Darwin's Historical Sketch: An Examination of the 'Preface' to the Origin of Species

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Darwin's Historical Sketch: An Examination of the 'Preface' to the Origin of Species

Table of contents :
Cover
Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the “Historical Sketch”
1. Darwin’s “Priority”: Baden Powell and A.R. Wallace
2. Darwin’s Earliest Sources. Authors to Be “Passed Over”: Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle
3. Early Transmutationists: J.B. Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire
4. W.C. Wells and William Herbert
5. Robert Grant and Patrick Matthew
6. Leopold von Buch, C.S Rafinesque, and Samuel Haldeman
7. Robert Chambers, J.B.J. d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Henry Freke
8. Richard Owen, Part I: Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review
9. Richard Owen, Part II: Owen After Origin
10. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire
11. Herbert Spencer and Charles Victor Naudin
12. Heinrich Bronn, Franz Unger, J.W.E. d’Alton, and Lorenz Oken
13. D.A. Godron, J.B.G.N. Bory de Saint Vincent, K.F. Burdach, J.L.M. Poiret, and E.M. Fries
14. Alexander Keyserling, Hermann Schaaffhausen, and Henri Lecoq
15. Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer
Epilogue: T.H. Huxley and J.D. Hooker
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species C U RT I S N . J O H N S O N

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978–​0–​19–​088293–​8 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

I dedicate this work to Albert Johnson, my father, who while alive and also now that he is deceased has inspired my love for Darwin and evolutionary biology. He guided me to Darwin and showed me by instruction and example how to think like a biologist, as far as he could.

Contents Preface Acknowledgments The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the “Historical Sketch”

1. Darwin’s “Priority”: Baden Powell and A.R. Wallace

ix xi xiii

1

2. Darwin’s Earliest Sources. Authors to Be “Passed Over”: Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle

30

3. Early Transmutationists: J.B. Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire

52

4. W.C. Wells and William Herbert

78

5. Robert Grant and Patrick Matthew

102

6. Leopold von Buch, C.S Rafinesque, and Samuel Haldeman

126

7. Robert Chambers, J.B.J. d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Henry Freke

153

8. Richard Owen, Part I: Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review

182

9. Richard Owen, Part II: Owen After Origin

214

10. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire

240

11. Herbert Spencer and Charles Victor Naudin

257

12. Heinrich Bronn, Franz Unger, J.W.E. d’Alton, and Lorenz Oken

292

13. D.A. Godron, J.B.G.N. Bory de Saint Vincent, K.F. Burdach, J.L.M. Poiret, and E.M. Fries 316 14. Alexander Keyserling, Hermann Schaaffhausen, and Henri Lecoq 342 15. Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer

372

Epilogue: T.H. Huxley and J.D. Hooker

394

Bibliography Index

407 421

Preface When Darwin’s Origin of Species first appeared in published form, in late November 1859, it consisted of a brief (six-​page) introduction and 14 additional chapters, running to almost 500 pages. This was the first time his full-​fledged theory in all its detail appeared in print, with supporting documentation and evidence. It was an immediate sensation, establishing Darwin as a scientific superstar and sparking off debates of sundry kinds that continue unabated to this day. One debate that has attracted more attention than most over the years concerns Darwin’s sources for his theory. Few people dispute that Darwin’s theory, considered in full, was his own immaculate brainchild, his own original discovery. Most people also agree, however, that the theory did not grow out of thin air. Darwin was engaged from an early time in his scientific career in ongoing discussions with many other scientists and naturalists. Some of these conversations were direct—​face-​to-​face meetings or personal letters—​and others were discussions he had with himself, so to speak: his marginal notes to books he read, his own personal notebooks, a diary, and other forms of self-​conversing. From all of this material we see clearly that Darwin’s thoughts were influenced and shaped by the views of many others. In that sense, he was not working alone. He was contributing to a broad culture of scientific discourse, drawing as necessary from others, adding his own insights where appropriate. Yet missing from the first edition of the Origin was a systematic register of his intellectual debts. The book had, as we would say today, no “acknowledgments” page. That was a deficiency that was quickly brought to Darwin’s attention almost as soon as the book hit the bookstores. Darwin knew he would need to take steps immediately to remedy the deficiency. To that end, he assembled—​somewhat in haste—​a “Preface” to Origin, making sure future editions would include it at the beginning of the volume. This document, 11 pages in all, is where Darwin set out the contributions of his “predecessors” to the species problem, whether they had actually influenced his own thinking or not. In short time, this brief “Preface” came to be called, in shorthand, the Historical Sketch. It is the first part of Darwin’s magnum opus that any modern reader of Origin will come across. Because of its brevity, perhaps, it has not attracted a great deal of attention, certainly among casual readers who just want to read the magical words of the Origin itself, but also among Darwin scholars. In it, Darwin cited some 35 authorities by the final edition. In the compass of 11 pages, that does not allow much room for any single author. True to expectation,

x Preface most entries give one, perhaps two, short paragraphs to each authority. Yet, these are the 35 Darwin himself identified as most deserving of inclusion in identifying his predecessors, and in indicating how they contributed to the solution of the “mystery of mysteries,” the origin of new species on this planet, his own special topic. The work presented here takes on the Sketch, with the attention a major contribution in the history of science deserves. People may quarrel with some of Darwin’s choices about whom to include in or exclude from the Sketch, or even with the significance of the Sketch itself as an important historical document. And in truth, some of Darwin’s choices do seem curious. Several authorities one might have expected to be mentioned in the Sketch are not in it—​figures such as Charles Lyell, Benjamin Carpenter, Edward Blyth, F. Cuvier, T.R. Malthus, to name only a few. Other figures who are included in the Sketch—​Henry Freke, C.S. Rafinesque, B.  de Maillet, and others—​are so obscure, and were even in Darwin’s day, or so seemingly irrelevant to the project Darwin had set for himself, that they have been mostly forgotten by science. Many of them hang on in the scientific literature for no other reason than that Darwin included them in the Sketch. Moreover, the Sketch in its entirety is so brief that one might conclude Darwin did not take it too seriously himself. We have been advised by a number of more recent authorities to look elsewhere for Darwin’s true predecessors. To overlook the Sketch, however, would be a mistake, if one is to take the full measure of Darwin’s contribution to biological thought. Yes, it raises a number of puzzles. But the attempt to resolve them is itself an enterprise in scientific discovery. As is true with many of Darwin’s private reflections, many of which have been made available to a general reading audience only in the last few decades, the Sketch helps us fill in some blanks about the genesis of Darwin’s ideas. Above all, it helps us see how Darwin positioned his own theory in the broader context of contemporary scientific thought. It thus sheds important light on what Darwin regarded as original in his theory, and what he regarded as derivative. It gives us insights into the aspects of his theory he found to be most important and helps us to discriminate more sharply between essential features and ancillary ones. It gives us a unique picture of Darwin’s reading habits, how he recorded his encounters with the scientific literature of his day, and his method of retrieving information for later use long after his earliest contact with it. If Darwinism is “whatever Darwin thought it was,” one cannot do much better than by beginning with a look at his Sketch.

Acknowledgments My intellectual debts in developing this work are recorded mainly in the footnotes and bibliography. Part of the enjoyment has been tracking down Darwin’s often scanty references to the literature he drew upon. Librarians at Cambridge University Library, the American Museum of Natural History, Lewis & Clark College Library, and the various institutions with which they consulted, have been generous with time and information. Much of this work could not have been done without their unfailing assistance. I have been encouraged in my writing by David Kohn, Jon Hodge, Michael Ghiselin, J. David Archibald, David Depew, John Beatty, Albert Johnson, Nick Smith, William Rottschafer, Kip Ault, and the members of the Political Theory Reading Group in Portland, Oregon, with special mention of the late Chana Cox. I am also most grateful to the editorial staff at Oxford University Press and the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript. Jeremy Lewis has been the editor any author would ask for and hope for. His support staff, especially Bronwyn Geyer and Suthan Raj, have given sage advice on manuscript details that has improved greatly the final result. Kelly Del Fatti, Director of Sponsored Research at Lewis & Clark College, provided critical guidance in the conceptual and written formulation of the project. I am grateful to the editors of the Journal of the History of Biology for granting permission to reproduce here two articles that appeared earlier, in slightly altered form, in that journal: “The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the ‘Historical Sketch,’ ” 40 (2007):  525–​56; and “Charles Darwin, Richard Owen, and Natural Selection: A Question of Priority,” 51 (2018). As always, my family—​wife Loretta and daughters Sophia and Alexis—​have been stalwart in support and encouragement. Loretta read and commented on every chapter with the sensibilities and subtle understanding of an English professor. Alexis designed the elaborate critical apparatus for the chapter on Richard Owen. Sophia drew all of the illustrations in the volume, including the portrait of Darwin on the front cover.

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species The Curious History of the “Historical Sketch” Any modern reader of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species will almost surely encounter, before getting into the “one long argument” of the book, his Historical Sketch, which has appeared in one version or another as a preface to every authorized edition of Origin ever published after the second English edition in 1860.1 The purpose of the Sketch was to give a brief history of opinion about the species question as a prelude to Darwin’s own independent contribution to the subject. But its provenance is somewhat obscure. Some things are known about its production, such as when it first appeared and what changes were made to it between its first appearance in 1860 and its final form, for the fourth English edition, in 1866.2 But how it evolved in Darwin’s mind, why he wrote it at all, and what he thought he was accomplishing by prefacing it to Origin remain questions that have not been carefully addressed in the scholarly literature on Darwin.3 In what follows I will suggest that an adequate answer to why Darwin wrote the Sketch depends on a satisfactory understanding of how and when the Sketch came to be, and so I focus mainly on private correspondence between Darwin and several of his closest friends between 1856 and 1860. The private side of Darwin’s thinking about a historical preface is much more illuminating about these questions than what may be gathered from his published work. It should be noted, however, that the addition of a historical survey to a major scientific work in mid-​19th century Europe would not be unusual and perhaps would even be expected, in view of prevailing conventions in science writing. Historical prefaces to such works were commonplace, if not universal.4 Perhaps the best example of this strategy in setting the stage for a major new proposal in science is Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, the first four chapters of which treat the history of opinion in geology as a preface to his own original contributions. Lyell in fact came in time to call his historical survey a Historical Sketch, beginning with the third edition (1834; cf. n. 1). Darwin was intimately familiar with this work, especially volume I in which the historical survey appears, as it accompanied him throughout his voyage on the Beagle. But Lyell’s was certainly not the only work in this mold. The practice was fairly common, and new contributors especially may have been expected to follow it. In that regard Darwin, in writing his

xiv  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species own Historical Sketch, may be seen simply to be doing what any good scientist would do, and about which, therefore, nothing more need be said.5 Yet, in the case of Darwin more does need to be said. For one thing, Darwin was, by his own admission, not a historian and not very much inclined toward historical studies. He understood himself to be what he in fact was, a naturalist. To add a historical survey would, he confessed in 1860, have strained him beyond endurance and ability.6 In addition, it is likely that Darwin was not as familiar with the historical evolution of his subject as, say, Lyell was of his.7 While he knew enough as early as 1838 to be fairly certain that he had a theory of his own, he was uncertain enough about how to make a convincing public case for it that he postponed the commencement of writing it up for the public until 1856, when he was finally persuaded to do so by Charles Lyell. At the same time, however, Darwin should have felt a strong incentive to produce a history of the subject as a preface to his own work. His great desire was not only to bring forward a powerful new theory about the origin of species in nature, but to establish his own priority and originality in finding it.8 How better to do so than to preface his work with an account of previous authors who had maintained descent with modification but had missed the crucial insight of natural selection as the mechanism by which favorable variations are preserved and modified into new species and less favorable ones ruthlessly destroyed? Moreover, several of Darwin’s earliest critics after Origin first appeared in 1859 had faulted him for failing to show continuities between his work and those of his predecessors who, like Lamarck and his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, had maintained some version or another of descent with modification.9 It would not be surprising that Darwin would have wished to set the record straight about his own contribution and originality. And yet, the first edition of Origin omits any such discussion. Was Darwin merely shy, and only provoked into writing the historical introduction under the pressure of his earliest critics’ suggestions that his theory was not original? This seems to be the accepted view among modern historians who have addressed the issue.10 But a deeper look suggests that Darwin had in fact prepared at least much of the Historical Sketch well before Origin first appeared. It is this claim (and the resolution of some particular puzzles that follow from it) that I attempt to substantiate in what follows. Shortly after Origin originally appeared in November 1859, Darwin received a letter from Baden Powell, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford (1827–​1860), apparently suggesting (from what may be inferred from Darwin’s response—​the Powell letter unfortunately has not been found)—​that Darwin’s “theory” had been at minimum anticipated well prior to Darwin’s publication, and perhaps, more strongly, that Darwin had been scooped altogether, by Powell and perhaps by others. In the first letter of response to Powell, Darwin asserts that not even the “most ignorant [educated person]” could possibly suppose that he “meant to

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xv arrogate to myself the origination of the doctrine that species had not been independently created,” and that “if I have taken anything from you, I assure you it has been unconsciously”—​words that sound very much as though directed to someone who had suggested some unacknowledged borrowing. “To the best of my belief,” he insists, “I have acknowledged with pleasure all the chief facts and generalizations I have borrowed” (Correspondence of Charles Darwin, CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2654). Darwin’s apparent concern with his own priority in establishing the theory of modification of species by means of natural selection was nothing new. Darwin evinced concern about his originality even before he had fleshed out the important details of the natural selection theory. One finds a notebook reminder in the second transmutation notebook (C-​267), written in 1838, before the encounter with Malthus, to “read Aristotle to see whether any my views very ancient?” (Barrett et  al. 1987, p.  325. The Barrett edition of the notebooks is hereafter referred to as CDN). Other entries in the Notebooks from 1837 and 1838 show clearly that Darwin regarded some theory as “my theory,” different from those of previous transmutationists’ (e.g., B 214: “my theory very different from Lamarck’s,” in CDN p. 224 and note 214-​1). The phrase “my theory,” often contrasting Darwin’s theory with someone else’s, occurs repeatedly throughout the Notebooks. In 1856 and again in 1858, when worries started to surface among Darwin’s inner circle, especially Lyell, that someone else might beat Darwin to the punch in publishing a new theory on the origin of species, Darwin again expressed concern that he did not wish to have “his doctrines” published first by someone else. Darwin’s anxieties reached a higher pitch when Wallace’s manuscript appeared in mid-​1858, at which time Darwin complained to Lyell (June 18, 1858) that “my originality has been smashed” (CCD, 18 June [1858], to Lyell, and notes 2–​3. Letter 2285). Although he felt inner conflict about caring at all for priority (see following note) there is little doubt that he in fact did care a great deal, as he confessed in a letter to Hooker on July 13, 1858: “I always thought it very possible that I might be forestalled, but I fancied that I had grand enough soul not to care; but I found myself mistaken and punished” (CCD, 13 [July 1858], to Hooker. Letter 2306).11 But it was A.R. Wallace’s announcement that he had hit upon a similar theory to Darwin’s that prompted Darwin to set aside the completion of the “big species book” and to concentrate instead on bringing out quickly a shorter “abstract” that would become the Origin. As it turned out, Darwin’s priority to Wallace was finally settled by the revelation that Darwin had already in 1844 written out an “Essay” describing his theory and had also sent a short, written account of his views to Asa Gray in September 1857, before he had heard about Wallace’s work. But the episode with Wallace does demonstrate that the issue of priority was one that weighed on Darwin’s

xvi  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species mind, and also on those of his friends who were aware of the “race” with Wallace and who urged Darwin to move forward quickly with publication. Darwin did not have unalloyed enthusiasm for winning this race at any cost. If it could be won only by appearing greedy and acting dishonorably he would not do it. In a letter to Lyell on June 25, 1858, after receipt of Wallace's paper, he wrote:  “I should be extremely glad now to publish a sketch of my general views in about a dozen pages or so. But I cannot persuade myself that I can do so honourably . . . I would far rather burn my whole book than that he [viz., Wallace] or any man should think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit [by being concerned about priority]” (CCD, [25 June 1858], to Lyell. Letter 2294). In late June (June 29, 1858) Darwin lamented to Hooker that “it [viz., claiming priority over Wallace] is too late. . . . It is miserable in me to care at all about priority” (CCD, [29 June 1858], to Hooker. Letter 2298). On July 5, 1858 Darwin again (to Hooker) expresses “shame” that Hooker and Lyell, in insisting upon presenting Darwin’s views alongside those of Wallace at the Linnaean Society meeting of July 1 “should have lost time on a mere point of priority” (CCD, 5 July [1858], to Hooker. Letter 2303). It is worth noting that Wallace never did challenge Darwin on the point of priority for discovering natural selection, and in fact later in life, both in public and private, went further than perhaps was necessary to give Darwin the lion’s share of credit for discovering and articulating the theory. (See Wallace 1905, v.  1  p.  374; and Janet Browne’s discussion with additional references, 2002, pp. 139–​40, 317.) Powell’s letter, whatever it said, must have struck a chord with Darwin, because within a month he had produced his Historical Sketch for Origin, the stated purpose of which was to give a brief account of “the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species,” particularly with a view toward reviewing opinions of those naturalists who had preceded Darwin in maintaining some version or another of the thesis that “species undergo modification.”12 But how the Historical Sketch and Darwin’s response to Powell—​two letters, actually, sent on the same day, January 18, 1860—​are related raises an interesting question. What is obvious is that the two “sketches”—​that outlined in the letter to Powell and that which became the Historical Sketch—​are remarkably similar in content and even at times in precise wording. This fact raises at least the possibility that Darwin in composing one, drew directly from the other. Based on the dating of the letters to Powell (January 18, 1860) and the completion of the sketch (February 8 or 9, 1860—​see below), it would seem that the letter preceded the Historical Sketch and in fact that Powell’s letter provoked, or helped provoke, Darwin’s desire to produce that document.13 That conclusion, however, is undermined by Darwin’s second letter to Powell, in which he now recalls having already written a Preface to the larger work, one in which he had in fact included a mention of Powell’s earlier writing. Thus,

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xvii the evidence about the relation between the Historical Sketch and the letters to Baden Powell is ambiguous and somewhat confusing. We should explore this further because the right account will have further implications for what Darwin was trying to achieve in his Historical Sketch.14 As to the Historical Sketch, it first appeared in the first German edition in April 1860, then shortly thereafter in the first authorized US edition (Appleton & Co.) in May 1860 (several unauthorized printings of Origin, based on the first English edition, had come out in the United States earlier in 1860 from Appleton prior to this edition, without the Historical Sketch). But from Darwin’s correspondence we can identify the actual date of completion of the Historical Sketch, at least in its first published form, with some precision. The first letter to Baden Powell (January 18, 1860) explicitly states that Darwin had decided against writing a historical survey of his subject for the original edition of Origin due to ill health: My health was so poor, whilst I wrote the Book, that I was unwilling to add in the least to my labour; therefore I attempted no history of the subject; nor do I think that I was bound to do so. (CCD, 18 January [1860], to Baden Powell. Letter 2654)

The second letter, sent on the same day, changes that picture dramatically. Darwin continues to maintain his disinclination, based on the difficulty of the task, to write a historical survey of other authors who had maintained some version of descent with modification prior to Darwin’s published views. But now he also adds that he had in fact some time earlier already begun to compose a “Preface” to the larger work (viz., the “big species book,” published in 1975 under the editorship of R.C. Stauffer as Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection) that was intended to discuss previous authors and that in this Preface he had acknowledged the work of Powell himself. In a postscript to the second letter to Powell, Darwin wrote: I have just bethought me of a Preface which I wrote to my larger work, before I broke down & was persuaded to write the now published Abstract [i.e., Origin]. In this Preface I  find the following passage, which on my honour I had as completely forgotten as if I had never written it. “The ‘Philosophy of Creation’ has lately been treated in an admirable manner by the Revd. Baden Powell in his Essay &c &c 1855. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that the introduction of new species is ‘a regular and not a casual phenomenon,’ or as Sir John Herschel expresses it ‘a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process.’ ” (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Baden Powell. Letter 2655)

xviii  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species Now, there is a question about how to interpret this information. The statement, “a Preface which I wrote to my larger work,” the only mention by Darwin, incidentally, that I have been able to trace anywhere to a “Preface” matching this description (with one small exception discussed below), suggests that Darwin had already composed something resembling the Historical Sketch as early as 1856 when he started the “big species book.” (R.C. Stauffer points out that the very first entry for the preserved ms. of the “big species book” is folio 16, and surmises, plausibly, that the preceding 15 folios formed Darwin’s “Preface” alluded to in the postscript to Powell’s letter cited above [in Stauffer p. 22]. The editors of the CCD state that this “Preface has not been preserved” [v. 8, p. 41, n. 4], and Stauffer also claims not to have found any further trace of the document.) But if such a document did exist, when was it written, and what did it say? It is difficult to know because of the extreme paucity of evidence. One tantalizing clue does show up, however, in the correspondence, in a letter Darwin wrote to Charles Lyell on July 5, 1856. Recall that Lyell in early May 1856, worrying about Darwin’s ability to claim priority for his ideas, had urged Darwin to set aside further research on the species question in favor of bringing his views to publication as soon as possible (CCD, 1–​2 May 1856, from Lyell, letter 1862; and May 3 [1856], to Lyell, letter 1866). At first Darwin was very hesitant to take this advice, but after consulting with Hooker in May he decided to go ahead with the writing. In the July 5 letter to Lyell, Darwin acknowledged his gratitude to Lyell for the suggestion, then gave a small hint that the work would be preceded, not with a full-​fledged historical survey, but with some acknowledgments to his predecessors: I am delighted that I may say [i.e., when my book comes out] (with absolute truth) that my essay [viz., the Species Book] is published at your suggestion. . . . I shall not attempt a history of the subject, but in one page devoted to two or three leading and opposed authorities, I had already, after a few remarks on the Principles [i.e., Lyell’s Principles of Geology], ventured on the words—​ “and with a degree of almost prophetic caution which must excite the admiration &c &c.” (CCD, 5 [July 1860], letter 2860, emphasis in the original)

Although the matter is somewhat obscure, what appears to have happened is that when Lyell first urged Darwin to publish on the species question in April and May 1856, Darwin reacted with surprise and great uncertainty. As he said to Lyell in early May, to write a short work on the subject “goes against my prejudices.” He added, “To give a fair sketch [i.e., a short essay] would be absolutely impossible, for every proposition requires such an array of facts” (CCD, v. 6, p. 100). Yet he was sufficiently struck by the suggestion that he consulted with Hooker, making much the same point to him:

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xix If I publish anything it must be a very thin & little volume, giving a sketch of my views & difficulties; but it is really dreadfully unphilosophical to give a resume, without exact references, of an unpublished work. . . . It will be simply impossible for me to give exact references. . . . Eheu, eheu, I believe I shd sneer at anyone else doing this, & my only comfort is, that I truly never dreamed of it, ’till Lyell suggested it, & seems deliberately to think it advisable. (CCD, 9 May 1856, to Hooker, letter 1870; see also CCD, 11 May 1856, letter 1874)15

That was Darwin’s state of mind in May. But by July something had changed. In a letter to Lyell on July 5, as we have seen, Darwin had resolved to undertake publication but had decided to make it a larger work, preceded by a short historical preface. The work, he hopes, “will not need so much apology as I at first thought; for I have resolved to make it nearly as complete as my present materials allow” (CCD, 5 July [1856], to Lyell. Letter 1917). In other words, by this time he had decided to undertake the “big species book,” a plan that he faithfully pursued until it was derailed by the appearance of the Wallace manuscript in mid-​1858. But even in the earliest stages Darwin had made two decisions respecting a history of the subject: the first, that he would not write any comprehensive history for the big book; and the second, that he would write—​in fact already had written—​a very short preface that was devoted to “two or three leading and opposed authorities [on the subject of species],” including Lyell himself. Is it possible that one of the other “leading authorities” Darwin had mentioned was Baden Powell?16 In any case, the July 5, 1856, letter to Lyell does seem to show that as early as that date Darwin had produced the core idea for a historical sketch, with some amount of text that would later blossom into the Historical Sketch. How, then, do we explain Darwin’s statement to Baden Powell and others in early 1860 that he had not written a history of the subject? The evidence is somewhat puzzling and deserves a careful look. On January 17, 1860, Asa Gray, who was negotiating on Darwin’s behalf the publication by Appleton & Co. of the first authorized US edition of Origin, wrote to Darwin urging him to “send at once any corrections you are making for your 2nd ed.” as well as a “preface—​a few words—​to identify it as your ed.” (emphases in the original; Gray was not yet aware that the second English edition with corrections had already been published on January 7). Despite some apparent opinion to the contrary, Gray’s letter seems clearly not to be a request for the Historical Sketch, since he is very clear that the desired preface is to be a few words only and is to serve the purpose not of treating the history of the subject but only to identify the first authorized US edition as Darwin’s edition, so as to secure a copyright against other unauthorized editions (CCD, [17 January 1860], from Asa Gray. Letter 2563).17 Then, on January 28, Darwin wrote to Gray saying that, on the strong advice of Charles Lyell and others, he

xx  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species had decided against making any substantial changes to Origin for the US edition, save a few corrections “of small importance, or rather of equal brevity [to those already made for the second English edition].” He then adds that he does “intend to write a short Preface with brief history of the subject.” He further says that he will undertake this work, “as they [viz., the corrections and the Preface] must some day be done & I will send them you in a short time” (CCD, 28 January 1860, to Gray. Letter 2665). One plainly infers from this letter that Darwin has not yet composed much if any of the Historical Sketch, but that he is about to do so. The next we hear about the Historical Sketch comes in a letter from Darwin to his close friend J.D. Hooker, sent on January 31, 1860: My dear Hooker I have resolved to publish a little sketch of the progress of opinion on the change of species. . . . Asa Gray, I believe, is going to get a 2nd Edit. of my Book, & I want to send this little preface over to him soon. (CCD, [31 January 1860], to Hooker. Letter 2671)

