Development of Darwin's theory
Encyclopedia
Following the inception of
Charles Darwin
's theory of natural selection
in 1838, the development of Darwin's theory to explain the "mystery of mysteries" of how new species
originated was his "prime hobby" in the background to his main occupation of publishing the scientific results of the Beagle voyage
. He was settling into married life, but suffered from bouts of illness and after his first child was born the family moved to rural Down House
as a family home away from the pressures of London.
The publication in 1839 of his Journal and Remarks (now known as The Voyage of the Beagle
) brought him success as an author, and in 1842 he published his first major scientific book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
, setting out his theory of the formation of coral
atoll
s. He wrote out a sketch setting out his basic ideas on transmutation of species
, which he expanded into an "essay" in 1844, and discussed his theory with friends as well as continuing with experiments and wide investigations. In the same year the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
brought wide public interest in evolutionary ideas, but also showed the need for sound evidence to gain scientific acceptance of evolution
.
In 1846 he completed his third geological book, and turned from supervising the publication of expert reports on the findings from the voyage to examining barnacle
specimens himself. This grew into an eight year study, making use of his theory to find hitherto unknown relationships between the many species of barnacle, and establishing his expertise as a biologist. His faith in Christianity dwindled and he stopped going to church. In 1851 his treasured daughter suffered a long illness and died. In 1854 he resumed his work on the species question which led on to the publication of Darwin's theory
.
Charles Darwin
became a naturalist at a point in the history of evolutionary thought
when theories of Transmutation
were being developed to explain discrepancies in the established faith based explanations of species
. He considered these problems at first hand during the Beagle survey
. On its return in 1836 his ideas developed rapidly. His collections and writings established him as an eminent geologist and collector.
Darwin read Malthus's
Essay on the Principle of Population in the context of his findings about species relating to localities, enquiries into animal breeding, and ideas of Natural "laws of harmony". Around late November 1838 he compared breeders selecting traits with a Malthusian Nature selecting from variants thrown up by "chance" so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical & perfected", thinking this "a beautiful part of my theory" of how species originated.
His theory of how species originated had now come together in principle, but he was vividly aware of the difficulties he would face in getting it accepted by his friends and colleagues in the scientific establishment. On 19 December 1838 as secretary of the Geological Society of London
Darwin witnessed the vicious interrogation by Richard Owen
and his allies of Darwin's old tutor Robert Edmund Grant in which they ridiculed Grant's Lamarckian heresy, showing establishment intolerance of materialist theories.
and settled in London, Darwin continued to look to the countryside for information and began a Questions & Experiments notebook with ideas that would have seemed bizarrely mundane to the "philosophical" scientists of the time. He printed Questions about the Breeding of Animals and sent them out to gentlemen farmers, asking for information on animal husbandry
from their nurserymen and gamekeepers on how they crossed varieties or selected offspring. Of only three who responded one simply found the questions too overwhelming to answer. He found agreement with the visiting Swiss botanist Alphonse de Candolle whose father Augustin
had used the idea of "nature's war". However, when he tried explaining his theory to Hensleigh Wedgwood
, his cousin "seemed to think it absurd... that [a] tiger springing an inch further would determine his preservation".
The publication in May of Darwin's Journal and Remarks (The Voyage of the Beagle)
brought reviews accusing him of theorising rather than letting the facts speak for themselves. He turned his attention to expanding his investigations and theory of the formation of coral
atoll
s as the first part of his planned book on geology.
In December as Emma's first pregnancy progressed, Charles fell ill and accomplished little during the following year. He did accept a position on the Council of the Geographical Society in May 1840. In 1841 he became able to work for short periods a couple of days a week, and produced a paper on stones and debris being carried by ice floes, but his condition did not improve. Having consulted his father he began looking for a house in the countryside to escape a city suffering from economic depression and civil unrest. Owen was one of the few scientific friends to visit Darwin at this time, but Owen's opposition to any hint of Transmutation made Darwin keep quiet about his theories.
, who was then touring America. Lyell, dismayed that his erstwhile ally had become a Transmutationist, noted that Darwin "denies seeing a beginning to each crop of species".
Darwin’s book The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
on his theory of atoll
formation was published in May after more than three years of work, with Part 4: Fish of Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
also going to print. Illness was a continuing problem, and he and Emma left London on 18 May, visiting her parents at Maer Hall
before moving on to Shrewsbury
on 15 June for rest and quiet. Now Darwin "first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in 35 pages", the '"Pencil Sketch"' of his theory. This discussed farmers breeding animals, gave the analogy of overpopulation and competition leading to "Natural Selection" through the "war of nature" and the mechanism of descent. Every living thing was related in a branching pedigree, not ascending a Lamarckian ladder, and this pedigree was the proper basis for classification. He thought it "derogatory" to argue that God had made every kind of parasite and worm on an individual whim. Already, a rough form of the phrasing and ideas which he went on to publish 17 years later in the closing paragraph of On the Origin of Species can be seen in his conclusion in this first draft:
unrest, and Darwin copied and scribbled changes to his "Sketch" until it was almost illegible. He returned to house hunting and found a former parsonage in the rural hamlet of Downe
at a good price. A general strike led to huge demonstrations all over London, but was crushed by troops by the time Darwin moved. On 17 September 1842 the family moved into Down House
(around 1850 the village changed its name to Downe to avoid confusion with County Down
in Ireland
, but the house kept the old spelling). After a series of alterations Darwin settled in, and in 1843 returned to writing his Volcanic Islands. In May he began a (mostly geological) country diary he called The General Aspect. Asked by George Robert Waterhouse
for advice on classification, he wrote of "descent from common stocks" and "members of the series, which have not become extinct", cautiously asking for the letter to be returned, but Waterhouse was influenced by Owen and in print attacked such heresies, setting his species in symbolic circles, not hereditary trees.
Darwin became a close friend of the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker
, and on 11 January 1844 wrote to with melodramatic humour that he was "almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a “tendency to progression” “adaptations from the slow willing of animals” &c,—but the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his—though the means of change are wholly so— I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends." Hooker's reply was cautious but friendly, saying that "There may in my opinion have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject."
Darwin worked up his "Sketch" into a 189 page '"Essay"' and in July entrusted the manuscript to the local schoolmaster to copy. He then wrote a difficult letter to be opened by his wife in the event of his death requesting that the essay be published posthumously. He started his Geological Observations on South America, and corresponded with Hooker about this, feeding in questions related to his "Essay". The copied "Essay", now 231 pages, was returned to him for corrections in September. Then one day he brought it to Emma and asked her to read it. She went through the pages, making notes in the margins pointing out unclear passages and showing where she disagreed.
