returned in the morning. Emma got Darwin to get the approval of the education inspectorate in London, and just before Christmas 1873 the Darwins and Lubbocks got the agreement of the school committee, offering to pay for any repairs needed "to afford every possible opportunity to the working class for self improvement & amusement". A furious Ffinden huffed that it was "quite out of order" for the Darwins to have gone to the inspectorate behind his back. In the autumn of 1874 Darwin let off steam at Ffinden and formally resigned from the school committee on health grounds.
was attracted to Modern Spiritualism movement. On a visit to London in January 1874 Darwin attended a séance at Erasmus
's house with relatives including Hensleigh Wedgwood
, as well as Huxley. George had hired the medium Charles Williams, and they sat round the table in the dark, but as the room grew stuffy Darwin went upstairs to lie down, missing the show, with sparks, sounds and the table rising above their heads. While Galton thought it a "good séance", Darwin later wrote "The Lord have mercy on us all, if we have to believe such rubbish" and told Emma that it was "all imposture" and "it would take an enormous weight of evidence" to convince him otherwise. At a second séance Huxley and George found that Williams was nothing but a cheat, to Darwin's relief. Emma told Hensleigh's daughter Snow that Charles "won't believe it, he dislikes the thought of it so much". Snow remembered that her uncle "used to look upon it as a great weakness if one allowed wish to influence belief" and when Emma said that "he does not always act up to his principles" Snow thought that was "what one means by bigotry", to which Emma said "Oh yes, he is a regular bigot".
and George, incorporating ideas from Galton and new anecdotes. He bought from Lubbock the Sandwalk he had been renting for years, but the price seemed excessive and affected their friendship. News of a dispute involving the removal of George Bentham
from presidency of the Linnean Society, allegedly spurred on by Owen, led Darwin to write "What a demon on earth Owen is. I do hate him". With Huxley's assistance he updated the Descent on ape-brain inheritance, which Huxley thought "pounds the enemy into a jelly... though none but anatomists" would know it.
The manuscript was completed in April 1874, and the publisher John Murray
planned a 12 shilling half-price edition to replicate the success of the cheap revision of the Origin. Darwin left the proofs to George, and turned again to Plants. The new edition was published on 13 November with the price cut to the bone at 9 shillings.
During 1874 Darwin contacted many of his old friends to assist with experimentation on insectivorous or carnivorous plant
s. Helpers included Hooker and his assistant William Thiselton-Dyer at Kew
, John Burdon-Sanderson at University College London
running lab tests on the plant's digestion, and Asa Gray
at Harvard. Enquiries to Nature
magazine brought in sacks of mail to be dealt with by Frank
, who settled into Brodie Innes's old house in the village and married Amy Ruck on 23 July. At this time the family was joined by George Romanes
who had been a student with Frank at Cambridge. Plants experimented on were members of the genera Drosera and Pinguicula
, including D. rotundifolia
and P. vulgaris
.
attacked this anonymously in the Quarterly Review, misinterpreting advocacy of divorce in cases of criminality or advice as " the most oppressive laws, and the encouragement of vice in order to check population", talking of "hideous sexual criminality". A furious Darwin told George to take legal advice while he contacted the publisher of his books and the Quarterly, John Murray
, threatening to "take his business elsewhere".
Darwin's holiday at Southampton
with William
was overshadowed as he drafted George's response. John Tyndall
's address to the British Association later that month laid claim to "wrest from theology the entire domain of cosmological theory" and led to calls for his prosecution for blasphemy. Lyell, now nearly blind and in deteriorating health, wrote to Darwin applauding the boost to "you and your theory of evolution" despite his qualms about the hereafter. Darwin was sympathetic, but did "not feel any innate conviction" of life after death. The October issue of the Quarterly carried George's response and an "apology" from Mivart
which still maintained "that the doctrines... are most dangerous and pernicious" and infuriated Darwin.
On 13 November Hooker's wife Fanny died suddenly, and a devastated Hooker felt unable to return home after the funeral and brought his family to Downe. Emma looked after the children, and when Hooker returned to Kew, Darwin urged "hard work" to overcome his "utter desolation". Later, Darwin mentioned the Mivart argument and Hooker rallied 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). Huxley eagerly used a review to attack "anonymous slander", telling Darwin that he "ought to be like one of the blessed gods of Elysium, and let the inferior deities do battle with the infernal powers." Mivart confidentially pleaded to make amends, but Huxley told Darwin that the "most effectual punishment" was to "give him the cold shoulder". Darwin was itching to speak his mind, and when no apology had come by 12 January 1875 he wrote vowing never to communicate with Mivart again.
. In March Darwin took the proofs of Insectivorous Plants to Murray
.
For a year the vicar had refused to speak to any of the Darwins, and when two evening lectures were proposed for the village, Lubbock had to act as an intermediary in requesting use of the schoolroom. The committee agreed, but Ffinden refused to co-operate, writing that "I had long been aware of the harmful tendencies to revealed religion of Mr. Darwin's views, but.. I had fully determined.. not to let my difference of opinion interfere with a friendly feeling as neighbours, trusting that God's grace might in time bring one so highly gifted intellectually and morally to a better mind." Darwin was equally haughty in return, condescending that "If Mr. F bows to Mrs D. and myself, we will return it". He found that dealing with Mivart
and Ffinden was increasing his private hostility to Christianity.
Darwin's daughter Henrietta
at first supported a petition drawn up by Frances Power Cobbe
demanding anti-vivisection legislation. Though Darwin was an animal lover and had never carried out vivisection, he persuaded her that "Physiology can only progress by experiments on living animals". During his spring break in London
he took the matter up with his contacts, at first thinking of a counter-petition, then on Huxley's advice seeking support lobbying for a pre-emptive bill to provide for regulated vivisection with what he called a "more humanitarian aspect". The hint to the fox-hunting houses of parliament that a ban could lead to further restrictions helped, and though Cobbe's bill reached the House of Lords
on 4 May 1875 a week before the scientist's bill reached the House of Commons
, the Home Secretary announced a Royal Commission of inquiry to resolve the arguments, with Huxley co-opted on to the Commission.
The demand for Darwin as an author was shown when Insectivorous Plants, a 450 page catalogue of plant experiments, sold out quickly and in July a 1,000 copy reprint sold out within a fortnight.
incorporating additions from the hundreds of letters and scores of monographs that had been sent to Darwin in the seven years since it had been published. Parts were altered or discarded, and George Romanes
set aside work on jellyfish to graft vegetable plants in experiments aimed at finding out about the "gemmules
" which Darwin thought formed the mechanism of inheritance of characteristics. Investigations into "pangenesis
" by Galton
had tried blood transfusions between different breeds of rabbits without success. Darwin continued to look for proof of inheritance of acquired characteristics, amassing evidence of blacksmith's children being muscular and babies born with scars matching those of their parents. He would not follow Huxley in discarding these ideas, and Descent had presented such inheritance as a significant factor in human evolution.
Darwin had long been concerned that his children could have inherited his weaknesses. He was proud that Frank
seemed to have inherited his interest in natural history, coming to Down House
from the village to carry out plant experiments, and put his son up for a Fellowship of the Linnean Society
.
Darwin tabulated the results, Galton checked his statistics, and they found the crossed plants significantly superior to self-fertilised ones in height, weight, vigour and fertility. The same principle would apply to people, and though the attempt to get a question on the census had failed, George analysed data from lunatic asylums and the Pall Mall Gazette which Darwin cited as showing a small effect produced by first-cousin marriages.
While Emma ensured that he took short breaks, Darwin pressed on with work as "my sole pleasure in life" and finished the first draft of Fertilisation in May 1876, promptly going on to a revision of Orchids.
and developing work in science. A section headed "Religious Belief" opened just before his marriage, and frankly discussed his long disagreement with Emma. (see Charles Darwin's views on religion
) He recalled Annie
and thought of how, but for her untimely death, she would now "have grown into a delightful woman... Tears still come into my eyes, when I think of her sweet ways". He completed his memoir on 3 August, concluding that after his book on fertilisation was published, "my strength... will probably be exhausted".
On 7 September the baby, named Bernard, was born at Down House, but his mother suffered a fever and convulsions, and died four days later at the age of 26. Darwin thought it the "most dreadful thing", and Frank in a state of shock and grief moved into Down House with the baby. The contractors were brought in to extend the house for him, and Frank carried on with mechanical chores for his father, making a fair copy of the memoir and correcting proofs of Orchids.
principles fitted well with the Self-Help philosophy of another Murray author, Samuel Smiles
, who had impressed Darwin.
As a "thorough Liberal", Darwin supported Gladstone
, the "Grand Old Man" of British politics. Three months earlier Darwin had backed the outcry against the "Bulgarian horrors" when 15,000 (Christian) Bulgaria
n rebels were massacred by Muslim "Turkish" troops of the Ottoman Empire
, and supported Gladstone's calls for Russia
n intervention in opposition to the Tory
government's support for the Turks. Marx thought this a hypocritical preference for a Christian oppressor, and complained about Darwin's support for the "piggish demonstration". On 10 March Gladstone, while doing the rounds of his backbenchers and visiting Lubbock, turned up with his entourage at Down House and for two hours regaled a silent Darwin with comments from his latest pamphlet on "Turkish terrorism", and "launched forth his thunderbolts with unexhausted zest". Before leaving he asked Darwin if evolution meant that the future belonged to America as the Eastern civilisations decayed; after thinking it over, Darwin responded "Yes." Watching Gladstone's "erect alert figure" walking away, he said "What an honour that such a great man should come to visit me!"
