The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
Encyclopedia
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a book written by Charles Darwin
that was first published in January 1868.
A large proportion of the book contains detailed information on the domestication of animals and plants but it also contains in Chapter XXVII a description of Darwin's theory of heredity
which he called pangenesis
.
. It enclosed a twenty pages manuscript describing an evolutionary mechanism that was similar to Darwin's own theory. Under pressure to publish his ideas, Darwin started work on an "abstract" trimmed from his Natural Selection
which was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species. In the introduction he announced that in a future publication he hoped to give "in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded".
On 9 January 1860, two days after the publication of the second edition of Origin, Darwin returned to his original Natural Selection manuscript and began expanding the first two chapters on "Variation under Domestication". He had a large collection of additional notes and by the middle of June had written drafts of an introduction and two chapters on the domestication of pigeons that would eventually form part of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. Darwin apparently found writing the book tiresome and writes in his autobiography that he had been "tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time interested me more." In the following July (1861) he began work on different book, the Fertilisation of Orchids
which was published in May 1862.
Darwin continued to gather data. His own practical experiments were confined to plants but he was able to gather information from others by correspondence and even to arrange for some of his correspondents to conduct experiments on his behalf.
In spite of protracted periods of illness
, he made progress and in March 1865 wrote to his publisher, John Murray
, saying that "Of present book I have 7 chapters ready for press & all others very forward, except the last & concluding one" (the book as finally published consisted of 28 chapters). In the same letter he discussed illustrations for the book.
Darwin had been mulling for many years on a theory of heredity. In May 1865 he sent a manuscript to his friend Thomas Huxley
outlining his theory which he called pangenesis
and asking whether he should publish it. In his accompanying letter Darwin wrote "It is a very rash & crude hypothesis yet it has been a considerable relief to my mind, & I can hang on it a good many groups of facts." Huxley pointed out the similarities of pangenesis to the theories of Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, and the Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet
but eventually wrote encouraging Darwin to publish: "Somebody rummaging among your papers half a century hence will find Pangenesis & say 'See this wonderful anticipation of our modern Theories—and that stupid ass, Huxley, prevented his publishing them'".
Even at this late stage Darwin was uncertain as to whether to include a chapter on mankind. At the end of January he wrote to Murray: "I feel a full conviction that my Chapter on man will excite attention & plenty of abuse & I suppose abuse is as good as praise for selling a Book" but he then apparently decided against the idea for a week later in a letter to his close friend Joseph Hooker
he explained "I began a chapter on Man, for which I have long collected materials, but it has grown too long, & I think I shall publish separately a very small volume, 'an essay on the origin of mankind'". This "essay" would become two books: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
(1871) and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).
The book had been advertised as early as 1865 with the unwieldy title Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants, or the Principles of Variation, Inheritance, Reversion, Crossing, Interbreeding, and Selection under Domestication but Darwin agreed to the shorter The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication suggested by the compositors. By May he had arranged for the book to be translated into French, Russian and German. The French edition would be translated by Jean Jacques Moulinié, the German by Julius Victor Carus
who had produced the revised version of Origin in 1866 and the Russian edition by Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky, the brother of the embryologist Alexander Kovalevsky
.
Darwin received the first proofs on 1 March 1867. In the tedious task of making correction he was helped by his 23 year old daughter Henrietta Emma Darwin
. In the summer while she was away in Cornwall he wrote to commend her work, "All your remarks, criticisms doubts & corrections are excellent, excellent, excellent". While making corrections Darwin also added new material. The proofs were finished on 15 November, but there was a further delay while William Dallas
prepared an index.
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication went on sale on 30 January 1868, thirteen years after Darwin had begun his experiments on breeding and stewing the bones of pigeons. He was feeling deflated, and concerned about how these large volumes would be received, writing "if I try to read a few pages I feel fairly nauseated... The devil take the whole book". In his autobiography he estimated that he had spent 4 year 2 months "hard labour" on the book.