The Reverend Leonard Jenyns, a parson
Darwin had met at natural history soirées at the University of Cambridge
, had written a book describing work on bird mortality. On 12 October Darwin told him that his own "work on the species question has impressed me very forcibly with the importance of all such works, as your intended one, containing what people are pleased generally to call trifling facts. These are the facts, which make one understand the working or œconomy of nature .... namely what are the checks & what the periods of life, by which the increase of any given species is limited." He told Jenyns that he had "continued steadily reading & collecting facts on variation of domestic animals & plants & on the question of what are species; I have a grand body of facts & I think I can draw some sound conclusions. The general conclusion at which I have slowly been driven from a directly opposite conviction is that species are mutable & that allied species are co-descendants of common stocks. I know how much I open myself, to reproach, for such a conclusion, but I have at least honestly & deliberately come to it. I shall not publish on this subject for several years." In November he thanked Jenyns for sending a detailed note, and told him "With respect to my far-distant work on species, I must have expressed myself with singular inaccuracy, if I led you to suppose that I meant to say that my conclusions were inevitable. They have become so, after years of weighing puzzles, to myself alone;; but in my wildest day-dream, I never expect more than to be able to show that there are two sides to the question of the immutability of species, ie whether species are directly created, or by intermediate laws, (as with the life & death of individuals)." He outlined the events that had led him to these ideas, and while cautious about "numerous immense difficulties on my notions" told him that he had "drawn up a sketch & had it copied (in 200 pages) of my conclusions; & if I thought at some future time, that you would think it worth reading, I shd. of course be most thankful to have the criticism of so competent a critic." Jenyns never took up this offer to read the "Essay", but did advise Darwin on possible issues with the term "mutation". Darwin replied "it will be years before I publish, so that I shall have plenty of time to think of better words".
by Robert Chambers presenting Lamarckian
views. It brought the notion of transmutation out into the public arena and was a sensation, quickly becoming a best-seller in fashionable society circles and going into new editions. Darwin read it in November, and when questioned by Hooker in January he admired its prose, but wrote that the "geology strikes me as bad, & his zoology far worse". The book was liked by many Quaker
s and Unitarians
. Darwin's friend the Unitarian physiologist William Carpenter
called it "a very beautiful and a very interesting book", and helped Chambers with correcting later editions. Critics thanked God that the author began "in ignorance and presumption", for the revised versions "would have been much more dangerous". Vestiges paved the way for discussion, but emphasised the need for secure mastery of awkward facts.
Hooker became Darwin's mainstay in the search to find and explain anomalous facts, though Darwin was greatly disappointed in February 1845 when Hooker was invited to teach botany at Edinburgh. Others helping included Captain Beaufort
of the Admiralty
who invited Darwin to list any facts he wanted checking, for investigation by ship's surgeons (naturalists) when their ship was in the appropriate part of the world. In March Darwin followed his father's investment advice and became owner of a farmhouse and estate in Lincolnshire
, where the Reverend Samuel Wilberforce
advised local squires to take education in hand lest the countryfolk learn "a smattering of science" and forget their God-given duties.
The publisher John Murray
made an offer of payment a revised second edition of Journal and Remarks, diverting Darwin's attention from South America. On April 25 Darwin began extensive revisions incorporating his latest information and interpretations, including several hints about his species speculation. He now saw the Galápagos Archipelago
as "a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists," where we were "astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range", and "seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact – that mystery of mysteries – the first appearance of new beings on this earth." On 5 August Darwin began reading Lyell's Travels in North America, and was horrified that it saw no harm in slavery. He added two new paragraphs to his Journal, cataloguing atrocities after stating "I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country", and finished his revisions on 26 August.
Anglican clergymen / naturalists had been slow to respond to Vestiges, not wanting to give its vile ideas of transmutation publicity, but it sold increasing numbers to polite society. In the July Edinburgh Review
a lengthy and scathing attack by Adam Sedgwick
, who had taught Darwin geology at university, predicted "ruin and confusion in such a creed" which if taken up by the populace would "undermine the whole moral and social fabric" bringing "discord and deadly mischief in its train." On 8 October Darwin wrote telling Lyell that the review was "far from popular with non-scientific readers. I think some few passages savour of the dogmatism of the pulpit, rather than of the philosophy of the Professor chair". Nevertheless, it was "a grand piece of argument against mutability of species; & I read it with fear & trembling, but was well pleased to find, that I had not overlooked any of the arguments, though I had put them to myself as feebly as milk & water."
In correspondence Darwin continued to discuss his species work to Hooker, and he took it personally when Hooker remarked of another naturalist "that no one has hardly a right to examine the question of species who has not minutely described many." However, even Richard Owen
who was opposed to any mutability in species had told him it was "a very fair subject" with a mass of facts to be investigated, "& though I shall get more kicks than half-pennies, I will, life serving, attempt my work." Early in November Darwin, hinting that "geographical distrib: will be the key which will unlock the mystery of species", invited him to "look over a rough sketch (well copied) on this subject" while fearing this was "too impudent a request". Darwin's researches led to a meeting on 23 November with Charles James Fox Bunbury, who recalled "He avowed himself to some extent a believer in the transmutation of species, though not, he said, exactly according to the doctrine either of Lamarck or of the Vestiges. But he admitted that all the leading botanists and zoologists, of this country at least, are on the other side." Darwin was familiarising the "most rising naturalists" with the idea, and on 6 December enjoyed having Hooker, Edward Forbes
, Hugh Falconer
, and George Robert Waterhouse
visit Down for dinner and "raging discussions".
In the following year potato blight brought famine which impinged on the Darwins' servants and workmen, and led to overthrow of the Corn Laws
. Darwin welcomed this, but as a landowner now found that it affected his income from rent and he wrote to his agent that "Although I am on principle a free-trader, of course I am not willing to make a larger reduction than necessary to retain a good tenant." Despite his own illness recurring, Darwin pressed on with South America, having to jointly subsidise it with the publisher when the Treasury grant ran out, and it was completed by October 1846.
species was left to describe, and on 1 October 1846 Darwin began a paper on it, working on dissecting with the assistance of Hooker who was now at Kew
. To compare this with other species he borrowed specimens, and soon became involved in a much needed comprehensive study of these peculiar creatures that had recently been found to be crustacean
s rather than molluscs. To Hooker such an exhaustive study might dampen Darwin's tendency to speculative theorising, and to Darwin it would establish his credentials.
meeting at Oxford
in May 1847, to discuss the "Sketch" with Hooker. Darwin attended the geological section which featured a talk by Robert Chambers on ancient beaches. An observer at the meeting reported that Chambers "pushed his conclusions to a most unwarrantable length and got roughly handled on account of it by Buckland, De la Beche, Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lyell. The last told me afterwards that he did so purposely that [Chambers] might see that reasonings in the style of the author of the Vestiges would not be tolerated among scientific men." This was a clear warning from Darwin's Cambridge friends.