In this letter Darwin also asks Hooker to send a copy of “one sentence” to him from a work by Charles Victor Naudin in which that author had much earlier (1852) brought forward in publication a theory that bore some similarity to Darwin’s idea that species “are formed in an analogous manner as varieties are under cultivation” (ibid., note 2). The sentence in question was in fact included in the Historical Sketch, showing again Darwin’s concern to address the issue of his own priority in a preface to later editions of Origin.18 The following day, February 1, 1860, Darwin sent another letter to Gray, including an enclosure that showed some corrections that Darwin wished to have included in the US edition. He also announced that “I will send in a fortnight a Preface giving a short History of opinion on origin of species” (CCD, 1 February 1860, to Gray. Letter 2676.). The impression continues to be that Darwin had not yet written, or at any rate completed, the Historical Sketch, but that he anticipated completing it within a fortnight, or two weeks. Yet on the very next day, February 2, 1860, Darwin gave a very different impression, in a letter to Herbert Spencer. In it he repeated the explanation that poor health kept him from providing a historical introduction to the first edition to Origin, but that now he has repaired that deficiency: I was so much out of health when I was writing my Book, that I grudged every hour of labour, & therefore gave no sort of history of progress of opinion. I have now written a Preface for the foreign Editions and for any future English Edit (shd there be one) in which I give a very brief sketch, & have with much pleasure

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxi alluded to your excellent essay on Development in your general Essays. (CCD, 2 February 1860, to Herbert Spencer. Letter 2680)

The letter does go on to suggest that Darwin is still putting the finishing touches on the Sketch, because he asks Spencer if he may in the Sketch represent his (Spencer’s) views on psychological development as being generally in tune with Darwin’s transmutationist theory. (The editors of Darwin’s correspondence surmise that Spencer must have assented to this, for Darwin’s suggested phrasing does appear in the Historical Sketch as in the letter to Spencer: CCD, 2 February 1860, to Herbert Spencer, n. 9. Letter 2680.) But the letter also seems to show that by this time, early February, the Sketch was all but complete. Any doubt on that score is removed in Darwin’s letter to Gray of February 8 or 9, 1860. In this letter Darwin announced that he is now sending “my short Historical Preface & one page more of corrections” (CCD, [8 or 9 February 1860], to Gray. Letter 2701). The date of this letter is uncertain, but the editors of the correspondence have surmised February 8 or 9 by referring to a letter sent by Darwin to Hooker on February 8 in which he tells Hooker that he has just completed his Sketch (CCD, 8 February [1860], to Hooker, and n. 1. Letter 2689). Putting together these pieces, one may construct the following account of the history of the Historical Sketch. Darwin’s second letter to Baden Powell indicates that Darwin had contemplated, indeed begun and perhaps made significant headway on, a historical introduction as early as 1856, no later than mid-​ 1858. This indication receives additional support from the fact that the first 15 folio pages of the “big species book,” appearing before the table of contents, are missing, but belong in a position in that book exactly corresponding to the place the Historical Sketch eventually came to occupy in Origin. On the other hand, Darwin was clearly not ready or willing to attach any sort of Historical Sketch to the first edition of Origin, telling both Powell and Spencer in early 1860 that poor health had prevented him from writing any such document. The letters to Gray in late January and early February 1860 seem to confirm this latter reading, since in the earlier letters he is “intending” to write the Sketch, and not until February 8 or 9 has he put it in a sufficiently complete form to send to Gray for the first authorized US edition. The question is, plainly, did he, or did he not, have a Historical Sketch in reasonably complete form when the first English edition of Origin went to press in November 1859? The answer would seem to be, yes and no. Unless he was simply fabricating something to soothe Powell’s evident concerns about priority, which in view of any plausible portrait of Darwin is not credible, he did have at least part of a historical survey of opinion in some state of written form before he turned in 1858 from the “big species book” to the Abstract that became Origin. This is confirmed by his letter of 3 May 1856 to Lyell in which he briefly mentioned a

xxii  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species “history of subject . . . , one page devoted to leading and opposed authorities” (CCD, 3 May 1856, to Lyell. Letter 1866). It is impossible to know whether the “one page” of 1856 had expanded into something longer by 1859. Although 15 folio ms. pages are missing from the beginning of the “species book” manuscript, there is no way to know whether and how much of this space was filled with writing, or even strictly speaking, whether any of it was filled. The letters to Powell, Spencer, and Gray written in late 1859 and early 1860 shed only a little light on this subject because in none of them did Darwin chart in any detail the progress of the Historical Sketch, only that he “intended” to write one in early January and that he finished writing it in early February. All these comments are compatible with the idea that he had prepared at least part of a historical survey much earlier (including a reference to Powell’s 1855 work), but that it was not sufficiently complete, in his opinion, for it to be included in the first edition of Origin. In view of this reconstruction, we may now return to consider the first letter to Baden Powell, sent on January 18, 1860. I observed earlier that this letter tracks so closely with the Historical Sketch that one is almost certainly indebted to the other for its contents. This contention is supported not only by the similarity in the list of names mentioned in the letter and the people discussed in the Sketch, but also by some of the wording. Let me give two instances: I. Letter to Powell: Had I alluded to those authors who have maintained, with more or less ability, that species have not been specially created, I should have felt myself bound to have given some account of all; namely, passing over the ancients, [I should have had to give some account of] Buffon (?)  Lamarck  .  .  .  [etc.]. (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2654) Historical Sketch, first version: The great majority of naturalists have believed that species were immutable productions and have been separately created. . . . A few [others] believe, on the other hand, that species undergo modification. . . . Passing over authors from the classical period to that of Buffon with whose writings I am not familiar, Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions excited much attention on this subject. (Reprinted in CCD, v. 8, pp. 572–​76)

II. Letter to Powell: ( by the way his [viz., Lamarck’s] erroneous views were curiously anticipated by my Grandfather [Erasmus Darwin]) . . . Historical Sketch, first version:

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxiii It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr.  Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the erroneous grounds of opinion, and the views of Lamarck, in his “Zoonomia” (vol. I, p. 500–​510), published in 1794.

Some of the phrasing here suggests strongly direct copying or borrowing: “specially/​separately created”; “passing over ancient/​classical [authors]”; “erroneous views”; “curious anticipation.” But to rule out the possibility that the words from the letter were permanently suspended in Darwin’s mind, and descended independently first into the Powell letter and then into the Sketch (or the reverse), it is worth taking note of the list of authors Darwin thinks fit to mention in the two documents.19 I reproduce them here side by side to permit a close comparison. (It should be noted that Darwin added additional authors to subsequent editions of Origin as he became familiar with them. The first version of the Sketch would show his thinking on this subject up to late January 1860.)

List in first letter to Baden Powell, January 18 1860

Yourself [i.e., Baden Powell]

The ancients [that he will pass over] Buffon [with a question mark after his name] Lamarck My Grandfather [Erasmus Darwin] [Etienne] Geoffry [sic] St. Hilaire Isidore [Geoffroy St. Hilaire] Naudin Keyserling An American (name this minute forgotten), [remembered in second letter as Haldeman] Vestiges of Creation [i.e., Robert Chambers] Some Germans Herbert Spencer

Preface to First American Edition February 8 1860 Authors of the classical period [to be passed over] Demaillet and Buffon [to be passed over] Lamarck Erasmus Darwin [mentioned in a footnote as one who anticipated “the erroneous views” of Lamarck]

xxiv  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species Etienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire (based on his “Life” written by his son Isidore Geoffroy Saint Hilaire)

Isidore Geoffroy Saint Hilaire Mr. Herbert Spencer M. Naudin (with a footnote entry to “M. Lecoq, another French botanist”)

Rev. W. Herbert Prof. Haldeman Vestiges of Creation [Robert Chambers] M.J. d’Omalius d’Halloy

Count Keyserling Baden Powell Alfred Russell Wallace Huxley Hooker

How, then, do the lists compare? We note, first, that every single author identified either by name or in some other way in the Powell letter shows up in the Historical Sketch, and, with a couple of exceptions described below, in precisely the same relative position in which he appears in the letter to Powell. The Historical Sketch does contain more names: 18 (or 19 counting the footnote) as compared with 13 in the letter, if we include the classical authors as one and “Demaillet and Buffon” as one. (I attempt to account for this discrepancy later.) But the overlap between the two lists, including the similarity of wording about special creation, the treatments of the ancients, Buffon, and Erasmus Darwin (noted earlier), and the order in which names appear, again gives credence to the thought that Darwin was borrowing from one document in composing the other. In other words, despite statements to the contrary made to his friends in early 1860 that he had not composed a historical sketch for the species book, the two letters to Powell, for different reasons, suggest strongly that he had. If that is so, how much more can we learn about this now lost “Preface” from examining the two lists in greater detail? From the second letter to Powell one learns only that the Sketch was either partially or completely written but was not at hand (or even in memory) when Darwin wrote the first letter to him. But the first letter to Powell shows, first of all, that the list at the time Darwin wrote the letter, is both shorter (by four or five authors) and more abbreviated, in terms of the amount of discussion Darwin gives to each author. (The names added to the Historical Sketch but not in the letter are Demaillet [passed over], d’Omalius d’Halloy, Lecoq [mentioned in a short footnote], Wallace, Huxley, and Hooker.) Indeed, in the letter Darwin for the most part merely lists names, with no commentary (with the exception of the sentence about Erasmus Darwin anticipating Lamarck). The Sketch, by contrast, devotes some amount of commentary to each author, ranging in length from a short paragraph to a full page, depending evidently upon how significant Darwin regarded the contribution of the author to be.

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxv None of this is surprising in itself. In a letter one would expect a mere listing, in a Sketch, well, a sketch! But, putting the letter side by side with the sketch does strongly suggest that much of the Sketch was composed by the time Darwin received Powell’s letter, and that he was simply recalling it, even if unconsciously, when he wrote his letter to Powell. Or, to state it the other way around, it would not be likely for Darwin to create a Sketch, intended to serve as a formal preface to his masterpiece (with the assured huge reading audience) based upon a private, hastily crafted note of correspondence to a man he did not know well. This interpretation, that Darwin had already completed much of the sketch by the time Origin first appeared, has the further advantage of comporting well with Darwin’s second letter to Powell, in which he states explicitly that he had already included Powell among those authors treated in the “Preface” that he had started to prepare for the “big species book” but had set aside along with the book itself for the sake of producing quickly an Abstract (which came to be Origin). The passage from that “Preface” that he duplicates in the letter (regarding Powell’s 1855 book) is just that, an almost exact duplicate, word for word, and included in quotation marks, giving the strongest possible impression that Darwin was transcribing in the letter from an already existing document. From this it seems a strong likelihood that Darwin, in composing his letter to Powell, merely summarized what was already written out as the “Preface” to the big book. Indeed, from the second letter to Powell one might be so bold as to infer what the now lost “Preface” looked like: something much like the Historical Sketch sent to Gray on February 8 or 9, 1860, with four or five other authors added to the latter based on reading or recollections of Darwin between the time he wrote to Powell and when he wrote to Gray (i.e., just under three weeks).20 Attractive as this reconstruction is, it leaves some puzzling questions. One has to do with the relative positioning of names in the two sketches: they are somewhat different. Specifically, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Naudin, and Keyserling, appear earlier, relative to other authors, in the letter than in the Sketch, whereas Herbert Spencer appears later. If the Sketch had already been largely written out when Darwin wrote to Powell and Darwin was merely replicating it, how might we account for this? The easiest way out would be simply to say that Darwin, in drawing from subconscious memory, misrecalled the exact positioning of some names when he wrote the letter. But since he was right in his recollection of the great majority of authors treated and in other details of wording and sentiment (described above), we might wish to consider alternate hypotheses before settling on that one. The positioning of Isidore in the letter, right after Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire (his father) is easy enough to explain. In discussing Etienne, Darwin drew, as he says in the Sketch, on the “Life” of Etienne composed by the son. In the letter, it would have been natural for Darwin to put these two men together in a single

xxvi  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species thought, as in fact he does. But Isidore made his own independent contributions to the species question that Darwin wanted to acknowledge in the Sketch, and because the Sketch treats authors chronologically—​that is, in the historical order of their written contributions as known to Darwin21—​Isidore’s contributions would need to appear after Herbert, Haldeman, Vestiges, and d’Omallius d’Halloy, whereas Etienne’s contributions were noted in the “Life” to have been made as early as 1795, that is, before these men. Such assiduous attention to dating would have been unnecessary in a short letter.22 The case of Herbert Spencer requires a different explanation. In the Sketch, he does appear in the proper chronological order, after Isidore (1850–​1851) and before Naudin (late 1852). (The work of Spencer to which Darwin makes reference was published in March 1852.) Why, then, does he appear out of order in the letter? An answer is suggested by a letter Darwin sent to Spencer on February 2, 1860 to ask him when precisely his work in the Leader appeared, as he wanted to include mention of it in the Historical Sketch (CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer. Letter 2680). This was two weeks after he sent his letters to Powell and one week before he completed the first version of the Historical Sketch. It thus seems plausible to assume that Darwin in fact did not know the correct chronological position of Spencer’s work when he wrote to Powell and learned it only after he wrote to Spencer and presumably heard back some days later.23 On this reading, Darwin would have included Spencer in the Historical Sketch prior to writing to Powell, but would not have known his precise chronological location until after February 2 1860. That leaves only Naudin and Keyserling, the final two authors who in the letter are out of proper chronological order. In the letter, they inexplicably have been moved up to a position just after Etienne (and Isidor) Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1828), whereas properly they belong, as in the Sketch, after Haldeman (1843–​1844) and Vestiges of Creation (1844). One notes, first of all, that in both the letter to Powell and the Sketch they show up together, Naudin (1852) first, immediately followed by Keyserling (1853). This suggests that the two hung together in Darwin’s mind, and the reason would be, judging from the chronology of the Sketch, that their contributions came one right after the other (1852 and 1853) in history. This is further evidence that Darwin had made some progress on the chronologically ordered Sketch before he wrote to Powell. But why he would have gotten them out of proper order in the letter remains a question. Very little is known about Darwin’s familiarity with the 1853 Keyserling work. It does not show up in his Reading Notebooks or his library, and I can find no mention made to this work in any of Darwin’s correspondence.24 In view of all this silence it is almost surprising that Keyserling made it into the Sketch at all. On the other hand, it would be hard to argue that Darwin was unclear about Naudin’s proper place in the chronology when he wrote to Powell in January

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxvii 1860, for in December 1859, just a month earlier, Hooker had drawn Darwin’s attention to the similarity between Darwin’s theory and the 1852 essay by Naudin. Darwin immediately went back to reread this essay (he had sometime earlier twice entered this work into his “Books to be Read” section of his Reading Notebooks and later recorded that he had read it25), because on December 23, 1859, just days after Hooker reminded Darwin about Naudin’s contribution, Darwin wrote back to say that, upon reviewing Naudin’s argument, he finds it to be no more similar to Darwin’s theory than Lamarck’s was (CCD, December 23, 1859, to Hooker, and nn. 2–​3. Letter 2595). If Naudin was this fresh in Darwin’s mind when he wrote to Powell (and if we assume that he associated Naudin and Keyserling as chronologically close together), why would Naudin and Keyserling be out of proper position in the Powell letter? One possible answer is that it was not Naudin and Keyserling whose positions Darwin misrecalled, but rather Haldeman’s and Vestiges. In other words, one can as well regard the latter two out of proper position as the former two: in effect, their positions in the two lists have been simply reversed. Moreover, recall that Haldeman’s name in the first Powell letter was “this minute forgotten,” showing Darwin’s faulty memory about him.26 This nevertheless seems unlikely. For one thing, the distance in time separating Naudin and Keyserling from the author who preceded them in the letter (Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire) is much greater (1828 to 1852–​1853, or 24–​25 years) than the authors who actually preceded them in chronology (Isidore G.  St. H.  and Herbert Spencer), 1850 and 1852 respectively, or two years. On the supposition that Darwin was more likely to misrecall the proper chronology when two authors were close in time than when they were separated by two and a half decades, the error in the arrangement of the authors in the Powell letter would be more likely to be a result of misplacing Naudin and Keyserling than Haldeman and Vestiges. Moreover, one work was perhaps more familiar to Darwin than any other that he named in either list, Robert Chambers’s Vestiges, and it seems very unlikely that Darwin would have forgotten his date. Again, the best inference is that Darwin, when composing his first letter to Powell, got Naudin and Keyserling out of order rather than Haldeman and Vestiges. But this account, whether correct or not, still does not explain why Darwin would have made this particular mistake of memory but virtually no others. Another mystery is yet more puzzling than the incorrect placement of Naudin and Keyserling. In the first letter to Powell, Darwin mentions among those authors deserving to be treated “some Germans.” It is notable that among authors treated in the first version of the Sketch no Germans appear (Keyserling, who in any case appears in the letter also, was Estonian—​today this would be Russian). Germans began to appear only in the third English edition of Origin, mainly in a footnote appended to the paragraph on Naudin, but also in a separate

xxviii  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species paragraph on Schaffhausen, and, in the fourth English edition, in a paragraph on Von Baer (who was actually Estonian also, not German, although he published in German). Since there were no German authors discussed or mentioned in the original Sketch, Darwin’s mention of “some Germans” in the letter to Powell seems odd. In every other case of a named author in the letter a paragraph devoted to that author can be found in the Sketch. If Darwin was drawing from an already composed Sketch in writing his letter to Powell, why did he add to the latter “some Germans,” altogether missing from the Sketch? At this point I think we need to confront the possibility that the hypothesis is flawed, in other words, that Darwin had not yet composed anything resembling the complete Historical Sketch when he wrote the letters to Powell. Now, it could be, on this supposition, that he in fact had not written the Sketch at all (or very little of it), but had only contemplated what a Sketch might look like. This possibility comports well with what Darwin insisted in letters to Gray and Spencer in late January, namely that he “intend[s]‌” to write a historical preface, and that he has “resolved” to undertake this work. If in fact he had already written the Sketch or most of it, these statements would make little sense. On the other hand, if he had not written the Sketch or something like it by the time of the Powell letter, his statement in the second Powell letter that he had written a Preface would be a deliberate lie—​and it is hard to believe Darwin would have done that. A second possibility is that he had composed part of the Preface when he wrote to Powell, that he truly had forgotten the existence of this document until after he sent the first letter, then located it (where he discovered Haldeman’s name) and sent the second Powell letter. On this view, Darwin, in rereading the Preface, realized he would need to add more names to it (especially Wallace, Huxley, and Hooker, all of whom Darwin was particularly concerned to acknowledge) and so undertook this work in the three weeks between sending the letters to Powell and sending the original version of the Sketch to Gray. In this case, “intend to write” is better rendered as “intend to complete,” although why Darwin would not have put it that way would remain unexplained. But it does make more sense to think that Darwin’s work in the three weeks between January 18 and February 9 involved only adding four or five paragraphs to an already existing document, than that he would have composed the entire Sketch treating 18 or 19 names in that short period. In many ways, this last hypothesis is the most attractive. It permits us to understand that Darwin had in fact composed much of what would become the Historical Sketch prior to January 18, 1860—​perhaps, even, as early as 1856 or 1857, and that in this work (i.e., the “Preface” to the planned “big species book”) he had devoted an adulatory paragraph to the work of Baden Powell. It also gives a satisfactory account of some of the puzzles mentioned above. The “American” whose name was “this minute forgotten” would have also been in the “Preface,”

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxix but only recollected by name when Darwin rediscovered the document after sending the first Powell letter. Spencer is out of place in the letter, relative to other authors and his own chronological priority, because Darwin did not know at the time he wrote to Powell where precisely Spencer fit in, and would only learn this sometime after February 2 when he asked Spencer for this information. The “some Germans” in the letter would reflect an intention that Darwin had at the time he composed the Preface to include a few German scientists into his historical account, but that he had not yet consummated. (As it turns out he did not get around to this group of authors until the third English edition of Origin, published in 1861.) But the hypothesis is far from perfect. The “solutions” to the puzzles described earlier are, in the end, purely conjectural (although this would be the case of any putative solutions that might be brought forward, in view of the imperfect record of evidence). The question about the placement of Naudin and Keyserling is not answered on this account, except to say that Darwin in the letter uniquely forgot where they belonged. But more troubling is the fact that this last hypothesis requires us to believe that Darwin could have recalled from memory many details from the Preface that he wished to include in the first letter to Powell, down to specific wording about Erasmus Darwin and authors from the classical period and the precise order in which these authors were to be treated, even though he had composed the Preface as early as three years prior to writing to Powell. This is a lot to ask of anyone, and it becomes even more difficult to ask it of Darwin when he admitted (in the second Powell letter) that, on his honor, he had entirely forgotten when he wrote the first letter that he had ever even written about Powell’s contributions to the origin of species in a Historical Sketch, let alone that he recalled any other details about it!27 Perhaps we may gain additional insight by returning to our earlier question, why Darwin thought it necessary to write a Historical Sketch (or a Preface to the “big species book”) in the first place? What were the sources of his motivation for undertaking this task? Again, the record of evidence is imperfect, but what there is of it does help. We have already mentioned the 19th century convention for scientific innovators to preface their works with a historical preface, and that no doubt is an important factor. Another clue is what Darwin himself states in several letters written to his closest friends in 1858, when Wallace’s manuscript first showed up. At this point Darwin was urged by Lyell and Huxley in particular to set aside the big species book in favor of producing as quickly as possible an “Abstract.” Darwin at first strongly resisted, on the grounds that an abstract could not possibly do full justice to the subject. In particular, what would be missing from an abstract would be the quantity and quality of evidence—​ including the massive amount of scientific literature that Darwin had spent two decades wading through—​to substantiate his claims. In other words, Darwin

xxx  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species was sensitive to the importance for the acceptance of his theory of showing the compatibility of his arguments with the data that had been gathered by other naturalists and of showing how his theory could account for and explain those data in a way that other theories could not.28 This sensitivity, I surmise, is another significant element that lay behind his wish from the outset of giving some historical background of his work. But what some scholars believe also played a role was the early criticism of Origin that Darwin received. While most of the criticism was directed at the theory of natural selection, pointing out its inadequacies, some of it suggested that Darwin was not original, that his views had been anticipated, that his theory was in fact borrowed, or at best derivative, of ideas that were already in circulation and well known.29 This charge was apparently first leveled in print by H.G. Bronn, the translator of the first German edition of Origin, but was repeated by several other naturalists, including W.B. Carpenter and F.J. Pictet, both of whom Darwin admired and respected. Bronn even claimed that his review of Origin, that appeared in Neues Jahrbuch fuer Mineralogie in 186030, prompted Darwin to undertake the Historical Sketch (first German edition, footnote 1 to the translator’s introduction).31 It is clear that Darwin had a longstanding concern about this issue that predated the 1859 publication of Origin, but it was certainly exacerbated by the first reviews that classed him together with previous transmutationists such as Lamarck and Erasmus. This clearly stung, and would no doubt have helped fuel his interest in setting the record straight. Darwin was at this point walking a tightrope.32 He certainly hoped his theory would be well received by the scientific community, and he knew it would have to overcome a great deal of predictable resistance from both within science and without. But he also did not want to see others getting credit for his idea—​despite his disclaimers to the contrary (see nn. 13 and 14). Thus, the Historical Sketch can be read as an attempt to ensure that the theory contained in Origin, assuming its eventual acceptance by the scientific community, would at the same time be seen to be Darwin’s creation—​perhaps indebted in some minor particulars to others, but ultimately the product of his own mind.33 Otherwise Darwin could be assured of nothing more than a footnote in the history of science, whereas his aspirations were of a different order. This seems to be the accepted view of the Sketch by modern historians (see n. 11). It does, however, seem to be inaccurate in one respect. If Darwin’s second letter to Powell is to be trusted, as I think it must, Darwin had begun and even made substantial progress on the Sketch well before Origin first appeared and so well before Darwin could have known with any certainty how it would be received. In other words, the second Powell letter appears to establish as beyond question the fact that Darwin felt a need to address the issue of his priority in discovering his theory even before his critics started to challenge him on this point.

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxxi Thus, Bronn’s claim that his review of Origin is what prompted Darwin to undertake the Sketch seems like wishful thinking on Bronn’s part, and there is no other evidence that Bronn’s review had this effect other than his own say-​so. Both Janet Browne’s claim that Asa Gray encouraged Darwin to write the Sketch after the appearance of the first edition of Origin as well as the claim of the editors of the Correspondence that Powell’s (now lost) letter to Darwin in January 1860 was responsible (see notes 14, 18, 30, and 32) appear to lack sufficient supporting evidence to be fully accepted. Darwin appears to have seen the need himself and to have begun to address the need well before his views were widely known or publicized. The only curious things, on this reading, are why Darwin would have failed to remember his “Preface” when he first submitted the manuscript of Origin to John Murray in the fall of 1859 and how he could have recalled so much of its contents when he first wrote to Powell in January 1860 while having forgotten he had ever written it.