A fortnight after Gladstone's visit, the leading secularist, militant atheist and unofficial Liberal candidate Charles Bradlaugh
with co-publisher Annie Besant
caused public outrage by publishing do-it-yourself contraceptive advice from an American doctor, James Knowlton, in a sixpenny pamphlet Fruits of Philosophy. Bradlaugh and Besant were accused of obscenity and committed for trial on 18 June 1877. A fortnight beforehand they subpoenaed Darwin for their defence, expecting his support. Appalled, he wrote protesting the "great suffering" this would put him to, and advised that he would have to denounce the defendants as he had "long held an opposite opinion" on birth control, as evidenced by an extract from the Descent of Man stating that "our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means." The practice of contraception would "spread to unmarried women & would destroy chastity on which the family bond depends; & the weakening of this bond would be the greatest of all evils to mankind."
and Southampton
for his much needed "rest" which, as usual, meant working furiously away from home. He visited Stonehenge
for the first time, examining how worm castings had buried the megalith
s over time. Emma feared that the day-trip involving two hours train journey and a 24 mile drive would "half kill" him, but he was in wonderful form even after digging in the hot sun.
In mid July 1877 his work on the sex life of plants culminated in the publication of The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, dedicated to Asa Gray
. He could not "endure being idle" and turned to his next book, on plant movement. Emma got him away for his autumn break to Abinger
on the North Downs
, and though Wallace now lived only a few miles away, Darwin avoided him, diplomatically writing that he "wished to come over to see you, but driving tires me so much that my courage failed."
had come round to Darwinism, and on Saturday 17 November the family attended the Senate House for a ceremony in which Darwin was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws in front of crowds of students, who strung a cord across the chamber with a monkey-marionette which was removed by a Proctor then replaced by a "missing link", a beribboned ring which hung over the crowd through the ceremony.
Darwin entered to a roar of approval. The Public Orator gave his panegyric
describing Darwin's work with purple Latin prose, to some good humoured heckling from the students, and distanced the dignitaries from "the unlovely tribe of apes" saying "'Mores in utroques dispares' – the moral nature of the two races is different".
Emma had a headache, so she and Darwin let their boys to stand in for them at a dinner in his honour at which Huxley chided the university for failing to honour Darwin twenty years earlier. On the Sunday, after a "brilliant luncheon" with George at Trinity College, they were given guided tours. The engineering professor James Stuart showed Emma and Darwin round his workshop and later wrote of "A strong.. looking man with iron grey hair..[as though] rough hewn from a rock with a heavy..hammer,.. A man of genius.. indeed one of 'the few'."
breeder. He also responded to an appeal asking the HMS Beagle
's officers for help in supporting an orphan – the grandson of Jemmy Button
.
George Romanes
had become Darwin's leading protégé, but a conflict between his reasoned scepticism and earlier longing for faith came to a head when his sister died. His attempt to get solace from a leading spiritualist came to nothing. Darwin invited Romanes to Downe to help him recover. Romanes had earlier written a refutation of theism, and had taken Darwin's advice to pause, but now wanted to publish. Darwin counselled anonymity, and suggested study of the evolution of religious reasoning, giving him unused notes on instinct from his work on Natural Selection. Romanes launched on the study of comparative psychology, and in August was given a standing ovation for his talk at the British Association. In November the Darwins were staying with the Litchfields, and Romanes drove there to introduce his fiancé and present his new book, A Candid Examination of Theism by "Physicus". Darwin read it with "very great interest", but was unconvinced.
on his grandfather Erasmus Darwin
. In March 1879 he arranged for it to be translated as a book to which he would add a biographical preface. This would counter Samuel Butler's Evolution Old and New in which the previously supportive, though unscientific, author of Erewhon had turned against Darwinism, and he sent a copy of it to Krause.
In the summer he became bogged down with the proofs of his preface about Erasmus, and Henrietta edited out controversial points. The publisher John Murray was satisfied, but Darwin vowed "never again" to be "tempted out of my proper work".
Although he tired more quickly now, Darwin still worked for several hours a day. Emma ensured he took holidays, in autumn 1879 joining the Litchfields for a month in the Lake District
where he met with John Ruskin
, though this was not a meeting of minds. On return the Darwins were visited by Ernst Haeckel
whose "roaring" about the freedom of science had Darwin retreating to his plants.
Darwin unsuccessfully tried to get government support for the Belfast potato breeder from the Permanent Secretary, Thomas "Theta" Farrer (Effie Wedgwood's husband). Farrer was more concerned that his daughter by his first marriage wanted to marry the unsuitable sickly Horace Darwin
. Despite her father's opposition the young couple prevailed, with Darwin giving his son £5,000 of railway stock and assuring Farrer that Horace would have a suitable inheritance. The wedding took place on 3 January 1880, with the families not on speaking terms.
told Richard Owen
that he thought the book would "help to burst the bubble of 'Natural Selection'." Ernst Krause
's Erasmus Darwin countered this, and Butler took affront at Darwin's preface which said that Krause's essay predated Butler's book, when it clearly had passages written later. Darwin had to admit that Krause had revised his essay, and spent a week in February 1880 drafting responses, then was persuaded to ignore the dispute, writing to Huxley "I feel like a man condemned to be hung who has just got a reprieve". Butler took the silence as a tacit admission of guilt.
was accepted. While Darwin (on holiday with the Farrers, now on good terms) was delighted by the press coverage, he was disappointed to find no mention in its text of natural selection
– even "Darwin's Bulldog" was still not committed to the central plank of his theory.
In April, Gladstone defeated the Tories at the general election, delighting Charles and Emma Darwin though not all their relatives, and a buoyant Charles sent a large subscription to Abbot's The Index with hearty wishes for success in the "good cause of truth" and 'free religion'. The Liberal success even got the militant atheist Charles Bradlaugh
elected as MP for Northampton
, and public controversy about atheism erupted. He was prevented from taking his seat in the House of Commons
by procedural requirements of the oath of allegiance, and secularists such as Edward Aveling
toured the country leading protests. Aveling had been writing a series on Darwin and his Works in Bradlaugh's paper The National Reformer, and Darwin had sent written thanks which he now feared would be published to his shame.
In June, after sending Movement in Plants to his publisher John Murray
, Darwin visited William
and Sarah at Southampton, and he got William to write to Abbot withdrawing the endorsement that had been printed as advertising copy in the magazine: even association with free thought in distant America could damage his respectability.
, and to spare him the stress of getting between London stations and changing trains Emma arranged a private railway carriage. At Cambridge he showed Emma around the "scenes of my early life".
In September 1880 he completed the proofs of Movement in Plants, his largest botany book at 600 pages with 196 wood-cuts, sighing "I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts & grinding out conclusions." When on 13 October he got the request he had feared from Aveling, for permission to dedicate the Darwin and his Works articles to Darwin in book format, he declined in a four page letter marked PRIVATE emphasising that he confined his writing to science and avoided aiding attacks on religion.
Attacks on Darwin's theory continued, and when the official report of a scientific voyage slighted "the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation guided only by natural selection" he responded in Nature, "Can Sir Wyville Thomson name any one who has said that the evolution of species depends only on natural selection?" and set out multiple causes, including "use and disuse of parts". He called Thomson's criticism appropriate to "theologians and metaphysicians", and was only stopped by Huxley from using "irreverent language".
, Lyell's old secretary, pleaded with Darwin to help him find "some modest work". Hooker persuaded Darwin it was hopeless, noting that Wallace had "lost caste" over spiritualism and a £500 bet he had won by proving the world was a globe to a rich flat-earth fanatic who then started litigation which cost Wallace more than the bet had won. When Wallace's "best book" to date, Island Life, came out in November 1880 Darwin devoted all his attention to getting his friends to sign a testimonial he wrote, then rushed it to Gladstone before the re-opening of Parliament at the start of January and was overjoyed when Gladstone agreed to recommend a civil list pension of £200 a year, backdated six months. As Darwin passed on the good news to Wallace, Emma organised the family accounts so that Charles could distribute the surplus from the year's £8,000 investment income to the children.
The billiard room at Down House
was now devoted to worm experiments which included Darwin shining different colours of lights at them at night, his sons playing different musical instruments to them, different scents and kinds of food. Other stimuli were ignored, but a bright white light or a touch of breath would make them bolt "like rabbits" into their burrows. They appeared to "enjoy the pleasure of eating" showing "eagerness for certain kinds of food", sexual passion was "strong enough to overcome... their dread of light", and he saw "a trace of social feeling" in their way of "crawling over each other's bodies". Experiments showed that they dragged leaves into their burrows narrow end first, having somehow got a "notion, however rude, of the shape of an object", maybe by "touching it in many places" with a sense like "a man... born blind and deaf" and a rudimentary intelligence.
By mid march he was writing the final chapters of what he told Victor Carus would be "a small book of little moment. I have little strength & feel very old." He wrote to The Times
about the anti-vivisection cause, accusing it of committing "a crime against humanity" by holding back the "progress of physiology", then commented that we "ought to be grateful" to worms, which reached a depth of "five or six feet" even "here at Down" where he expected to be buried shortly.
, and found he had no "heart or strength... to begin any investigation lasting for years". "Never happy except when at work", he was at a loose end until he remembered his autobiography
. On 22 April 1881, exactly 30 years after Annie's burial, he re-read the passages about her and Emma's letter of that time, and added a note under his daguerreotype
of Annie, "When I am dead, know that many times, I have kissed & cryed over this." [sic.]
He left the proofs of Worms to Frank and, despondent, turned down Gladstone's invitation to become a Trustee of the British Museum. Early in June 1881 Emma and the Litchfields took him to the Lake District
, together with William and young Bernard. The sky was "like lead" and an attempt at climbing brought spots before his eyes and a doctor's diagnosis that his heart condition was "precarious". He wrote to Hooker that "Illness is downright misery to me... I cannot forget my discomfort for an hour [and] must look forward to Down graveyard as the sweetest place on earth."
. Darwin wrote to Graham expressing doubts about the conclusions – "The chief one is that the existence of so-called natural laws implies purpose. I cannot see this." He was swayed by one – "You have expressed my inward conviction.. that the Universe is not the result of chance", but then qualified this by his "horrid doubt" that such beliefs might have arisen as the human mind evolved, and were no more to be trusted than "the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind". He still supported natural selection as the engine of social progress, pointing out that "The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish
hollow in the struggle for existence" and telling Graham that elimination of "lower races" by "higher civilised races" was inevitable in the progress of Malthusian struggle.