On the Sunday Samuel Wilberforce
, now the Bishop
of Oxford, used his sermon at St. Mary's Church on "the wrong way of doing science" to deliver a stinging attack obviously aimed at Chambers. The church "crowded to suffocation" with geologists, astronomers and zoologists heard jibes about the "half-learned" seduced by the "foul temptation" of speculation looking for a self-sustaining universe in a "mocking spirit of unbelief", showing a failure to understand the "modes of the Creator's acting" or to meet the responsibilities of a gentleman. Chambers denounced this as an attempt to stifle progressive opinion, but others thought he must have gone home "with the feeling of a martyr". Darwin was not present, but in the following week at the Association dissociated himself from the error-ridden Vestiges in Lyell's presence, attacking the author's "poverty of intellect" and dismissing it as a "literary curiosity."
.
Darwin returned his attention to family life and dissecting barnacles. In February 1848 the leader of British science Sir John Herschel
wrote recruiting Darwin to a project drawing up instructions for sailors on scientific field work, at the request of the First Sea Lord
. Darwin spent five weeks writing a section for the manual explaining how any gentleman could "geologize".
That summer Communist revolution in France was followed by a massive Chartist demonstration in London, with the wealthy and the Queen fleeing to safety. Darwin's friends were mustered to defend the scientific institutions against the possibility of attacks by rioters who would have welcomed his secret theory. Continuing with the barnacles he found that what seemed like minute parasites were in some cases the minute males "& half embedded in the flesh of their wives they spend their whole lives", a "wonder of nature" not flattering to the Creation idea that God appointed the social system.
Darwin visited The Mount, Shrewsbury
for the 82nd birthday of his father who was now seriously ill. He became desperately ill himself and returned home to be nursed by Emma who gave birth to their third son in August, then in November was devastated when his father died. Emma sustained him, and they read religious books together. In February 1849 he drew some comfort from Harriet Martineau
's new Eastern Life, Past and Present, a travelogue of tombs with the message that Christian beliefs in reward and punishment were founded in heathen superstitions.
so that he could try Dr James Gully
's Water Cure Establishment for a two month cold water treatment
. They rented "The Lodge" in a quiet location nearby, and he embarked on a course including drinking spa water and being scrubbed in cold water, walks for exercise, a strict diet and mesmerism and homeopathic medicines.
The family enjoyed the spring weather and liked Dr Gully, and it developed into a delightful holiday in the festive atmosphere around the spa
. His stomach trouble was diagnosed as nervous in origin, and he was soon free of sickness and walking seven miles (11 km) a day. Despite his suspicions of quackery, the cure worked, and after staying 16 weeks they returned home, arriving on 30 June with Darwin eager to resume work on his barnacles.
He continued a slightly relaxed version of the treatment, having a hut built with a cold water douche and getting up a seven a.m. to get heated up with a spirit lamp then take a cold plunge bath and get scrubbed by his butler. In September his duties as Vice-President of the British Association and interest in a paper on barnacles led him to attend their meeting at Birmingham
, but he found it unpleasant and the excitement brought back the sickness. Even after a quick visit to Dr Gully and rest at home he took weeks to recover.
of this odd metamorphosis and getting him and others around the world to send more barnacle specimens. His cascade of letters made Hooker tire of barnacle details, and write from the Himalayas that on reflection he really did prefer to hear the evolutionary speculation after all. Darwin responded that "this is too bad" as "your decided approval of my Barnacle work" had "led me...to defer my species-paper" in the first place.
As his work progressed on to fossil barnacles, pressures brought on illness again and in June 1850 he went to Malvern for a week of treatment. Hooker was helping search for evidence, now trying to test evolutionary ideas and writing that "they have possessed me, without however converting me". While Hooker was not finding gradations of varieties, Darwin's barnacles were showing this to the extent that defining species was extremely difficult.
. Darwin recovered but Annie was still ill, and on 24 March he took her to Malvern, leaving her there for the best treatment he knew of, and returning to Downe where Emma had stayed as she was pregnant. With his first paper on barnacles printed and Hooker safely returned to Britain laden with specimens, things were looking up, but then on 15 April Annie suffered a serious relapse and Darwin had to rush to her side.
An agonised Darwin stayed at Annie's bedside as the crisis deepened. Dr Gully attended through the night thinking her unlikely to last, but at 6 a.m. she vomited and her condition stabilised. She seemed to recover slightly and a series of ups and downs followed with Darwin and Fanny Wedgwood anxiously watching and writing home, but she deteriorated and died on 23 April 1851.
Darwin's faith in Christianity had already dwindled away and from around 1849 he had stopped going to church. During Annie's long illness Darwin had read books by Francis William Newman
, a Unitarian evolutionist who called for a new post-Christian synthesis and wrote that "the fretfulness of a child is an infinite evil". For three years Darwin had deliberated about the Christian meaning of mortality, opening a vision of tragically circumstantial nature. On 30 April he wrote a brief and intensely emotional memoir of Annie for himself and Emma.
to the churchyard, and then he would go for a walk. During the service, Emma continued to face forward when the congregation turned to face the altar for the Creed, sticking to her Unitarian faith.
The Darwins went up to the Great Exhibition in 1851, staying with "Uncle Ras
", but while the children enjoyed their several visits, Darwin's ailments returned with the excitement. The slog of describing barnacles continued. Family life was rewarding but also brought pressures. The worst of his bugbears was a fear of inherited weaknesses. His oldest son William
was a slow learner, and after much agonising Darwin sent him to Rugby School
. While they had inherited wealth, it had to be wisely invested. A large proportion was cautiously put in railway stock, then in a boom but subject to fluctuations. He had kept records of the effects of the continuing water treatment, and finding that it was of some help with relaxation but had no significant effect he stopped it in 1852 and proceeded to try various experimental therapies without any confidence in their effects.
recently acquired by John Chapman
became their focus, and an early article by Herbert Spencer
set out a Malthusian view that people who multiply beyond their means take "the high road to extinction", while "the select of their generation" remained to ensure progress. Spencer became a close friend and ally of Thomas Huxley
, an ambitious naturalist who had returned from a long survey trip but lacked the family wealth or contacts to find a career. Huxley had sent papers to Darwin which began a correspondence, and Darwin sent him a copy of the first volume of Barnacles when it was printed. Huxley called it an exemplary work, all the more remarkable for coming from a distinguished geologist rather than an anatomist.
In recognition of his work on South American geology, invertebrate research and particularly his work on Barnacles, Darwin was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society
and received it at their meeting on 30 November 1853. The excitement brought back illness and he resumed the water treatment. This time it was successful and his health improved. He finished the second volume of Barnacles, completing almost eight years of work which had made him the world's foremost authority on the subject.
In the spring of 1854 he joined the Royal Society
's Philosophical Club. To his surprise his stomach was not troubled and he greatly enjoyed visiting London regularly and meeting with the new generation of scientists, in particular John Tyndall
, Hooker and Huxley. Darwin supported them in gaining gold medals from the Society, saying that they would become "scientific giants" and he thought it only right that they should get the accolades to spur them on. Tyndall had taken the chair of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution
in 1853 and was now helping Huxley run the science section of The Westminster Review
. Huxley began teaching at the Royal School of Mines
in November, then "sick of the dilettante middle class" began his famous working men's lectures a year later, and Hooker became ensconced at Kew Gardens
.