Notes 1. Although the Sketch was prepared for the first authorized US edition, published in May 1860, it actually appeared before that, in April 1860, as a preface to the first German edition, translated by H.G. Bronn. The first English edition in which it appeared was the third, published in 1861. My assumption in stating “any modern reader” is that most accessible editions of Origin are reprints of the sixth English edition (or translations thereof) and so, unlike the first English edition, include the Historical Sketch at the beginning. It is true that some modern reprints (e.g., the facsimile edition of Mayr 1964, no. 602 in R.B. Freeman 1977) are of the first English edition and omit the Sketch, but even some of these (e.g., the Penguin Books edition of 1968, no. 612 in R.B. Freeman 1977 and the Random House edition of 1979, found in many bookstores) include the Historical Sketch as it appeared in the sixth English edition. The bibliographic details of the various editions of Darwin’s Origin are no doubt of subordinate interest to the general reader, but in view of the numerous changes Darwin made to successive editions it behooves those working in Darwin studies to be attentive to these subtleties. The Darwin bibliography has been compiled by R.B. Freeman (with a useful introduction and notes). A variorum edition of Origin, showing all changes through the several English editions was prepared in 1959 by Morse Peckham. 2. The first English-​language version of the Historical Sketch has been reproduced in CCD, v. 8, 1993, pp. 572–​76. Subsequent changes to this essay, which continued to be made by Darwin through the fourth English edition, may be traced in the variorum edition of Origin published by Peckham 1959, pp. 59–​70. 3. Somewhat surprisingly, little systematic attention has been paid to the Historical Sketch in the literature, as far as I can tell. The best histories and biographies make mention of it and note when it first appeared in print, but even the most careful of

xxxii  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species these say little about the genesis and various transformations of and motivations for the Sketch. Works that have ventured at least some way down the path of the Sketch are Browne 1995, 2002; CCD, v. 8, 1993, pp. 572–​76; Freeman 1977, pp. 78–​9; Peckham, pp. 20, 59–​70; and Desmond and Moore 1991, p. 502. 4. The “historical preface,” if it constituted a sort of genre of 19th century science writing (e.g., I.  Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire’s Histoire Naturelle General [1854–​62], ­chapters  1–​ 3; the same author’s Histoire . . . des Anomalies [1832], Introduction; and his Essais de Zoologie General [1844], also with a historical introduction; A.P. De Candolle’s Theorie Elementaire de la Botanique [1813], and his Elements of the Philosophy of Plants [1821], to name a few), was far from universally employed. One finds plenty of works with which Darwin was quite familiar in which no formal history of the treated subject is given, including Cuvier’s Le Regne Animal (1829), Carpenter’s Principles of Comparative Physiology (1854), Lamarck’s Philosophie Zoologique (1809) and his Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertebres (1815). The point is only that a historical preface was common enough for Darwin to have seen including one in Origin to be nothing unusual, and perhaps even expected in view of the revolutionary implications of his own theory. 5. This formulation glosses over a number of complexities that deserve a much fuller account than can be offered here. In particular, a large question looms about the origin of this convention and what purposes it served. Secord (in Lyell, 1997, p. xxxv) describes a “gentlemanly form of publication” in Victorian science writing, and a historical preface may well have been one important component, as exemplified by Lyell. It seems likely, however, that Lyell’s aim in his historical preface was more than, indeed different than, merely presenting a history of the subject. It was, as various scholars (including Secord) have shown, a polemic against earlier geological writers and a means of establishing at once Lyell’s originality and his place in history as the culmination of centuries of thought (e.g., Porter 1976, 1982; Rudwick [in Lyell] 1990, pp. xvi-​xvii; and Secord [in Lyell] 1997, p. xxv). Darwin followed Lyell’s example only to an extent. By adding his Historical Sketch Darwin did situate himself within the context of late 18th and early 19th century evolutionary theory (choosing mostly the great figures of his time for inclusion) and did thereby implicitly stake a claim to his own originality. But for all of that his Sketch lacks the sweep and grandeur of Lyell’s (eight pages in its final form compared to Lyell’s 75), and also is much more inclined to give credit where credit was due to previous thinkers than to condemn them, even if with faint praise, for their errors and shortcomings. 6. Cf. CCD, 18 January 1860, to Baden Powell. Letter 2654: “The task [of writing a historical preface] would have been not a little difficult, & belongs rather to the Historian of Science than to me.” He repeats the idea in the second letter to Powell, CCD, letter 2655; see also CCD, 5 July [1856], to Lyell. Letter 1917. 7. I document this claim more fully later in the chapter. (How familiar Lyell actually was with the history of his subject is open to debate, as he apparently took much of his history from Brocchi’s work on fossil conchology; cf. Secord, in Lyell 1997, p. xx; and Rudwick, in Lyell 1990, p. xvi.) In this regard, however, it is of some interest to follow Darwin’s several different attempts in successive editions of Origin to explain

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxxiii his unwillingness in the Historical Sketch to treat of any authors prior to Lamarck. The question is complicated and will be given a more extended discussion in what follows. 8. Darwin’s originality and priority are, strictly speaking, separate questions. One can be original and yet fail to achieve priority if, for example, someone else comes forward first in print with the same theory without one’s knowledge. Such, in fact, is more or less the case with A.R. Wallace. No one, least of all Darwin, doubted that Wallace arrived at his theory independently of Darwin, but Darwin was proven by history to have brought the theory into print—​if not exactly publication—​first. Nevertheless, Darwin often conflated the two issues in his private correspondence, referring to his originality and priority almost as if they were interchangeable ideas. A nice example is in Darwin’s letter to Hooker of December 23, 1859 (CCD, 23 December [1859], to Hooker. Letter 2595). After some fretting about Naudin’s possible priority Darwin adds, “I shd. rather like Lyell to see this note; though it is foolish work sticking up for independence [i.e., originality] or priority.” See nn. 13 and 14 below. 9. For a transcription (with translations) of early reviews of Origin and a commentary, see Hull 1973. 10. J. Browne 2002, p. 133; Desmond and Moore 1991, pp. 439, 469; cf. also CCD, v. 8, 1993, pp. 571–​6; and R.B. Freeman 1977, p. 78. 11. See also Darwin’s letter to Lyell sent on July 18, (CCD, 18 July 1858, to Lyell. Letter 2285). Darwin’s reaction to the anonymous publication in 1844 of the very popular Vestiges of Natural Creation, betrays a similar concern (CCD, [7 January 1845], to Hooker, letter 814; and [10 September 1845], and n. 10, to Hooker, letter 915; 1 January [1860], to Huxley, letter 2633). See Janet Browne, Charles Darwin Voyaging, Princeton University Press, 1995, p. 461; and Marjorie Greene and David Depew, The Philosophy of Biology, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 190. 12. Darwin, 1872, p. 3. It should be noted that this is a reference to the sixth English edition, the one most commonly found in modern English reproductions of Origin. However, the Historical Sketch had appeared in earlier editions, and Darwin changed the wording throughout subsequent editions, though not with respect to this particular quote. See note 2 for more detail on this point. 13. This seems to be the conclusion reached by the editors of the Darwin correspondence: “Although at first skeptical of Baden Powell’s suggestion that he prefix to Origin a list of authors who had maintained the modification of species, . . . Darwin subsequently changed his mind.” 14. It is true that other letters written by Darwin in 1859 and 1860 make reference to particular authors that came to find a place in the Historical Sketch (e.g., letters to Hooker of December 23, 1859 [CCD, 23 [December 1859], to Hooker, letter 2595]; and January 31, 1860 [CCD, 31 [January 1860], to Hooker, letter 2671] in regard to Naudin), so that to single out the letters to Baden Powell as of particular importance may be seen as in need of justification. What is unique about the Powell letters, particularly the first, is that in it alone does Darwin give a list of authors who would need to be treated. Other letters typically make reference to only a single author and give little hint about what Darwin thought a historical survey would need to look like. The dating of the Powell letters is also important: both were sent a mere three weeks

xxxiv  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species prior to the completion of the first version of the Sketch sent to Gray on February 8 or 9, 1860. 15. The “exact references” to which Darwin here alludes are no doubt in reference to citations of supporting evidence for his own theory compiled by other authors (as is evident from the Natural Selection manuscript, not published until 1975), not to the Historical Sketch. In other words, the passage does not show anything about Darwin’s concern to produce a historical preface for his work, only that he was under some pressure from Lyell at this time to get his theory written out and published, and so is important for dating Darwin’s commencement of writing out his theory. 16. It is to be noted that Darwin’s mention of other “leading authorities” is ambiguous, since he says he will discuss “two or three leading and opposed authorities.” Thus, he could mean two or three on each side or two or three total. It is also an interesting question as to who these authorities may have been. A partial answer is suggested by something Darwin wrote in the now-​famous letter that he sent to Asa Gray on September 5, 1857 (CCD, 5 September 1857, to Gray. Letter 2136)  outlining his theory of natural selection. In it he mentions the elder de Candolle, W. Herbert, and Lyell as important forerunners of his own theory, especially as regards competition and war in the state of nature. Somewhat surprisingly, of these three only W. Herbert wound up in any of the versions of the Historical Sketch. 17. E.g., Janet Browne, in her biography of Darwin, says the Historical Sketch was encouraged by Asa Gray and was prompted by the skeptical reaction of some of the early reviewers of the book who had “cynically noted . . . the absent acknowledgements [of prior evolutionary work],” 2002, p. 133. Gray’s letter, in asking Darwin for a preface of a “few words” only shows that Gray saw no need for a historical introduction to identify the work as Darwin’s edition for copyright purposes. 18. Darwin’s concern about Naudin’s possible priority in articulating a theory of natural selection is well reflected even in the first weeks after the first edition of Origin appeared. Both Lyell and Hooker advised Darwin late in 1859 of Naudin’s 1852 work that seemed to them to anticipate Darwin, and one of these men informed him that Joseph Decaisne also had found Naudin to “give my [Darwin’s] whole theory” (CCD, 22 [December 1859], and notes 6–​7. Letter 2593). Darwin quickly read or reread Naudin, for the following day he wrote to Hooker, in apparent relief, “I am surprised that Decaisne shd say it [viz., the theory given by Naudin] is the same as mine. . . . I cannot see much closer approach to Wallace & me in Naudin than in Lamarck—​we all agree in modification & descent” (CCD, 23 [December 1859], to Hooker. Letter 2595). The letter confirms what his first letter to Powell (quoted above) also showed, that Darwin’s concerns about originality and priority were centered on the specific issue of natural selection as the mechanism of change, not on descent with modification per se. 19. It is certainly possible that Darwin had mulled over the “curious anticipation” of Lamarck by Erasmus Darwin, quite independently of the letter to Powell or of the Historical Sketch. In a letter to Huxley on January 9, 1860 he wrote: “The History of Error is quite unimportant, but it is curious to observe how exactly and accurately my Grandfather (in Zoonomia 1794, v. I, p. 504) gives Lamarck’s theory.” Darwin had

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxxv marked this passage in his own copy of Zoonomia with the word “Lamarck!!” A slip pasted on the same page of his copy reads: “504 Lamarck precisely forestalled by my Grandfather” (CCD, 9 January [1860], and note 3, to Huxley. Letter 2646). The only word that stands out as common (apart from the names of Lamarck and Erasmus) to all three passages (letter to Powell, Historical Sketch, and letter to Huxley) is “curious,” but the sentiment in all three is identical, strongly suggesting that Erasmus’s “anticipation” of Lamarck was a settled conviction in Darwin’s mind. 20. This interpretation helps resolve another difficulty: how Darwin could have composed a Historical Sketch, treating 18 or 19 different authors, in the three weeks between the Powell letters and February 8 or 9 when he sent the completed Sketch to Asa Gray. That is not very much time—​unless all but five or six of these authors already had been written up in the months or years prior to this period. 21. In a letter sent to Spencer on February 2, 1860 Darwin, seeking a particular date of publication of one of Spencer’s works, noted that “I arrange my notices chronologically” (CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer. Letter 2680). See also Darwin’s letter to Hooker of February 8, 1860 (CCD, 8 February [1860], to Hooker. Letter 2689). 22. If Etienne’s contribution was made in 1795, why would he then not appear in the Sketch before Lamarck, whose Philosophie Zoologique appeared in 1809? The answer is that Etienne did not publish his views until 1828, as Darwin observes in the Sketch. 23. Spencer’s written reply, if there was one, has not been located, but the editors of the correspondence surmise he must have approved of Darwin’s mentioning him as a forerunner because he is represented in the Historical Sketch just as Darwin requested in his letter to Spencer of February 2 (CCD, 2 February [1860], and n. 9, to Spencer. Letter 2680). 24. Darwin was, by contrast, quite familiar with the geological work of Keyserling carried out with Sir Roderick Murchison in the Urals in the 1840s. Not only does this work show up in the Reading Notebooks (CCD, v. 4, 1988, p. 545), but Darwin made reference to it and to Keyserling periodically in his correspondence. He even sent Keyserling a presentation copy of Origin when it first appeared and received a letter in reply (CCD, 15 October 1859, note 4 [where reference is made to CCD, letter to Charles Lyell of 4 May—​incorrectly given in CCD as 4 January 1860], to Huxley). 25. CCD, v. 4, 1988, p. 546; and v. 7, 1991, p. 442 and n. 6. 26. On any reading Darwin’s forgetfulness about Haldeman’s name and date is somewhat surprising, for in June 1859 Darwin wrote to Lyell (in response to a letter from Lyell reminding Darwin of Haldeman’s 1843–​1844 essay in the Boston Journal of Natural History that Darwin had read in May 1845), claiming that he had abstracted the work and that he “well remember[s]‌thinking it a very clever paper,” and even recalling some particulars of Haldeman’s views (CCD, 21 June [1859], and n. 2, to Lyell. Letter 2470). On the other hand, Darwin admitted that he sometimes had a very poor memory of such things. 27. Strictly speaking, Darwin claims in the second letter to Powell to have “completely forgotten” only the passage alluding to Powell himself, not that he had composed a Preface at all. But the inference from the first Powell letter remains that he had forgotten about the draft of the Sketch altogether when he received Powell’s letter.

xxxvi  The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species 28. It is clear from his correspondence and published writings that Darwin regarded the worth of his theory to hinge crucially upon the question of how many “classes of facts” it helps to explain. By itself, he understood, the theory might seem to be nothing more than a pipe dream. But if it could account for a large range of indubitable empirical phenomena it would, at minimum, need to be taken seriously. One important source of his conviction in the truth of natural selection, then, was that it could explain such facts, whereas other transmutationist views could not. Very typical in this regard is what Darwin wrote to Lyell on October 11, 1859, on the eve of the appearance in print of the first edition of Origin: “But I entirely reject as in my judgment quite unnecessary any subsequent addition ‘of new powers and attributes of forces’; or of any ‘principle of improvement’ except insofar as [advantageous] natural characters are naturally selected. . . . If I were convinced I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish. . . . I cannot believe that if false it would explain so many whole classes of facts” (CCD, 11 October [1859], to Lyell. Letter 2503). He makes much the same point to Baden Powell in the first letter, and to several other correspondents. For fuller treatments of Darwin’s understanding of the relation between theory and fact, and of scientific method more generally, see Ghiselin 1969, passim; Ospovat 1981, pp. 87–​190; and Hull 1973, pp. 3–​36. 29. This criticism has resurfaced in modern times in several works but has apparently won few adherents. For a brief summary and defense of Darwin’s originality, see Ghiselin 1969, pp. 46–​9. 30. English translation in Hull 1973, pp. 120–​25. 31. See F. Darwin 1959, v. 2, p. 149, fn. 1. 32. The “tightrope” metaphor has also been employed by Roy Porter in describing Lyell’s motivation for writing the historical introduction to the Principles, but in Lyell’s case it was a different tightrope, or actually two: wishing to appeal to a broad popular audience without descending into scientific vulgarity; and wishing to condemn Mosaic and speculative accounts of the earth’s history without at the same time offending contemporary Victorian sensitivities that were resistant to accounts of geological history that could not be reconciled with Christian and Biblical doctrines (Porter 1982, pp. 33–​4, and passim). 33. It is thus somewhat difficult to accept as valid the characterization of the Historical Sketch by Desmond and Moore (1991, p.  502) as “perfunctory, a cursory list of ‘precursors.’ ” Darwin evidently saw some challenges from other possible claimants to “his theory” that he needed to take seriously.

References Barrett, Paul, et al. (eds.). 1987. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks 1836–​1844. Ithaca, NY: British Museum and Cornell University Press. Beatty, John. 1985. “Speaking of Species: Darwin’s Strategy,” in Kohn, ed., 1985, pp. 265–​82. Browne, Janet. 1995. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Browne, Janet. 2002. Charles Darwin: Power of Place. New York: Knopf.

The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species  xxxvii Burkhardt, F.H., et  al. (eds.). 1985–​present. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1872 [1997]. Origin of the Species, 6th edition. Compiled and edited by M.T. Ghiselin. San Francisco, CA:  Lightbinders, Inc. CD-​ROM, 2nd edition, of Darwin’s works. Darwin, Francis (ed.). Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. New York: Basic Books, 1959. Desmond, Adrian, and Moore, James. 1991. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. New York: Norton. Ellegard, Alvar. 1990. Darwin and the General Reader. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press. Freeman, R.B. 1977. The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, 2nd edition. Folkstone, Kent: Dawson and Archon Books. Ghiselin, M.T. 1969. The Triumph of the Darwinian Method. Berkeley:  University of California Press. Greene, Marjorie, and Depew, David. 2002. The Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 190. Hodge, M.J.S. 1977. “The Structure and Strategy of Darwin’s “Long Argument.” British Journal for the History of Science 10: 237–​45. Hull, David. 1973. Darwin and His Critics. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Kohn, David, ed. 1985. The Darwinian Heritage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lyell, Charles. 1830–​1832 [1990]. Principles of Geology, 3 vols. Introduction by Martin J.S. Rudwick. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Lyell, Charles. 1830–​1832 [1997]. Principles of Geology. Edited with an Introduction by James Secord. London: Penguin. Ospovat, Dov. 1981. The Development of Darwin’s Theory. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Peckham, Morse, (ed.). 1959. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: A Variorum Text. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Porter, Roy. 1976. “Charles Lyell and the Principles of the History of Geology.” British Journal for the History of Science 9: 91–​103. Porter, Roy. 1982. “Charles Lyell: The Public and Private Faces of Science.” Janus 69: 29–​50. Secord, James. 1985. “Darwin and the Breeders: A Social History,” in Kohn, ed., 1985, pp. 519–​42. Stauffer, R.C. (ed.). 1975. Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Vorzimmer, Peter. 1970. Charles Darwin: The Years of Controversy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Wallace, A.R. 1905. My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall.

Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

1

Darwin’s “Priority” Baden Powell and A.R. Wallace

Erasmus always said that surely this [that someone else had preceded Darwin] would be shown to be the case someday. (CCD, 10 April [1860], to Charles Lyell. Letter 2754) My Brother, who is very sagacious man, always said you will find that someone will have been before you. (CCD, 18 May 1860, to A.R. Wallace. Letter 2807) I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. . . . I much regret that want of space prevents my having the satisfaction of acknowledging the generous assistance which I have received from very many naturalists, some of them personally known to me.” (Origin of Species, 1st edition, “Introduction,” Variorum p. 72, lines 13, 19)

Darwin’s Historical Sketch was written, as he says at the beginning of Origin, to give a brief history “of opinion on the Origin of Species.” But it is clear as one works through the document that at least part of his aim in composing it was to mount a defense of his own priority against other potential claimants in discovering and publishing the theory as set out in Origin. A “history of opinion,” if properly constructed, would help to accomplish that goal. The Sketch would thus take the form of a chronology of the writings of previous writers, arranged in the order in which they had made their contributions, as far as Darwin could determine. Fully to understand how seriously he took this challenge, however, we must look beyond the Sketch itself, in which the theme of priority is downplayed, to other writings of Darwin that were more private—​his Notebooks, the marginal comments in books he read, and especially his correspondence. Darwin’s concern about his priority may be detected even as he first started putting the pieces of his theory together, in 1837 and 1838. He reminded himself Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

2  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” in 1838 to “read Aristotle to see if any my views very ancient” (C-​267). (This is something, incidentally, he did not get around to until much later, well after Origin was published.)1 Other entries from the Notebooks in the same period show clearly that Darwin regarded some theory as “my theory,” different from those of previous transmutationists (e.g., B 214:  “my theory very different from Lamarck’s”; cf. CDN p.  224 n.  1). The phrase “my theory,” often contrasting Darwin’s theory with someone else’s, occurs repeatedly throughout the Notebooks. By the time of the Historical Sketch, early 1860, Darwin began to chronicle writers who might be seen to have preceded him in discovering some part or parts of “my [Darwin’s] theory.” Perhaps the most important writer in this regard from Darwin’s standpoint was Alfred Russell Wallace. But even before Darwin noticed Wallace as a possible threat to his own priority he had read a work by another scientist, well known in his own day, Baden Powell. Not only did Powell publish his work relating to the possibility of species change (1855, Unity of Worlds) before Wallace, his work may have been among the first to cause Darwin even to think about addressing the question of priority in published form. Darwin arranged his sources in the Sketch chronologically. They appear in the Sketch in the order that corresponds to their first published contributions (in Darwin’s opinion) to the species question, at least usually. In what follows I  follow Darwin’s chronology, dealing with each author as they appear in the Sketch. This arrangement puts “the ancients” first, J.D. Hooker last. By the final edition of the Sketch Darwin included a total of 35 authors, arranged in their historical order (again, with exceptions noted in the text later). In this chapter I  break from this mode of presentation. I  begin with two authors who appear in the Sketch in a relatively late position, Baden Powell (1855) and A.R. Wallace (1858). In the Sketch, they occupy a position that places both of them later than 31 of the other 33 sources. My reason for arranging my exposition this way is that they, unlike other sources in the Sketch, have something important to say about why Darwin wrote the Sketch at all and what he intended to accomplish by writing it. They thus provide a fruitful way of looking at the Sketch that would be missing if I did not begin with them. In other words, they set the stage for the work that follows.

Baden Powell. 1796–​1860 Baden Powell, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University in mid-​19th century England, is especially important in this regard. Wallace may have come closer to arriving at Darwin’s theory independently of Darwin, but Powell seems to be the one whose letter to Darwin spurred Darwin to undertake a formal study

Powell and Wallace  3

Figure 1.1 Powell

of his predecessors, in the form of the Historical Sketch. Powell’s formal training was in mathematics, but later in his life he turned his attention to philosophical subjects in natural history, particularly regarding proper scientific method and emerging questions about what may generally be called “the species question.” Darwin, in assessing Powell’s contribution to his own studies, drew only on the latter body of Powell’s studies. Sometime in late 1859 or early 1860, Powell wrote Darwin a letter about Origin, which had just been published. It is a pity that this letter is lost; it would be helpful to know what he wrote. The best we can do is reconstruct the contents of the letter from what Darwin had to say when he responded to it, in two letters sent on the same day, January 18, 1860. Judging from Darwin’s response, we can surmise Powell had struck a nerve. He had suggested or stated that Darwin’s theory was not original; Darwin had been preceded by others. But, by whom, and in what respects? Darwin’s two letters in response on January 18, 1860 say much about the genesis, motivation, and purpose of the Sketch but they do not, by themselves, answer these questions. They tell us that Darwin had already composed at least a beginning of the Sketch as early as 1856,

4  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” that Darwin was concerned about his priority even earlier than this, and that he wished to defuse Powell’s apparent assertion that Darwin had been forestalled. They are indispensable documents for unravelling a host of questions about the Sketch that could not otherwise be answered (for details see Johnson 2007). Darwin’s response is revealing. Powell obviously praised Darwin’s book, and Darwin expressed gratitude.2 But Darwin’s two letters leave us with an important question about Darwin’s priority that cannot be resolved by looking only at Darwin’s letters to Powell. A more complete picture starts to emerge when we examine the full record of Powell’s writings, Darwin’s marginal annotations to Powell’s works, and Darwin’s correspondence with Powell and with others about what he thought about Powell. The evidence will show that Darwin missed Powell’s main point in his lost letter: that Powell had indeed “anticipated” Darwin in a way that Darwin did not acknowledge, either in his written responses to Powell himself or in any version of the Historical Sketch, added to Origin in 1861 to show the contributions of those writers Darwin believed may have some claim to priority for discovering Darwin’s theory. Powell’s Unity of Worlds published in 18553 was a contribution to the philosophy of geology and life sciences. The central argument of the book was to give room for and defense of new arguments that cast doubt on traditional Christian accounts of the relatively short geological age of the earth and the fixity of species. It was an important contribution because it came from the pen of an Anglican divine (Powell was a bishop) who was highly respected in theological and scientific circles, and it seemed to lend support to what were at that time perceived by many as pernicious, dangerous, and false doctrines. Darwin read Powell’s book in early 1856, two and a half years before he received Wallace’s celebrated manuscript, which Darwin immediately realized had set out “the same” theory as the one he was working on. Powell did not arouse in Darwin the same degree of concern about having been “forestalled” as some others did, such as Wallace and Owen. But in his annotations to Powell’s book (CUL-​DAR 71:43–​9: [1856]) Darwin scored several passages that bear on transmutation and noted to himself, “I might well allude t[o]‌this in Preface, & certainly t[o] Baden’s Powells excellent Essay ‘on the Philosophy of Creation.’ ” The “Preface” that Darwin referred to here is the document that would eventually become, five years later, the Historical Sketch,4 intended by Darwin to give a “history of opinion” on the species question prior to his own work. Since the annotation indicates that a “Preface” was already underway, we can infer that Powell was not the one who set Darwin on the path of writing it. But this is the earliest indication from Darwin I have been able to find showing the need he saw for a Preface, making Powell an influential figure in shaping Darwin’s views about what a Preface should look like and who it should include. By the time he received Powell’s letter Darwin had already identified some 15 or so authors to

Powell and Wallace  5 include in the Sketch; by its last edition, published in 1872, the list had grown to 35 authors. Whatever Powell wrote to Darwin in late 1859 or early 1860, he had obviously praised Darwin’s book and Darwin was quick with a response: I am much pleased by your approbation of my book, as everyone must admit that you are a master in philosophical logic; I am the more pleased at this, as one eminent scientific man writes to me that I have violated the whole spirit of inductive philosophy [Darwin here is referring to Adam Sedgwick’s highly critical review of Origin in a private letter to Darwin].5

Powell must have gone even further in praise. He had already spoken (in 1855) favorably about Darwin’s fossil finds in South America, stating that they provided important evidence against immutability of species (Powell 1856, p.  360 [2nd edition,  1856]). But more important was Powell’s admiration for Darwin’s “philosophical method.” The expression referred to the willingness of naturalists to suspend belief in divine intervention, which cannot be proven “inductively.” Powell proposed in its place propositions or hypotheses which are in principle subject to empirical verification, even if the empirical “facts” required to sustain them are so far lacking. To vindicate the “philosophical method” against believers in “miraculous intervention” was Powell’s overriding ambition in his own philosophical works. Darwin was a fellow traveler, and no doubt Powell wanted to make this clear to Darwin in his letter of late 1859 or early 1860. Darwin was equally admiring of Powell. Darwin read Powell’s 1855 book in 1856, shortly after it appeared. In his annotations to it, Darwin noted to himself: I ought to allude t[o]‌the general philosophical manner in which whole subject [of species change] discussed. [p] 415 et seq. excellent remarks on th[e] want of experience not being applicable argument in th[e] case of th[e] modification of species, under the circumstances under which th[e]y must have been exposed.—​Allude t[o] th[e] admirable & philosophical spirit with which this is discussed. (DAR 71:45: annotation 02)

Darwin’s reminder to “allude to” Powell must be a reference to his planned “Preface” to Origin. Darwin especially appreciated Powell’s “negative proofs” (“want of experience” in Darwin’s words), his several demonstrations that, in the case of transmutation, the mere absence of positive evidence in support does not invalidate it. Transmutation by its nature would not be expected to leave an “inductive trail of evidence,” at least in some cases. For example, no one should expect to “see” species transformation before their very eyes—​the process is postulated to be too

6  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” slow for that. Nor should one expect always to find “missing links” in the fossil record—​transitory forms are, well, transitory, and so may not have left remains. After a number of such proofs Powell concludes succinctly: “The argument from want of evidence falls to the ground” (Unity of World, p. 420). Careful argumentation of this kind against theological dogmatism is just what Darwin meant by a “philosophical spirit.” Powell had provided Darwin with arguments—​and good ones too—​of just this kind. When Darwin turned to the Historical Sketch, however, he was somewhat less expansive in praise of Powell. He did not replicate or even refer to any of Powell’s “negative proofs,” even though those were Powell’s main substantive contributions to the species question in his 1855 volume. Instead Darwin in the Sketch only referred to the “masterly manner” in which Powell discussed these issues without commenting at all on their substance or what the “masterly manner” was: The “Philosophy of Creation” has been treated in a masterly manner by the Rev. Baden Powell, in his “Essays on the Unity of Worlds” 1855 [page number not given]. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that the introduction of new species is a “regular, not a casual phenomenon,” or, as Sir John Herschel expresses it, “a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process.” (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 69, lines 66–​7, closely paraphrasing Darwin’s annotations of Powell 1855 p. 359: CUL-​DAR 71.44)6