Notably, in Chapter XXVII Darwin introduced his "provisional hypothesis" of pangenesis that he had first outlined to Huxley in 1865. He proposed that each part of an organism throws off minute invisible particles which he called gemmules. These were capable of generating a similar part of an organism, thus gemmules from a foot could generate a foot. The gemmules circulated freely around the organism and could multiply by division. In sexual reproduction they were transmitted from parents to their offspring with the mixing of the gemmules producing offspring with 'blended' characteristics of the parents. Gemmules could also remain dormant for several generations before becoming active. He also suggested that the environment might affect the gemmules in an organism and thus allowed for the possibility of the Lamarckian inheritance
of acquired characteristics. Darwin believed that his theory could explain a wide range of phenomena:
In the final pages of the book Darwin directly challenged the argument of divinely guided variation advocated by his friend and supporter the American botanist Asa Gray
. He used the analogy of an architect using rocks which had broken off naturally and fallen to the foot of a cliff, asking "Can it be reasonably maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered... that certain fragments should assume certain shapes so that the builder might erect his edifice?" In the same way, breeders or natural selection picked those that happened to be useful from variations arising by "general laws", to improve plants and animals, "man included". Darwin concluded with: "However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that 'variation has been along certain beneficial lines,' like a 'stream along definite and useful lines of irrigation'".
Darwin confided to Hooker "It is foolish to touch such subjects, but there have been so many allusions to what I think about the part which God has played in the formation of organic beings, that I thought it shabby to evade the question."
and to the German naturalist Fritz Müller
: "The greater part, as you will see, is not meant to be read; but I should very much like to hear what you think of 'Pangenesis'." Few of Darwin's colleagues shared his enthusiasm for pangenesis. Wallace was initially supportive and Darwin confided to him: "None of my friends will speak out, except to a certain extent Sir H. Holland
, who found it very tough reading, but admits that some view 'closely akin to it' will have to be admitted."
By the end of April Variation had received more than 20 reviews. An anonymous review by George Henry Lewes in the Pall Mall Gazette praised its "noble calmness... undisturbed by the heats of polemical agitation" which made the far from calm Darwin laugh, and left him "cock-a-hoop".
In 1875 a second edition was published in which Darwin made a number of corrections and also reworked Chapter XI on Bud-variation and Chapter XXVII on Pangenesis. The book never became popular and sold only 5000 copies in Darwin's lifetime.
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...
that was first published in January 1868.
A large proportion of the book contains detailed information on the domestication of animals and plants but it also contains in Chapter XXVII a description of Darwin's theory of heredity
Heredity
Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring . This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve...
which he called pangenesis
Pangenesis
Pangenesis was Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity. He presented this 'provisional hypothesis' in his 1868 work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication and felt that it brought 'together a multitude of facts which are at present left disconnected by any efficient...
.
Background
Darwin had been working for two years on his "big book" on Natural Selection, when on 18 June 1858 he received a parcel from Alfred Wallace, who was then living in BorneoBorneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
. It enclosed a twenty pages manuscript describing an evolutionary mechanism that was similar to Darwin's own theory. Under pressure to publish his ideas, Darwin started work on an "abstract" trimmed from his Natural Selection
Natural Selection (manuscript)
Natural Selection is a manuscript written by Charles Darwin, in which he presented his theory of natural selection and its role in biological evolution....
which was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species. In the introduction he announced that in a future publication he hoped to give "in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded".
On 9 January 1860, two days after the publication of the second edition of Origin, Darwin returned to his original Natural Selection manuscript and began expanding the first two chapters on "Variation under Domestication". He had a large collection of additional notes and by the middle of June had written drafts of an introduction and two chapters on the domestication of pigeons that would eventually form part of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. Darwin apparently found writing the book tiresome and writes in his autobiography that he had been "tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time interested me more." In the following July (1861) he began work on different book, the Fertilisation of Orchids
Fertilisation of Orchids
Fertilisation of Orchids is a book by Charles Darwin published on 15 May 1862 under the full explanatory title On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing...
which was published in May 1862.
Darwin continued to gather data. His own practical experiments were confined to plants but he was able to gather information from others by correspondence and even to arrange for some of his correspondents to conduct experiments on his behalf.
In spite of protracted periods of illness
Charles Darwin's illness
For much of his adult life, Charles Darwin's health was repeatedly compromised by an uncommon combination of symptoms, leaving him severely debilitated for long periods of time...
, he made progress and in March 1865 wrote to his publisher, John Murray
John Murray (publisher)
John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...
, saying that "Of present book I have 7 chapters ready for press & all others very forward, except the last & concluding one" (the book as finally published consisted of 28 chapters). In the same letter he discussed illustrations for the book.