Biology was becoming liberalised, even among some churchmen. The Reverend Baden Powell
, a mathematics professor at the University of Oxford
, applied the theological argument that God is a lawgiver, miracles break the lawful edicts issued at Creation, therefore belief in miracles is atheistic.
that he planned to "view all facts that I can master..to see how far they favour or are opposed to the notion that wild species are mutable or immutable". All available information was examined for "hostile facts" and discussed with Hooker, who had resisted what he called Darwin's "Elastic theory" but who was now developing an "utter disbelief of my own Genera and species".
In the Spring of 1855, as the Crimean war
developed, Darwin was pondering the war of nature, taking the then current analogy with an industrial economy further than others, and wondering how species spread. He was dismissive of the ideas that others had put forward of sunken continents like Atlantis
, and began experimenting in his house with soaking seeds in brine
then seeing if they could germinate. He reported his results in Gardeners' Chronicle and roped in his curate friends including Henslow. The consul in Norway
sent seed pods which had washed ashore. Hooker was able to identify them as coming from the Caribbean
and get them to germinate at Kew. Investigation of variation brought him back to animal husbandry
. He now began dissecting domestic animals and breeding pigeons, joining a pigeon fancier's club: very unorthodox behaviour for naturalists at that time.
Huxley had obtained a position and his friends had been having an impact on the establishment. In particular Huxley had strongly dismissed the transmutationist thesis of Chambers' Vestiges. He also argued vociferously against the dominant Owen who had demonstrated fossil evidence of an evolutionary sequence of horses as supporting his idea of development from archetypes in "ordained continuous becoming", and who had in 1854 given a British Association
talk on the impossibility of bestial apes such as the recently discovered gorilla
standing erect and being transmuted into men. Darwin tried at a gathering at Downe on 22 April 1856 to amiably argue Huxley and Hooker round towards accepting evolution as a process, without going into the mechanism.
Darwin intended to write human beings into Natural Selection through mid-1857. But his work required a tremendous amount of evidence and facts. He left humans out in part because "mutiny in India" had stopped his correspondence with Edward Blyth
in Calcutta. Had he included sexual selection
, at that time it would have been only the male competition element and not female choice.
became involved and Darwin's work took on a new urgency.
While Darwin continued to amass knowledge and carry out experiments, he now became committed to publication.
See the publication of Darwin's theory
for the resulting developments, in the context of his life, work and outside influences at the time.
Inception of Darwin's theory
The inception of Darwin's theory occurred during an intensively busy period which began when Charles Darwin returned from the survey voyage of the Beagle, with his reputation as a fossil collector and geologist already established...
Charles Darwin
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 theory 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....
in 1838, the development of Darwin's theory to explain the "mystery of mysteries" of how new species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
originated was his "prime hobby" in the background to his main occupation of publishing the scientific results of the Beagle voyage
Second voyage of HMS Beagle
The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, under captain Robert FitzRoy who had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after her previous captain committed suicide...
. He was settling into married life, but suffered from bouts of illness and after his first child was born the family moved to rural 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....
as a family home away from the pressures of London.
The publication in 1839 of his Journal and Remarks (now known as The Voyage of the Beagle
The Voyage of the Beagle
The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect...
) brought him success as an author, and in 1842 he published his first major scientific book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836, was published in 1842 as Charles Darwin's first monograph, and set out his theory of the formation of coral reefs...
, setting out his theory of the formation of coral
Coral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...
atoll
Atoll
An atoll is a coral island that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.- Usage :The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu OED...
s. He wrote out a sketch setting out his basic ideas on transmutation of species
Transmutation of species
Transmutation of species was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory that described the altering of one species into another, and the term is often used to describe 19th century evolutionary ideas that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection...
, which he expanded into an "essay" in 1844, and discussed his theory with friends as well as continuing with experiments and wide investigations. In the same year the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a unique work of speculative natural history published anonymously in England in 1844. It brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous...
brought wide public interest in evolutionary ideas, but also showed the need for sound evidence to gain scientific acceptance of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
.
In 1846 he completed his third geological book, and turned from supervising the publication of expert reports on the findings from the voyage to examining barnacle
Barnacle
A barnacle is a type of arthropod belonging to infraclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. They are sessile suspension feeders, and have...
specimens himself. This grew into an eight year study, making use of his theory to find hitherto unknown relationships between the many species of barnacle, and establishing his expertise as a biologist. His faith in Christianity dwindled and he stopped going to church. In 1851 his treasured daughter suffered a long illness and died. In 1854 he resumed his work on the species question which led on to the publication of Darwin's theory
Publication of Darwin's theory
The publication of Darwin's theory brought into the open Charles Darwin's ideas of evolution through natural selection, the culmination of more than twenty years of work....
.
Background
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...
became a naturalist at a point in the history of evolutionary thought
History of evolutionary thought
Evolutionary thought, the conception that species change over time, has roots in antiquity, in the ideas of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese as well as in medieval Islamic science...
when theories of Transmutation
Transmutation of species
Transmutation of species was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory that described the altering of one species into another, and the term is often used to describe 19th century evolutionary ideas that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection...
were being developed to explain discrepancies in the established faith based explanations of species
History of creationism
The history of creationism relates to the history of thought based on a premise that the natural universe had a beginning, and came into being supernaturally...
. He considered these problems at first hand during the Beagle survey
Second voyage of HMS Beagle
The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, under captain Robert FitzRoy who had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after her previous captain committed suicide...
. On its return in 1836 his ideas developed rapidly. His collections and writings established him as an eminent geologist and collector.
Darwin read Malthus's
Thomas Malthus
The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent....
Essay on the Principle of Population in the context of his findings about species relating to localities, enquiries into animal breeding, and ideas of Natural "laws of harmony". Around late November 1838 he compared breeders selecting traits with a Malthusian Nature selecting from variants thrown up by "chance" so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical & perfected", thinking this "a beautiful part of my theory" of how species originated.
His theory of how species originated had now come together in principle, but he was vividly aware of the difficulties he would face in getting it accepted by his friends and colleagues in the scientific establishment. On 19 December 1838 as secretary of the Geological Society of London
Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...
Darwin witnessed the vicious interrogation by 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...
and his allies of Darwin's old tutor Robert Edmund Grant in which they ridiculed Grant's Lamarckian heresy, showing establishment intolerance of materialist theories.
Married life
In 1839, now married to EmmaEmma Darwin
Emma Darwin was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, scientist and author of On the Origin of Species...
and settled in London, Darwin continued to look to the countryside for information and began a Questions & Experiments notebook with ideas that would have seemed bizarrely mundane to the "philosophical" scientists of the time. He printed Questions about the Breeding of Animals and sent them out to gentlemen farmers, asking for information on animal husbandry
Animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....
from their nurserymen and gamekeepers on how they crossed varieties or selected offspring. Of only three who responded one simply found the questions too overwhelming to answer. He found agreement with the visiting Swiss botanist Alphonse de Candolle whose father Augustin
A. P. de Candolle
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle also spelled Augustin Pyrame de Candolle was a Swiss botanist. René Louiche Desfontaines launched Candolle's botanical career by recommending him at an herbarium...
had used the idea of "nature's war". However, when he tried explaining his theory to 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...