In truth, Powell’s 1855 book may have deserved lengthier treatment in the Sketch. Powell’s book was more important in making the case for transmutation than Darwin’s brief entry indicated. In the context of disputes of the time, Powell’s negative proofs could only be seen as positive endorsements of transmutationism. As he developed his negative case, Powell needed to bring forward positive evidence that could withstand arguments against species transmutation. Thus, in Powell 1855 we find reference to the theories of Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, indicating how they differed from the static species conceptions of F. Cuvier. True, Powell did not spell out a transmutationist theory of his own in 1855 or unequivocally defend previous transmutationist arguments. But when a well-​credentialed Oxford divine decided to enter a controversial dispute on the side of “science” against theological “prejudice,” Darwin could have chosen to mine his lengthy book for more support than he did. Indeed, Powell, though a geometrician by professional training who had earlier published works on mathematics and optics, made his mark on philosophic naturalism by opening up skepticism about theories that substituted direct divine intervention and the “miracle” of creation for “regular law.” He was much better known in his time for these philosophical works. The quote from Sir John

Powell and Wallace  7 Herschel that Darwin included in the Powell entry in the Sketch actually was taken from Powell’s work, which Powell in turn drew from Charles Babbage’s ninth “Bridgewater Treatise.” In his marginal notes to Powell’s 1855 book, cited earlier, Darwin seems to be acknowledging privately to himself that Powell’s book may have deserved more extended treatment in the Sketch than he was giving it. Thus, when Darwin received Powell’s now lost letter of 1859 or 1860, he may have felt some embarrassment that he had not said more about Powell. It seems clear that Powell had offered more than just praise to Darwin. Alongside supportive comments for Darwin’s book, Powell also suggested that Darwin should acknowledge his predecessors. Powell may have included himself in this group. In other words, Powell was suggesting the need for a historical preface to Origin in which forerunners were acknowledged. At least that seems to be the main message Darwin took from Powell’s letter. After politely thanking Powell for his praise of Origin, Darwin wrote in the very next sentences: My health was so poor, whilst I wrote the book, that I was unwilling to add in the least to my labour; therefor I attempted no history of the subject; nor do I think that I was bound to do so. [If I had taken on such a task] I should have felt myself bound to have given some account of all [those authors who have maintained, with more or less ability, that species are not separately created]; namely, passing over the ancients, Buffon(?), Lamarck [and many others]. (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2654)7

The only way to interpret this statement is that Darwin was responding to a direct challenge from Powell that he should acknowledge those who had preceded him. Darwin at first wanted to fend off this challenge by simply telling Powell privately that he had not borrowed any of the original parts of his theory: No educated person, not even the most ignorant, could suppose that I meant to arrogate to myself the origination of the doctrine that species had not been independently created. The only novelty in my work is the attempt to explain how species become modified, & to a certain extent how the theory of descent explains certain large classes of facts; & in these respects I received no assistance from my predecessors. (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2654)

These words sound very much as though directed to someone who had suggested some unacknowledged borrowing. Darwin then added: To the best of my belief I have acknowledged with pleasure all the chief facts & generalisations which I have borrowed. If I have taken anything from you,

8  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” I assure you it has been unconsciously; but I will reread your Essay. (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2654)

“Unconscious borrowing,” Darwin is saying, should be forgiven, if it occurred. But he is also implying that Powell had brought forward his own work (or works) for acknowledgment by Darwin. Powell evidently was referring to his Unity of Worlds, because that is the work Darwin says he will “reread.” But even as he was dashing off this note to Powell Darwin must have glanced at his earlier (1856) marginal comments to Powell’s 1855 work, for he noted in the same breath: Permit me to add that I read your Philosophy of Creation with great interest: it struck me as excellently & vigorously argued & written with a clearness, which I remember excited my warmest admiration. I most fully agree that your work must have had a great effect with philosophical minds in removing prejudices on the subject; in a higher degree but in nearly the same manner as the Vestiges has had with a less highly endowed class of readers. I have had to make by letter the same acknowledgement to the Author (as I believe) of the Vestiges. (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2654.)8

Darwin’s words to Powell about the “philosophic” spirit of his book and its important service in “removing prejudices” is reminiscent of his earlier annotations.9 Powell had done good service in preparing educated minds for the reception of Darwin’s views. But, from Powell’s standpoint, Darwin’s comment may have seemed inadequate in terms of Powell’s main purpose in writing, to suggest that Darwin may have been anticipated. Between the lines we see that Darwin was having difficulty letting go of this issue with Powell. He said he would “reread” Powell’s book. Whether Darwin kept his promise is open to speculation. He did request a copy of Powell’s second (and enlarged) edition of Unity of Worlds (1856) from the Linnean Society librarian Richard Kippist on February 1, 1860. This was shortly after he received Powell’s letter. Perhaps Powell had advised Darwin to look specifically at it. But whether Darwin read it is not evident from any notes or marginal comments. In any case, he did not alter the Sketch even if he did read it, which is surprising in view of new material in it, as we shall see. After Darwin sent the first letter quoted from earlier, he immediately wrote and sent a second letter on the same day, 18 January, 1860. In it he began to recall other details that had escaped his mind when he wrote the first letter. For example, Darwin recalled more specifically why he had not included a “Preface” to the first English edition of Origin in 1859: The more I think of the whole subject the more difficult I feel it would be to give a fair account of the several authors who have maintained on various grounds

Powell and Wallace  9 the modification of species.—​I beg pardon for troubling you with this second note. (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2655)

Darwin then made a stunning announcement: he had already begun, much earlier than his 1860 letter to Powell, to compose a “Preface” to Origin almost as soon as he had read Powell’s 1855 work in in January 1856, and he had entirely forgotten he had written it: I have just bethought me of a Preface which I wrote to my larger work, before I broke down & was persuaded to write the now published Abstract [i.e., Origin]. In this Preface I find following passage, which on my honour I had as completely forgotten as if I had never written it. “The ‘Philosophy of Creation’ has lately been treated in an admirable manner by the Revd. Baden Powell in his Essay &c &c 1855. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that the introduction of new species is ‘a regular not a casual phenomenon,’ or as Sir John Herschel expresses it ‘a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process.’ ” (CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2655)

This is the first explicit mention anywhere in Darwin’s writings, private or public, that the idea for a historical sketch had taken shape in his mind at least as early as 1856, and that he had in fact begun composing notes for it at that early date. Why Darwin forgot these details, especially the last, when he first wrote to Powell cannot be known. The best we can offer is to say he had a lot to think about at that time, and everyone knows how details, even important ones, can sometimes escape one’s mind. It is fortunate for Darwin scholarship that he did, within hours of his first letter to Powell, recall significant details of a Sketch and relayed them in writing in a second letter. All of this is important for understanding the genesis of the Sketch in Darwin’s thought, but not especially significant for assessing Darwin’s indebtedness to Powell for the development of his own ideas. When we examine what Darwin actually acknowledged from Powell 1855, it was really not much. Powell was certainly no forerunner of Darwin in terms of the details of his theory in the first edition of his work, the one Darwin drew from. Powell had, it is true, provided arguments against miraculous creation. But he had little to say about the causes of variation, except that they are “due to the [long] lapse of time” (DAR 71:4510), or about natural selection. And by his own admission Powell was not offering new ideas, only recapitulating some existing ones. It becomes a question, then, why Darwin would have acknowledged Powell at all in the Historical Sketch. Among those who may have “anticipated” him, Powell was a lesser figure than many others on details that mattered most to Darwin. Darwin no doubt wanted to tip his hat to a predecessor who had praised

10  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” his work, as Powell did. But Darwin would not have been aware of Powell’s favorable opinions of Origin prior to its first appearance in 1859, yet he had already targeted Powell 1855 for inclusion in the Preface by 1856. Why, then, include him in the Sketch? And why would Powell have expected an acknowledgment? I believe we may be looking in the wrong place, not for why Darwin included Powell in the Sketch, but why Powell asked to be acknowledged. Powell’s 1855 book was not his last word on the species question. He would publish three more works addressing this issue before he died of a heart attack in mid-​1860. One of these works appeared in published form before Powell sent his letter to Darwin, two just after. We should thus look especially at the former. This was the second, somewhat enlarged edition of his 1855 work Unity of Worlds.11 This enlarged edition of Powell 1855 was published in 1856. If Darwin read it—​he did order a copy of it in February 1860, perhaps at Powell’s urging—​he may have found more to say about Powell’s views in the Sketch than he could have drawn from the first edition. Powell added some new key details about species change to this second edition. Most of the material in the new edition merely repeated or slightly expanded on points he had already made: 1) transmutation of some kind is more likely than separate centers of creation and permanence of species; 2) transmutation seems to be the result of changing external conditions plus long lapses of time; and 3) such changes seem most likely to occur in early development of rudimentary organisms12 (pp. 408–​425). Powell also did not expand his list of relevant authorities (pp. 425–​30) or change what he had to say about them. Lamarck and Vestiges remain in unaltered form, as do Geoffroy (favoring transmutation), Pictet (opposed to transmutation), Richard Owen (cautious, affirming “laws” but silent about “causes”), and Carpenter (does not affirm mutability, but leaves the door open).13 But as we read further into Powell’s second edition of Unity of Worlds we find a passage that really should have attracted Darwin’s attention when he started composing the Sketch. In an extended comment on the current state of play in transmutationist ideas as Powell understood it, he wrote: The transmutationists suppose changes in external physical conditions, affecting the characters of species: these may be such as would tend to the extinction of a particular species; but some varieties of that species might possess peculiarities better suited to those changed conditions, and thus would be able to survive. These would be few; but they would propagate descendants in whom those characteristics would be more strongly marked, sustained, and favored, by the new conditions. Thus for a period longer or shorter, as the external changes advanced, the old form would die out, and these rare varieties would maintain a struggling existence, until, at length, the state of things becoming

Powell and Wallace  11 more settled, and the type determined in accordance with them, a new fixed species would begin to increase and multiply; and it would be of such common and widespread species alone that we could ever expect to find fossil remains.” (Powell 1856, 2nd edition, pp. 440–​441, emphasis supplied; the entry would have appeared on p. 421 of the 1st edition)

Of all the entries and citations in the Historical Sketch in any of its iterations this statement perhaps comes closer to giving Darwin’s theory in a nutshell than any other. It makes two points that were of critical importance to Darwin: that variations “might be” produced by natural causes that were favorable to survival; and that such favorable variations would be “propagated” and “sustained” over time. If we substitute “chance variation” for “variations that might be produced,” and “heredity” for “propagation,” we have here a nice encapsulation of foundational elements of Darwin’s theory. The only thing missing is “natural selection,” but that concept follows almost inevitably from the foundations and is strongly hinted at by Powell’s invocation of a “struggling existence” for the eventual winners in ultimate survival. Recall that Powell added this passage to his second edition of Unity of Worlds, 1856. Darwin made no reference to it in any edition of the Sketch, even though he had requested (and presumably received) a copy in 1860, before he put the Sketch into published form. Even if he did not read it in 1860, he could have made reference to it in later versions of the Sketch; he was not averse to adjusting entries to certain authors after the first edition. Why did Darwin not do this? One answer is that he never did get around to reading Powell’s second edition of Unity of Worlds, and so did not realize Powell was certainly worth mentioning as a predecessor—​in more important ways than Darwin realized in 1856. Because Powell died suddenly, shortly after his letter to Darwin, he would not have been able to continue to prod Darwin to grasp his anticipation. Or, possibly, Darwin did read Powell 1856 in 1860 but did not notice the important changes. Or, maybe Darwin just did not see the anticipation. Whatever the correct account, however, Powell’s new material added to Unity of Worlds in 1856 does help to explain why Powell suggested to Darwin that he had been preceded. Powell was referring not only to other writers about transmutation but to his own 1856 edition of Unity. Powell had a good point: the passage just quoted gives a fair approximation of what Darwin was arguing in Origin. It is impossible to believe Darwin willingly ignored Powell’s contribution. It is much more likely that he just did not notice it. But Darwin’s failure to give Powell the full extent of credit he deserved does explain why Powell in 1860 in a now-​lost letter to Darwin was justified in complaining that Darwin had not adequately addressed the contributions of at least one of his predecessors—​ Powell himself.

12  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

A.R. Wallace. 1823–​1913 A.R. Wallace is best remembered today as one who did not just anticipate Darwin but had, by Darwin’s own admission, come up with a theory almost identical to his own independently of Darwin. Wallace was someone who needed to be taken seriously in the Sketch if the question was one about priority. Why Darwin saw essential similarity in Wallace’s theory to his own is, as we shall see, something of a mystery. The two theories shared key insights, to be sure, but “essential identity” is an overstatement, and in hindsight it is hard to understand why Darwin would have made it. Wallace spent the earlier part of his professional career as a naturalist working on field studies in the Malay archipelago. Darwin had become aware of Wallace’s work in 1855 or 1856, and by 1858 had come to see the full force of resemblance between his own theory and that of Wallace. Others acquainted with the views of both men came to see the similarities as well. Darwin would certainly need to include Wallace in the Historical Sketch, and this he did in its first published version.

Figure 1.2 Wallace

Powell and Wallace  13 The entry to Wallace in the Sketch, however, considering Wallace’s stature by 1860 as “co-​founder” of the theory, was brevity itself: The third volume of the “Journal of the Linnean Society July 1st 1858” contains papers “by Mr. Wallace and myself ” in which “the theory of Natural Selection is promulgated by Mr. Wallace with admirable force and clearness.” (Variorum, p. 69, line 68)14

This bare-​bones entry conceals the depth and extent of Darwin’s private concerns, running over four years, about how publicly to address Wallace’s potential priority. In 1856 and again in 1858, when worries started to surface among Darwin’s inner circle, especially Charles Lyell, that someone else, particularly Wallace, might beat Darwin to the punch in publishing a new theory on the origin of species, Darwin expressed concern that he did not wish to have his “doctrines” published by “someone else first.” To Lyell on May 3, 1856, he wrote, “I rather hate the idea of writing for priority, yet I certainly should be vexed if any one were to publish my doctrines before me” (CCD, 3 May 1856, to Lyell. Letter 1866). Darwin wrote letters to Hooker as well about this private worry (CCD, 9 May [1856], letter 1870; and 11 May [1856], to J.D. Hooker. Letter 1874). Darwin’s anxieties reached an even higher pitch when Wallace’s now-​famous manuscript appeared in mid-​1858. The circumstances of Darwin’s receipt of this manuscript, and his reaction to it, are well revealed in a letter he wrote to Lyell on June 18, 1858: Some year or so ago, you recommended me to read a paper by Wallace in the Annals, which had interested you & as I was writing to him, I knew this would please him much, so I told him. He has today sent me the enclosed & asked me to forward it to you. It seems to me well worth reading. Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd be forestalled. You said this when I explained to you here [i.e., at Down House, 1857] very briefly my views of “Natural Selection” depending on the Struggle for existence.—​I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters (18 [June 1858], to Lyell. Letter 2285).

Although Darwin felt inner conflict about caring at all for priority, there is little doubt that he in fact did care a great deal. As he confessed in a letter to Hooker on July 13, 1858: I always thought it very possible that I might be forestalled, but I fancied that I had grand enough soul not to care; but I found myself mistaken & punished;

14  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” I had, however, quite resigned myself & had written half a letter to Wallace to give up all priority to him & shd certainly not have changed had it not been for Lyell’s & yours quite extraordinary kindness [to encourage me to publish]. I assure you I feel it, & shall not forget it. (CCD, 13 [ July 1858], to Hooker. Letter 2306)

Why Darwin felt “punished” is something of a mystery. No one else outside of his small inner circle even knew about his theory in 1858, and none of that select group “punished” him in any ordinary sense of that word. He must have been punishing himself, but that he says he did is only a window into his private thoughts, not a complete view of what was inside. Wallace’s 1858 manuscript was not, as noted, Darwin’s first encounter with Wallace or his ideas. Wallace had published a paper in the Annals in 185515 that Darwin had read at that time. As the editors of CCD note: “Wallace had been studying the geographical distribution of animals and plants for many years. In his paper, he concluded that every species had come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-​existing closely allied species. CD scored Blyth’s reference to the paper in the margin of the letter, but there is no indication when he first read it.”16 Darwin had exchanged correspondence with Wallace in 1857 (CCD, 1 May and 22 December 1857, to Wallace. Letters 2086 and 2192) about Wallace’s 1855 paper. In these letters Darwin praised not only Wallace’s conclusions, but even more his “theoretical” approach to natural history. He also claimed extensive agreement with Wallace, but believed at the same time that his own ideas “went much further” than those of Wallace. At this point, Darwin saw no cause for alarm about Wallace’s priority. In mid-​1857 Darwin showed nothing but admiration for Wallace’s Annals article: I am much obliged for your letter of Oct. 10th [1856] from Celebes received a few days ago. In a laborious undertaking sympathy is a valuable & real encouragement. By your letter & even still more by your paper in Annals, a year or more ago, I can plainly see that we have thought much alike & to a certain extent have come to similar conclusions. In regard to the Paper in Annals, I agree to the truth of almost every word of your paper; & I daresay that you will agree with me that it is very rare to find oneself agreeing pretty closely with any theoretical paper; for it is lamentable how each man draws his own different conclusions from the very same fact. (CCD, 1 May 1857, to Wallace. Letter 2086)

In early 1857 Darwin saw enough in Wallace’s 1855 paper to make him think Wallace was treading closely on what, by then, he regarded as his own territory, but not enough to cause him alarm about priority.

Powell and Wallace  15 But, at the same time, Darwin, in his own private marginal notes on Wallace 1855 (the date when he read it is unknown), claimed “nothing very new” regarding Wallace’s comments on Geographical Distribution. More troublesome for Darwin was his perception that for Wallace “it seems all creation.” The word “creation” was always a red flag for Darwin, because it connoted special design and direct intervention by a Creator, and Wallace had employed the word “creator” at least a half-​dozen times in the Annals paper to describe the origin of species. He even went so far, at one point, to refer to “the great laws of creation” (p. 195). Darwin rejected the idea of “separate” or “divine” creation almost from the beginning of his theoretical work.17 Darwin, however, was not sure that Wallace meant “creation” to refer to separate or divine creation. On this point, he noted to himself in his marginal notes: “(I shd state that put generation for creation & I quite agree)” (cf. also CCD, 8 December 1855, from Edward Blyth, n. 1. Letter 1792). And when we look at Wallace’s original paper, it appears that while he did often refer to “created” species, he could just as well be taken to mean “descended” or “generated” species. His observations about geographical distribution, the disappearance of species through extinction, the gradual processes involved in the formation (through whatever cause) of new species (the idea of natural selection is not mentioned), and perhaps above all his “branching tree” metaphor to describe both generation and divergence, all sound very “Darwinian,” as Darwin must have understood. It is almost as if Darwin did not want to admit that Wallace already—​in 1855—​ occupied much of the ground Darwin would arrogate to himself (or already had arrogated) in his own theory. With regard to his concerns about priority, perhaps Darwin consoled himself that Wallace had not touched on the mechanism of natural selection to explain the origin of species, at least not by name. Nevertheless, if Darwin was not too concerned about his priority in 1855, his source for learning about Wallace’s ideas, Charles Lyell, was concerned. He was sufficiently struck by potential similarities between Darwin and Wallace to urge at that time (May 1856), that Darwin should try as soon as possible to publish a brief account of his own views. Darwin heeded that advice, to an extent. He despaired of being able to do justice to his complete theory in a short sketch, and so gave up that idea in favor of a much longer work (see CCD, 1–​2 May 1856, letter from Charles Lyell, letter 1862; and 3 May [1856], to Charles Lyell. Letter 1866). He immediately began to assemble his vast notes on the species question for publication in his own “big species book.” This is not the book that became Origin, but it was, in hindsight, the foundation upon which Origin was built. Its undertaking must be seen as a direct response to the concern about priority with Wallace. But, always sensitive about “propriety” in publishing original scientific work, not only in the sense of “proper” behavior towards rivals but also in the

16  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” sense of the obligation to acknowledge others who may be said to have property rights in discovering a theory first, Darwin at first was inclined not to publish at all, in light of Wallace’s independent discovery of his own theory. Darwin did not have unalloyed enthusiasm for winning the race to publish first if it meant he would win only by appearing greedy and acting dishonorably. As he wrote to Lyell on June 25, 1858, after he had read Wallace’s 1858 manuscript: I should be extremely glad now to publish a sketch of my general views in about a dozen pages or so. But I cannot persuade myself that I can do so honourably . . . I would far rather burn my whole book than that he [Wallace] or any man should think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit [by being concerned about priority]. (CCD, [25 June 1858], to Lyell. Letter 2294)

But, at the same time, Darwin did believe his own views were both “original” and “prior.” As he told Lyell in the same letter, “there is nothing in Wallace’s sketch which is not written out much fuller in my sketch copied in 1844, & read by Hooker some dozen years ago.” This claim addresses both points: that Darwin had arrived at his theory independently of Wallace, that is, he was not influenced by anything Wallace had published or written, and that he had produced a written (if not published) account before Wallace—​that is, in 1844. It was important for him to make both points clear to Lyell and Hooker before he would feel comfortable going forward with publishing. Again, to Lyell: If I could honourably publish I would state that I was induced now to publish a sketch (& I shd be very glad to be permitted to say to follow your advice long ago given) from Wallace having sent me an outline of my general conclusions.—​ We differ only, that I was led to my views from what artificial selection has done for domestic animals. I could send Wallace a copy of my letter to Asa Gray to show him that I had not stolen his doctrine. But I cannot tell whether to publish now would not be base & paltry: this was my first impression, & I shd have certainly acted on it, had it not been for your letter. (CCD, [25 June 1858], to Lyell. Letter 2294)

On July 5, 1858, Darwin, again (to Hooker), expressed “shame” that Hooker and Lyell, in insisting that Darwin publish his views immediately (i.e., mid-​1858) “should have lost time on a mere point of priority.” Nevertheless, Darwin was finally persuaded, again by his close friends, to set aside his worries and publish his own views as original and prior. After all, by this time, Hooker knew

Powell and Wallace  17 about and had read Darwin’s 1844 “Essay” outlining his theory (Hooker read Darwin’s “Essay” of 1844 early in 1847; CCD, [25 June  1858], letter to Lyell. Letter 2294). Both Hooker and Lyell had also read Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray (CCD, 5 September [1857], to Gray, and enclosure). Letter 2136) which gave a fair outline of his views to a third party. Thus, it came about, as perhaps a compromise to assuage Darwin’s anxieties about priority, that Darwin’s abstract of his theory, as written out to Asa Gray, supplemented with passages from Darwin’s 1844 “Essay,” was read alongside Wallace’s 1858 manuscript at the July 1 1858 meeting of the Linnean Society.18 Darwin was thus assured at least one half of the title to being “the first.” Darwin was relieved. At first, he had been worried that his paper would be only an “appendix” to Wallace’s paper, which it was not (see CCD, 13 July [1858], to Hooker. Letter 2306). He wrote to Lyell just weeks after the Linnean papers came out: I have never half thanked you for all the extraordinary trouble & kindness you showed me about Wallace’s affair. Hooker told me what was done at Linn. Socy & I am far more than satisfied; & I do not think that Wallace can think my conduct unfair, in allowing you & Hooker to do whatever you thought fair. I certainly was a little annoyed to lose all priority, but had resigned myself to my fate. (CCD, 18 July 1858, to Lyell. Letter 2309)

Darwin extended the same gracious attitude to Wallace himself, in later correspondence, by often acknowledging Wallace’s rightful claims to a piece of the reward of being original and also by including Wallace in the text of Origin itself. He places Wallace ahead of all other naturalists at the beginning of his “Introduction” to Origin, drawing attention to the Linnean paper and including a reference to Wallace’s 1855 Annals article in his chapter on geographical distribution. He also, in the third edition (1861), feeling he had not done sufficient justice to Wallace’s contributions in the first edition, included him alongside himself in the final chapter of Origin that recapitulated the theory (CCD, 10 January 1860, to Lyell, and n. 4. Letter 2647). It seems the Darwin/​Wallace affair, if it should be called that, was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, and amazingly, with no hard feelings or intrusions of guilt or envy in any party. It is worth noting that Wallace never did challenge Darwin on the points of priority and originality for discovering natural selection. He was, if anything, gracious to a fault in deferring to Darwin on both points. Yet neither did he yield his own rightful claim to independence. In fact, Wallace had become a convinced transmutationist as early as 1845, when he first read the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Robert Chambers, 1844). Apparently, Wallace

18  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” never conveyed this information to Darwin, but he did inform others, particularly fellow naturalist Henry Walter Bates.19 But his views were not widely shared at this early date. His public assessment of the entire question would come out only years later. Its proper resolution is well captured in a letter he wrote to J.D. Hooker on October 6, 1858, quoted here in extenso: I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of July last, sent me by Mr. Darwin, & informing me of the steps you had taken with reference to a paper I had communicated to that gentleman. Allow me in the first place sincerely to thank yourself & Sir Charles Lyell for your kind offices on this occasion, & to assure you of the gratification afforded me both by the course you have pursued, & the favourable opinions of my essay which you have so kindly expressed. I cannot but consider myself a favoured party in this matter, because it has hitherto been too much the practice in cases of this sort to impute all the merit to the first discoverer of a new fact or a new theory, & little or none to any other party who may, quite independently, have arrived at the same result a few years or a few hours later. I also look upon it as a most fortunate circumstance that I had a short time ago commenced a correspondence with Mr. Darwin on the subject of “Varieties,” since it has led to the earlier publication of a portion of his researches & has secured to him a claim to priority which an independent publication either by myself or some other party might have injuriously affected;—​for it is evident that the time has now arrived when these & similar views will be promulgated & must be fairly discussed. It would have caused me much pain & regret had Mr. Darwin’s excess of generosity led him to make public my paper unaccompanied by his own much earlier & I doubt not much more complete views on the same subject, & I must again thank you for the course you have adopted, which while strictly just to both parties, is so favourable to myself. (CCD, 6 October 1858, from Wallace to Hooker. Letter 2337)