Back at Downe, a letter from Wallace promoted the socialist ideas of Henry George
's Progress and Poverty proposing to "make land common property" as morally just. The landowner Darwin responded that such books had "a disastrous effect" on his mind, he hoped that Wallace would not "turn renegade to natural history" while adding that "I have everything to make me happy and contented".
, found it "difficult to resist the pessimist view of creation", but "when I look back... to the days I have spent in intercourse with you and yours, that view takes wings to itself and flies away." That summer Darwin was in his "happiest spirits", chatting "deliciously" for hours and in the evenings asking for Bach and Handel to be played repeatedly. Romanes, visiting with his wife and baby, thought the old man as "grand and good and bright as ever".
Darwin stayed with Erasmus
while his portrait was painted by John Collier
and on 3 August dined by special invitation with the Prince of Wales
, the Crown Prince of Germany and eminent physicians at the start of the Seventh International Medical Congress. Later, Erasmus became gravely ill and died on 26 August, and at the funeral at Downe on 1 September Charles, looking "old and ill", was a picture of "sad reverie". Subsequently Darwin inherited half Erasmus's estate. William announced that this made Darwin's wealth over a quarter of a million pounds, "without mother's fortune", and Darwin redrafted his will. He sent a note to his sister Caroline about her half of Erasmus's estate, enclosing a miniature of their mother and commenting that he could not remember her face, though he did recall her "black velvet gown" and the "death scene".
A requested visit from the eminent but atheist German Doctor Ludwig Büchner
in company with the notorious Edward Aveling
went amiably on Thursday 28 September with Darwin introducing his old friend the Revd. Brodie Innes, and defending agnosticism (see Charles Darwin's views on religion
).
Worms was published in October 1881 and within weeks thousands had been sold. It brought a flood of letters, with many "idiotic" enquiries, and a "worn out" Darwin escaped with Emma to visit Horace and Ida in Cambridge.
In London he made an unannounced visit to the house of Romanes on 15 December. Romanes was absent, and Darwin declined the concerned butler's invitation to come in. He crossed the street, stumbled and clutched the railings before getting a cab. The next morning Dr, Clark pronounced him fine, but Emma kept him indoors and he was visited by eminent scientists. He seemed bright and animated, but told the geologist John Judd
that he had "received his warning".
Once home, this did not hold him back from working hard at his root cells, as well as still doing his walks round the Sandwalk, receiving visitors and dealing with letters. In one he argued with an American feminist that women are "inferior intellectually". In February he was "miserable to a strange degree" with a cough. On 7 March 1882 he had a seizure while on the Sandwalk 400 yards from the house and struggled back to collapse in Emma's arms. Dr. Clark diagnosed angina and prescribed morphine pills for the pain. Darwin lay prostrate in despair, then a younger doctor, Dr. Norman Moore, assured him that his heart was only weak and within days Darwin was back at work, writing to Nature about beetles.
Having company helped. Henrietta brought her friend Laura Forster (aunt of E. M. Forster
), herself making a rapid recovery from illness. Darwin daily told Laura of his symptoms and feelings. One day he came out into the garden and, putting his arms round Emma, said "Oh Laura, what a miserable man I should be without this dear woman." Another afternoon he joined her in the drawing-room and said "The clocks go dreadfully slowly, I have come in here to see if this one gets over the hours any quicker than the study one does."
Emma wanted a quiet Easter, so Laura and Henrietta left on 4 April, but on the 4th and 5th Darwin suffered attacks, noting "much pain". He recorded his own symptoms, and continued to note sporadic attacks. He took capsules of amyl nitrite
, an antispasmodic
, and was attended by Dr Moore and a local physician, Dr. Allfrey.
On the 10th, George arrived back from the West Indies, and though Darwin was not up to talking for very long, he enjoyed George's news. Emma remembered how Darwin was "gracious & tender" when being attended for his illness, and would say "It is almost worth while to be so to be nursed by you".
George helped Frank and Jackson (the butler) to carry Darwin to and from his bed. On the nights of 11 and 12 April, Darwin had excruciating attacks of pain. On Saturday 15 April they were visited by the Lichfield family. Darwin joined them for dinner but had a giddy attack and fell down, and had to retire early. He did better on the Sunday, and on Monday was well enough to walk, supported on both sides, as far as the orchard.
. She had difficulties finding it at first, and with the assistance of Bessy gave him brandy.
Emma later noted that he had woken her saying "I have got the pain & I shall feel better or bear it better if you are awake". He had taken the antispasmodic twice, and afterwards said "I am not the least afraid of death- Remember what a good wife you have been to me - Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me".
Dr Allfrey attended and gave some relief, then after he left at 8 a.m. Charles began violent vomiting, after two hours gasping "If I could but die" repeatedly. Frank and Henrietta returned to join Bessy, who persuaded a worn out Emma to take an opium pill and rest. Charles woke in a daze, recognised his children and embraced them with tears. Emma's notes state that after the worse of the distress he said "I was so sorry for you – but I could not help you... there never were such good nurses as you [Francis] & Henrietta – Where is Mammy", and when told she was lying down, "I am glad of it... Don't call her I don't want her", and often "It's almost worth while to be sick to be nursed by you".
He suffered more bouts of nausea and pain, then at 3.25 p.m. groaned "I feel as if I should faint". Emma was called and held him as he suffered excruciating pain, then lost consciousness and died at 4 p.m. on Wednesday 19 April 1882. Dr Allfrey signed the death certificate which gave "Angina Pectoris Syncope
" as the cause of death.
Frank brought Bernard from the nursery to the garden. As they walked past the drawing-room window Bernard noticed his aunts and said "Why are Bessy and Etty crying? because Grandpa is so ill?" Grief stricken, Frank eventually said "Grandpa has been so ill that he won't be ill any more." They reached the Sandwalk and Bernard gathered a bouquet of wild lilies.
In London Galton got William Spottiswoode
as President of the Royal Society to telegraph the Darwins asking if they would consent to burial in Westminster Abbey
, an honour that Darwin had been glad to see given to Lyle in 1875. They told Hooker, Lubbock and Huxley who with Spottiswoode met the Revd. Frederic Farrar, Canon of Westminster. Farrar suggested a petition to overcome any objections to an agnostic being buried in the Abbey, and approached the Revd. George Granville Bradley
, Dean of Westminster. Lubbock took up a petition in the House of Commons
stating that "it would be acceptable to a very large number of our countrymen of all classes and opinions that our illustrious countryman Mr. Darwin should be buried in Westminster Abbey." It was "very influentially signed". Newspapers took the request up, sending a public plea to Emma and the children to consent, as foreign tributes poured in. The Standard maintained that "true Christians can accept the main scientific facts of Evolution just as they do of Astronomy and Geology", The Times
declared the 1860 debate was "ancient history" and the Daily News said that Darwin's doctrine was consistent "with strong religious faith and hope".
Hurried arrangements were made, and Emma saw it "nearly settled. It gave us all a pang not to have him rest quietly by Eras – ; but William felt strongly, and on reflection I did also, that his gracious & grateful nature would have wished to accept the acknowledgement of what he had done". While her children and relatives attended the funeral, she stayed at Downe.
The Downe tradesmen were disappointed, the publican pointing out that it "would have helped the place so much, for it would have brought hosts of people down to see his grave". The joiner had "made his coffin just the way he wanted it, all rough, just as it left the bench, no polish, no nothin", but this was returned and replaced by one "you could see to shave in". He added that "They buried him in Westminster Abbey, but he always wanted to lie here, and I don't think he'd have liked it."
That Sunday, Church sermons praised Darwin, saying Natural Selection was "by no means alien to the Christian tradition" (if interpreted correctly) and seeking a "reconciliation between Faith and Science". On Tuesday there was a massive demand for admission cards to the funeral.
All day on Tuesday the hearse was drawn by four horses the 16 miles from Downe to Westminster in cold drizzling rain. Next morning the Abbey filled with mourners including international dignitaries and scientists. At mid day on Wednesday 26 April 1882 the full pomp of a state occasion began. The service included a specially commissioned hymn, "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and getteth understanding". William felt a cold draught and, in front of the nation, put his black gloves on top of his bald head for protection. Darwin was buried beneath the monument to Isaac Newton
, next to Sir John Herschel
, and as the coffin was lowered, the choir sang "His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth evermore".
remained opposed, and unveiling of the statue had to wait till 1885, after his retirement. The pomp and ceremony was attended by the Prince of Wales, scientists and the family, though not Emma, and led by Huxley.
Darwin's Westminster Abbey funeral expressed a public feeling of national pride, with the Pall Mall Gazette proclaiming that Great Britain had "lost a man whose name is a glory to his country". Religious writers of all persuasions praised his "noble character and his ardent pursuit of truth", calling him a "true Christian gentleman". In particular the Unitarians
and free religionists, proud of his Dissenting upbringing, supported his naturalistic views. William Carpenter
carried a resolution praising Darwin's unravelling of "the immutable laws of the Divine Government", shedding light on "the progress of humanity". The Unitarian preacher John Chadwick
from New York
wrote that "The nation's grandest temple of religion opened its gates and lifted up its everlasting doors and bade the King of Science come in."
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 investigations into insectivorous plants
Carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...
and climbing plants
Vine
A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...
which he had begun before his work on Descent of Man and Emotions
Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions
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...
. Worries about family illnesses contributed to his interest in 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...
's ideas of "hereditary improvement" (which would later be called Eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
). He continued to help with the work of Downe
Downe
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...
parish church and associated village amenities, despite problems with control being seized by a new High Church vicar, and he remained on good terms with the Church's patron, the Revd. John Brodie Innes. There was continuing interest in Charles Darwin's views on religion
Charles Darwin's views on religion
Charles Darwin's views on religion have been the subject of much interest. His work which was pivotal in the development of modern biology and evolution theory played a prominent part in debates about religion and science at the time, then in the early twentieth century became a focus of the...