Darwin had been mulling for many years on a theory of heredity. In May 1865 he sent a manuscript to his friend Thomas Huxley
Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley PC FRS was an English biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution....
outlining his theory which he called pangenesis
Pangenesis
Pangenesis was Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity. He presented this 'provisional hypothesis' in his 1868 work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication and felt that it brought 'together a multitude of facts which are at present left disconnected by any efficient...
and asking whether he should publish it. In his accompanying letter Darwin wrote "It is a very rash & crude hypothesis yet it has been a considerable relief to my mind, & I can hang on it a good many groups of facts." Huxley pointed out the similarities of pangenesis to the theories of Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, and the Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet
Charles Bonnet
Charles Bonnet , Swiss naturalist and philosophical writer, was born at Geneva, of a French family driven into Switzerland by the religious persecution in the 16th century.-Life and work:Bonnet's life was uneventful...
but eventually wrote encouraging Darwin to publish: "Somebody rummaging among your papers half a century hence will find Pangenesis & say 'See this wonderful anticipation of our modern Theories—and that stupid ass, Huxley, prevented his publishing them'".
Publication
Just before Christmas 1866 all of the manuscript except for the final chapter was sent to the publisher. At the beginning January on receiving an estimate of the size of the two volume book from the printers he wrote to his publisher: "I cannot tell you how sorry I am to hear of the enormous size of my Book." He subsequently arranged for some of the more technical sections to be set in smaller type.Even at this late stage Darwin was uncertain as to whether to include a chapter on mankind. At the end of January he wrote to Murray: "I feel a full conviction that my Chapter on man will excite attention & plenty of abuse & I suppose abuse is as good as praise for selling a Book" but he then apparently decided against the idea for a week later in a letter to his close friend Joseph 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...
he explained "I began a chapter on Man, for which I have long collected materials, but it has grown too long, & I think I shall publish separately a very small volume, 'an essay on the origin of mankind'". This "essay" would become two books: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies...
(1871) and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).
The book had been advertised as early as 1865 with the unwieldy title Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants, or the Principles of Variation, Inheritance, Reversion, Crossing, Interbreeding, and Selection under Domestication but Darwin agreed to the shorter The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication suggested by the compositors. By May he had arranged for the book to be translated into French, Russian and German. The French edition would be translated by Jean Jacques Moulinié, the German by Julius Victor Carus
Julius Victor Carus
Julius Victor Carus was a German zoologist, comparative anatomist and entomologist.He served as curator of the Museum of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford University from 1849 to 1851, and as professor of comparative anatomy and director of the Zoological Museum at the University of Leipzig in 1853.-...
who had produced the revised version of Origin in 1866 and the Russian edition by Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky, the brother of the embryologist Alexander Kovalevsky
Alexander Kovalevsky
Alexander Onufrievich Kovalevsky was a Russian embryologist who studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg and became professor at St Petersburg. He showed that all animals go through a period of gastrulation.- Bibliography :* Kowalevsky A. . "Les Hedylidés, étude anatomique"...
.
Darwin received the first proofs on 1 March 1867. In the tedious task of making correction he was helped by his 23 year old daughter Henrietta Emma Darwin
Etty Darwin
Henrietta Emma "Etty" Darwin, was a daughter of Charles Darwin and his wife Emma Wedgwood.Etty was born in Down House, Downe in 1843. She was Darwin's third daughter and the eldest daughter to reach adulthood after the eldest Annie died aged 10, and second daughter Mary died before becoming a...
. In the summer while she was away in Cornwall he wrote to commend her work, "All your remarks, criticisms doubts & corrections are excellent, excellent, excellent". While making corrections Darwin also added new material. The proofs were finished on 15 November, but there was a further delay while William Dallas
William Dallas
William Sweetland Dallas was a British zoologist. His son was James Dallas.He curated collections at the British Museum and the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, and was editor of the Popular Science Review....
prepared an index.
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication went on sale on 30 January 1868, thirteen years after Darwin had begun his experiments on breeding and stewing the bones of pigeons. He was feeling deflated, and concerned about how these large volumes would be received, writing "if I try to read a few pages I feel fairly nauseated... The devil take the whole book". In his autobiography he estimated that he had spent 4 year 2 months "hard labour" on the book.
Contents
The first volume of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication consists in a lengthy and highly detailed exploration of the mechanisms of variation, including the principle of use and disuse, the principle of the correlation of parts, and the role of the environment in causing variation, at work in a number of domestic species. Darwin starts with dogs and cats, discussing the similarities between wild and domesticated dogs, and musing on how the species changed to accommodate man's wishes. He attempts to trace a genealogy of contemporary varieties (or "races") back to a few early progenitors. These arguments, as well as many others, use the vast amount of data Darwin gathered about dogs and cats to support his over-arching thesis of evolution through natural selection. He then goes on to make similar points regarding horses and donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, various types of domesticated fowl, a large number of different cultivated plants, and, most thoroughly, pigeons.Notably, in Chapter XXVII Darwin introduced his "provisional hypothesis" of pangenesis that he had first outlined to Huxley in 1865. He proposed that each part of an organism throws off minute invisible particles which he called gemmules. These were capable of generating a similar part of an organism, thus gemmules from a foot could generate a foot. The gemmules circulated freely around the organism and could multiply by division. In sexual reproduction they were transmitted from parents to their offspring with the mixing of the gemmules producing offspring with 'blended' characteristics of the parents. Gemmules could also remain dormant for several generations before becoming active. He also suggested that the environment might affect the gemmules in an organism and thus allowed for the possibility of the Lamarckian inheritance
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...