Wallace continued to display the same deferential, and admiring, attitude toward Darwin’s achievement in later years. His correspondence with Darwin and others after 1860 show that he went further than perhaps was necessary to give Darwin the lion’s share of credit for discovering and articulating the theory, and Darwin was well aware of this deference. He wrote to Lyell on May 8, 1860, in reference to a letter he had recently received from Wallace (letter not found) that he is “very just in his remarks, though too laudatory & too modest, & how admirably free from envy or jealousy.—​He must be a good fellow” (CDD, 8 May 1860, to Lyell. Letter 2788). To Wallace himself Darwin wrote in response to a letter he

Powell and Wallace  19 just received that Wallace had given “too high approbation of my book” (CCD, 18 May 1860, to Wallace. Letter 2807). What Wallace said to Darwin directly to prompt this reaction cannot be known—​the letter has been lost—​but it perhaps contained some such sentiment as that which Wallace expressed to other correspondents at about this time. These letters, ones that Wallace would not have expected Darwin ever to see, show that Wallace was not praising Darwin only to earn Darwin’s favor. They express, instead, Wallace’s sincere admiration for Darwin’s work—​and his modesty about claiming credit for priority.20 Judging from these letters, Wallace was genuine in thinking Darwin deserved most if not all of the credit for bringing natural selection into mainstream of scientific thinking. To George Silk, in late 1860, Wallace wrote: I have read it [Darwin’s Origin] through five or six times, each time with increasing admiration. It will live as long as the “Principia” of Newton. It shows that nature is . . . a study that yields to none in grandeur and immensity . . . Mr Darwin has given the world a new science, and his name should, in my opinion, stand above that of every philosopher of ancient or modern times. The force of admiration can no further go!!! (CCD, 18 May 1860, from Wallace to Darwin n. 1 [footnote 1 quotes from a letter from Wallace to Silk, 1 September 1860]. Letter 2807)

Such effusive praise from Darwin’s main rival is grand testimony to Wallace’s “noble spirit,” as Darwin later called it (CCD, 22 November [1860], to H.W. Bates, and from A.R. Wallace, [December?] 1860, to Bates. Letters 2627 and 2993). But to make the case that the letter to Silk was not made in a moment of sudden exuberance, we find a similar sentiment expressed by Wallace himself to his old friend H.W. Bates, also in late 1860. Wallace wrote to Bates on December 24 1860 (Wallace, 1905, i:374): I know not how, or to whom, to express fully my admiration of Darwin’s book. To him it would seem flattery, to others self-​praise; but I do honestly believe that with however much patience I had worked and experimented on the subject, I could never have approached the completeness of his book, its vast accumulation of evidence, its overwhelming argument, and its admirable tone and spirit. I really feel thankful that it has not been left to me to give the theory to the world. Mr. Darwin has created a new science and a new philosophy; and I believe that never has such a complete illustration of a new branch of human knowledge been due to the labours and researches of a single man. Never have such vast masses of widely scattered and hitherto quite unconnected facts been

20  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” combined into a system and brought to bear upon the establishment of such a grand and new and simple philosophy. (CCD, 18 May 1860, n. 1, to Wallace, letter 2807 [footnote 1 quotes from letter from Wallace to Bates, 24 December 1860. Letter 2627])

The last exchange between Darwin and Wallace on the subject of priority came four years later, in a letter from Wallace to Darwin. The issue must have still been simmering in the minds of some people, although not, as is evident from this letter, in Wallace’s mind. In May 1864, he wrote again to Darwin on the subject of priority: As to the theory of “Natural Selection” itself, I shall always maintain it to be actually yours & your’s [sic] only. You had worked it out in details I had never thought of, years before I had a ray of light on the subject, & my paper would never have convinced anybody or been noticed as more than an ingenious speculation, whereas your book has revolutionized the study of Natural History, & carried away captive the best men of the present Age. All the merit I claim is the having been the means of inducing you to write & publish at once. (CCD, 29 May 1864, from Wallace. Letter 4514)

That Wallace would have included the former two letters—​to Silk and to Bates—​ in his Life, published in 1905, shows that he stuck with his conviction of Darwin’s priority to the end of his life, even after he had seen Darwin’s fame soar in the decades since Origin appeared. He appears indeed from all available evidence to have been the gentleman and noble spirit that Darwin had discerned from the first. It remains to ask whether Wallace’s theory of “evolution by natural selection” was precisely Darwin’s theory. The two men have been paired as “essentially alike” almost since the Linnean 1858 paper was read. But, in truth, quite a bit of difference separates the two, and this may be the reason Darwin did not allow Wallace more attention in the Sketch than the bare single sentence (quoted earlier) he gave him. One thing Wallace’s theory does not do, and that Darwin’s does do, is to provide a framework that would permit naturalists to explain “large classes of facts.” Darwin always regarded this aspect of his theory of one its main virtues. One may gauge the significance of this aspect by looking at Darwin’s chapter titles in Origin. In addition to chapters on “Variation” (under domestication, under nature, and laws of variation), Darwin also included chapters on “Instinct,” “Hybridism,” the “Geological Record and its Imperfections and Succession of Organic Beings,” “Geographical Distribution,” and “Morphology, Embryology, and Rudimentary Organs.” The puzzles that had been debated in each of these

Powell and Wallace  21 separate areas of inquiry could be solved, Darwin believed, by his theory. Perhaps Wallace’s theory could have been extended in similar fashion, but Wallace did not attempt the argumentation or accumulation of empirical evidence that would have bolstered his case to the extent that Darwin did. In addition, Wallace’s 1858 essay in the Linnean on “The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type” leans heavily on the Malthusian idea of “struggle in nature” for survival. Varieties that are better equipped to survive in their environments than their “original type” parents have an advantage to propagate and displace their ancestors, at least in “nature” (as opposed to “under domestication”). “Nature” is a rough place, and survival depends often on favorable modifications. What unites Darwin and Wallace in their theories is this primary fact. Both assert it as a “hypothesis” that is increasingly confirmed as empirical evidence for the occurrence of survival of the fittest continues to gather. Both Wallace and Darwin, as naturalists observing biological life in the “natural” state (as contrasted with the “domesticated” state), were pioneers in accumulating the empirical evidence that provided support for the truth of the hypothesis of indefinite divergence from original types. Both also agreed that this phenomenon of divergence is a “law-​governed” process: gradual but regular transmutation rather than divine fiat had to be the correct explanation for the origin of new species. But we immediately begin to notice differences between the two theories. Darwin believed domesticated selection (what breeders do) showed the way to “natural” selection, whereas Wallace thought breeding under domestication was unlikely to lead, even over long lapses of time, to new species production because of the “artificiality” of domestication: varieties would, under these circumstances, tend to revert to original types. Darwin thought differently about this: domestication was a good laboratory for studying species formation in nature, and the only reason breeders of domestic animals and plants do not see species transformation is the want of sufficient time. In other words, Darwin and Wallace interpreted the evidence gathered from the study of domesticated plants and animals, especially those continuously subjected to the breeder’s art, in opposite ways. Wallace argued that controlled breeding of domesticated organisms would not yield new species-​types because the very artificiality of physical conditions would almost guarantee a return over time to original types. In particular, what is removed from the domesticated condition is the brutal “struggle for survival” found in nature. New species form only in “nature” because that is where the struggle is fiercest. Darwin, by contrast, found in controlled breeding experiments just the sort of evidence for variation that, if sustained over a sufficiently long time, would yield new species. “Nature” provides the needed time, and so domesticated selection supports natural selection.21 Darwin famously argued by analogy from the former to the latter, whereas

22  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Wallace dismissed the analogy as of no value for ascertaining what happens in nature: We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, that true balance of organization, by means of which alone an animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and continue its race. (Wallace 1858, p. 60)

To put it differently, Wallace believed the “coddling” that domestic plants and animals receive at the hands of breeders renders inoperative those slight variations that could serve their needs well in the struggle for survival if they had been left to go it alone in the state of nature. A second notable difference between Wallace and Darwin’s theories on origin of species concerns the role that external physical conditions play in bringing about new species. Both agree, against Geoffroy and Lamarck and Vestiges, that external conditions do not directly cause species to change, at least not often; colder climates, for example, do not cause animals to grow longer hair for protection.22 Certainly animals do not “will” new organs into existence to meet the changing contingencies of the environment, as Lamarck would have it.23 The sequence is the reverse: a variety of an animal that is born with longer hair has an advantage over its original type if the climate becomes colder; an animal born with a longer neck would have an advantage over shorter-​necked progenitors if the longer neck suited it to changing conditions. The question here between Darwin and Wallace is not about the directionality of causation but about the importance of external conditions, compared with other factors, in facilitating permanent divergence of varieties from parental forms. Wallace assigned them greater weight than Darwin. Wallace placed his emphasis on changing external conditions. When, and apparently only when, external conditions change would the better adapted varieties replace original types. If physical conditions remained constant, Wallace suggests, new varieties would not take root and new species would not come into being from them. Darwin had a different view. Even in a static, unchanging environment, new varieties could gain a foothold and out-​compete original or parental forms. The reason for this is that, in Darwin’s opinion, the “economy of nature” is never fully or maximally occupied by biological organisms. If a

Powell and Wallace  23 variety were to arise, better equipped for survival than its ancestors, even in an unchanging external environment, it should be expected to replace the earlier form over time. Darwin does not dismiss a role for changing external conditions in bringing about species change. The point is rather that he saw such change in external factors as neither necessary nor sufficient for evolution. Wallace would have agreed about the sufficiency condition, had he cast the issue in those terms. But he was distanced from Darwin on the necessity condition. For Wallace, a gradually changing environment was required for species transformation—​ hence his rejection of the analogy from domestication to “nature.” For Darwin, species transformation could, and presumably often did, occur even in environments that remained unchanged through time. This difference in perspective between Darwin and Wallace brings us to a third, significant area of difference between the two men: the causes of variation. Darwin wrestled with this question from his earliest reflections to his last. He devoted an entire chapter to the question in Origin, chapter V. In some respects, he walked in other predecessors’ footsteps, accepting both Geoffroyan accounts (the environment acts directly on organisms to produce varieties) and Lamarckian ones (a changing environment produces changes in animals’ habits and indirectly the new habits gradually give rise to new structures and functions). But in the main he found these explanations inadequate and instead reverted to one of his most significant discoveries—​new variations usually just “happen” to arise, in other words, they arise by what Darwin called “chance.” More importantly, Darwin saw this issue—​the causes of variation—​ to be at least as important as identifying the “mechanism” of natural selection, and, as noted, devoted a great deal of attention to it (for details see Johnson 2014, esp. ch. 3). Wallace essentially ducks the question of the causes of variation altogether. Instead of saying “new structures chance to arise or just happen to arise,” Wallace instead places the emphasis on the consequences of the appearance of these new variant structures and habits. His typical mode of expression is: “when a new, favorable trait arises in a population, the organisms possessing it will have a survival advantage over those organisms lacking it.” Expressions like this make no stab at assigning causes of variation. The closest Wallace comes to approaching that key question is to dismiss Lamarck’s account as being “unnecessary” to account for the diversity of organisms in nature. Wallace rarely endorsed Darwin’s ideas on the subject, and as late as 1868 was still criticizing Darwin’s opinions, saying only: “The only parts [of Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication] I have yet met with where I somewhat differ from your views, are in the chapter on the causes of variability,—​in which I think several of your arguments are unsound: but this is too long a subject to go into now” (CCD, 24 February 1868, from Wallace. Letter 5922). Wallace was no

24  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” doubt referring to Darwin’s reliance on “chance.” What does Wallace put in its place? Actually, nothing at all. This conclusion must be qualified. In his 1858 paper in the Linnean, Wallace did mention “accidental circumstances” as an influence on how emergent species were favored for selection. He also invoked a “doctrine of chances or averages” to explain why certain favorable variations might succeed against rivals. In truth, Wallace here had hit upon a “statistical” idea that always eluded Darwin, even going so far as to reason from small populations to “infinite” ones to the conclusion that the doctrine of chances would show the inevitability of favorable variations, if sufficiently numerous, taking over in areas inhabited by them. And, in a letter to Darwin in 1861 he referred to some speculations by Bates that pointed in the direction of chance variation. Wallace cited Bates’ position with implicit agreement. We can add other small details: Wallace did not ever use the expression “natural selection” or even “selection” in his 1858 paper (although, in fairness, this is only a terminological, not a conceptual difference); and Wallace was avowedly “progressionist,” citing Richard Owen in support, whereas Darwin from an early time deliberately avoided the visual apparatus and expressions that might suggest a gradual “upward” climb toward “man,” such as a “ladder” might suggest (see Archibald 2014, for an examination of visual imagery in explaining evolution). But, even putting those details aside as of minor significance, the other areas of difference between the two men cause one to wonder: why did Wallace uniquely provoke Darwin to profound concern that he had been “forestalled”? In truth, he really did not have all that much to be concerned about in what Wallace had written in 1858 as far as the essential components and argumentation for his theory are concerned. Perhaps the most curious part of the back-​and-​forth between Darwin and Wallace is about the iconic expression “natural selection.” As late as 1866 Wallace still held back from full-​throated endorsement of this phrase as an apt term for the mechanism of biological change. He urged Darwin to consider “survival of the fittest” as a better expression, due to misconceptions Darwin’s readers, even intelligent naturalists, had about the implication of “thought and direction” in nature’s selection. Wallace himself continued to believe “natural selection” is “indirect and incorrect” because nature does not “select,” even metaphorically, but rather “exterminates” the most unfavorable organisms (CCD, 2 July 1866, from Wallace. Letter 5140). He urged Darwin to substitute Herbert Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest” for Darwin’s “natural selection. Eventually Darwin yielded. In the final three editions of Origin “natural selection” was generally rendered as “survival of the fittest.”24 In this sense, Wallace had the last word about the proper term for the fundamental idea in Origin: natural selection.

Powell and Wallace  25

Notes 1. Gotthelf 1999; Johnson 2007. 2. The editors of CCD (18 January 1860, to Powell, n. 1. Letter 2654), draw attention to an important scrap of information giving an indication of Powell’s high regard for Origin: “[Powell’s lost letter to] CD has not been found, but its substance can be inferred from a favorable notice of Origin that Powell inserted in Powell 1860 at the proof stage. He considered Origin to be a ‘masterly volume’ (Powell 1860, p. 139). “Powell 1860” refers to Powell’s contribution to the widely read Essays and Reviews, in which his comment appears. 3. Full citation at Powell 1855. 4. Johnson 2007. 5. CCD, 18 January 1860, to Powell. Letter 2654. In his private comments to Darwin about Origin Sedgwick wrote: If I did not think you a good tempered & truth loving man I should not tell you that, (spite of the great knowledge; store of facts; capital views of the correlations of the various parts of organic nature; admirable hints about the diffusions, thro’ wide regions, of nearly related organic beings; &c &c) I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly; parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow; because I  think them utterly false & grievously mischievous—​You have deserted—​after a start in that tram-​road of all solid physical truth—​the true method of induction—​& started up a machinery as wild I think as Bishop Wilkin’s locomotive that was to sail with us to the Moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved. Why then express them in the language & arrangements of philosophical induction?.—​ As to your grand principle—​natural selection—​what is it but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts. Development is a better word because more close to the cause of the fact. For you do not deny causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the will of God: & I can prove that He acts for the good of His creatures. He also acts by laws which we can study & comprehend—​Acting by law, & under what is called final cause, comprehends, I think, your whole principle. You write of “natural selection” as if it were done consciously by the selecting agent. ’Tis but a consequence of the presupposed development, & the subsequent battle for life.—​This view of nature you have stated admirably; tho’ admitted by all naturalists & denied by no one of common sense. We all admit development as a fact of history; but how came it about? Here, in language, & still more in logic, we are point blank at issue—​There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. Tis the crown & glory of organic science that it does thro’ final cause, link material to moral; & yet does not allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, & our classification of such laws whether we consider one side of nature or the other—​You have ignored this link; &, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not) to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—​& sink the human race into a lower

26  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history (CCD, 24 November 1859, from Sedgwick. Letter 2548). 6. These are the same words that Darwin quoted to Powell in his January 18, 1860 response to Powell’s letter sent to Darwin only weeks earlier. The evidence is thus convincing that Darwin had already decided, by 1856, to include a “Preface” to Origin, to include Powell in it, and even what he would say about Powell. 7. The list of authorities mentioned by Darwin here bears an uncanny resemblance to the authors he assembled for the first version of the Sketch (first US edition, 1860), showing again that Darwin, despite claiming here that he did not see an obligation to produce a sketch, had already made some headway in writing one (Johnson, 2007). 8. Vestiges was published anonymously in 1844, but Darwin had guessed correctly in 1847 that its author was the Scottish publisher Robert Chambers (CCD, [18 April 1847], to Hooker, and n. 17. Letter 1082). Darwin’s letter to Chambers has not been found. 9. In his second letter to Powell, Darwin wanted to clarify one possible source of misunderstanding in the first letter—​namely, that he put Powell’s work on the same intellectual level as Vestiges:  “Thinking over my letter addressed to Athenæum Club to you this morning, as far as I can remember it, it has just occurred to me that you might misunderstand one passage; & though I do not suppose that you would care much for my opinion, I shd be very sorry that anyone should suppose that I ranked your Essay & the Vestiges in the same class. I coupled them merely in relation to both having produced a good effect on the public mind;—​the Vestiges probably on a greater number but on a very inferior class” (CCD, 18 January 1860, second letter to Powell. Letter 2655). 10. Darwin called this observation “unphilosophical,” pointing out that a full explanation requires some account of an actual cause operating through this “lapse of time.” As he put it in his annotations to Powell, 1855: “p. 396. speaks of th[e]‌changes of species being ‘due to th[e] lapse of time’: hardly philosophical without some small change can be shown, or it means exposure to accidents of conditions” (DAR 71:45: annotation 03 of Powell, 1855). Richard Owen went further than Darwin in his criticism of Powell. He argued that falling back on the assumption of almost limitless time to account for species transformation was question-​begging. Grant as much time as you wish, what is needed for a convincing demonstration of the causes of species change is an account of the “mode of change,” and Powell, Owen suggests, does not give one (Charles Darwin Online A30, 1860:  Owen, review of Origin in Edinburgh Review 111: p. 532). 11. The other two were his Order in Nature, 1859, and his contribution to the widely read 1860 collection Essays and Reviews (J.W. Parker, editor), a compilation of articles on current scientific subjects by leading authorities in natural history. The first is a general history of the progress of the physical sciences since the middle ages and has nothing to say specifically about Darwin. The second had given high praise to Darwin’s just published Origin. While the timing of publication of Essays and Reviews puts it in close proximity to Powell’s letter to Darwin, it gives no suggestion that Darwin had borrowed from it or other Powell sources. On the contrary, what Powell did say about Origin was nothing but praise. “A work has now appeared by

Powell and Wallace  27 a naturalist of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin’s masterly volume on The Origin of Species by the law of ‘natural selection’—​which now substantiates on undeniable grounds the very principle so long denounced by the first naturalist—​the origination of new species by natural causes: a work which must soon bring about an entire revolution of opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-​evolving powers of nature.” Powell was especially impressed with how Darwin treated the evolution of complicated structures like the eye. This was important to Darwin because the evolution of the eye, and other organs, had been seen by Asa Gray as the weakest points of Darwin’s theory. So, Powell’s endorsement came as a relief to Darwin, as he explained to Lyell: “Baden Powell says he never read anything so conclusive as my statement about the Eye!!” (CCD, 15 and 16 [February 1860], to Lyell. Letter 2700). 12. Powell seems here to show familiarity, at least at second hand, with the influential views of von Baer concerning development and embryology. He mentioned von Baer by name in both editions, but not explicitly in connection with the “developmental hypothesis.” Perhaps Powell learned of von Baer through the works of Carpenter, Owen, and Barry, all of whom had brought attention to von Baer’s theories in their own writings. Ospovat, 1976, does not mention Powell as an authority who brought von Baer before an English-​speaking audience, but he does include Barry, Owen, and especially Carpenter as those who acquainted British scientists with von Baer’s ideas. 13. Powell had mentioned Carpenter in the first edition and included an appendix dedicated to his views. Darwin annotated parts of this appendix. 14. To be noted is that Wallace, contrary to many accounts of his views, did not use the expression “Natural Selection” in his essay. Darwin must have intended that Wallace had hit upon the mechanism, not that he used the exact expression. Details below. 15. Wallace’s article “On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species ,” appeared in the September 1855 issue of Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Series 2, volume xvi, pp. 184ff. 16. “Darwin’s copy of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, in which Wallace 1855 appeared, is in the Darwin Library–​CUL. The paper was annotated and several passages were scored by CD. CD’s separate notes on volumes fifteen (January–​June 1855)  and sixteen (July–​December 1855)  of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History contain the following comments on Wallace 1855:185 “Wallace’s paper: Laws of Geograph. Distrib. nothing very new—​186 His general summary ‘Every species has come into existence coincident in time & space with preexisting species.’—​Uses my simile of tree—​It seems all creation with him—​Alludes to Galapagos 189 on even adjoining species being closest—​(It is all creation, but why does [interl above ‘is’]) his law hold good; he puts the facts in striking point of view—​194 Argues against our supposed geological perfect knowledge—​Explains Rudimentary organs on same idea (I shd. state that put generation for creation & I quite agree)’ ” (CCD, 8 December 1855, from Edward Blyth, n. 1. Letter 1792). 17. See CCD, [18 June] 1858, to Lyell and n. 2, letter 2285, for the history of the correspondence between Lyell, Wallace, and Darwin. The CCD editors (CCD, [18 June] 1858, to Lyell, note 1) also refer to McKinney 1972, pp. 111–​12; and Wilson 1970, p.  xlv, which cites McKinney 1966. CCD [18 June] 1858, to Lyell n.  6 reproduces Wallace’s 1905 recollection of sending the 1858 letter to Darwin. McKinney, 1969,

28  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” transcribes Wallace’s original letter of 1845 to Bates alongside his later, edited version of the same letter published in 1905. 18. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. 1859. “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means Of Selection . . . Communicated by Sir Charles Lyell . . . and J. D. Hooker.” [Read 1 July 1858.] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Zoology) 3: 45–​62. 19. The date of Wallace’s letter to Bates has been widely debated, with different scholars assigning 1845, 1846, 1847, and 1848, but the most recent scholarship assigns the date as December 28, 1845. Details about Wallace’s early views on the Vestiges and transmutation are documented in Joel Schwartz 1990, and H.L. McKinney 1969. McKinney was the first to establish the 1845 date. McKinney also reviews the literature on the subject. 20. Other instances of Wallace’s sincere admiration for Darwin and acknowledgment of his priority—​not only chronologically but in terms of overall command of the field are recorded in Secord 2008, pp. xxi–​xxii. In one instance the military metaphor is apt: Wallace casts himself as the guerilla fighter, good at small and local engagement, Darwin as the great general, overseeing the entire field of battle. 21. Darwin recognized the difference almost from the outset of his engagement with Wallace’s ideas. He pointed to it himself in a letter to Wallace in January 1859, suggesting “difference” from Wallace about the value of domestication as an analogy to natural selection, but in the letter, he did not spell out the difference (CCD, 25 January [1859], to Wallace, and n. 4. Letter 2405). 22. In his 1845 letter to W.H. Bates, Wallace was already thinking about the role of “External conditions,” as he called them at that time, in species transmutation. He had recently read the works of Lawrence and Prichard “on man,” and had decided, along with them, that the various races of “man” should actually be regarded as distinct “species,” whereas Albinos should be regarded only as a distinct variety, or “race.” Wallace explains the difference by invoking “external conditions.” A notable “difference” that arises (by some unnamed cause) in an individual and then spreads through a population constitutes the basis for the evolution of a new “species,” whereas an aberrant trait (e.g., albinism) that does not spread into a population has only “variety” status. Wallace presumes the latter characteristic is environmentally induced, whereas the former has some deeper, more long-​lasting cause. Wallace did not bring this argument into his 1858 Linnean paper and perhaps had abandoned it by then. But he continued to place emphasis on “external conditions” in bringing about new varieties: changes in species follow upon changing external conditions. Darwin, as noted, downplayed the role of changing physical conditions as playing a decisive role. 23. Wallace never had much of an appetite for the Lamarckian theory of species change, but he did have appreciation for Vestiges from the time it first appeared in 1844. He made his admiration clear in a letter to W.H. Bates in 1845: “I have a more favorable impression of Vestiges than you appear to have” (28 December 1845, from Wallace to Bates, reproduced in McKinney 1969, p. 372). Wallace goes on to defend Vestiges as no mere unwarranted hypothesis but rather interesting observations well supported

Powell and Wallace  29 by good evidence and argument that invited further investigation. Wallace evidently derived inspiration for his own field studies from Vestiges’ intriguing suggestions about how nature operates. 24. On Wallace borrowing the expression “survival of the fittest” from the British biologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer, see J. Browne 2002, pp. 312–​13.