, but he remained reticent.
Despite repeated problems and delays caused by Charles Darwin's illness
Charles Darwin's illness
For much of his adult life, Charles Darwin's health was repeatedly compromised by an uncommon combination of symptoms, leaving him severely debilitated for long periods of time...
, his work on evolution-related experiments and investigations continued, with the production of books on the movement of climbing plants, insectivorous plants, the effects of cross
Heterosis
Heterosis, or hybrid vigor, or outbreeding enhancement, is the improved or increased function of any biological quality in a hybrid offspring. The adjective derived from heterosis is heterotic....
and self fertilisation
Vegetative reproduction
Vegetative reproduction is a form of asexual reproduction in plants. It is a process by which new individuals arise without production of seeds or spores...
of plants, different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, and The Power of Movement in Plants
The Power of Movement in Plants
The Power of Movement in Plants is a book by Charles Darwin on phototropism and other types of movement in plants. This book continues his work in producing evidence for his theory of natural selection...
. His ideas on evolution were increasingly accepted in scientific circles despite some bitter disputes, and he received numerous honours. As well as writing out his own autobiography for his family, he wrote an introduction to a biography of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down George III's invitation to be a physician to the King. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist,inventor and poet...
. In his last book, he returned to the effect earthworm
Earthworm
Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...
s have on soil formation.
He died in Downe, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England, on 19 April 1882. He had expected to be buried in St Mary’s churchyard at Downe, but at the request of Darwin’s colleagues, William Spottiswoode
William Spottiswoode
William Spottiswoode FRS was an English mathematician and physicist. He was President of the Royal Society from 1878 to 1883.-Early life:...
(President of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
) arranged for Darwin to be given a major ceremonial funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, close to John Herschel
John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS ,was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work...
and Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
.
Background
In the aftermath of the publication of On the Origin of Species through Natural Selection in 1859, Charles DarwinCharles 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 allies Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
, Joseph Dalton Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
, Thomas Huxley
Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley PC FRS was an English biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution....
, Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
and 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....
in America worked to spread acceptance of its ideas despite difficulty in coming to terms with 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....
and man's descent from animals.
Darwin's research and experiments on plants and animals continued, and his extensive writings countered the arguments against evolution, particularly those put by the Duke of Argyll and 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...
.
Family matters, eugenics
Darwin's sons George and HoraceHorace 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...
were ill and arrived home at Christmas 1872 for nursing. Darwin turned from his insectivorous plants to a more leisurely update of his monograph on climbing plants.
He was intrigued by 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...
's latest "hereditary improvement" ideas (which would be called Eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
after 1883), proposing that society should breed out mental and physical disability and improve the nation's stock by introducing "a sentiment of caste among those who are naturally gifted". Families would be registered and incentives offered so that the best children chosen from each "superior family" would marry and reproduce. Darwin, aware that of his brood only William
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...
had good health, had already dismissed the aims as too "utopian" in the Descent of Man. He thought these new proposals impractical if voluntary and politically horrifying if enforced by compulsory registration, even were they the "sole feasible" way of "improving the human race". He felt it better simply to publicise the "all-important principle of inheritance" and let people pursue the "grand" objective for themselves. In any case it was too late for his own infirm offspring.
Huxley was also ill, needing a rest and harried by a neighbour suing over a damp basement. 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) raised a £2,000 collection for him, primed by Darwin with £300. Darwin's spirits were again downcast when Lyell's wife died.
In June 1873 Darwin resumed work on his insectivorous plants, with some distractions as his wife Emma
Emma Darwin
Emma Darwin was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, scientist and author of On the Origin of Species...
took care of the seven Huxley children while Huxley and Hooker went on holiday to the continent. Having young children in the house was like the 1850s again.
Parish conflict
A new reforming High Church vicar, the Revd. George Sketchley Ffinden, had been imposing his ideas since taking over the parish in November 1871. Darwin had to write to the patron, Brodie Innes, explaining what had upset the parishioners. Ffinden now usurped control of the village school which had been run for years by a committee of Darwin, Lubbock and the incumbent priest, with a "conscience clause" which protected the children from Anglican indoctrination. Ffinden began lessons on the Thirty-nine ArticlesThirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...
of the Anglican faith, an unwelcome move from the point of view of the Baptists in the village. Darwin withdrew from the committee and cut his annual donation to the church, but continued with the Friendly Society work.
Hensleigh Wedgwood
Hensleigh Wedgwood
Hensleigh Wedgwood was a British etymologist, philologist and barrister, author of A Dictionary of English Etymology. Wedgwood was the fourth son of Josiah Wedgwood II and Elizabeth Allen...
's daughter Effie had married Thomas "Theta" Farrer in May, and on 5 August 1873 the Darwins went to visit them for a few days. They arrived to hear that a fortnight previously the Farrer's servants had been called to an accident. Earl Granville's riding companion Samuel Wilberforce
Samuel Wilberforce
Samuel Wilberforce was an English bishop in the Church of England, third son of William Wilberforce. Known as "Soapy Sam", Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his time and place...
had been killed in a fall from his horse, and was subsequently laid out in state for two days in the Farrer's drawing room. Although an opponent of the Origin, Wilberforce had always thought Darwin a "capital fellow".
Pause
At home, a heated discussion with Hooker ended with Darwin lying in bed with his memory gone and "a severe shock continually passing through my brain". Emma feared an epileptic fit, but the doctor put him on a diet and in September he returned to work on insectivorous plants. His correspondence continued, funding worthy projects and acknowledging countless gifts including Das Kapital from "a sincere admirer", Karl MarxKarl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, which Darwin had difficulty in following, but hoped that both their efforts towards "the extension of knowledge... [would] add to the happiness of mankind".
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...
struggled with his medical studies, and after finishing his thesis on animal tissues he was to assist with plant tissues at Downe. George's legal career had been ended by stomach illness and he had spent two years going to spas. He began writing topical essays, the first in the Contemporary Review on Galton. His latest essay boldly dismissed prayer, divine morals and "future rewards & punishments". Darwin urged him not to publish it for some months, and "to pause, pause, pause."
Fiske
During a visit in November 1873 the Harvard philosopher John Fiske amused the X Club with his story of a cockneyCockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
warning him "What, that 'orrid hold hinfidel 'Uxley? Why, we don't think hanythink of 'im in Hingland! We think 'e's 'orrid!", himself writing that "I am quite wild over Huxley... what a pleasure to meet such a clean-cut mind! It is like Saladin's sword which cut through the cushion." and "Old Darwin is the dearest, sweetest, loveliest old grandpa that ever was. And on the whole he impresses me with his strength more than any man I have seen yet. There is a charming kind of quiet strength about him and about everything he does. He isn't burning and eager like Huxley. He has a mild blue eye, and is the gentlest of gentle old fellows. [his] long white hair and enormous white beard [made him] very picturesque... guileless simplicity... I am afraid I shall never see him again, for his health is very bad. Of all my days in England I prize today the most."
New edition of The Descent of Man
Darwin tackled a new edition of the Descent of Man, and offered the self-financing Wallace the work of assisting him. Wallace quoted seven shillings an hour, mentioning that he was "dipping into politics" proposing nationalisation of coal mining. Emma found out and had the task given to their son George, so Darwin had to write apologetically to Wallace, adding "I hope to Heaven that politics will not replace natural science."Parish reading room
For two years, Emma had organised a winter reading room in the local school for local labourers, who subscribed a penny a week to smoke and play games, with "Respectable newspapers & a few books... & a respectable housekeeper..there every evening to maintain decorum." This was a common facility to save men from "resorting to the public housePublic house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
". In 1873 the Revd. Ffinden opposed it, as "Coffee drinking, bagatelle & other games" had been allowed and "the effects of tobacco smoke & spitting" were seen when the children returned in the morning. Emma got Darwin to get the approval of the education inspectorate in London, and just before Christmas 1873 the Darwins and Lubbocks got the agreement of the school committee, offering to pay for any repairs needed "to afford every possible opportunity to the working class for self improvement & amusement". A furious Ffinden huffed that it was "quite out of order" for the Darwins to have gone to the inspectorate behind his back. In the autumn of 1874 Darwin let off steam at Ffinden and formally resigned from the school committee on health grounds.
Spiritualism
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...
was attracted to Modern Spiritualism movement. On a visit to London in January 1874 Darwin attended a séance at Erasmus
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...
's house with relatives including Hensleigh Wedgwood
Hensleigh Wedgwood
Hensleigh Wedgwood was a British etymologist, philologist and barrister, author of A Dictionary of English Etymology. Wedgwood was the fourth son of Josiah Wedgwood II and Elizabeth Allen...
, as well as Huxley. George had hired the medium Charles Williams, and they sat round the table in the dark, but as the room grew stuffy Darwin went upstairs to lie down, missing the show, with sparks, sounds and the table rising above their heads. While Galton thought it a "good séance", Darwin later wrote "The Lord have mercy on us all, if we have to believe such rubbish" and told Emma that it was "all imposture" and "it would take an enormous weight of evidence" to convince him otherwise. At a second séance Huxley and George found that Williams was nothing but a cheat, to Darwin's relief. Emma told Hensleigh's daughter Snow that Charles "won't believe it, he dislikes the thought of it so much". Snow remembered that her uncle "used to look upon it as a great weakness if one allowed wish to influence belief" and when Emma said that "he does not always act up to his principles" Snow thought that was "what one means by bigotry", to which Emma said "Oh yes, he is a regular bigot".