of acquired characteristics. Darwin believed that his theory could explain a wide range of phenomena:
All the forms of reproduction graduate into each other and agree in their product; for it is impossible to distinguish between organisms produced from buds, from self-division, or from fertilised germs ... and as we now see that all the forms of reproduction depend on the aggregation of gemmules derived from the whole body, we can understand this general agreement. It is satisfactory to find that sexual and asexual generation ... are fundamentally the same. Parthenogenesis is no longer wonderful; in fact, the wonder is that it should not oftener occur.
In the final pages of the book Darwin directly challenged the argument of divinely guided variation advocated by his friend and supporter the American botanist Asa Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
. He used the analogy of an architect using rocks which had broken off naturally and fallen to the foot of a cliff, asking "Can it be reasonably maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered... that certain fragments should assume certain shapes so that the builder might erect his edifice?" In the same way, breeders or natural selection picked those that happened to be useful from variations arising by "general laws", to improve plants and animals, "man included". Darwin concluded with: "However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that 'variation has been along certain beneficial lines,' like a 'stream along definite and useful lines of irrigation'".
Darwin confided to Hooker "It is foolish to touch such subjects, but there have been so many allusions to what I think about the part which God has played in the formation of organic beings, that I thought it shabby to evade the question."
Reception
Darwin was concerned whether anyone would read the massive volumes and was also anxious to receive feedback from his friends on their views on pangenesis. In October 1867 before the book was published he sent copies of the corrected proofs to Asa Gray with the comment: "The chapter on what I call Pangenesis will be called a mad dream, and I shall be pretty well satisfied if you think it a dream worth publishing; but at the bottom of my own mind I think it contains a great truth." He wrote to Hooker: "I shall be intensely anxious to hear what you think about Pangenesis"and to the German naturalist Fritz Müller
Fritz Müller
Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller , better known as Fritz Müller, and also as Müller-Desterro, was a German biologist and physician who emigrated to southern Brazil, where he lived in and near the German community of Blumenau, Santa Catarina...
: "The greater part, as you will see, is not meant to be read; but I should very much like to hear what you think of 'Pangenesis'." Few of Darwin's colleagues shared his enthusiasm for pangenesis. Wallace was initially supportive and Darwin confided to him: "None of my friends will speak out, except to a certain extent Sir H. Holland
Sir Henry Holland, 1st Baronet
Sir Henry Holland, 1st Baronet FRS, DCL , was a British physician and travel writer.-Private Life:Born in Knutsford, Cheshire, Holland was the son of the physician Peter Holland and his wife Mary Willets. Peter's sister Elizabeth was the mother of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, and Mary was the...
, who found it very tough reading, but admits that some view 'closely akin to it' will have to be admitted."
By the end of April Variation had received more than 20 reviews. An anonymous review by George Henry Lewes in the Pall Mall Gazette praised its "noble calmness... undisturbed by the heats of polemical agitation" which made the far from calm Darwin laugh, and left him "cock-a-hoop".
In 1875 a second edition was published in which Darwin made a number of corrections and also reworked Chapter XI on Bud-variation and Chapter XXVII on Pangenesis. The book never became popular and sold only 5000 copies in Darwin's lifetime.
See also
- Inception of Darwin's theoryInception of Darwin's theoryThe 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...
- Publication of Darwin's theoryPublication of Darwin's theoryThe 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....
- Darwin from Orchids to VariationDarwin from Orchids to VariationThe life and work of Charles Darwin from the publication of Orchids to the publication of Variation during the years between 1860 and 1868 continued with Darwin carrying out his research and experimentation on evolution as he worked sporadically on the first section of his "big book", carrying out...
- List of works by Charles Darwin
External links
- 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 :...
: Table of contents, bibliography of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication:
The web pages provide links to text and images of all editions of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, including translations into French, German, Italian, and Polish. - Darwin Correspondence Project Home Page, University Library, Cambridge.
- The text of the second edition of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication can be downloaded from Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
: Volume 1, Volume 2.