References Archibald, David J.  2014. Aristotle’s Ladder, Darwin’s Tree:  The Evolution of Visual Metaphors for Biological Order. New York: Columbia University Press. Darwin, Charles, and Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1859. “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection . . . Communicated by Sir Charles Lyell . . . and J.D. Hooker.” [Read 1 July 1858.] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Zoology) 3: 45–​62. Johnson, Curtis. 2007. “The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the Historical Sketch.” Journal of the History of Biology 40 (3): 529–​56. Johnson, Curtis. 2014. Darwin’s Dice: The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. McKinney, H. Lewis. 1969, “Wallace’s Earliest Observations on Evolution: 28 December 1845.” Isis 60: 370–​73. Owen, Richard. 1860, “Review of Origin & Other Works.” Edinburgh Review 111: 487–​532. Parker, John William, (ed.). 1860. Essays and Reviews. By F. Temple, R. Williams, B. Powell, H.B. Williams, C.W. Goodwin, M. Pattison, B. Jowett. London: John W. Parker . Powell, Baden. 1855. Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of Worlds, and the Philosophy of Creation. London:  Longman, Brown, Green, Longman and Roberts . Powell, Baden. 1856. The Unity of Worlds and of Nature: Three Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy; The Plurality of Worlds; and the Philosophy of Creation, 2nd edition. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longman and Roberts . Powell, Baden. 1859. The Order of Nature:  Considered in Reference to the Claims of Revelation: A Third Series of Essays. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts. Schwartz, Joel. 1990. “Darwin, Wallace, and Huxley, and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” Journal of the History of Biology 23: 141–​42. Secord, James, (ed.). 2008. Charles Darwin:  Evolutionary Writings. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Wallace, A.R. 1855. “On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species,” Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Series 2, XVI: 184ff. Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1905. My Life. London: Chapman & Hall. Wilson, Leonard G. (ed.). 1970. Sir Charles Lyell’s Scientific Journals of the Species Question. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

2

Darwin’s Earliest Sources. Authors to Be “Passed Over” Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle

“I will here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species.” With this brief comment Charles Darwin opened his masterpiece. The passage is, apart from the title page and the frontispiece, the first words written by Darwin that most modern readers encounter when they first open the book. I say “modern readers” because the first readers of Origin, those who purchased it in the thousands in Britain in late 1859 (first and second editions) would not have read these words. The Sketch was first added only to the third English edition (1861) and some months before that to the first German edition (April 1860) and the first US edition (May 1860). But from that time forward it has been a fixture in almost every reprinted version of Origin of Species ever to appear in any language. In this preface, renamed “Historical Sketch on the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species” starting with the third English edition, Darwin noted three-​ quarters of the way through that he had included “30 authors” in his review. He changed that number to 34 in the fifth and subsequent editions. But in fact, in the first published versions of the Sketch (the first German and US editions in mid-​ 1860), Darwin had included only 19 authors. And when we set that figure beside a letter he wrote to Baden Powell on January 18, 1860, that briefly described who he would include in a Sketch, he named only 13 authors. Thus, in rapid sequence Darwin indicated, first, 13 sources, then 19 authors only months later, then within a year 30, and finally, 5 years after that, 34 (Variorum, “Historical. Sketch,” p. 68, lines 60*.5–​60*.5.d). An additional feature of the final version of the Sketch, that appeared in the last edition of 1872, is that Darwin appears actually to have included 35 authors, while continuing to maintain the correct number was 34. It will help as a beginning to sort out who Darwin’s sources were, when he included them in his preface, and how he counted. Why did he count 34 for the final iteration when the actual number appears to be 35? Perhaps the correct number of sources—​and so as a prelude to discovering what contributions his sources made—​depends on how to count, or more precisely how Darwin counted. One notable feature of the Sketch in all its iterations Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  31 is that Darwin decided, for reasons to be examined, to “pass over” certain authors. Knowing how many authors Darwin chose to “pass over” depends on what version of the Sketch one reads—​recall that, like Origin itself the Sketch underwent steady revision through its several versions. Did Darwin count authors he named but said he would “pass over?” In the January 1860 letter to Baden Powell—​the earliest indication we have that Darwin was actually thinking about, or more likely had started, writing a Sketch, Darwin identifies only one group of writers to be “passed over”:  “the Ancients.” To what group of writers this expression refers cannot be known because Darwin provides no details. But one ancient authority Darwin may have been thinking about is Aristotle, for in the fourth English edition and thereafter Darwin included a footnote to “the classical writers” that referred to what little he knew by then of Aristotle’s thoughts on the species question. We must assume that, of the 34 sources mentioned in later editions of the Historical Sketch, Aristotle is counted as one. But since no other ancient authorities are named, we cannot assume Darwin would have counted any other ancients in his final tally of 34. By the time of publication of the first US edition of Origin, the list of those who would be “passed over” had expanded to include, in addition to the ancients, the French naturalists Comte de Buffon and Benoit de Maillet. Buffon had been mentioned in the 1860 letter to Powell as perhaps worthy of mention in a sketch, but with a question-​mark beside his name. Should Buffon be counted? Here is what Darwin had to say about the ancients, Buffon, and Maillet in the first US edition: Passing over authors from the classical period, and likewise Demaillet and Buffon, with whose writings I am not familiar, Lamarck was the first man whose views that species undergo change excited much attention. (CCD, v. 8, “Preface Contributed by the Author to this American edition,” p. 573)

One finds ambiguity in this statement. With whose writings was Darwin not familiar? It could be just Demaillet (whose name henceforth will be given as Maillet, as recorded in the biographical record) and Buffon, or it could be those two plus “authors from the classical period.” The question is not clarified in Darwin’s next version (third English edition, 1861) of this part of the Sketch, but only further ambiguated. In this version, he will “pass over authors from the classical period to that of Buffon with whose writings I am not familiar” (Variorum, p. 59, line 6). This statement could mean, and literally does mean, that Darwin claims no familiarity with any author from classical times down to Lamarck. That is quite a wide-​ranging confession of ignorance of previous contributors to the species question. Perhaps sensing that such a confession could be damaging,

32  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin reworked the sentence one more time for the fourth (1866) and all subsequent editions: Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical writers* [signaling the footnote to Aristotle] the first author in modern times who has treated the subject is . . . Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details. (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 59, line 6.x:d)

With this final emendation to this part of the Sketch, Darwin removed the confession of ignorance that he had made in the previous edition and instead inserted a sentence on Buffon’s fluctuating opinions—​thus at one blow suggesting familiarity with that author and dispensing with the need to discuss his views. So, as we begin to count and identify Darwin’s acknowledged sources, we are already confronted with an important question: of the 34 authors Darwin claimed to have included in his Sketch in its final rendering, should we include Aristotle? My surmise is yes. Should we include Buffon? In light of Darwin’s attention to Buffon’s “fluctuating opinions,” we should probably include him too. What about Maillet? He disappears after the first US edition. But to get to the final number of 35 he probably needs to be counted too. If these calculations are correct, we are up to three sources prior to the discussion of Lamarck—​Aristotle, Maillet, and Buffon—​by the last published version of the Sketch. I add a caveat to these surmises. If we are strict literalists in reading Darwin, we should not count either Buffon or Maillet. About Buffon Darwin could only say that, in view of his fluctuating opinions, he will not provide any detailed account of Buffon’s contribution to the species question. We find even less about Maillet’s contribution, apart from the mere mention of his name as someone “to be passed over”—​and that statement only in the first version of the Sketch, as mentioned earlier. Nevertheless, I shall include both Buffon and Maillet in Darwin’s 34 authors because without them, it is hard by any reckoning to get to that number. If we omit Buffon and Maillet, we get to 33. If we include both, we get to 35. Darwin’s number 34 can be arrived at only by counting one of these authorities and not counting the other. Aristotle, by contrast, deserves a spot in Darwin’s final list because he does attempt to show that Aristotle may have anticipated him about natural selection, with a quote from Aristotle’s Physics—​only to reject his views: “how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle [of natural selection] is shown by his remarks on the formation of teeth.” Darwin’s dismissal of Aristotle’s opinions—​ even if Darwin mistook Aristotle’s opinions for those of Empedocles, against whom Aristotle was actually arguing—​should not allow us to discount Aristotle as one of Darwin’s 35 sources. Darwin would and did include authors who

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  33 “anticipated” him even if they did not actually do so. They should be counted even if they got Darwin’s theory wrong. The fact that they had brought into print some idea resembling natural selection or even “descent with modification” would render them worthy of mention in Darwin’s Sketch.

Georges-​Louis Leclerc Buffon, Comte de Buffon. 1707–​1778 More detail about Darwin’s knowledge of these three sources may be gathered from other sources referenced in Darwin’s writings. I begin with Buffon. Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-​Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. Buffon published 36 quarto volumes of his Histoire naturelle during his lifetime; with additional volumes based on his notes and further research being published in the two decades following his death. Ernst Mayr wrote that “Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century.”1 Buffon held

Figure 2.1 Buffon

34  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” the position of intendant (director) at the Jardin du Roi, now called the Jardin des Plantes. Buffon’s views, spread over such a large oeuvre, are impossible to recapitulate in a brief survey of opinion, particularly since, as Darwin believed, his views, even on the limited subject of transmutation, tended to change over the years. A succinct account may be found in notes to the correspondence. In a note to a letter Darwin sent to C.J.F. Bunbury in February 1860—​the same month in which Darwin sent the first iteration of the Sketch to Asa Gray for inclusion in the first authorized US edition of Origin, published in May 1860. The editors of CCD describe Buffon’s views in the following terms: It was a long-​held belief among many naturalists, systematised through the writings of Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, that some modification or variation in species had occurred through the degeneration or “falling off ” of an original created type. This concept was especially invoked to explain the production of new varieties of domesticated plants and animals by man. (CCD, to Bunbury, 9 February [1860], n. 7. Letter 2690)

“Transformation of species by way of degeneration” is a hallmark of Buffon’s influence on 18th century biological thought whenever he did discuss the issue of transmutation. A persistent question about Buffon is whether he himself was a transmutationist. Did he believe species could change into new species, either through “progression” or degeneration? Ernst Mayr surveys the conflicting opinions on this question and arrives at a negative verdict. Buffon did admittedly bring evolutionary questions to the forefront of 18th century biological thought—​thus setting the stage for later transmutationists like Lamarck and, eventually, Darwin. But Buffon himself, while he raised the possibility of species evolution, was in the end (according to Mayr) an “essentialist”: species are permanent and unchanging entities. Several “proofs” are advanced, all of which add up to the conclusion that separate species may be identified by the primary criterion of the ability of organisms to mate and to produce fertile offspring. This criterion, for Buffon, posed an insuperable barrier to species transformation. Yet, for his determined opposition to the possibility of transmutation, Buffon was, for Mayr, third in the importance of the growth of biological thinking only to Aristotle and Darwin.2 It is clear that Darwin in 1860 had only a vague notion of Buffon’s views. In his Reading Notebooks, Darwin reminded himself in 1840 to “Study Buffon on varieties of Domesticated animals—​see if laws cannot be made out. I have read Smellie’s translat. at Maer.” (R.N. 119: 8a. [June to Nov. 1840]: “Smellies Buffon, 3rd. Edit. skimmed—​1791: in nine vols”). But Darwin did not read Smellie with care and did not read anything in the original by Buffon himself. After skimming

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  35 Smellie’s translation he made no further comment. By the first editions of the Sketch in 1860, Darwin confessed he had no clear idea about what Buffon had argued, if anything, on the species question. Something had changed by 1861. Darwin was now confident enough about Buffon’s ideas to state that Buffon had “fluctuating opinions.” He also believed at this point that Buffon really did not have any firm ideas about the “causes or means” of transmutation to be able to give him much credit for anticipating Darwin’s theory, except to say that Buffon was among the first to raise pertinent questions about the issue: But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transmutation of species, I need not here enter on details. Buffon is credited with being the first author of the modern period to treat modification of species in a scientific sense. (Variorum, p. 60, line 6.x.I:d)

What brought about Darwin’s change of opinion about Buffon between 1860 and 1861? It was his reading about Buffon in works by another author, Isisdore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Darwin provides just enough information in the Historical Sketch to show Isidore was his source for Buffon.3 In a footnote to the entry on Lamarck, Darwin wrote: I have taken the date of the first publication of Lamarck from Isid. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire’s (“Hist. Nat. Generale,” tom. ii, p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion on this subject. In this work a full account is given of Buffon’s fluctuating conclusions on the same subject (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” line 13*.1–​2)

This statement first appeared in the third English edition, 1861, indicating that Darwin encountered Isidore’s Histoire naturelle generale sometime between December 1859 and April 1860. It should be noted that a key notion Darwin associated with Buffon was his “fluctuating conclusions.” By the sixth version of the Sketch, the footnote to Lamarck, citing Isidore as Darwin’s source, remained, but the interesting word “fluctuating,” in reference to Buffon’s views, had been removed, for reasons unknown. Perhaps, given what Darwin had already written about Buffon in the main text of the Sketch, he came to think the word “fluctuating” in the footnote would be redundant. But that can be no more than a guess. When we turn to Isidore’s Histoire Naturelle naturelle generale des regnes organique (1854–​1862, three volumes), we find in volume 2 much more than a passing mention of Buffon. Isidore devoted two long sections, V and VI of this

36  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” volume, almost exclusively to Buffon. Darwin scored some passages but made few written remarks in his marginal comments. Isidore’s overarching argument about Buffon is that he is to be placed between Cuvier on one side and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire on the other on the question of transmutation. The former was, along with Linneaus, the leading European proponent of a doctrine Isidore called “species fixity”: unbreachable boundaries separate different species, and in this sense all species are eternally “fixed” in their essential natures. Geoffroy, by contrast, argued that, while species often do remain fixed in character, changes in climate, nourishment, and habitation (say, moving members of a species from nature to domestication), might bring about species change over a long lapse of ages.4 Isidore, after inspecting many parts of Buffon’s sprawling work on natural history, develops the case that Buffon’s opinions and words did change over time. He introduces his discussion of Buffon with the assertion that Buffon’s doctrine is “the contrary” of what had been the widely accepted view of species fixity: “What Linnaeus is for the systeme fixee, Buffon is for the contrary system in his Histoire Naturelle” (Histoire naturelle generale, v. 2, 1859, p. 382 ff.). What Isidore may have meant by the expression “the contrary system” is not explained further in this section of his text, but one easily draws the inference that he meant “the transmutationist view,” along the lines that his father Etienne had worked out some decades earlier. That inference is confirmed in what Isidore says later: [At first Buffon] states expressly that species are unalterable, their boundaries cannot be breached. At other times he asserts “when the great vicissitudes of the earth happen, how many species are no longer the same as they were before . . . How quickly one sees species change and assume new forms. (Histoire naturelle generale, v. 2, 1859, p. 387)5

From these fragments of Buffon, one might well conclude that Buffon’s opinions “fluctuated,” just as Darwin maintained in the Sketch. That perspective, however, is not quite what Isidore intended. He saw a “development” in Buffon’s thinking, not a fluctuation. He began as a “fixist” and later became a transmutationist, with some qualifications. More precisely, Isidore traced three phases or periods in Buffon’s thinking: one in which he embraced Linnaean fixity (1753–​1756); a second in which he was a proponent of variability of species (1761–​1766); and a final position in which he admitted variability of species but emphasized that it is limited in operation (1765–​1778). This sequence, claims Isidore, reflects progress in his thought, not contradiction. He also argues that Buffon’s final position is “midway” between the fixists and the transmutationists.6 Darwin used the word “fluctuating” to characterize Buffon’s

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  37 views, whereas Isidore preferred to think of them as “developing” over the course of his long career. Perhaps that is only a matter of semantics. But Isidore’s final judgment—​that Buffon was “midway” between Cuvier and Geoffroy—​is not suggested in Darwin’s belief that Buffon’s ideas fluctuated. We discover from Darwin’s Reading Notebooks that he read Isidore’s volume 2 (see n. 3) in 1860 (month not recorded). The volume was first published in Paris in 1859. Darwin had by this time already read volume 1 (published in 1854), about which he had nothing very kind to say: “Miserable book—​all words, words, words” (Marginalia, p. 316). But volume 2 seems to be a different story. In this volume Darwin discovered, among other things, a lengthy “history of opinion” of the species question, the very project Darwin had set for himself in the Historical Sketch. Darwin in fact may have been a bit alarmed to discover this historical outline that had preceded his own, if only by a few months. In any case, Darwin did draw much information from Isidore’s account of the subject, including, as indicated, his information about Buffon’s “fluctuating opinions” and the date of Lamarck’s first contribution. Darwin may have been a bit staggered. Isidore commanded much more knowledge than Darwin about many authors who could be seen as forerunners, not just Buffon. Isidore’s list included dozens of authorities and contained impressive detail about many of them. In addition, at the end of the chapter “History of Opinion” he included an additional long list of previous authors with brief summaries of the contributions of each. Most of these names do not show up in Darwin’s Sketch. In view of Isidore’s comprehensive “History of Opinion,” what could Darwin do? He simply told himself in his marginal notes to Isidore’s volume, “Say that I shall notice only the m[ost] conspic[uous] writers—​when I began I had no idea of rest of catalogue.” He possibly recognized that the number of naturalists he should include in his own Historical Sketch far exceeded what he could possibly manage. As he said to Powell in a letter of January 18, 1860: The task [of giving a history of opinion] would have been not a little difficult, & belongs rather to the Historian of Science than to me. I ought also to have alluded to chief maintainers of opposite doctrines. I had intended in my larger book to have attempted some such history; but my own catalogue frightens me. I will, however, consult some scientific friends & be guided by their advice. (CCD, 18 January [1860], to Baden Powell. Letter 2654)

Darwin’s attention to Buffon did not end there. He became concerned about Buffon’s possible “priority” about his new theory of “pangenesis” in 1865, after Thomas Huxley brought his attention to a work Huxley had read by Buffon at about that time. But we can omit that discussion. For now, we know as much as

38  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” we can probably ever know about how Darwin was and was not influenced by Buffon’s views as far as his Historical Sketch is concerned.

Benoit de Maillet. 1656–​1738 My former friend and present bitter enemy Owen, generally ranks me and Maillet as a pair of equal fools. (CCD, 22 May 1867, from Darwin to Isaac Anderson-​Henry. Letter 5545)7 About this source for Darwin’s history of opinion, we have not much to learn from Darwin himself, except for the bare mention of his name next to that of Buffon in the first US edition of Origin containing the Historical Sketch. Darwin has almost nothing else to say about him in any of his other writings prior to 1861, and very little after that. From Darwin himself, about the only evidence we have regarding his familiarity (or lack thereof) with Maillet is that he did not mention him in the list of possible candidates for a Preface in his letter of January

Figure 2.2 Maillet

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  39 18, 1860 to Baden Powell, he did mention him by name in the first US version of the Sketch (written in February 1860), but only as an author “to be passed over,” and he removed Maillet from all successive versions of the Sketch, including the first English edition (1861). The Maillet episode is an eye-​blink in Darwin’s decade-​long relationship with his Sketch. The information we need must come from other sources. Maillet, whose full name is Saint-​Michael Benoit de Maillet, was a French diplomat and natural historian who traveled widely in Europe and North Africa. He proposed an evolutionary hypothesis in his best-​known published work Telliamed, an anagram of the author’s last name, written early in the 18th century, “imprime” in 1735 but not published until 1748 (according to Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1859, v. 2, p. 385, n. 1).8 This work came to Darwin’s attention before he first composed the Sketch for publication, in which Maillet’s name is included without further comment. Our questions are: When did Darwin learn of Maillet, from what source(s), and what did he learn from him? To take the last question first, Maillet wrote Telliamed after having spent many years doing naturalist and diplomatic work mainly in Egypt. On the basis of his discoveries in geology and paleontology he produced a novel way of thinking about the development of the earth and its living inhabitants. His speculations about these subjects showed some indebtedness to other published naturalists. His book is a reconstruction of an imaginary conversation between a “French Missionary” (Maillet) and an “Indian Philosopher” who, Maillet claims, is the source for all the wisdom his book contains. Although lacking a university education, Maillet did show some familiarity with writings that were in his time starting to address the big questions that would, over the next century, roil the scientific community and that would give rise to the geological conclusions of Hutton and Lyell and the biological works of Lamarck, Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, and Cuvier. Maillet’s work touches on these subjects, but also preceded them. Maillet’s influence on later writers was perhaps greater than those of previous writers on him.9 He wrote Telliamed anonymously and delayed its publication during his lifetime. When it was “given to the world” (in Huxley’s phrase) in 1748 it was widely noticed and greeted mostly with hostility by a religious world. Huxley surmises that the publisher consented to publish it at all only because it might be seen as a jeu d’esprit rather than a serious proposal about the history of life on earth. In hindsight, it looks like Maillet was indeed serious. He defended ideas that were radical in his day: the earth is over 2 billion years old; water originally covered the globe and gradually receded, leaving behind sea shells on mountain tops and other suggestive fossil remains; and the original organic creatures were fish, some of which gradually metamorphosed into birds, reptiles, and mammals, including humans.

40  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” But the details of Maillet’s evolutionary ideas, while they made an impact on other naturalists, are of little concern here because it is clear that Darwin was not familiar with his book or his ideas when he wrote Origin. He confessed to a correspondent in 1867 that he had “often heard” of Maillet but had not read his works (CCD, 22 May [1867], from Darwin to Isaac Anderson-​Henry. Letter 5545). So, while Maillet may be credited with having advanced the cause of “evolution” in the 18th century, his works made no direct impact on Darwin. More important for us is to discover how Darwin learned even Maillet’s name by April 1860 when he mentioned him as a possible predecessor in the first published version of the Historical Sketch. It should be said that at this time he gave no indication that he knew anything about Maillet other than his name and that he might be a predecessor of his own ideas. By his own admission, Darwin had no direct acquaintance prior to 1860 with anything Maillet had written. Maillet’s book Telliamed is not mentioned in any of Darwin’s notes, letters, or other writings, nor did Darwin follow up with an investigation of the possibility that Maillet was a precursor or other details about him in his own researches. Darwin left few footprints that might show us the way to his sources for Maillet. One possibility is Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire’s Essais de zoologie generale (1841, p. 81 n. 1) as indicated in Darwin’s marginal annotations in his copy of Isidore’s book.10 It is not clear when Darwin read this book. On one hand, Darwin made a note in his Reading Notebooks on April 6, 1841, next to the title of this book, that he had placed “references at end” (in CCD, v. 4, “Reading Notebooks,” 119.10a). When we turn to the volume itself in Darwin’s library, we do find three pages of annotations at the end, strongly suggesting that Darwin read this book almost as soon as it appeared, in early April 1841,11 but he made no explicit reference to Maillet. In November 1844 Darwin wrote to Hooker a letter that indicated familiarity with Isidore’s “good essays” on transmutation in his 1841 book (CCD, [10–​11 November 1844], to Hooker. Letter 789). All of this evidence shows Darwin was familiar with Isidore’s Essais by 1844 at latest, and perhaps earlier. On the other hand, the annotations also give evidence that Darwin read Isidore’s work as late as 1856, or even later. That inference is based on the fact that, in the annotations Darwin wrote to himself to include “old Geoffroy’s [idea of] modificateurs ambiants” in the “Preface” (referring to Isidore’s father Etienne). And he reminded himself just after that entry to include materials to “Ch[apter] 2 in M.S.” about animals (reindeer and geese) not breeding in domestication (see n. 5; Marginalia, pp. 301–​2). The words “Preface” and “Chapter 2 M.S.” may well have been a reference to Origin in manuscript form and the planned Historical Sketch, both of which he began to compose in 1856. We should note that Darwin did in fact include “old Geoffroy” in the Sketch, just along the lines he

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  41 promised himself he would do in this annotation. (I find no mention of Geoffroy in Chapter 2 of Origin, or of reindeer and geese, but both animals are mentioned in close juxtaposition in Chapter 1.) Thus, we have two annotations in the same place, the end pages of Isidore’s Essais that suggest Darwin read the book in 1856, not 1841. Perhaps Darwin read the book twice, once just after it appeared and once again as he was preparing his species book, when he made his annotations. But, whenever he read it, it is possible that he recalled something of Maillet based on the reference in Isidore (cf. n. 7). In this note, Maillet is mentioned by Isidore as one who, along with Robinet, held “bizarre ideas” about possible modification of species. But the meaning here as to what Maillet believed is unclear. If we look at the entire section of Isidore’s Essais that Darwin was referring to, we find that it was devoted primarily to two other authors, Buffon and Herder, and that the subject was not descent with modification but rather “unity of type.” Both Buffon and Herder could be said to have propounded some version of that important idea as early as 1753. But “unity of type” is not an idea that Darwin ever felt obliged to include in his Historical Sketch. Even then, the reference to Maillet in Isidore’s book is included in a footnote to Herder, and says only that Maillet’s ideas may be compared with the strange ideas of Robinet (Essais, p. 81 and n. 1). One can infer nothing about what Isidore believed about Maillet’s ideas on modification of species from this section, except that they were strange, and so it is probable that Darwin inferred nothing either. Yet Isidore’s Essais of 1841 could still have been Darwin’s source for Maillet, no matter when he read that book, especially when we look at the alternatives. One such alternative is a different work by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, his Histoire Naturale Generale des Regnes Organiques (1854–​1862). The second volume of this three-​volume work was published in 1860 and Darwin noted in his Reading Notebooks that he read it in that year, although he does not give the month. This is the volume that contained a “history” of the species question, and Darwin confessed that he drew on this history for his own Historical Sketch (see, for example, the sections in the present volume on Buffon and Goethe, Chapters 1 and 2). Darwin may well have noticed Isidore’s mention of Maillet in this work (p. 385 and n. 1). Isidore did not have a lot to say about Maillet—​only that some had credited him with transmutationist views even before Buffon and that he had proposed the idea that reptiles and birds evolved from fish and that humans evolved from amphibians (citing Telliamed, 1755, v. 2, pp. 159, 177). But, at the same time, Isidore was dismissive of Maillet, calling his speculations more flights of fancy than the product of scientific research. He did not provide any direct quotations. Other than the brief reference to Maillet in Darwin’s marginal notes to Isidore’s Essais and Isidore’s discussion in his Histoire naturelle discussed earlier, Maillet shows up in three sources with which Darwin was familiar by 1860—​the key date

42  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” for us. One is volume 2 of Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1832). But in that source, Maillet is misidentified by Lyell as Delametherie, not Maillet, so it is unlikely that Darwin would have registered Maillet as a precursor from Lyell’s book. Nevertheless, we should take a look at what Lyell had to say about Maillet. Here is Lyell in volume 2, a book, we should note, with which Darwin was deeply familiar as it came to him during the Beagle voyage and was registered elsewhere by Darwin as having made an impact on his thinking. These speculative views [i.e., those of Lamarck of progressive modification of species] had already been given [prior to Lamarck 1809], to a great degree by Delametherie in his Teliamed [sic] and by several modern writers, so that the tables were completely turned on the philosophers of antiquity, with whom it was a received maxim, that created things were always most perfect when they came first from the hands of their Maker, and that there was a tendency to progressive degeneration in sublunary things when left to themselves. (Principles of Geology, p. 191)

Lyell here represents Maillet (wrongly named Delametherie, POG, p. 454 n. 7) as a precursor of Lamarck and, implicitly, as an opponent of Buffonian “degeneration.” But the author whose views he tried to represent did have had a rudimentary theory of transmutation, however sketchy and inadequate, as we have seen, and Darwin may therefore have paid attention to this passage. Maillet is much more prominent in T.H. Huxley’s anonymous review of Origin in the Westminster Review (v. 17 [n.s.], 541–​70) of March 1860 (reprinted as Chapter 2, “The Origin of Species,” in Huxley’s Darwiniana). Here is what Huxley had to say about him: But if we regard the general tenor and style of the reasoning in relation to the state of knowledge of the day, two circumstances appear very well worthy of remark. The first, that De Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of living forms (though without any precise information on the subject), and how such modifiability might account for the origin of species; the second, that he very clearly apprehended the great modern geological doctrine, so strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehensively expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes for the explanation of past geological events.