New edition of Descent
Darwin continued painfully rewriting his books with the help of 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...
and George, incorporating ideas from Galton and new anecdotes. He bought from Lubbock the Sandwalk he had been renting for years, but the price seemed excessive and affected their friendship. News of a dispute involving the removal of George Bentham
George Bentham
George Bentham CMG FRS was an English botanist, characterized by Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century".- Formative years :...
from presidency of the Linnean Society, allegedly spurred on by Owen, led Darwin to write "What a demon on earth Owen is. I do hate him". With Huxley's assistance he updated the Descent on ape-brain inheritance, which Huxley thought "pounds the enemy into a jelly... though none but anatomists" would know it.
The manuscript was completed in April 1874, and the publisher 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...
planned a 12 shilling half-price edition to replicate the success of the cheap revision of the Origin. Darwin left the proofs to George, and turned again to Plants. The new edition was published on 13 November with the price cut to the bone at 9 shillings.
Insectivorous plants
Carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...
s. Helpers included Hooker and his assistant William Thiselton-Dyer 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...
, John Burdon-Sanderson at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
running lab tests on the plant's digestion, and 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....
at Harvard. Enquiries to 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...
magazine brought in sacks of mail to be dealt with by 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...
, who settled into Brodie Innes's old house in the village and married Amy Ruck on 23 July. At this time the family was joined by George Romanes
George Romanes
George John Romanes FRS was a Canadian-born English evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and other animals.He was the youngest of Charles Darwin's...
who had been a student with Frank at Cambridge. Plants experimented on were members of the genera Drosera and Pinguicula
Pinguicula
The butterworts are a group of carnivorous plants comprising the genus Pinguicula. Members of this genus use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environments. Of the roughly 80 currently known species, 12...
, including D. rotundifolia
Drosera rotundifolia
Drosera rotundifolia is a species of sundew, a carnivorous plant often found in bogs, marshes and fens...
and P. vulgaris
Pinguicula vulgaris
Pinguicula vulgaris, the Common butterwort, is a perennial carnivorous plant in the Lentibulariaceae family. It grows to a height of 3–16 cm, and is topped with a purple, and occasionally white, flower that is 15 mm or longer, and shaped like a funnel. This butterwort grows in damp...
.
Controversy with Mivart
As well as working on the proofs, George Darwin made a statistical analysis of first cousin marriages (three times more frequent in "our rank" than in the lower) and, influenced by Galton, published an article on "beneficial restrictions in marriage". MivartGeorge 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...
attacked this anonymously in the Quarterly Review, misinterpreting advocacy of divorce in cases of criminality or advice as " the most oppressive laws, and the encouragement of vice in order to check population", talking of "hideous sexual criminality". A furious Darwin told George to take legal advice while he contacted the publisher of his books and the Quarterly, 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...
, threatening to "take his business elsewhere".
Darwin's holiday at Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
with William
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...
was overshadowed as he drafted George's response. 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...
's address to the British Association later that month laid claim to "wrest from theology the entire domain of cosmological theory" and led to calls for his prosecution for blasphemy. Lyell, now nearly blind and in deteriorating health, wrote to Darwin applauding the boost to "you and your theory of evolution" despite his qualms about the hereafter. Darwin was sympathetic, but did "not feel any innate conviction" of life after death. The October issue of the Quarterly carried George's response and an "apology" from 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...
which still maintained "that the doctrines... are most dangerous and pernicious" and infuriated Darwin.
On 13 November Hooker's wife Fanny died suddenly, and a devastated Hooker felt unable to return home after the funeral and brought his family to Downe. Emma looked after the children, and when Hooker returned to Kew, Darwin urged "hard work" to overcome his "utter desolation". Later, Darwin mentioned the Mivart argument and Hooker rallied the X Club (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). Huxley eagerly used a review to attack "anonymous slander", telling Darwin that he "ought to be like one of the blessed gods of Elysium, and let the inferior deities do battle with the infernal powers." Mivart confidentially pleaded to make amends, but Huxley told Darwin that the "most effectual punishment" was to "give him the cold shoulder". Darwin was itching to speak his mind, and when no apology had come by 12 January 1875 he wrote vowing never to communicate with Mivart again.
Insectivorous Plants, parish and vivisection
Darwin struggled on, by February 1875 telling George that "I know full well the feeling of life being objectless & all being vanity of vanities", and Hooker that he was even "ready to commit suicide". The death of Lyell on 22 February had him feeling "as if we were all soon to go". Their friendship had cooled after Lyell declined to back natural selection, and Darwin pleaded illness rather than take part as a pall-bearer at the funeral in Westminster AbbeyWestminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
. In March Darwin took the proofs of Insectivorous Plants to 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...
.
For a year the vicar had refused to speak to any of the Darwins, and when two evening lectures were proposed for the village, Lubbock had to act as an intermediary in requesting use of the schoolroom. The committee agreed, but Ffinden refused to co-operate, writing that "I had long been aware of the harmful tendencies to revealed religion of Mr. Darwin's views, but.. I had fully determined.. not to let my difference of opinion interfere with a friendly feeling as neighbours, trusting that God's grace might in time bring one so highly gifted intellectually and morally to a better mind." Darwin was equally haughty in return, condescending that "If Mr. F bows to Mrs D. and myself, we will return it". He found that dealing with 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...
and Ffinden was increasing his private hostility to Christianity.
Darwin's daughter 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...
at first supported a petition drawn up by Frances Power Cobbe
Frances 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...
demanding anti-vivisection legislation. Though Darwin was an animal lover and had never carried out vivisection, he persuaded her that "Physiology can only progress by experiments on living animals". During his spring break in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
he took the matter up with his contacts, at first thinking of a counter-petition, then on Huxley's advice seeking support lobbying for a pre-emptive bill to provide for regulated vivisection with what he called a "more humanitarian aspect". The hint to the fox-hunting houses of parliament that a ban could lead to further restrictions helped, and though Cobbe's bill reached the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
on 4 May 1875 a week before the scientist's bill reached the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
, the Home Secretary announced a Royal Commission of inquiry to resolve the arguments, with Huxley co-opted on to the Commission.
The demand for Darwin as an author was shown when Insectivorous Plants, a 450 page catalogue of plant experiments, sold out quickly and in July a 1,000 copy reprint sold out within a fortnight.
Variation revised
Now Darwin turned to work on a new edition of The Variation of Animals and Plants under DomesticationThe 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...
incorporating additions from the hundreds of letters and scores of monographs that had been sent to Darwin in the seven years since it had been published. Parts were altered or discarded, and George Romanes
George Romanes
George John Romanes FRS was a Canadian-born English evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and other animals.He was the youngest of Charles Darwin's...
set aside work on jellyfish to graft vegetable plants in experiments aimed at finding out about the "gemmules
Gemmules
Gemmules were imagined particles of inheritance proposed byCharles Darwin as part of his Pangenesis theory. This appeared in his book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, published in 1868, nine years after the publication of his famous book On the Origin of Species.Gemmules,...
" which Darwin thought formed the mechanism of inheritance of characteristics. Investigations into "pangenesis
Pangenesis
Pangenesis was Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity. He presented this 'provisional hypothesis' in his 1868 work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication and felt that it brought 'together a multitude of facts which are at present left disconnected by any efficient...
" by 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...
had tried blood transfusions between different breeds of rabbits without success. Darwin continued to look for proof of inheritance of acquired characteristics, amassing evidence of blacksmith's children being muscular and babies born with scars matching those of their parents. He would not follow Huxley in discarding these ideas, and Descent had presented such inheritance as a significant factor in human evolution.
Darwin had long been concerned that his children could have inherited his weaknesses. He was proud that 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...
seemed to have inherited his interest in natural history, coming to Down House
Down House
Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theories of evolution by natural selection which he had conceived in London before moving to Downe....
from the village to carry out plant experiments, and put his son up for a Fellowship of the Linnean Society
Linnean Society of London
The Linnean Society of London is the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history. It publishes a zoological journal, as well as botanical and biological journals...
.
Cross and Self Fertilisation
With Variation at the printers and with his old essay on The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants due out in November 1875 with "illustrations... drawn by my son, George", Darwin wrote The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom. This drew on a painstaking series of experiments, protecting the plants from insects and controlling the pollination of flowers, counting the seeds and checking them for fertility, repeated for up to ten generations with detailed records kept at every stage.Darwin tabulated the results, Galton checked his statistics, and they found the crossed plants significantly superior to self-fertilised ones in height, weight, vigour and fertility. The same principle would apply to people, and though the attempt to get a question on the census had failed, George analysed data from lunatic asylums and the Pall Mall Gazette which Darwin cited as showing a small effect produced by first-cousin marriages.
While Emma ensured that he took short breaks, Darwin pressed on with work as "my sole pleasure in life" and finished the first draft of Fertilisation in May 1876, promptly going on to a revision of Orchids.
Recollections
They visited Hensleigh and Fanny to celebrate the announcement that Frank's wife Amy was five months pregnant, and Charles and Emma would shortly become grandparents. Darwin decided to leave a posthumous memoir for his family, and on Sunday 28 May 1876 he began Recollections of the Development of my mind and character. He found this candid private memoir easy going, covering his childhood, university, life on the BeagleHMS Beagle
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...
and developing work in science. A section headed "Religious Belief" opened just before his marriage, and frankly discussed his long disagreement with Emma. (see Charles Darwin's views on religion
Charles Darwin's views on religion
Charles Darwin's views on religion have been the subject of much interest. His work which was pivotal in the development of modern biology and evolution theory played a prominent part in debates about religion and science at the time, then in the early twentieth century became a focus of the...
) He recalled Annie
Anne Darwin
Anne Elizabeth "Annie" Darwin was the second child and eldest daughter of Charles and Emma Darwin. According to biographers, she was a delightful child who brought much happiness to her parents. Eminent Darwin scholar E...
and thought of how, but for her untimely death, she would now "have grown into a delightful woman... Tears still come into my eyes, when I think of her sweet ways". He completed his memoir on 3 August, concluding that after his book on fertilisation was published, "my strength... will probably be exhausted".