, his cousin "seemed to think it absurd... that [a] tiger springing an inch further would determine his preservation".
The publication in May of Darwin's Journal and Remarks (The Voyage of the Beagle)
The Voyage of the Beagle
The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect...
brought reviews accusing him of theorising rather than letting the facts speak for themselves. He turned his attention to expanding his investigations and theory of the formation of coral
Coral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...
atoll
Atoll
An atoll is a coral island that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.- Usage :The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu OED...
s as the first part of his planned book on geology.
In December as Emma's first pregnancy progressed, Charles fell ill and accomplished little during the following year. He did accept a position on the Council of the Geographical Society in May 1840. In 1841 he became able to work for short periods a couple of days a week, and produced a paper on stones and debris being carried by ice floes, but his condition did not improve. Having consulted his father he began looking for a house in the countryside to escape a city suffering from economic depression and civil unrest. Owen was one of the few scientific friends to visit Darwin at this time, but Owen's opposition to any hint of Transmutation made Darwin keep quiet about his theories.
First writings on the theory
In January 1842 Darwin sent a tentative description of his ideas in a letter to LyellCharles 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...
, who was then touring America. Lyell, dismayed that his erstwhile ally had become a Transmutationist, noted that Darwin "denies seeing a beginning to each crop of species".
Darwin’s book The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836, was published in 1842 as Charles Darwin's first monograph, and set out his theory of the formation of coral reefs...
on his theory of atoll
Atoll
An atoll is a coral island that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.- Usage :The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu OED...
formation was published in May after more than three years of work, with Part 4: Fish of Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Under the Command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., during the Years 1832 to 1836 is a 5-part book published unbound in nineteen numbers as they were ready, between February 1838 and October 1843...
also going to print. Illness was a continuing problem, and he and Emma left London on 18 May, visiting her parents at Maer Hall
Maer Hall
The large 17th century stone built country house and estate of Maer Hall dominates the village of Maer, Staffordshire. Its location in the district of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England, is attractively rural, but fairly close to the pottery manufacturing area around Stoke-on-Trent which...
before moving on to Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
on 15 June for rest and quiet. Now Darwin "first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in 35 pages", the '"Pencil Sketch"' of his theory. This discussed farmers breeding animals, gave the analogy of overpopulation and competition leading to "Natural Selection" through the "war of nature" and the mechanism of descent. Every living thing was related in a branching pedigree, not ascending a Lamarckian ladder, and this pedigree was the proper basis for classification. He thought it "derogatory" to argue that God had made every kind of parasite and worm on an individual whim. Already, a rough form of the phrasing and ideas which he went on to publish 17 years later in the closing paragraph of On the Origin of Species can be seen in his conclusion in this first draft:
Essay
They returned on 18 July to a London seething with ChartistChartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
unrest, and Darwin copied and scribbled changes to his "Sketch" until it was almost illegible. He returned to house hunting and found a former parsonage in the rural hamlet 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...
at a good price. A general strike led to huge demonstrations all over London, but was crushed by troops by the time Darwin moved. On 17 September 1842 the family moved into 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....
(around 1850 the village changed its name to Downe to avoid confusion with County Down
County Down
-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...
in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, but the house kept the old spelling). After a series of alterations Darwin settled in, and in 1843 returned to writing his Volcanic Islands. In May he began a (mostly geological) country diary he called The General Aspect. Asked by George Robert Waterhouse
George Robert Waterhouse
George Robert Waterhouse was an English naturalist.In 1833, Waterhouse was elected as the Royal Entomological Society of London's librarian and curator of insects and records....
for advice on classification, he wrote of "descent from common stocks" and "members of the series, which have not become extinct", cautiously asking for the letter to be returned, but Waterhouse was influenced by Owen and in print attacked such heresies, setting his species in symbolic circles, not hereditary trees.
Darwin became a close friend of the botanist 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...
, and on 11 January 1844 wrote to with melodramatic humour that he was "almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a “tendency to progression” “adaptations from the slow willing of animals” &c,—but the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his—though the means of change are wholly so— I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends." Hooker's reply was cautious but friendly, saying that "There may in my opinion have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject."
Darwin worked up his "Sketch" into a 189 page '"Essay"' and in July entrusted the manuscript to the local schoolmaster to copy. He then wrote a difficult letter to be opened by his wife in the event of his death requesting that the essay be published posthumously. He started his Geological Observations on South America, and corresponded with Hooker about this, feeding in questions related to his "Essay". The copied "Essay", now 231 pages, was returned to him for corrections in September. Then one day he brought it to Emma and asked her to read it. She went through the pages, making notes in the margins pointing out unclear passages and showing where she disagreed.
The Reverend Leonard Jenyns, a parson
Parson
In the pre-Reformation church, a parson was the priest of an independent parish church, that is, a parish church not under the control of a larger ecclesiastical or monastic organization...
Darwin had met at natural history soirées at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, had written a book describing work on bird mortality. On 12 October Darwin told him that his own "work on the species question has impressed me very forcibly with the importance of all such works, as your intended one, containing what people are pleased generally to call trifling facts. These are the facts, which make one understand the working or œconomy of nature .... namely what are the checks & what the periods of life, by which the increase of any given species is limited." He told Jenyns that he had "continued steadily reading & collecting facts on variation of domestic animals & plants & on the question of what are species; I have a grand body of facts & I think I can draw some sound conclusions. The general conclusion at which I have slowly been driven from a directly opposite conviction is that species are mutable & that allied species are co-descendants of common stocks. I know how much I open myself, to reproach, for such a conclusion, but I have at least honestly & deliberately come to it. I shall not publish on this subject for several years." In November he thanked Jenyns for sending a detailed note, and told him "With respect to my far-distant work on species, I must have expressed myself with singular inaccuracy, if I led you to suppose that I meant to say that my conclusions were inevitable. They have become so, after years of weighing puzzles, to myself alone;; but in my wildest day-dream, I never expect more than to be able to show that there are two sides to the question of the immutability of species, ie whether species are directly created, or by intermediate laws, (as with the life & death of individuals)." He outlined the events that had led him to these ideas, and while cautious about "numerous immense difficulties on my notions" told him that he had "drawn up a sketch & had it copied (in 200 pages) of my conclusions; & if I thought at some future time, that you would think it worth reading, I shd. of course be most thankful to have the criticism of so competent a critic." Jenyns never took up this offer to read the "Essay", but did advise Darwin on possible issues with the term "mutation". Darwin replied "it will be years before I publish, so that I shall have plenty of time to think of better words".