Huxley here identifies Maillet as an early proponent of transmutationist views, explicitly connecting his opinion with the question of the “origin of species,” and also claiming that Maillet had even preceded Lamarck by some decades. To make his case, Huxley quoted Maillet at length in his review, in the

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  43 original French. Darwin had read Huxley’s review of Origin almost as soon as it appeared, no later than April 14, 1860, as he thanked Huxley for his comments in a letter to him on that date. He does not mention Maillet in the letter, but since Huxley had given a lengthy treatment of Darwin’s predecessors in his review, including the statement about Maillet just quoted, Darwin must have noticed what he said. But the date of Huxley’s review and Darwin’s reading of it, April 1860, make a poor match for considering Huxley as Darwin’s source about Maillet for mention in the Sketch. The problem here is that Darwin dated the earliest printed version of the Sketch as “February 1860” (CCD, v. 8, Appendix 4, p. 576). Recall, this is the only version of the Sketch in which Maillet made an appearance. Darwin was familiar with Maillet’s name, if not his views, before Huxley’s review came out. We thus must go back to Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire as Darwin’s likeliest source. If anything, Huxley’s review of Origin may have influenced Darwin to remove Maillet from the Sketch after 1860. Or perhaps it was Owen’s review of Origin in the Edinburgh Review at about the same time (April 1860) that had this effect. Both reviewers, coming at Darwin’s theory from opposing points of view—​Huxley’s in support, Owen’s in hostile attack—​devoted lengthy sections to Maillet’s opinions. Both were dismissive of Maillet’s theory of descent with modification and both quoted from his book Telliamed in the original French to show why they disapproved. While Huxley referred to Maillet as a means of showing why and how Darwin’s theory was superior and Owen coupled Maillet and Darwin as equally wrong, both reviewers gave Darwin enough of a glimpse of Maillet’s views to let him decide whether he deserved to keep him as a predecessor. If this is correct, the one more likely to have caused Darwin to pull Maillet out of the Sketch would have been Owen. Owen compared Maillet to Darwin, faulting both for being too speculative and suggesting that Darwin’s theory was just as fanciful as Maillet’s. Huxley’s review should have had the opposite effect. He showed Maillet to be one who did have a “worthy” transmutationist theory, but in the context of showing Darwin’s to be far more satisfactory. Darwin could have used Huxley’s review to good effect, drawing on Huxley’s obviously superior understanding of Maillet to show, in contrast to Maillet, what a breakthrough his own theory was. Whatever the correct explanation, Darwin did remove Maillet from the Sketch after 1860. How Huxley came to learn of Maillet is not clear, except to say that Huxley was well read in the history of ideas in biology. Perhaps Isidore was his source too. However he learned about Maillet, Huxley had read his Telliamed before he wrote his 1860 review of Origin. His main impression of Maillet’s work, judging from his review of Origin, included both his prescient ideas about the possibility

44  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” of transmutation of species and his clear-​headedness about uniformitarianism—​ well before Hutton and Lyell had given scientific respectability to this idea: The speculations of the suppositious Indian sage, though quite as sound as those of many a “Mosaic Geology,” which sells exceedingly well, have no great value if we consider them by the light of modern science. The waters are supposed to have originally covered the whole globe; to have deposited the rocky masses which compose its mountains by processes comparable to those which are now forming mud, sand, and shingle; and then to have gradually lowered their level, leaving the spoils of their animal and vegetable inhabitants embedded in the strata. As the dry land appeared, certain of the aquatic animals are supposed to have taken to it, and to have become gradually adapted to terrestrial and aerial modes of existence. But if we regard the general tenor and style of the reasoning in relation to the state of knowledge of the day, two circumstances appear very well worthy of remark. The first, that De Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of living forms (though without any precise information on the subject), and how such modifiability might account for the origin of species; the second, that he very clearly apprehended the great modern geological doctrine, so strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehensively expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes for the explanation of past geological events. Indeed, the following passage of the preface, in which De Maillet is supposed to speak of the Indian philosopher Telliamed, his ‘alter ego’, might have been written by the most philosophical uniformitarian of the present day. (Westminster Review, April 1860; reprinted in Darwiniana, pp. 64–​5)

Huxley goes on to suggest that Maillet deliberately held back from giving his views to the world in published form out of fear of denunciation and censorship, or worse (Huxley mentioned Demaillet’s political connections to “his Catholic majesty” as being the French Consul-​General of Egypt). But nevertheless Huxley, with reservations, was impressed, and saw Maillet as a worthy precursor of Lamarck: But De Maillet was before his age, and as could hardly fail to happen to one who speculated on a zoological and botanical question before Linnaeus, and on a physiological problem before Haller, he fell into great errors here and there; and hence, perhaps, the general neglect of his work. Robinet’s speculations are rather behind, than in advance of, those of De Maillet; and though Linnaeus may have played with the hypothesis of transmutation, it obtained no serious support until Lamarck adopted it, and advocated it with great ability in his “Philosophie Zoologique.” (Westminster Review, April 1860)

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  45 Owen, by contrast, in his review of Origin that appeared almost simultaneously with Huxley’s (April 1860)  had undisguised contempt for Maillet (Edinburgh Review, v. 111, 1860, p. 508). Like Huxley he had read Maillet in the original French, and cited the same edition of Maillet’s Telliamed (1755) in his review. But he drew attention to different passages from those we find in Huxley. In particular, Owen refers to Demaillet as one who proposed the arising of birds from fish and likened this to Darwin’s claim that bears may have evolved into whales. Maillet is mentioned along with Lamarck, Buffon, and Vestiges as speculativists, with obvious derision. His impression of Maillet’s theory is summed up thus: Demaillet invoked the operation of the external influences or conditions of life, with consentaneous volitional efforts, in order to raise species in the scale, as the fish, e. g., into the bird. Buffon called in the same agency to lower the species, by way of degeneration, as the bear. (Edinburgh Review, April 1860, p. 508)

Owen went on to quote a lengthy passage from Telliamed (giving the citation “Hague, 1755, v. 2, p. 166”), the upshot of which was to show that Maillet was, in Owen’s opinion, a reckless speculator about the origin of new species, even more reckless than Lamarck. In the same section of his review Owen suggested that Darwin had stolen his theory from Lamarck, without acknowledgment, but that in fact Darwin’s views were even more fanciful than anything Lamarck had dreamed up. The closest any predecessor came to anticipating Darwin’s “bear into whale” example, in terms of sheer implausibility, was Maillet in the quoted passage. It seems likely that this is the passage Darwin had in mind when he commented to a correspondent that Owen classed Maillet and himself as “a pair of equal fools” (CCD, 22 May [1867], to Isaac Anderson-​Henry. Letter 5545). Owen’s negative view of Maillet predates his encounter with Darwin’s theory by two decades. Even apart from his 1860 Edinburgh Review article just discussed, he had asked much earlier in a plainly dismissive tone: To what natural or secondary causes can the successive genera and species of Reptiles be attributed? Does the hypothesis of the transmutation of species, by a march of development occasioning a progressive ascent in the organic scale, afford any explanation of these surprising phaenomena? Do the speculations of Maillet, Lamarck, and Geoffroy derive any support or meet with additional disproof from the facts already determined in the reptilian department of Paleontology? (“Report on British Fossil Reptiles, Part II,” Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1841, 1842, p. 196, cited in Desmond, 1979, p. 229 n. 28)

46  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Whether Darwin read this Report or not, he did read Owen’s 1860 review as soon as it appeared. He was thus confronted with the views about Maillet of two respected naturalists, Huxley and Owen, at just about the same time, April 1860. Both dismissed Maillet as “before his time” and, therefore, full of scientific errors. But Huxley at least saw a genuine anticipation of a theory—​Darwin’s—​that he had come to admire. By Darwin’s own criterion for whom he should include in a preface to Origin—​writers who had anticipated him in one or more respects about the origin of species—​Huxley’s review should have influenced him to retain and even enlarge what he had first written in 1860, that Maillet belonged. But, for reasons that cannot be known, Darwin did not do that. Instead he took Maillet out, for good. Owen’s pairing of Darwin and Maillet as “a pair of equal fools” raises the suspicion that Darwin’s real reason for taking Maillet out of the Sketch was Owen. We have no evidence that Darwin read Owen’s 1841 “Report on British Fossil Reptiles”:  it does not show up in his Notebooks or marginalia, and there is nothing in the correspondence. But Owen’s general approach to Maillet over the years shows a consistency: Darwin’s theory should be placed alongside those of Maillet and Lamarck as proposing “imaginative” ideas (a pejorative term in this context) without adequate empirical foundation. Indeed, said Owen, these theories have met with “exceptions . . . so many and so strong” as to permit its continued acceptance only to the flights of fancy of speculatists” (CCD, 22 May 1867, to Isaac Anderson-​Henry, n. 4. Letter 5545). On the other hand, because Darwin acquired and read Maillet only in 1867 we would have a different explanation for why Darwin omitted Maillet from subsequent editions of the Sketch: he simply did not know enough about his views in 1860 to be able to say much more than “some people say Maillet had a transmutationist view.” Admittedly, Darwin could have included Maillet in a revised version of the Sketch after 1867: either the fifth edition (1868) or the sixth (1872). Why he did not do so can only be guessed. Perhaps upon reading Maillet’s work firsthand, Darwin did not see any true anticipation worth mentioning. Or maybe the firestorm of criticism about Darwin having perhaps “borrowed” his theory from others had died down enough that Darwin could let go of the matter. In later histories of the genesis of Darwin’s theory, Maillet is often mentioned as one who anticipated him—​usually with qualifications about Maillet’s lack of evidence for his views or his failure to identify natural selection as the proper mechanism for organic change. Huxley continued to promote Maillet as a precursor well after the Sketch appeared, and his attribution would be picked up by later writers such as H.F. Osborn and A.C. Seward in the early 20th century. But as to Darwin himself, any familiarity about Maillet would come only indirectly, from other authors, specifically Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Owen, and

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  47 Huxley. As late as 1867 Darwin confessed to a correspondent Isaac Anderson-​ Henry (22 May 1867): You are so kind as to offer to lend me Maillet’s work [Telliamed] which I have often heard of but never seen. I should like to have a look at it, and would return it to you in a short time. I am bound to read it, as my former friend and present bitter enemy Owen, generally ranks me and Maillet as a pair of equal fools (22 May [1867]. Letter 5545).

In any case, the letter Darwin sent to Anderson-​Henry in 1867 is the last we hear anything from Darwin about Maillet.

Aristotle. 384–​322 BCE Despite a reminder to himself, recorded in his Transmutation Notebook C (CDN, 267, 1838)  to “read Aristotle to see whether any my views are very ancient,” Darwin did not do so, at least not at first. From looking at all the early records

Figure 2.3 Aristotle

48  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” of Darwin’s writing down to 1860 we conclude that he seems never to have read anything written by Aristotle. He was certainly aware that Aristotle was a profound naturalist who lived in ancient times, but this was common knowledge in Darwin’s day. Aristotle shows up in many works Darwin did read, and Aristotle was, like Darwin on the Beagle, known as “the philosopher.” But Darwin had no direct familiarity with his views from anything he read by Aristotle himself. Thus, by the publication date of the first version of the Sketch in 1860, Darwin could only say he would “pass over” the writers from antiquity, as having no familiarity with their views. He did not mention Aristotle by name in this brief passage. But again, something changed between 1860 and 1866. It was not Darwin’s encounter with Aristotle’s “Parts of Animals,” brought to his attention only in 1881, by William Ogle (fully discussed in Gotthelf [1999]), just before Darwin’s death. Darwin was impressed by the work, and at once elevated Aristotle into the pantheon of great thinkers who had preceded him. But the date of that encounter is too late for detecting any possible Aristotle influence on Darwin’s Historical Sketch. Rather, Darwin’s source for his inclusion of Aristotle into the Sketch was an excerpted translation of Aristotle’s Physics sent to him by Mr. Clair Grece, perhaps in 1864, and brought to Darwin’s attention again by Grece a year or two later (November 1866; the earlier letter from Grece to Darwin has not been found). On the basis of Grece’s letters and accompanying translation of a part of Aristotle’s Physics Book II, Darwin added these words to the Sketch in a footnote to “classical writers” that he had previously “passed over.” I quote the footnote in full: Aristotle, in his “Physicae Ausculatatones” (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer’s corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organization: and adds (as translated by Mr Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), “So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity; and whatsoever things were not thus constituted by an internal spontaneity, perish and still perish.” We see here the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth.

This passage is all we have from Darwin about Aristotle’s contribution to the species question prior to the early 1880s, and even the later information Darwin

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  49 got from Ogle’s translation of Parts of Animals would not have helped Darwin here, in terms of his agenda in the Historical Sketch. Three points from this passage stand out as we assess Aristotle’s contribution. First, the translated passage from Aristotle that Clair Grece sent to Darwin sometime around 1864 was misleading. Grece made it sound like he was giving Aristotle’s own views, whereas he was giving Aristotle’s representations of the views of another ancient thinker, Empedocles, and in the quoted passage Aristotle (in larger context) was actually arguing against Empedocles’s views. Darwin seems to have been unaware of this. Grece’s first letter to Darwin has not been found, and his second letter in 1866 does not put Aristotle’s comment into the context of the larger argument of Physics Book 2. Thus, whatever Darwin found deficient in Aristotle’s reputed contribution was actually a deficiency in Empedocles, not Aristotle. This does not mean Darwin would have embraced Aristotle’s views either. This question has been debated in the modern literature, the debate centering on the question of whether Darwin was a “teleologist.” Gotthelf (1999) discusses the controversy with sensitivity, and I believe his conclusions are correct. Everything depends on what one means by “teleologist.” The common understanding of that word in biological studies, even down to our times, is that it means “goal, plan, or purpose” in nature’s creations, terms that suggest an intelligence behind nature’s productions. Darwin did not accept that idea, and in fact explicitly rejected it. “Be careful about ‘final cause’ ” he told himself.12 But at the same time Darwin did see “beautiful,” even “perfect,” adaptation in the organic beings that populate the globe. Perfect adaptation suggests teleology—​organs of organisms exist to serve survival needs of the organisms that possess them—​and that is “purpose.” Darwin, in many ways opposed to Cuvier’s conclusions from his study of comparative anatomy, did accept functional adaptation as a feature of biological life. But where Darwin departed from the Cuverian line of thinking about teleology was in thinking that these beautiful adaptations were “designed.” Darwin thought they were just accidents—​ beautiful accidents for the creatures who survived, but also tragic accidents for creatures that were not properly equipped for survival. Selected features were thus “teleological,” in the sense of serving survival purposes, but not “teleological” in the sense of having been designed for serving those purposes. This brings us to our final comment on the Aristotle passage quoted above: what was Darwin objecting to? Was it Aristotle’s deficient understanding of “natural selection” (Darwin’s stated objection); or was it rather Aristotle’s (actually Empedocles’s) view about the causes of variation that lead to beautiful adaptations? When we look at Darwin’s acknowledgments of predecessors in the Historical Sketch, we see that most of his attributions are to those writers who anticipated “natural selection,” a much greater number than those who anticipated Darwin’s views on the causes of variation. Darwin was right about

50  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Aristotle’s deficiency in understanding natural selection. Aristotle does not mention this mechanism, even by a different name, in any of his writings. But he does register the important idea of fortuitous variation (even though, as it turns out, it was not Aristotle’s own position). Darwin must have seen that fortuity was present in the Empedoclean formulation, but he “passes it over.”

Notes 1. Ernst Mayr, 1981, The Growth of Biological Thought. Cambridge: Harvard, p 330. 2. Ibid., pp. 330–​37. 3. Isidore devoted an entire section of volume 2 of his Histoire Naturelle Generale (sections V–​VI, pp. 383 ff.) to the “fluctuating opinions” of Buffon, relying specifically on volume 5 (1755, pp. 59 ff.) of Buffon’s massive 36-​volume Histoire naturelle, generale et particuliere (1749–​1788, 44 volumes). 4. Toby Appel 1987 examines in detail the so-​called Geoffroy-​Cuvier controversy of the first decades of the 19th century. 5. The quoted passage is a translation of Buffon’s original writing. In a footnote (ibid., p. 385, n. 2) Isidore cites his father’s work on Buffon, 1837, which may have been his source for discovering and investigating what Buffon had actually written. The work to which Isidore refers is: Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1838, Fragments biographiques, precedes D’Etudes sur la vie, les ouvrages et les doctrines de Buffon. Paris: F.D. Pillot. 6. Isidore also notes in a footnote that Buffon had offered three “causes of change” in species:  a change in temperature and climate; a change in nourishment; and “the manner of enslavement of domestic animals (ibid., p. 389 and n. 1). These became standard factors in Etienne’s theory of transmutation as well. 7. “CD refers to Maillet 1750; see letter from Isaac Anderson-​Henry, 20 May 1867. Richard Owen mentioned Benoît de Maillet several times in his review of Origin ([Owen] 1860). In particular he said that exceptions to the hypothesis of transmutation were ‘so many and so strong, as to have left the promulgation and advocacy of the hypothesis, under any modification, at all times to individuals of more imaginative temperament; such as Demaillet in the last century, Lamarck in the first half of the present, Darwin in the second half ’ (p. 503). There is a copy of Maillet 1750 in the Darwin Library–​Down” (CCD, 22 May [1867], to I.A. Henry, n. 4. Letter 5545). 8. A.V. Carozzi, in his 1968 edition of Telliamed, gives dates of composition as 1692–​ 1708. Huxley (Westminster Review, April 1860), possibly drawing from Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire (Essais, 1841), gives the composition dates as 1723–​1733. They are in agreement about date of first published appearance, 1748. 9. The best English-​language source for details about Maillet’s life and work is A.V. Carozzi’s editor’s introduction. 10. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1841, Essais de zoologie generale. Paris:  De Roret. Isidore’s reference to Maillet is in a footnote to “bizarre views” regarding transmutation, one of whose is Robinet’s, the other Maillet’s (p. 81, n. 1). The “bizarre” opinion

Buffon, Maillet, Aristotle  51 is one that suggests the human form can be detected in the organization of lower animals and even plants. Their opinions are contrasted with those of Herder (Isidore devoted an entire section to Herder in this book) and Cuvier. Darwin scored the footnote, but made no marginal comment. 11. The publication date of Isidore’s Essais is given as 1841 on the title page, but Isidore dated the Preface September 1840, meaning that the work probably appeared early 1841, giving Darwin enough time to have acquired and read it prior to April 6, 1841. For Darwin’s annotations, see DMP http://​biodiversity library.org/​page/​34093861. 12. Darwin’s Notebooks show that Darwin did at first accept the notion of “final causes” as operative in nature. But as his thinking matured he came to reject the idea that some higher intelligence fashioned creatures for specified purposes or according to an intelligent “plan” or “design.” He did, however, remain committed to the idea of “final causes” to denote the observation that creatures that are able to survive in the harsh struggle for existence are equipped with the “right stuff ” for survival, or, in other words, that the survivors are “exquisitely adapted” for their local conditions. But such adaptations are usually just a result of “chance,” not “plan” or “purpose.” One may trace the evolution of Darwin’s thought in CDN, B5, B49, C236, D114, 135, 167, E48–​9, 146–​7. Detailed discussion in Johnson 2014, ch. 3.

References Aristotle. 1999 Physics. Oxford World Classics. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buffon, Georges-​Louis Leclerc, Comte de. 1749–​1788. Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière. 44 volumes. Paris. de Maillet, Benoît. 1755 [1968]. Teliamed, or Conversations between an Indian Philosopher and a French Missionary on the Diminution of the Sea. Translated and edited by Albert V. Carozzi. Urbana, Chicago, and London: University of Illinois Press. Di Gregorio, Mario, and N.W. Gill. 1990. Charles Darwin’s Marginalia. New  York and London: Garland. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Etienne. 1838. Fragments biographiques, precedes D’Etudes sur la vie, les ouvrages et les doctrines de Buffon. Paris: F.D. Pillot. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1841. Essais de zoologie generale. Paris:  De Roret. (A volume in the series Nouvelles suites a Buffon). Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1859. Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques, vol. 2. Paris: Librarie de Victor Masson. Gotthelf, Allan. 1999. “Darwin on Aristotle.” Journal of the History of Biology 32: 3–​30. Huxley, T.H. 1860. “Darwin on the Origin of Species.” Westminster Review N.S. 17: 541–​70. Owen, Richard. 1842. “Report on British Fossil Reptiles, Part II.” Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1841. Owen, Richard. 1860. “Review of Origin of Species and Other Works.” Edinburgh Review 111: 487–​532. Roger, Jacques. 1989. Buffon, un phiolosophe au Jardin de roi. Paris: Fayard.

3

Early Transmutationists J.B. Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire

A.R. Wallace was not the only one Darwin worried had preceded him. But Wallace was unique in one respect:  he is the only one Darwin thought may actually have preceded him in all the main particulars of his theory and with whose views he was familiar prior to publishing Origin. Nevertheless, despite the fact that he had come to a “fair” resolution of the question about priority with Wallace (and, indirectly, with Lyell and Hooker, both of whom also knew about Wallace’s early contribution), Darwin continued to worry well after 1858 that he had been anticipated, potentially by several others. The difference between these others and Wallace is that Darwin could rightly claim that he did not know of their writings until after he had completed the first edition of Origin. But he knew that lack of knowledge of their contributions should not excuse him from overlooking their potential claims. To set matters right, he would have to consider these authors just as much as he had to acknowledge Wallace, even if he read their contributions only after Origin first appeared. Before we turn to this group of writers, however, we should assess Darwin’s opinions about the views of predecessors with whose views he was familiar, especially the most well-​known transmutationists who came before him. This group includes, in particular, Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin (Darwin’s grandfather), Goethe, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, and Robert Chambers. Darwin knew of the views of all five men long before he went to press in 1859 with Origin. We are able to date precisely when he first encountered their views and to assess what he thought about all five in terms of the priority question. As a preliminary, we may note that all five, in Darwin’s opinion, while propounding some version of transformism (or “metamorphosis” as it was called by Goethe, Geoffroy, and and others), had not given persuasive arguments in support, had not identified “natural selection” as the mechanism, and above all, were deficient in the necessary factual evidence for clinching their cases.

Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

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J.B. Lamarck. 1774–​1829 Lamarck is the first author, after Buffon, Maillet, and Aristotle (writers Darwin decided to “pass over” in the first version of his Historical Sketch), who Darwin brought into the Sketch. Lamarck was a French naturalist, a soldier, biologist, and academic, and an early proponent of the idea that biological evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with natural laws. After serving in the French army, and fighting in the war against Prussia, Lamarck developed a particular interest in botany, and later, after he published the three-​volume work Flore Française (1778),1 he gained membership of the French Academy of Sciences in 1779. Lamarck became involved in the Jardin des Plantes and was appointed to the Chair of Botany in 1788. When the French National Assembly founded the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in 1793, Lamarck became a professor of zoology. In 1801, he published Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres, a major work on the classification of invertebrates, a term he coined. In an 1802 publication, he became one of the first to use the term biology in its modern sense. Lamarck

Figure 3.1 Lamarck

54  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” continued his work as a premier authority on invertebrate zoology. He is remembered, at least in malacology, as a taxonomist of considerable stature. The modern era generally remembers Lamarck for a theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, called soft inheritance, Lamarckism or use/​disuse theory, which he described in his 1809 Philosophie Zoologique.2 However, his idea of soft inheritance was, perhaps, a reflection of the wisdom of the time accepted by many natural historians. Lamarck’s contribution to evolutionary theory consisted of the first truly cohesive theory of biological evolution, in which an alchemical force drove organisms up a ladder of complexity and a second environmental force adapted them to local environments through use and disuse of characteristics, differentiating them from other organisms. Scientists have debated whether advances in the field of transgenerational epigenetics mean that Lamarck was to an extent correct, or not. Lamarck had first published his views in 1801, then elaborated them in 1809 and 1815. Darwin had read Lamarck’s 1809 Philosophie Zoologique in May 1839 and his 1815 Histoire Naturelle probably in 1841, but he was, almost from the beginning, not impressed. “Very poor and useless book,” he noted to himself in his marginal notes to the Philosophie Zoologique (Marginalia, p. 478). He repeated the same sentiment to Lyell in 1859: “You often allude to Lamarck’s work; I do not know what you think about it, but it appeared to me extremely poor; I got no fact or idea from it” (CCD, 11 October [1859], to Charles Lyell. Letter 2503). Despite these dismissals, Darwin gave Lamarck credit in the Sketch mainly for being “the first man whose conclusions on this subject excited much attention” (Variorum, p. 60, lines 7–​13). He also gave several sentences in the Sketch to Lamarck’s contributions, including an acknowledgment that Lamarck had hit upon the idea of “descent with modification,” had identified reasons for believing in this opinion, and had specified “causes” for the phenomenon. And Darwin was also impressed that Lamarck had moved thinking about the origin of species away from special, divine creation to the idea of “rule by law” rather than “miraculous interposition” (Variorum, p. 60, line 8). Darwin’s entry to Lamarck in the Sketch reads in full: Passing over authors from the classical period to that of Buffon, with whose writings I am not familiar, Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on this subject excited much attention. This justly-​celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801, and he much enlarged them in 1809 in his “Philosophie Zoologique,” and subsequently, in 1815, in his Introduction to his “Hist, Nat. des Animaux sans Vertèbres.” In these works he upholds the doctrine that all species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic

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as well as in the inorganic world being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. Lamarck seems to have been chiefly led to his conclusion on the gradual change of species, by the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, by the almost perfect gradation of forms in certain organic groups, and by the analogy of domestic productions. With respect to the means of modification, he attributed something to the direct action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects of habit. To this latter agency he seems to attribute all the beautiful adaptations in nature;—​such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on the branches of trees. But he likewise believed in a law of progressive development; and as all the forms of life thus tended to progress, in order to account for the existence at the present day of very simple productions, he maintained that such forms were now spontaneously generated. (Variorum, p. 60, lines 7–​13)

In the Sketch, Darwin did not criticize Lamarck’s account of how species change but presented it as a brief recapitulation, without editorial comment. But Darwin could not endorse Lamarck’s views as being a real anticipation of his own. “My theory very distinct from Lamarck’s” he wrote in an early Notebook (CDN B214, 1837).3 At this early date Darwin may have seen some anticipation of his views in Lamarck, but even then, he could not yield “independence”: It is important with respect to extinction of species, the capability of only small amount of change at any one time. Seeing what . . . Lamarck [has] written I pretend no originality of idea—​(though I arrived at them quite independently & have used them since) the line of proof & reducing facts to law only merit if merit there be in following work. (CDN D69)

The most complete catalogue of Darwin’s disagreements with Lamarck, however, did not come in 1837, when he made his Notebook entries, but two years later, in his extensive annotations of Lamarck’s Philosophie Zoologique, volume 1 (1809), read by Darwin in May 1839.4 While finding some “good remarks” here and there in Lamarck’s volume, Darwin’s overall verdict amounted to a severe rebuke. For openers, Darwin discovered a disturbing “want of proof ” in many of Lamarck’s claims (annotations to pp. 64, 75, 79, 150, 233; Marginalia, pp. 477–​ 80). Nor could Darwin agree at this early date (1839) that Lamarck’s views about classification and so-​called degradation were similar to his own: There appears to me to be some confusion in these ideas of [classification and] degradation [in Lamarck]. What makes perfection, except that toward the end

56  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” wanted. Look at House of Crustacea Scale (of many kinds) of complication=on exists. P. 144–​145: here is the difference between Lamarck and me. (Marginalia to Lamarck 1809, p. 477)

Lamarck had also erred, Darwin believed, in disbelieving in extinction (except that caused by man), hence “theory must be false.” Lamarck did not notice the significance in geographic groupings in identifying species. Lamarck’s entire notion of “progressive development” from lowest to highest creatures was unacceptable to Darwin: “Simply to differ from highest animal, does not prove degradation. Who can doubt superiority of some organs & therefore senses in lower animals.” Lamarck’s attempt to differentiate a theory that applies to animals from a theory that applies to plants—​namely, by postulating a “conscious willing” to change in animals, was for Darwin “absurd.” In general, Lamarck relied on a notion of “final causes” that Darwin could not abide, at least in Lamarck’s sense. Darwin summed up his opinion of Lamarck’s great work succinctly: “Very poor and useless book” (Marginalia, 478a). Darwin continued in this same vein throughout his comments on Lamarck’s works in other marginal notes, Notebooks, and correspondence. A typical instance is what he wrote to Hooker in late 1844: In my most sanguine moments, all I expect, is that I shall be able to show even to sound Naturalists, that there are two sides to the question of the immutability of species;—​that facts can be viewed & grouped under the notion of allied species having descended from common stocks. With respect to Books on this subject, I do not know of any systematical ones, except Lamarck’s, which is veritable rubbish.” (CCD, [10–​11 November 1844], to Hooker. Letter 789)

Lamarck, in Darwin’s opinion, did give perhaps the first “systematic” defense of descent of later species from a “common stock,” but for all that, his ideas are merely “rubbish.” Matters only got worse from there. Darwin’s annotations to Lamarck’s Histoire Naturelle (2nd edition, 1835–​1845, 11 volumes), volume 1 of which he read in 1857, continue to show Darwin’s low regard: It is doubtful whether Lamarck has done more good by awakening subject, or harm by writing so much with so few facts. This volume—​no facts, wild metaphysical speculations—​very poor. (Marginalia, 477a)

“Very poor. Rubbish. Wild metaphysical speculations,” these words fairly summarize the regard Darwin had of Lamarck’s ideas.