On 7 September the baby, named Bernard, was born at Down House, but his mother suffered a fever and convulsions, and died four days later at the age of 26. Darwin thought it the "most dreadful thing", and Frank in a state of shock and grief moved into Down House with the baby. The contractors were brought in to extend the house for him, and Frank carried on with mechanical chores for his father, making a fair copy of the memoir and correcting proofs of Orchids.
Liberalism
Despite Ffinden's continuing opposition, Emma's project of a parish reading room for labourers was restarted and opened before Christmas. Darwin saw Orchids and Cross and Self Fertilisation published as he wrote his next book on flowers. In February 1877 he attended the George and Dragon in his position as treasurer and persuaded the village labourers, who were suffering from wage cuts and a threat to their jobs in a farm slump, not to disband the Friendly Society and take the proceeds, but to keep some protection for their longer term security by keeping the books open while distributing their surplus funds. His old WhigBritish Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
principles fitted well with the Self-Help philosophy of another Murray author, Samuel Smiles
Samuel Smiles
-Early life:Born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, the son of Samuel Smiles of Haddington and Janet Wilson of Dalkeith, Smiles was one of eleven surviving children. The family were strict Cameronians, though when Smiles grew up he was not one of them...
, who had impressed Darwin.
As a "thorough Liberal", Darwin supported Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
, the "Grand Old Man" of British politics. Three months earlier Darwin had backed the outcry against the "Bulgarian horrors" when 15,000 (Christian) Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n rebels were massacred by Muslim "Turkish" troops of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, and supported Gladstone's calls for Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n intervention in opposition to the 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...
government's support for the Turks. Marx thought this a hypocritical preference for a Christian oppressor, and complained about Darwin's support for the "piggish demonstration". On 10 March Gladstone, while doing the rounds of his backbenchers and visiting Lubbock, turned up with his entourage at Down House and for two hours regaled a silent Darwin with comments from his latest pamphlet on "Turkish terrorism", and "launched forth his thunderbolts with unexhausted zest". Before leaving he asked Darwin if evolution meant that the future belonged to America as the Eastern civilisations decayed; after thinking it over, Darwin responded "Yes." Watching Gladstone's "erect alert figure" walking away, he said "What an honour that such a great man should come to visit me!"
A fortnight after Gladstone's visit, the leading secularist, militant atheist and unofficial Liberal candidate Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh was a political activist and one of the most famous English atheists of the 19th century. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866.-Early life:...
with co-publisher Annie Besant
Annie Besant
Annie Besant was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society ...
caused public outrage by publishing do-it-yourself contraceptive advice from an American doctor, James Knowlton, in a sixpenny pamphlet Fruits of Philosophy. Bradlaugh and Besant were accused of obscenity and committed for trial on 18 June 1877. A fortnight beforehand they subpoenaed Darwin for their defence, expecting his support. Appalled, he wrote protesting the "great suffering" this would put him to, and advised that he would have to denounce the defendants as he had "long held an opposite opinion" on birth control, as evidenced by an extract from the Descent of Man stating that "our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means." The practice of contraception would "spread to unmarried women & would destroy chastity on which the family bond depends; & the weakening of this bond would be the greatest of all evils to mankind."
Holidays
The subpoena was dropped, and Darwin was not held back from holidaying at Leith HillLeith Hill
Leith Hill to the south west of Dorking, Surrey, England, reaches above sea level, the highest point on the Greensand Ridge, and is the second highest point in south-east England, after Walbury Hill near Hungerford, West Berkshire, high....
and Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
for his much needed "rest" which, as usual, meant working furiously away from home. He visited Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
for the first time, examining how worm castings had buried the megalith
Megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. Megalithic describes structures made of such large stones, utilizing an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement.The word 'megalith' comes from the Ancient...
s over time. Emma feared that the day-trip involving two hours train journey and a 24 mile drive would "half kill" him, but he was in wonderful form even after digging in the hot sun.
In mid July 1877 his work on the sex life of plants culminated in the publication of The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, dedicated to 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....
. He could not "endure being idle" and turned to his next book, on plant movement. Emma got him away for his autumn break to Abinger
Abinger
Abinger is a civil parish in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England. It includes the villages of Abinger Hammer, Sutton Abinger, Abinger Common and part of Holmbury St Mary ....
on the North Downs
North Downs
The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. The North Downs lie within two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty , the Surrey Hills and the Kent Downs...
, and though Wallace now lived only a few miles away, Darwin avoided him, diplomatically writing that he "wished to come over to see you, but driving tires me so much that my courage failed."
Honorary Doctorate
The University of CambridgeUniversity 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...
had come round to Darwinism, and on Saturday 17 November the family attended the Senate House for a ceremony in which Darwin was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws in front of crowds of students, who strung a cord across the chamber with a monkey-marionette which was removed by a Proctor then replaced by a "missing link", a beribboned ring which hung over the crowd through the ceremony.
Darwin entered to a roar of approval. The Public Orator gave his panegyric
Panegyric
A panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...
describing Darwin's work with purple Latin prose, to some good humoured heckling from the students, and distanced the dignitaries from "the unlovely tribe of apes" saying "'Mores in utroques dispares' – the moral nature of the two races is different".
Emma had a headache, so she and Darwin let their boys to stand in for them at a dinner in his honour at which Huxley chided the university for failing to honour Darwin twenty years earlier. On the Sunday, after a "brilliant luncheon" with George at Trinity College, they were given guided tours. The engineering professor James Stuart showed Emma and Darwin round his workshop and later wrote of "A strong.. looking man with iron grey hair..[as though] rough hewn from a rock with a heavy..hammer,.. A man of genius.. indeed one of 'the few'."
Romanes
Into the spring of 1878 Darwin and Frank again filled the house with experiments on the movement of plants. To Frank it was "as if an outside force were compelling him", and in March the strain brought back his old sickness of attacks of dizziness. Dr. Clark in London prescribed a "dry diet" which helped, and refused to charge his patient so Darwin sent £100 towards the development of a fungus-proof potato by a "highly respectable" BelfastBelfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
breeder. He also responded to an appeal asking the HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...
's officers for help in supporting an orphan – the grandson 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...
.
George Romanes
George Romanes
George John Romanes FRS was a Canadian-born English evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and other animals.He was the youngest of Charles Darwin's...
had become Darwin's leading protégé, but a conflict between his reasoned scepticism and earlier longing for faith came to a head when his sister died. His attempt to get solace from a leading spiritualist came to nothing. Darwin invited Romanes to Downe to help him recover. Romanes had earlier written a refutation of theism, and had taken Darwin's advice to pause, but now wanted to publish. Darwin counselled anonymity, and suggested study of the evolution of religious reasoning, giving him unused notes on instinct from his work on Natural Selection. Romanes launched on the study of comparative psychology, and in August was given a standing ovation for his talk at the British Association. In November the Darwins were staying with the Litchfields, and Romanes drove there to introduce his fiancé and present his new book, A Candid Examination of Theism by "Physicus". Darwin read it with "very great interest", but was unconvinced.
Biography of Erasmus Darwin
The German scientific periodical Kosmos featured, as a 70th birthday tribute to Charles Darwin, an essay by Ernst KrauseErnst Krause
Dr Ernst Krause also known under the pen-name Carus Sterne was a German biologist.-External links:* at www.eiszeitstrasse.de...
on his grandfather Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down George III's invitation to be a physician to the King. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist,inventor and poet...
. In March 1879 he arranged for it to be translated as a book to which he would add a biographical preface. This would counter Samuel Butler's Evolution Old and New in which the previously supportive, though unscientific, author of Erewhon had turned against Darwinism, and he sent a copy of it to Krause.
In the summer he became bogged down with the proofs of his preface about Erasmus, and Henrietta edited out controversial points. The publisher John Murray was satisfied, but Darwin vowed "never again" to be "tempted out of my proper work".
Although he tired more quickly now, Darwin still worked for several hours a day. Emma ensured he took holidays, in autumn 1879 joining the Litchfields for a month in the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
where he met with John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
, though this was not a meeting of minds. On return the Darwins were visited by 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:...
whose "roaring" about the freedom of science had Darwin retreating to his plants.
Darwin unsuccessfully tried to get government support for the Belfast potato breeder from the Permanent Secretary, Thomas "Theta" Farrer (Effie Wedgwood's husband). Farrer was more concerned that his daughter by his first marriage wanted to marry the unsuitable sickly Horace Darwin
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...
. Despite her father's opposition the young couple prevailed, with Darwin giving his son £5,000 of railway stock and assuring Farrer that Horace would have a suitable inheritance. The wedding took place on 3 January 1880, with the families not on speaking terms.
Samuel Butler
In Evolution Old and New Samuel Butler claimed that earlier evolutionists had correctly seen the mind as controlling evolution, and MivartGeorge 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...
told 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...
that he thought the book would "help to burst the bubble of 'Natural Selection'." Ernst Krause
Ernst Krause
Dr Ernst Krause also known under the pen-name Carus Sterne was a German biologist.-External links:* at www.eiszeitstrasse.de...
's Erasmus Darwin countered this, and Butler took affront at Darwin's preface which said that Krause's essay predated Butler's book, when it clearly had passages written later. Darwin had to admit that Krause had revised his essay, and spent a week in February 1880 drafting responses, then was persuaded to ignore the dispute, writing to Huxley "I feel like a man condemned to be hung who has just got a reprieve". Butler took the silence as a tacit admission of guilt.
Coming of Age
Huxley titled his Royal Institution talk The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species, celebrating its 21st anniversary, though wrongly claiming that before its publication only catastrophismCatastrophism
Catastrophism is the theory that the Earth has been affected in the past by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope. The dominant paradigm of modern geology is uniformitarianism , in which slow incremental changes, such as erosion, create the Earth's appearance...
was accepted. While Darwin (on holiday with the Farrers, now on good terms) was delighted by the press coverage, he was disappointed to find no mention in its text of 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....