Vestiges published
In October 1844 Transmutation became a middle class talking point with the anonymous publication of Vestiges of the Natural History of CreationVestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a unique work of speculative natural history published anonymously in England in 1844. It brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous...
by Robert Chambers presenting Lamarckian
Lamarckism
Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...
views. It brought the notion of transmutation out into the public arena and was a sensation, quickly becoming a best-seller in fashionable society circles and going into new editions. Darwin read it in November, and when questioned by Hooker in January he admired its prose, but wrote that the "geology strikes me as bad, & his zoology far worse". The book was liked by many Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
s and 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....
. Darwin's friend the Unitarian physiologist William Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter MD CB FRS was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London.-Life:...
called it "a very beautiful and a very interesting book", and helped Chambers with correcting later editions. Critics thanked God that the author began "in ignorance and presumption", for the revised versions "would have been much more dangerous". Vestiges paved the way for discussion, but emphasised the need for secure mastery of awkward facts.
Hooker became Darwin's mainstay in the search to find and explain anomalous facts, though Darwin was greatly disappointed in February 1845 when Hooker was invited to teach botany at Edinburgh. Others helping included Captain Beaufort
Francis Beaufort
Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, FRS, FRGS was an Irish hydrographer and officer in Britain's Royal Navy...
of the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
who invited Darwin to list any facts he wanted checking, for investigation by ship's surgeons (naturalists) when their ship was in the appropriate part of the world. In March Darwin followed his father's investment advice and became owner of a farmhouse and estate in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, where the Reverend 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...
advised local squires to take education in hand lest the countryfolk learn "a smattering of science" and forget their God-given duties.
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...
made an offer of payment a revised second edition of Journal and Remarks, diverting Darwin's attention from South America. On April 25 Darwin began extensive revisions incorporating his latest information and interpretations, including several hints about his species speculation. He now saw the Galápagos Archipelago
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
as "a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists," where we were "astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range", and "seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact – that mystery of mysteries – the first appearance of new beings on this earth." On 5 August Darwin began reading Lyell's Travels in North America, and was horrified that it saw no harm in slavery. He added two new paragraphs to his Journal, cataloguing atrocities after stating "I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country", and finished his revisions on 26 August.
Anglican clergymen / naturalists had been slow to respond to Vestiges, not wanting to give its vile ideas of transmutation publicity, but it sold increasing numbers to polite society. In the July Edinburgh Review
Edinburgh Review
The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...
a lengthy and scathing attack by Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
, who had taught Darwin geology at university, predicted "ruin and confusion in such a creed" which if taken up by the populace would "undermine the whole moral and social fabric" bringing "discord and deadly mischief in its train." On 8 October Darwin wrote telling Lyell that the review was "far from popular with non-scientific readers. I think some few passages savour of the dogmatism of the pulpit, rather than of the philosophy of the Professor chair". Nevertheless, it was "a grand piece of argument against mutability of species; & I read it with fear & trembling, but was well pleased to find, that I had not overlooked any of the arguments, though I had put them to myself as feebly as milk & water."
In correspondence Darwin continued to discuss his species work to Hooker, and he took it personally when Hooker remarked of another naturalist "that no one has hardly a right to examine the question of species who has not minutely described many." However, even 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...
who was opposed to any mutability in species had told him it was "a very fair subject" with a mass of facts to be investigated, "& though I shall get more kicks than half-pennies, I will, life serving, attempt my work." Early in November Darwin, hinting that "geographical distrib: will be the key which will unlock the mystery of species", invited him to "look over a rough sketch (well copied) on this subject" while fearing this was "too impudent a request". Darwin's researches led to a meeting on 23 November with Charles James Fox Bunbury, who recalled "He avowed himself to some extent a believer in the transmutation of species, though not, he said, exactly according to the doctrine either of Lamarck or of the Vestiges. But he admitted that all the leading botanists and zoologists, of this country at least, are on the other side." Darwin was familiarising the "most rising naturalists" with the idea, and on 6 December enjoyed having Hooker, Edward Forbes
Edward Forbes
Professor Edward Forbes FRS, FGS was a Manx naturalist.-Early years:Forbes was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man. While still a child, when not engaged in reading, or in the writing of verses and drawing of caricatures, he occupied himself with the collecting of insects, shells, minerals,...
, Hugh Falconer
Hugh Falconer
Hugh Falconer MD FRS was a Scottish geologist, botanist, palaeontologist and paleoanthropologist. He studied the flora, fauna and geology of India, Assam and Burma, and was the first to suggest the modern evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium...
, and George Robert Waterhouse
George Robert Waterhouse
George Robert Waterhouse was an English naturalist.In 1833, Waterhouse was elected as the Royal Entomological Society of London's librarian and curator of insects and records....
visit Down for dinner and "raging discussions".
In the following year potato blight brought famine which impinged on the Darwins' servants and workmen, and led to overthrow of the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
. Darwin welcomed this, but as a landowner now found that it affected his income from rent and he wrote to his agent that "Although I am on principle a free-trader, of course I am not willing to make a larger reduction than necessary to retain a good tenant." Despite his own illness recurring, Darwin pressed on with South America, having to jointly subsidise it with the publisher when the Treasury grant ran out, and it was completed by October 1846.
Barnacles
A single barnacleBarnacle
A barnacle is a type of arthropod belonging to infraclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. They are sessile suspension feeders, and have...
species was left to describe, and on 1 October 1846 Darwin began a paper on it, working on dissecting with the assistance of Hooker who was now 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...
. To compare this with other species he borrowed specimens, and soon became involved in a much needed comprehensive study of these peculiar creatures that had recently been found to be crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
s rather than molluscs. To Hooker such an exhaustive study might dampen Darwin's tendency to speculative theorising, and to Darwin it would establish his credentials.
Hooker reads the "Essay"
Hooker paid frequent visits, and in January 1847 when Darwin was particularly ill Hooker took away a copy of the "Essay". After some delays he sent a page of notes, giving the calm critical feedback that Darwin needed. He did not go along with Darwin's rejection of continuing Creation, arguing "All allusions to superintending providence unnecessary – The Creator able to make first [organisms] able also to go on directing & [it's] a matter of moonshine to [the] argument whether he does or no." Their debates continued, sometimes argumentatively, and Darwin felt devastated by Hooker's intention to set off on a survey voyage.British Association: Vestiges and Wilberforce
Darwin overcame illness to attend the British Association for the Advancement of ScienceBritish Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
meeting at Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
in May 1847, to discuss the "Sketch" with Hooker. Darwin attended the geological section which featured a talk by Robert Chambers on ancient beaches. An observer at the meeting reported that Chambers "pushed his conclusions to a most unwarrantable length and got roughly handled on account of it by Buckland, De la Beche, Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lyell. The last told me afterwards that he did so purposely that [Chambers] might see that reasonings in the style of the author of the Vestiges would not be tolerated among scientific men." This was a clear warning from Darwin's Cambridge friends.
On the Sunday 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...
, now the Bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of Oxford, used his sermon at St. Mary's Church on "the wrong way of doing science" to deliver a stinging attack obviously aimed at Chambers. The church "crowded to suffocation" with geologists, astronomers and zoologists heard jibes about the "half-learned" seduced by the "foul temptation" of speculation looking for a self-sustaining universe in a "mocking spirit of unbelief", showing a failure to understand the "modes of the Creator's acting" or to meet the responsibilities of a gentleman. Chambers denounced this as an attempt to stifle progressive opinion, but others thought he must have gone home "with the feeling of a martyr". Darwin was not present, but in the following week at the Association dissociated himself from the error-ridden Vestiges in Lyell's presence, attacking the author's "poverty of intellect" and dismissing it as a "literary curiosity."
Health problems
For the rest of the year Darwin suffered increasing health problems, with fiercely inflamed boils, and in November Hooker left for IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Darwin returned his attention to family life and dissecting barnacles. In February 1848 the leader of British science 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...
wrote recruiting Darwin to a project drawing up instructions for sailors on scientific field work, at the request of the First Sea Lord
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...
. Darwin spent five weeks writing a section for the manual explaining how any gentleman could "geologize".
That summer Communist revolution in France was followed by a massive Chartist demonstration in London, with the wealthy and the Queen fleeing to safety. Darwin's friends were mustered to defend the scientific institutions against the possibility of attacks by rioters who would have welcomed his secret theory. Continuing with the barnacles he found that what seemed like minute parasites were in some cases the minute males "& half embedded in the flesh of their wives they spend their whole lives", a "wonder of nature" not flattering to the Creation idea that God appointed the social system.
Darwin visited The Mount, Shrewsbury
The Mount, Shrewsbury
The Mount, is the site of a house in Shrewsbury, officially known as Mount House that belonged to Robert Darwin and was the birthplace of his son Charles Darwin.- Overview :...
for the 82nd birthday of his father who was now seriously ill. He became desperately ill himself and returned home to be nursed by Emma who gave birth to their third son in August, then in November was devastated when his father died. Emma sustained him, and they read religious books together. In February 1849 he drew some comfort from Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau was an English social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist....
's new Eastern Life, Past and Present, a travelogue of tombs with the message that Christian beliefs in reward and punishment were founded in heathen superstitions.
Water Cure
His illness had long baffled doctors. Reluctantly and sceptically he took friend's advice and the whole family and household set out on 8 March 1849 for MalvernMalvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
so that he could try Dr James Gully
James Manby Gully
Dr James Manby Gully , was a Victorian medical doctor, well known for practising hydrotherapy, or the "water cure". Along with his partner James Wilson, he founded a very successful "hydropathy" clinic in Malvern, Worcestershire, which had many notable Victorians, including such figures as Charles...
's Water Cure Establishment for a two month cold water treatment
Hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy, involves the use of water for pain-relief and treating illness. The term hydrotherapy itself is synonymous with the term water cure as it was originally marketed by practitioners and promoters in the 19th century...
. They rented "The Lodge" in a quiet location nearby, and he embarked on a course including drinking spa water and being scrubbed in cold water, walks for exercise, a strict diet and mesmerism and homeopathic medicines.
The family enjoyed the spring weather and liked Dr Gully, and it developed into a delightful holiday in the festive atmosphere around the spa
Spa town
A spa town is a town situated around a mineral spa . Patrons resorted to spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. The word comes from the Belgian town Spa. In continental Europe a spa was known as a ville d'eau...
. His stomach trouble was diagnosed as nervous in origin, and he was soon free of sickness and walking seven miles (11 km) a day. Despite his suspicions of quackery, the cure worked, and after staying 16 weeks they returned home, arriving on 30 June with Darwin eager to resume work on his barnacles.
He continued a slightly relaxed version of the treatment, having a hut built with a cold water douche and getting up a seven a.m. to get heated up with a spirit lamp then take a cold plunge bath and get scrubbed by his butler. In September his duties as Vice-President of the British Association and interest in a paper on barnacles led him to attend their meeting at Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, but he found it unpleasant and the excitement brought back the sickness. Even after a quick visit to Dr Gully and rest at home he took weeks to recover.
Homologies in barnacles
His investigation of barnacles now found how their segmentation related to other crustaceans, showing how they had diverged from their relatives. To Owen such "homologies" in comparative anatomy showed "archetypes" in the Divine mind, but to Darwin this was evidence of Descent, showing dramatically how organs could have changed functions to meet new conditions. Darwin was "cock-a-hoop", writing to Louis AgassizLouis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
of this odd metamorphosis and getting him and others around the world to send more barnacle specimens. His cascade of letters made Hooker tire of barnacle details, and write from the Himalayas that on reflection he really did prefer to hear the evolutionary speculation after all. Darwin responded that "this is too bad" as "your decided approval of my Barnacle work" had "led me...to defer my species-paper" in the first place.
As his work progressed on to fossil barnacles, pressures brought on illness again and in June 1850 he went to Malvern for a week of treatment. Hooker was helping search for evidence, now trying to test evolutionary ideas and writing that "they have possessed me, without however converting me". While Hooker was not finding gradations of varieties, Darwin's barnacles were showing this to the extent that defining species was extremely difficult.
Annie falls ill
Darwin returned from Malvern at the end of June 1850 to a reawakening of his fears that his illness might be hereditary. His bright nine year old daughter Anne who had become a particular favourite and comfort to him fell sick. She was miserable for weeks on end, then became feverish. Their doctor could do nothing and thought it might be inherited. She had recovered to some extent by March 1851, but then she and her father were both laid low by influenzaInfluenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
. Darwin recovered but Annie was still ill, and on 24 March he took her to Malvern, leaving her there for the best treatment he knew of, and returning to Downe where Emma had stayed as she was pregnant. With his first paper on barnacles printed and Hooker safely returned to Britain laden with specimens, things were looking up, but then on 15 April Annie suffered a serious relapse and Darwin had to rush to her side.
An agonised Darwin stayed at Annie's bedside as the crisis deepened. Dr Gully attended through the night thinking her unlikely to last, but at 6 a.m. she vomited and her condition stabilised. She seemed to recover slightly and a series of ups and downs followed with Darwin and Fanny Wedgwood anxiously watching and writing home, but she deteriorated and died on 23 April 1851.
Darwin's faith in Christianity had already dwindled away and from around 1849 he had stopped going to church. During Annie's long illness Darwin had read books by Francis William Newman
Francis William Newman
Francis William Newman , the younger brother of Cardinal Newman, was an English scholar and miscellaneous writer.-Life:...
, a Unitarian evolutionist who called for a new post-Christian synthesis and wrote that "the fretfulness of a child is an infinite evil". For three years Darwin had deliberated about the Christian meaning of mortality, opening a vision of tragically circumstantial nature. On 30 April he wrote a brief and intensely emotional memoir of Annie for himself and Emma.