– even "Darwin's Bulldog" was still not committed to the central plank of his theory.
In April, Gladstone defeated the Tories at the general election, delighting Charles and Emma Darwin though not all their relatives, and a buoyant Charles sent a large subscription to Abbot's The Index with hearty wishes for success in the "good cause of truth" and 'free religion'. The Liberal success even got the militant atheist Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh was a political activist and one of the most famous English atheists of the 19th century. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866.-Early life:...
elected as MP for Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
, and public controversy about atheism erupted. He was prevented from taking his seat in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
by procedural requirements of the oath of allegiance, and secularists such as Edward Aveling
Edward Aveling
Edward Bibbins Aveling was a prominent English biology instructor and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution and atheism. He later met and moved in with Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx and became a socialist activist...
toured the country leading protests. Aveling had been writing a series on Darwin and his Works in Bradlaugh's paper The National Reformer, and Darwin had sent written thanks which he now feared would be published to his shame.
In June, after sending Movement in Plants to his publisher 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...
, Darwin visited William
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 Sarah at Southampton, and he got William to write to Abbot withdrawing the endorsement that had been printed as advertising copy in the magazine: even association with free thought in distant America could damage his respectability.
Worms
Darwin again took up his work on worms. As ever, he corresponded widely, encouraging and helping fund research and collecting anecdotes. Emma supported his commitment, saying that "if it was a condition of his living, that he sh[oul]d do now work, she was willing for him to die". For their autumn break they visited Horace and Ida in CambridgeCambridge
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...
, and to spare him the stress of getting between London stations and changing trains Emma arranged a private railway carriage. At Cambridge he showed Emma around the "scenes of my early life".
In September 1880 he completed the proofs of Movement in Plants, his largest botany book at 600 pages with 196 wood-cuts, sighing "I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts & grinding out conclusions." When on 13 October he got the request he had feared from Aveling, for permission to dedicate the Darwin and his Works articles to Darwin in book format, he declined in a four page letter marked PRIVATE emphasising that he confined his writing to science and avoided aiding attacks on religion.
Attacks on Darwin's theory continued, and when the official report of a scientific voyage slighted "the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation guided only by natural selection" he responded in Nature, "Can Sir Wyville Thomson name any one who has said that the evolution of species depends only on natural selection?" and set out multiple causes, including "use and disuse of parts". He called Thomson's criticism appropriate to "theologians and metaphysicians", and was only stopped by Huxley from using "irreverent language".
Help for Wallace
Wallace was suffering "ever-increasing anxiety" over funds, and Arabella BuckleyArabella Buckley
Arabella Burton Buckley was a writer and science educator.She was born in Brighton, England. At 24 she went to work as secretary to Charles Lyell, and worked for him until his death in 1875...
, Lyell's old secretary, pleaded with Darwin to help him find "some modest work". Hooker persuaded Darwin it was hopeless, noting that Wallace had "lost caste" over spiritualism and a £500 bet he had won by proving the world was a globe to a rich flat-earth fanatic who then started litigation which cost Wallace more than the bet had won. When Wallace's "best book" to date, Island Life, came out in November 1880 Darwin devoted all his attention to getting his friends to sign a testimonial he wrote, then rushed it to Gladstone before the re-opening of Parliament at the start of January and was overjoyed when Gladstone agreed to recommend a civil list pension of £200 a year, backdated six months. As Darwin passed on the good news to Wallace, Emma organised the family accounts so that Charles could distribute the surplus from the year's £8,000 investment income to the children.
Work on worms
Downe was snowed in, and an outbreak of swine fever involved Darwin as magistrate signing orders daily to allow movement of stock. He wrote to Kovalevsky "I make sure, but wo[e]fully slow progress, with my new book" on worms. In late February he visited London, and called on Duke of Argyll, his old opponent. They had a long and "awfully friendly" discussion, and when Argyll asked if it was not "impossible to look at [the design of orchids] without seeing that they were the effect and the expression of Mind?", Darwin looked at him "very hard" before replying that he could see the "overwhelming force" this argument might have, but he could no longer accept it.The billiard room at Down House
Down House
Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theories of evolution by natural selection which he had conceived in London before moving to Downe....
was now devoted to worm experiments which included Darwin shining different colours of lights at them at night, his sons playing different musical instruments to them, different scents and kinds of food. Other stimuli were ignored, but a bright white light or a touch of breath would make them bolt "like rabbits" into their burrows. They appeared to "enjoy the pleasure of eating" showing "eagerness for certain kinds of food", sexual passion was "strong enough to overcome... their dread of light", and he saw "a trace of social feeling" in their way of "crawling over each other's bodies". Experiments showed that they dragged leaves into their burrows narrow end first, having somehow got a "notion, however rude, of the shape of an object", maybe by "touching it in many places" with a sense like "a man... born blind and deaf" and a rudimentary intelligence.
By mid march he was writing the final chapters of what he told Victor Carus would be "a small book of little moment. I have little strength & feel very old." He wrote to 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...
about the anti-vivisection cause, accusing it of committing "a crime against humanity" by holding back the "progress of physiology", then commented that we "ought to be grateful" to worms, which reached a depth of "five or six feet" even "here at Down" where he expected to be buried shortly.
No heart or strength
Before Easter he sent off his manuscript for The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of WormsThe Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits is an 1881 book by Charles Darwin on earthworms. It was his last scientific book, and was published shortly before his death...
, and found he had no "heart or strength... to begin any investigation lasting for years". "Never happy except when at work", he was at a loose end until he remembered his autobiography
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin is the autobiography of the British naturalist Charles Darwin which was published in 1887, five years after his death....
. On 22 April 1881, exactly 30 years after Annie's burial, he re-read the passages about her and Emma's letter of that time, and added a note under his daguerreotype
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....
of Annie, "When I am dead, know that many times, I have kissed & cryed over this." [sic.]
He left the proofs of Worms to Frank and, despondent, turned down Gladstone's invitation to become a Trustee of the British Museum. Early in June 1881 Emma and the Litchfields took him to the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
, together with William and young Bernard. The sky was "like lead" and an attempt at climbing brought spots before his eyes and a doctor's diagnosis that his heart condition was "precarious". He wrote to Hooker that "Illness is downright misery to me... I cannot forget my discomfort for an hour [and] must look forward to Down graveyard as the sweetest place on earth."
The Creed of Science
Then he was perked up by the 400 page The Creed of Science by the Irish philosopher William Graham arguing the validity of traditional beliefs in the face of materialismMaterialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
. Darwin wrote to Graham expressing doubts about the conclusions – "The chief one is that the existence of so-called natural laws implies purpose. I cannot see this." He was swayed by one – "You have expressed my inward conviction.. that the Universe is not the result of chance", but then qualified this by his "horrid doubt" that such beliefs might have arisen as the human mind evolved, and were no more to be trusted than "the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind". He still supported natural selection as the engine of social progress, pointing out that "The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
hollow in the struggle for existence" and telling Graham that elimination of "lower races" by "higher civilised races" was inevitable in the progress of Malthusian struggle.
Back at Downe, a letter from Wallace promoted the socialist ideas of Henry George
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
's Progress and Poverty proposing to "make land common property" as morally just. The landowner Darwin responded that such books had "a disastrous effect" on his mind, he hoped that Wallace would not "turn renegade to natural history" while adding that "I have everything to make me happy and contented".
Pleasant memories
To Hooker he wrote of "Pleasant memories of long past days... many a discussion and... a good fight". Hooker valued their arguments "as iron sharpeneth iron" and, longing to "throw off the trammels of official life" and retire from KewKew
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...
, found it "difficult to resist the pessimist view of creation", but "when I look back... to the days I have spent in intercourse with you and yours, that view takes wings to itself and flies away." That summer Darwin was in his "happiest spirits", chatting "deliciously" for hours and in the evenings asking for Bach and Handel to be played repeatedly. Romanes, visiting with his wife and baby, thought the old man as "grand and good and bright as ever".
Darwin stayed with Erasmus
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...
while his portrait was painted by John Collier
John Collier (artist)
The Honourable John Maler Collier OBE RP ROI , called 'Jack' by his family and friends, was a leading English artist, and an author. He painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, and was one of the most prominent portrait painters of his generation. Both his marriages were to daughters of Thomas Henry...
and on 3 August dined by special invitation with the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
, the Crown Prince of Germany and eminent physicians at the start of the Seventh International Medical Congress. Later, Erasmus became gravely ill and died on 26 August, and at the funeral at Downe on 1 September Charles, looking "old and ill", was a picture of "sad reverie". Subsequently Darwin inherited half Erasmus's estate. William announced that this made Darwin's wealth over a quarter of a million pounds, "without mother's fortune", and Darwin redrafted his will. He sent a note to his sister Caroline about her half of Erasmus's estate, enclosing a miniature of their mother and commenting that he could not remember her face, though he did recall her "black velvet gown" and the "death scene".
A requested visit from the eminent but atheist German Doctor Ludwig Büchner
Ludwig Büchner
Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig Büchner was a German philosopher, physiologist and physician who became one of the exponents of 19th century scientific materialism.Büchner was born at Darmstadt, Germany, on 29 March 1824...
in company with the notorious Edward Aveling
Edward Aveling
Edward Bibbins Aveling was a prominent English biology instructor and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution and atheism. He later met and moved in with Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx and became a socialist activist...
went amiably on Thursday 28 September with Darwin introducing his old friend the Revd. Brodie Innes, and defending agnosticism (see Charles Darwin's views on religion
Charles Darwin's views on religion
Charles Darwin's views on religion have been the subject of much interest. His work which was pivotal in the development of modern biology and evolution theory played a prominent part in debates about religion and science at the time, then in the early twentieth century became a focus of the...
).
Worms was published in October 1881 and within weeks thousands had been sold. It brought a flood of letters, with many "idiotic" enquiries, and a "worn out" Darwin escaped with Emma to visit Horace and Ida in Cambridge.