Family life
Darwin was on good terms with the local curate. He contributed to the church, helped with parish assistance and proposed a benefit society which became the Down Friendly Society with Darwin as guardian and treasurer. On Sundays Emma took the children to church. Darwin sometimes went with them as far as the lychgateLychgate
A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, or as two separate words lych gate, is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style churchyard.-Name:...
to the churchyard, and then he would go for a walk. During the service, Emma continued to face forward when the congregation turned to face the altar for the Creed, sticking to her Unitarian faith.
The Darwins went up to the Great Exhibition in 1851, staying with "Uncle Ras
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...
", but while the children enjoyed their several visits, Darwin's ailments returned with the excitement. The slog of describing barnacles continued. Family life was rewarding but also brought pressures. The worst of his bugbears was a fear of inherited weaknesses. His oldest son 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 a slow learner, and after much agonising Darwin sent him to Rugby School
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
. While they had inherited wealth, it had to be wisely invested. A large proportion was cautiously put in railway stock, then in a boom but subject to fluctuations. He had kept records of the effects of the continuing water treatment, and finding that it was of some help with relaxation but had no significant effect he stopped it in 1852 and proceeded to try various experimental therapies without any confidence in their effects.
Progressive reforms
The Great Exhibition heralded the success of free trade and modern science in improving prosperity. There was a new appetite for liberal, progressive reforms. An alliance of thinkers began recasting nature as a competitive market-place. The Westminster ReviewWestminster Review
The Westminster Review was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal until 1828....
recently acquired by John Chapman
John Chapman (publisher)
John Chapman was a publisher who had medical training and was based at 142 Strand, London.His entry in the Concise Dictionary of National Biography, reads: "Chapman, John physician, author, publisher; apprencticed at Worksop and was in business in Adelaide; studied medicine in Paris and at St...
became their focus, and an early article by Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....
set out a Malthusian view that people who multiply beyond their means take "the high road to extinction", while "the select of their generation" remained to ensure progress. Spencer became a close friend and ally of 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....
, an ambitious naturalist who had returned from a long survey trip but lacked the family wealth or contacts to find a career. Huxley had sent papers to Darwin which began a correspondence, and Darwin sent him a copy of the first volume of Barnacles when it was printed. Huxley called it an exemplary work, all the more remarkable for coming from a distinguished geologist rather than an anatomist.
In recognition of his work on South American geology, invertebrate research and particularly his work on Barnacles, Darwin was awarded the Royal Medal 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"...
and received it at their meeting on 30 November 1853. The excitement brought back illness and he resumed the water treatment. This time it was successful and his health improved. He finished the second volume of Barnacles, completing almost eight years of work which had made him the world's foremost authority on the subject.
In the spring of 1854 he joined 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"...
's Philosophical Club. To his surprise his stomach was not troubled and he greatly enjoyed visiting London regularly and meeting with the new generation of scientists, in particular 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...
, Hooker and Huxley. Darwin supported them in gaining gold medals from the Society, saying that they would become "scientific giants" and he thought it only right that they should get the accolades to spur them on. Tyndall had taken the chair of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution
Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research, based in London.-Overview:...
in 1853 and was now helping Huxley run the science section of The Westminster Review
Westminster Review
The Westminster Review was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal until 1828....
. Huxley began teaching at the Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London.- History :The Royal School of Mines was established in 1851, as the Government School of Mines and Science Applied to the Arts...
in November, then "sick of the dilettante middle class" began his famous working men's lectures a year later, and Hooker became ensconced at Kew Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
.
Biology was becoming liberalised, even among some churchmen. The Reverend Baden Powell
Baden Powell (mathematician)
Baden Powell, MA, FRS, FRGS was an English mathematician and Church of England priest. He was also prominent as a liberal theologian who put forward advanced ideas about evolution. He held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at the University of Oxford from 1827 to 1860...
, a mathematics professor at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, applied the theological argument that God is a lawgiver, miracles break the lawful edicts issued at Creation, therefore belief in miracles is atheistic.
Renewal of work on Species
By September 1854 his second volume of Barnacles had been printed and dispatched, and he turned his attention to Species, telling his cousin William Darwin FoxWilliam Darwin Fox
The Reverend William Darwin Fox was an English clergyman, naturalist, and a 2nd cousin of Charles Robert Darwin.- Early life :...
that he planned to "view all facts that I can master..to see how far they favour or are opposed to the notion that wild species are mutable or immutable". All available information was examined for "hostile facts" and discussed with Hooker, who had resisted what he called Darwin's "Elastic theory" but who was now developing an "utter disbelief of my own Genera and species".
In the Spring of 1855, as the Crimean war
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
developed, Darwin was pondering the war of nature, taking the then current analogy with an industrial economy further than others, and wondering how species spread. He was dismissive of the ideas that others had put forward of sunken continents like Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
, and began experimenting in his house with soaking seeds in brine
Brine
Brine is water, saturated or nearly saturated with salt .Brine is used to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining . Brine is also commonly used to age Halloumi and Feta cheeses, or for pickling foodstuffs, as a means of preserving them...
then seeing if they could germinate. He reported his results in Gardeners' Chronicle and roped in his curate friends including Henslow. The consul in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
sent seed pods which had washed ashore. Hooker was able to identify them as coming from the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and get them to germinate at Kew. Investigation of variation brought him back to animal husbandry
Animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....
. He now began dissecting domestic animals and breeding pigeons, joining a pigeon fancier's club: very unorthodox behaviour for naturalists at that time.
Huxley had obtained a position and his friends had been having an impact on the establishment. In particular Huxley had strongly dismissed the transmutationist thesis of Chambers' Vestiges. He also argued vociferously against the dominant Owen who had demonstrated fossil evidence of an evolutionary sequence of horses as supporting his idea of development from archetypes in "ordained continuous becoming", and who had in 1854 given a British Association
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
talk on the impossibility of bestial apes such as the recently discovered gorilla
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. They are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies...
standing erect and being transmuted into men. Darwin tried at a gathering at Downe on 22 April 1856 to amiably argue Huxley and Hooker round towards accepting evolution as a process, without going into the mechanism.
Darwin intended to write human beings into Natural Selection through mid-1857. But his work required a tremendous amount of evidence and facts. He left humans out in part because "mutiny in India" had stopped his correspondence with Edward Blyth
Edward Blyth
Edward Blyth was an English zoologist and pharmacist. He was one of the founders of zoology in India....
in Calcutta. Had he included sexual selection
Sexual selection
Sexual selection, a concept introduced by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, is a significant element of his theory of natural selection...
, at that time it would have been only the male competition element and not female choice.
Towards publication
It was at this stage that Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
became involved and Darwin's work took on a new urgency.
While Darwin continued to amass knowledge and carry out experiments, he now became committed to publication.
See the publication of Darwin's theory
Publication of Darwin's theory
The publication of Darwin's theory brought into the open Charles Darwin's ideas of evolution through natural selection, the culmination of more than twenty years of work....
for the resulting developments, in the context of his life, work and outside influences at the time.
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