Roots and illness
Darwin, "quite set up", returned to his experiments on plant roots standing in an ammonia solution, preparing sections and looking for "physiological division of labour" through his microscope.In London he made an unannounced visit to the house of Romanes on 15 December. Romanes was absent, and Darwin declined the concerned butler's invitation to come in. He crossed the street, stumbled and clutched the railings before getting a cab. The next morning Dr, Clark pronounced him fine, but Emma kept him indoors and he was visited by eminent scientists. He seemed bright and animated, but told the geologist John Judd
John Judd
John Judd is a Formula One engineer from England. He is the boss of Engine Developments Ltd., manufacturers of Judd engines. He is also known for his partnership with triple F1 World Champion Sir Jack Brabham....
that he had "received his warning".
Once home, this did not hold him back from working hard at his root cells, as well as still doing his walks round the Sandwalk, receiving visitors and dealing with letters. In one he argued with an American feminist that women are "inferior intellectually". In February he was "miserable to a strange degree" with a cough. On 7 March 1882 he had a seizure while on the Sandwalk 400 yards from the house and struggled back to collapse in Emma's arms. Dr. Clark diagnosed angina and prescribed morphine pills for the pain. Darwin lay prostrate in despair, then a younger doctor, Dr. Norman Moore, assured him that his heart was only weak and within days Darwin was back at work, writing to Nature about beetles.
Having company helped. Henrietta brought her friend Laura Forster (aunt of E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
), herself making a rapid recovery from illness. Darwin daily told Laura of his symptoms and feelings. One day he came out into the garden and, putting his arms round Emma, said "Oh Laura, what a miserable man I should be without this dear woman." Another afternoon he joined her in the drawing-room and said "The clocks go dreadfully slowly, I have come in here to see if this one gets over the hours any quicker than the study one does."
Emma wanted a quiet Easter, so Laura and Henrietta left on 4 April, but on the 4th and 5th Darwin suffered attacks, noting "much pain". He recorded his own symptoms, and continued to note sporadic attacks. He took capsules of amyl nitrite
Amyl nitrite
Amyl nitrite is the chemical compound with the formula C5H11ONO. A variety of isomers are known, but they all feature an amyl group attached to the nitrito functional group. The alkyl group is unreactive and the chemical and biological properties are mainly due to the nitrite group...
, an antispasmodic
Antispasmodic
An antispasmodic is a drug or a herb that suppresses muscle spasms.-Smooth muscle spasm:One type of antispasmodics is used for smooth muscle contraction, especially in tubular organs of the gastrointestinal tract...
, and was attended by Dr Moore and a local physician, Dr. Allfrey.
On the 10th, George arrived back from the West Indies, and though Darwin was not up to talking for very long, he enjoyed George's news. Emma remembered how Darwin was "gracious & tender" when being attended for his illness, and would say "It is almost worth while to be so to be nursed by you".
George helped Frank and Jackson (the butler) to carry Darwin to and from his bed. On the nights of 11 and 12 April, Darwin had excruciating attacks of pain. On Saturday 15 April they were visited by the Lichfield family. Darwin joined them for dinner but had a giddy attack and fell down, and had to retire early. He did better on the Sunday, and on Monday was well enough to walk, supported on both sides, as far as the orchard.
Death
Darwin seemed "fully up to the average, so on Tuesday 18 April the Lichfields left and George went to Cambridge. Darwin stayed up late later than usual in the evening, chatting to Bessy. Just before midnight he again had agonising pain, and woke a flustered Emma to ask for the amyl nitriteAmyl nitrite
Amyl nitrite is the chemical compound with the formula C5H11ONO. A variety of isomers are known, but they all feature an amyl group attached to the nitrito functional group. The alkyl group is unreactive and the chemical and biological properties are mainly due to the nitrite group...
. She had difficulties finding it at first, and with the assistance of Bessy gave him brandy.
Emma later noted that he had woken her saying "I have got the pain & I shall feel better or bear it better if you are awake". He had taken the antispasmodic twice, and afterwards said "I am not the least afraid of death- Remember what a good wife you have been to me - Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me".
Dr Allfrey attended and gave some relief, then after he left at 8 a.m. Charles began violent vomiting, after two hours gasping "If I could but die" repeatedly. Frank and Henrietta returned to join Bessy, who persuaded a worn out Emma to take an opium pill and rest. Charles woke in a daze, recognised his children and embraced them with tears. Emma's notes state that after the worse of the distress he said "I was so sorry for you – but I could not help you... there never were such good nurses as you [Francis] & Henrietta – Where is Mammy", and when told she was lying down, "I am glad of it... Don't call her I don't want her", and often "It's almost worth while to be sick to be nursed by you".
He suffered more bouts of nausea and pain, then at 3.25 p.m. groaned "I feel as if I should faint". Emma was called and held him as he suffered excruciating pain, then lost consciousness and died at 4 p.m. on Wednesday 19 April 1882. Dr Allfrey signed the death certificate which gave "Angina Pectoris Syncope
Syncope (medicine)
Syncope , the medical term for fainting, is precisely defined as a transient loss of consciousness and postural tone characterized by rapid onset, short duration, and spontaneous recovery due to global cerebral hypoperfusion that most often results from hypotension.Many forms of syncope are...
" as the cause of death.
Frank brought Bernard from the nursery to the garden. As they walked past the drawing-room window Bernard noticed his aunts and said "Why are Bessy and Etty crying? because Grandpa is so ill?" Grief stricken, Frank eventually said "Grandpa has been so ill that he won't be ill any more." They reached the Sandwalk and Bernard gathered a bouquet of wild lilies.
Funeral
Arrangements were made for burial in St. Mary's churchyard at Downe, with Brodie Innes offering to perform the rites, and the customary black edged letters were sent out to friends, relatives and colleagues.In London Galton got William Spottiswoode
William Spottiswoode
William Spottiswoode FRS was an English mathematician and physicist. He was President of the Royal Society from 1878 to 1883.-Early life:...
as President of the Royal Society to telegraph the Darwins asking if they would consent to burial in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, an honour that Darwin had been glad to see given to Lyle in 1875. They told Hooker, Lubbock and Huxley who with Spottiswoode met the Revd. Frederic Farrar, Canon of Westminster. Farrar suggested a petition to overcome any objections to an agnostic being buried in the Abbey, and approached the Revd. George Granville Bradley
George Granville Bradley
George Granville Bradley was an English divine, scholar, and schoolteacher.-Life:George Bradley's father, Charles Bradley, was vicar of Glasbury, Brecon....
, Dean of Westminster. Lubbock took up a petition in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
stating that "it would be acceptable to a very large number of our countrymen of all classes and opinions that our illustrious countryman Mr. Darwin should be buried in Westminster Abbey." It was "very influentially signed". Newspapers took the request up, sending a public plea to Emma and the children to consent, as foreign tributes poured in. The Standard maintained that "true Christians can accept the main scientific facts of Evolution just as they do of Astronomy and Geology", 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...
declared the 1860 debate was "ancient history" and the Daily News said that Darwin's doctrine was consistent "with strong religious faith and hope".
Hurried arrangements were made, and Emma saw it "nearly settled. It gave us all a pang not to have him rest quietly by Eras – ; but William felt strongly, and on reflection I did also, that his gracious & grateful nature would have wished to accept the acknowledgement of what he had done". While her children and relatives attended the funeral, she stayed at Downe.
The Downe tradesmen were disappointed, the publican pointing out that it "would have helped the place so much, for it would have brought hosts of people down to see his grave". The joiner had "made his coffin just the way he wanted it, all rough, just as it left the bench, no polish, no nothin", but this was returned and replaced by one "you could see to shave in". He added that "They buried him in Westminster Abbey, but he always wanted to lie here, and I don't think he'd have liked it."
That Sunday, Church sermons praised Darwin, saying Natural Selection was "by no means alien to the Christian tradition" (if interpreted correctly) and seeking a "reconciliation between Faith and Science". On Tuesday there was a massive demand for admission cards to the funeral.
All day on Tuesday the hearse was drawn by four horses the 16 miles from Downe to Westminster in cold drizzling rain. Next morning the Abbey filled with mourners including international dignitaries and scientists. At mid day on Wednesday 26 April 1882 the full pomp of a state occasion began. The service included a specially commissioned hymn, "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and getteth understanding". William felt a cold draught and, in front of the nation, put his black gloves on top of his bald head for protection. Darwin was buried beneath the monument to Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, next to Sir John Herschel
John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS ,was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work...
, and as the coffin was lowered, the choir sang "His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth evermore".
Commemoration
Galton proposed a commemorative stained glass window in the Abbey, with panels symbolising the works of nature, each contributed by a different country. The evolution pane did not proceed, but the Royal Society formed a committee which decided on a bronze plaque in the Abbey, and a statue for the new Natural History Museum at South Kensington. Richard OwenRichard 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...
remained opposed, and unveiling of the statue had to wait till 1885, after his retirement. The pomp and ceremony was attended by the Prince of Wales, scientists and the family, though not Emma, and led by Huxley.
Darwin's Westminster Abbey funeral expressed a public feeling of national pride, with the Pall Mall Gazette proclaiming that Great Britain had "lost a man whose name is a glory to his country". Religious writers of all persuasions praised his "noble character and his ardent pursuit of truth", calling him a "true Christian gentleman". In particular the Unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
and free religionists, proud of his Dissenting upbringing, supported his naturalistic views. William Carpenter
William Carpenter
William Carpenter may refer to:*William Carpenter , water colours of India*William Carpenter , Australian politician*William Carpenter, writer, American author...
carried a resolution praising Darwin's unravelling of "the immutable laws of the Divine Government", shedding light on "the progress of humanity". The Unitarian preacher John Chadwick
John Chadwick
John Chadwick was an English linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B, along with Michael Ventris.-Early life and education:...
from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
wrote that "The nation's grandest temple of religion opened its gates and lifted up its everlasting doors and bade the King of Science come in."
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