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As to the question of priority, Darwin was, in good conscience, able to dismiss Lamarck as a predecessor. But, again, he was hesitant to embrace this position in a full-​throated voice. He confessed to Hooker in a now famous letter in 1844: At last gleams of light have come, & I am 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. (CCD, [11 January 1844], to Hooker, letter 729: [the editors assert, fn. 9, that CD “first formulated his theory of natural selection in autumn 1838,” Notebook D: 134e–​5e.])

We may gain some insight into why Darwin held this view by looking briefly at the history of his encounters with Lamarck, both through Lamarck’s written works and at what he learned about Lamarck from others. Darwin no doubt first learned about Lamarck’s transmutationism from his then-​friend Robert Grant in Edinburgh in 1826–​1827 when Darwin was there as a student. He recalled in his autobiography, written decades later, that Grant was much impressed with Lamarck, and conveyed his admiration to Darwin, but Darwin claimed he did not take much away from this encounter (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, p. 49). Darwin then learned more from Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, volume 2, a book he acquired in the second year of his Beagle voyage while he was in harbor in South America in 1832. Lyell began this volume with an extended account and critique of Lamarck’s views, showing his opinion about what Lamarck believed and showing also why he disagreed. Darwin had by this time not read any of Lamarck’s works in the original, but one can only imagine that Lyell’s negative assessment made an impact. Darwin may have been looking at Lamarck when he first read him in 1839 through the not-​ so-​rosy lens of Lyell’s assessment. To make matters worse, Lyell aggravated Darwin’s concerns about Lamarck’s potential priority by sometimes suggesting that Darwin’s own theory was little more than reworked Lamarckism, at least at first (Lyell did come around after 1858 to see that Darwin was indeed different from Lamarck and had a better theory of transmutation). Even in 1859 Lyell could not quite believe Darwin was “the first” to enunciate the theory of progressive development in a convincing way. In June of that year Lyell wrote to T.H. Huxley suggesting that not only Lamarck but also Samuel Haldeman and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire had

58  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” developed theories sufficiently like Darwin’s to ask Darwin for the dates of their contributions (CCD, 17 June 1859, from Lyell to Huxley. Letter 2469A). Darwin apparently received a copy of this letter, or one much like it at the same time, for he replied to Lyell within a week with a note of thanks for alerting him to Haldeman. In this letter Lyell suggested that Lamarck in particular was, he conceived, “the first to bring the theory forward systematically and ‘go the whole orang.’ ” And then in October of the same year, after reviewing Darwin’s Origin manuscript, Lyell almost chided Darwin for overlooking Lamarck’s original contribution: In the first place at p. 480 it cannot surely be said “that the most eminent naturalists have rejected the view of the mutability of species”—​You do not mean to ignore G. St Hilaire & Lamarck—​As to the latter you may say that in regard to animals you substitute natural selection for volition to a certain considerable extent, but in his theory of the changes of plants he cd not introduce volition—​he may no doubt have laid an undue comparative stress on changes in physical conditions & too little on those of contending organisms—​He at least was for the universal mutability of species & for a genealogical link between the past & the present. (CCD, 3 October 1859, from Lyell. Letter 2501)

Darwin replied almost immediately to these perceived slights at his priority by denying that Lamarck’s theory had any value to him whatsoever. “You often allude to Lamarck’s work; I do not know what you think about it, but it appeared to me extremely poor; I got no fact or idea from it,” he commented (CCD, 11 October [1859], to Lyell. Letter 2503). Lyell’s opinion about the species question was, Darwin believed, important for the success of his own theory among “men of science,” and so he naturally hoped that Lyell would give it public support. The comparison to Lamarck would be damaging. But, in 1863, when Lyell finally did go public with his views in his own Antiquity of Man (1863), he continued to draw parallels between Lamarck and Darwin. Darwin reacted as he had before, with concern and disappointment. Lastly, you refer repeatedly to my view as a modification of Lamarcks doctrine of development & progression; if this is your deliberate opinion there is nothing to be said—​; but it does not seem so to me; Plato, Buffon, my grandfather before Lamarck & others propounded the obvious view that if species were not created separately, they must have descended from other species; & I can see nothing else in common between the Origin & Lamarck. I believe this way of putting the case is very injurious to its acceptance; as it implies

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necessary progression & closely connects Wallace’s & my views with what I  consider, after two deliberate readings, as a wretched book; & one from which (I well remember my surprise) I gained nothing. (CCD, 12–​13 March [1863], to Lyell. Letter 4038)

Darwin knew that he was in a “grumbling” mood in his correspondence with Lyell, as he confessed to Hooker:  “I have grumbled a bit in answer to him, at his always classing my work as a modification of Lamarck’s, which it is no more than of any author who did not believe in immutability of Species & did believe in descent” (CCD, 13 [March  1863], to Hooker. Letter 4039). But he had cause to grumble, even to an old friend and mentor. If Lyell put his stamp of considerable authority on the view of a strong resemblance between Lamarck’s theory and Darwin’s, not only might new readers of Darwin be misled about the substance of Darwin’s actual theory, but about Darwin’s priority as well. What did Darwin believe was the difference between his own theory and Lamarck’s? That is a different question than the one about Darwin’s concerns about priority. As a preliminary assessment, Darwin had several grounds for disagreeing that Lamarck was a true predecessor. Lamarck believed in “progressionism,” meaning that, as Lamarck supposed, biological organisms evolve (develop) through time by necessity from less complex to more complex forms; he believed in a “conscious willing” on the part of animals to change (a doctrine he could not very well apply to plants); and he believed that newer species sometimes originate by “spontaneous generation” to take the place of species that have gone extinct. All of these differences were important to Darwin. He did not accept any of them. But the crux of the matter for Darwin was Lamarck’s postulated mechanism of species change. Transmutationists before Lamarck had argued some version or another of “direct effects of environmental conditions” on causing species to change. Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire was the most sophisticated theorist in this group. He attempted to demonstrate that animals and plants “respond” to local environmental conditions, adjusting themselves in ways that enhanced their ability to survive as conditions (circonstances) change. Colder weather, for example, induces dogs living in the new conditions to grow longer hair, as protection. His arguments were sufficiently persuasive that Etienne’s mechanism has come to be known as “Geoffroyism.” Lamarck’s mechanism was different, and more complex. Rather than “direct” causation, Lamarck postulated “indirect” causation. He argued that changing external conditions give rise to new “habits” (at least in animals) and that new habits in turn generate new heritable structures through a mechanism that is now known as the “inheritance of acquired characters.” To use a familiar

60  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” example, progenitors of giraffes “stretched” their necks to reach foliage higher up on the trees; such stretching, over time, caused gradual elongation of the necks, in time causing shorter-​necked ruminants to evolve into the long-​necked giraffe. The whole process can be encapsulated into the convenient expression “use-​inheritance.” Darwin disagreed with most of Lamarck’s points. He thus had good reason for insisting that his theory was indeed quite distinct from Lamarck’s. He did not accept “progressionism” in Lamarck’s sense. For Darwin, new species could be seen as “moving upward on a scale of complexity of organization,” but they might just as well be seen as moving downward (i.e., becoming less complex), or even neutral with respect to direction of change. Darwin also could not accept “conscious willing” of organisms to change or “spontaneous generation” to account for the sudden appearance of new forms. The only part of Lamarck’s theory that Darwin could agree with was Lamarck’s assertion that new species come about through natural causes, not by divine fiat. As to Lamarck’s “use inheritance” as the mechanism of change, Darwin could and did accept this factor to a limited extent, even in his later writings. At issue here is the question of how to account for variations among the offspring of individual species, whether in domesticated animals or animals in the state of nature. Darwin was unsure, and he believed Lamarck’s account might play a role, even if a limited one. But Darwin’s main position on this issue was that variations cannot be explained by the effect of external conditions on organisms, whether direct (Geoffroyism) or indirect (Lamarckism). Darwin’s preferred explanation for the appearance of new variations that would be selected for survival was that they appeared mainly “by chance,” by which Darwin meant only that the underlying causes of such variations are “unknown.” They may be known in the future, but at present, Darwin maintained, they “just happened” without assignable cause. Geoffroy and Lamarck had erred, Darwin thought, by believing that the causes of variation are known, and that they had identified what these causes are. Darwin’s paragraph in the Sketch dedicated to Lamarck, then, boils down to Darwin’s recognition of Lamarck as an early transmutationist who had a plausible, albeit incorrect, account of how new species come into being. Lamarck’s main claim to lasting importance, in Darwin’s view, was that he brought the entire question of transmutation into respectable guise before a large reading audience. Unlike several predecessors, Lamarck brought transmutation into public view and made it an object of intense scientific interest. Darwin may have believed, as biologists tend to do to this day, that Lamarck is worth remembering and reading, not for the correctness of his conclusions, but for his having opened up for informed discussion an entirely new way of thinking about the origin of species.

Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 

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Erasmus Darwin. 1731–​1802 Darwin did not acknowledge his grandfather Erasmus as a direct influence on him in the Historical Sketch, beginning with the third English edition, or anywhere else for that matter. Darwin knew he had a famous grandfather who had written on species change. He knew that Erasmus was “ahead of his times” in speculating on this question. He was familiar with the elder Darwin’s works in which such views were discussed. He even composed a “Life” of Erasmus in his later years. Yet, he had little to say about him in the Sketch. We should wonder why. The older Darwin made his appearance in the Sketch only twice, both in a footnote to Lamarck, and in both cases with extreme brevity. The first comment says only that Erasmus Darwin had “anticipated” Lamarck by some few years: “It is curious how largely my grandfather Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the erroneous grounds of opinion, and the views of Lamarck, in his ‘Zoonomia’ (vol. i, p. 500–​510), published in 1794” (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 60, line 13*.3). In the same footnote, immediately following his entry on Goethe (the author who comes immediately after Lamarck), Darwin observed that three authors—​ Goethe, Erasmus Darwin, and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire (the author who

Figure 3.2  Erasmus Darwin

62  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” immediately follows Goethe in the Sketch), all hit upon the theory of transmutation at just about the same time: “It is rather a singular a singular instance of the manner in which similar views arise at about the same period, that [all three authors] came to the same conclusion on the origin of species, in the years 1794-​ 5” (Variorum, pp. 60–​1, line 13*.5).5 These entries are curious. By establishing Erasmus as a forerunner of Lamarck, Darwin implicitly suggests that he was, therefore, also a forerunner of his own views. But, Darwin does not make this claim. And, when we look at what Erasmus Darwin actually wrote in the work cited by Charles, Zoonomia, he seems to have anticipated Charles himself, in a number of particular ways. Darwin almost admits this anticipation of his own views by saying Erasmus’ views were “similar” to those of Goethe, while he had also just said Goethe’s views were “similar” to those of Lamarck. Why, then, did Charles not claim his own grandfather as one of his own influences? One answer might be that Charles was not very familiar with Zoonomia in 1859 or 1860, when he inserted the footnote. That explanation, however, fails, for a couple of reasons. One is that Darwin did include several other authors as direct anticipators of his theory even though he had not read their original contributions. In fact, if we add up all the authors Darwin included in the Sketch, perhaps as many as 10 were sources he learned about only second-​hand—​ through the works of Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, D.A. Godron, and Heinrich Bronn. So, even if Darwin knew of Erasmus’s Zoonomia only at second-​hand, that should not have prevented him from giving a more extensive acknowledgment of his views. But in fact, Charles had read Zoonomia, first in Edinburgh in 1826 (without comment: Edinburgh Reading Note Book, CUL-​DAR 271.1.5), then again in late March 1839 (Reading Notebooks, 119:4a, 26 March 1839, with annotations at the end of the volume). He also recalled many years later, in his Autobiography, that he had “greatly admired” Zoonomia while a student in Edinburgh, while also confessing the book had “[no] effect on my mind” (p. 49). In his marginal notes to Zoonomia made in 1839 Charles noted that Lamarck had been “forestalled” by Erasmus. He seems only to have faulted Erasmus for failing to show “means” of change (presumably, that Ersamus had not hit upon natural selection as the mechanism of change; Erasmus had in fact identified some other possible mechanisms). He also was guided by Erasmus to the works of David Hume, whom Erasmus had cited as a forerunner of his own views. Hume had argued, according to Erasmus in Zoonomia, that all living creatures may have descended from a single vital filament of life at the beginning. Darwin adopted a similar view in the Origin.6 Darwin had other things to say about Erasmus in his marginal notes and correspondence. Erasmus had “overrated” the role of consciousness in effecting

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organic change (a charge Darwin would also level against Lamarck). He believed that Erasmus’s discovery of a “law of nature” according to which creatures “develop” or “progress” over the long course of ages was nothing very new or exciting. Erasmus had hailed this discovery with considerable fanfare in the Zoonomia: Would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-​blooded animals have, [in the great length of time , since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of mankind], arisen from one living filament, which THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end! . . . What a magnificent idea of the infinite power of THE GREAT ARCHITECT! THE CAUSE OF CAUSES! THE PARENT OF PARENTS! ENS ENTIUM! (Zoonomia, v. 1, pp. 505–​9)

Charles Darwin scored and commented on this passage in his marginal notes, dismissing the discovery with words amounting to “nothing wonderful, nothing new here” (Marginalia, pp. 185–​7). Another observation Darwin culled from Zoonomia, as the First Notebook B shows (p. I), is that sexual selection is conducive to variation, whereas asexual reproduction allows of none. This fact, which has a direct bearing on Erasmus Darwin’s views on evolution, became one of the bases of Darwin’s views on the supply of variation (Charles Darwin Online F1574a). Charles also detected some foreshadowing of the Malthusian doctrine of “struggle for existence” in Erasmus’s writing. And Erasmus, finally, seemed to suggest a doctrine that Darwin would stick with, even over considerable opposition by his friend Thomas Huxley, that “nature does not make leaps.” Somewhat strangely, none of these observations of Erasmus’s views merited entry into the Historical Sketch. A final piece of evidence that Erasmus should have been seen by Darwin as a forerunner, if not a strong direct influence, is that others who read Origin when it first appeared made this very association. This group includes Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, and Robert Grant, both of whom pressed the case that Darwin was speculating along the same lines as his grandfather. No doubt many others drew the same parallel (see, for example, the review of Origin by John Duns, North British Review, v. 32, May 1860). Darwin himself noticed it in a letter he wrote to Hooker in July 1860 (CCD, [20? July] 1860. Letter 2875), in which he drew attention to the sneering review of Origin by Wilberforce in the Quarterly Review of July 1860, in which Erasmus and Charles Darwin were both

64  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” painted with the same brush of ridicule. Richard Owen, who evidently helped Wilberforce prepare his review, must have had similar thoughts. And Robert Grant, though with admiration rather than contempt, drove the point home with special emphasis in a letter to Darwin in May 1861, claiming Erasmus as an important precursor of Darwin’s own ideas on transmutation (see CCD, [20? July] 1860, to Hooker, and n. 3, letter 2875; and CCD, 16 May 1861, from R.E. Grant. Letter 3150). Thus, by the time Darwin was preparing his third English edition of Origin he had plenty of support for the idea that Erasmus was an important forerunner. And, even if he had downplayed Erasmus in the first two English editions of Origin, he could well have added some greater elaboration in subsequent editions under the promptings of these other people. But this he did not do. Erasmus remained confined to a footnote in which no idea of his opinions, let alone his influence on Charles, can be discerned. When we add up these pieces, we find: 1) Charles Darwin regarded Erasmus as a forerunner of Lamarck; 2) Charles did not acknowledge Erasmus as a direct forerunner of himself, so Erasmus’ influence on Darwin would have been, in his eyes, at best an indirect influence through Lamarck; and 3) Erasmus’s views may have been directly influenced by David Hume. If we can try to imagine Charles Darwin trying to make sense of all of this, he might well have done what he in fact did: acknowledged Lamarck as a forerunner, note that Lamarck had been anticipated by Erasmus Darwin, and (though he did not acknowledge this), recognize that David Hume stood before these two important transmutationists as perhaps the ultimate source of their important ideas about species change. Why, then, did Darwin not give more credit to Erasmus in his Historical Sketch than he actually did? One reason may be that he thought Erasmus was “too speculative.” As the editors (Charles Darwin Online F1461) of Darwin’s many notes on the subject of Darwin’s views about Erasmus remark, “In his [Charles Darwin’s] mature period, works such as his grandfather’s Zoonomia could only leave him ‘much disappointed, the proportion of speculation being so large to the facts given’ ” (Autobiography, pp. 49, 152). That explanation seems incomplete. Many of Darwin’s sources were “speculative,” and he knew that his own views were, to an extent, speculative too. It seems more likely that Darwin, always concerned about being too closely associated with predecessors whose views were controversial—​especially among naturalists who had some knowledge about disputes surrounding the species question—​simply wanted to distance his own views from predecessors who had already raised eyebrows. In this regard, it is noteworthy that S.T. Coleridge, some years before Charles was born, coined the term “darwinising” to characterize the “wild speculations” of Erasmus, thus somewhat staining not only the theories but the man himself with ridicule (Autobiography, p. 150). Darwin did not want

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to ride into his own originality on the coat-​tails of writers who had already been roundly criticized in the scientific community, and Erasmus was perhaps foremost among that group. So, while Charles might have gained significant advantage by allying his views with those of his illustrious grandfather, he chose to mention him in the Historical Sketch with a mostly muted voice.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 1749–​1832 Like Erasmus Darwin, Goethe is entered into the Historical Sketch only in a footnote—​the same footnote in fact as the one that included Erasmus—​and again with brevity: According to Isid. Geoffroy there is no doubt that Goethe was an extreme partisan of similar views [as those of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck] as shown in the Introduction to a work written in 1794 and 1795, but not published till long afterwards: he has pointedly remarked (Goethe als Naturforscher, von Dr. Karl Meding, s. 34) that the future question for naturalists will be how, for example,

Figure 3.3 Goethe

66  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” cattle got their horns and not what they are used for. (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” 13*.4–​13*.5)

Goethe is then mentioned again as one of the three authors (along with Erasmus Darwin and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire) who hit upon the “same conclusion” about the origin of species at the same time—​1794–​1795. These brief references raise several questions about how Darwin learned of Goethe’s contributions, from what source(s), the date(s) of his encounters with these sources, and what Darwin learned from them about Goethe’s views. As a start, Darwin’s dating of Goethe’s work—​1794–​1795, but “not published till long afterward”—​raises a question about what work by Goethe Darwin was referring to. From his brief entry regarding Goethe in the Sketch it is evident that Darwin was drawing his information about the date of Goethe’s contribution from Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. But which work by Isidore did Darwin draw from? Context suggests volume 2 of the Histoire naturelle generale des regnes organique (1859),7 but strictly speaking, Darwin does not name Isidore’s volume for his citation to Goethe. As far as the Histoire Naturelle is concerned, Darwin acknowledged it only for his information about Lamarck’s date of publication and for Buffon’s “fluctuating opinions.” Isidore was one of Darwin’s sources for information about Goethe too, but Darwin does not name the title of Isidore’s work in the Sketch. The Histoire does suggest itself as Darwin’s source because he acknowledged Goethe immediately after Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin, whose source is explicitly said by Darwin to be Isidore’s Histoire. In addition, Lamarck dedicated a footnote to Goethe in his Histoire (p. 406, n. 2), in which he cites a specific work by Goethe as the basis for his opinion that Goethe was an “extreme partisan” of the Lamarckian view that species may transmutate. The work cited by Isidore is Goethe’s Introduction Generale a L’anatomie Compare, which is actually a compilation of essays by Goethe written over a period of years and translated from German into French in 1837 by Charles Martins.8 Isidore notes that the essay he is referring to (see Lamarck’s Philosophie Zoologique, volume 1 (1809), read by Darwin in May 1839) was “composed” in 1794–​1795 but “did not appear” until long afterwards. He could be suggesting that Martins in 1837 was the first one to publish this work. In any case, it is striking that Darwin would say much the same thing in the Sketch, that is, that Goethe “was an extreme partisan” of transmutationist views, that he “wrote” his work in 1794–​1795, but that “the work was not published till long afterwards.” Darwin does not give the reference to Isidore for this quote, but Isidore’s Histoire Naturelle (p. 406 fn. 2) looks like Darwin’s source. But another possibility must be considered, Isidore’s Essais de zoologie generale (1841).9 Darwin read and heavily annotated this work shortly after it was published, perhaps as early as 1841. His annotations draw attention to Goethe as

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a “believer in change of species” (annotations to pp. 167 and 247 in the Essais). He also made a note to himself “Introduction in Preface,” immediately following his comments about Goethe (Marginalia, pp. 301h–​302a). Thus, the Essais may have been Darwin’s source for Goethe, not the Histoire. Either way, Isidore was the source; the only question is, which of his works was Darwin drawing from?10 As to Darwin’s date of encounter with Isidore’s Essais, much evidence points to 1841 or shortly thereafter. But his marginal comment, immediately after his note that Goethe believed in “change of species,” raises a different possibility. Darwin wrote “Introduction in Preface.” The expression is too brief to draw any certain conclusions. But it could be a reference to Darwin’s planned Historical Sketch. If that is the case, Darwin could not have made this annotation before 1856, the year in which he began to think about and compose the “Preface” that would become the Sketch. Thus, instead of 1841, the year of Darwin’s annotations to Isidore’s Essais could be 1856 or later. Perhaps Darwin read the Essais twice, once in 1841 and once in or shortly after 1856. Or perhaps, the expression “Introduction in Preface” does not refer to the planned Preface to Origin but to something else entirely. Given what he said in the Sketch about an “introduction” to one of Goethe’s works from 1794–​1795, Darwin may simply have been referring to that work, not to his own “Preface.” When we probe further, we find in Isidore’s Essais a lengthy section on Goethe. He drew his information from a translation of Goethe’s scientific work produced by Charles Martins, titled Oeuvres d’histoire naturelle, a translation into French of many of Geothe’s studies in natural history (Essais, p. 153).11 Isidore shows almost unalloyed enthusiasm for Goethe, particularly with respect to the breadth of his knowledge about many diverse fields and original contributions, including not just scientific studies but works in literature, art history, and philosophy. It did not hurt that Isidore believed Goethe was walking in the same track as his father Etienne, both asserting a radical new view that species undergo transformation over time. Goethe was, in Isidore’s eyes, a polymath of such stature that his name could almost be coupled with the name of his homeland: Goethe is Germany. In support of the speculation that Darwin drew on Isidore’s Essais for his information about Goethe, we find important evidence when we examine the Essais and Darwin’s annotations. We have seen that Darwin dated Goethe’s original contribution to the species question to 1794–​1795, “but not published till long afterwards” (Variorum, p. 61, line 13*.4). And sure enough, Isidore made this very point in the Essais. Confining himself only to Goethe’s biological speculations, Isidore identified three works by Goethe that had made important contributions. These are dated 1786, 1795, and 1796, close in time to the dates of Goethe’s works identified by Darwin in the Sketch. Isidore also gives a citation: “Erster Entwurf einer allgemeinen Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie, ausgehend von der

68  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Osteologie 1795 entstanden,” Zur Morphologie, Band 1 Heft 2 [1817], page 182 (Essais, p. 164, n. 2).12 Darwin did not cite this source in his Sketch, but Isidore’s citation does provide evidence that Goethe published his 1795–​1796 works in 1817, that is, “long after” he composed them, just as Darwin said in the Sketch (Variorum, p. 61, line 13*.4). In view of the absence of any specific reference by Darwin to Isidore’s volume, or to anything written directly by Goethe, it is hard to know with certainty which work by Isidore Darwin was drawing from. The matter is further complicated by the fact that Isidore, in the Essais, based his information about Goethe on a translation of Goethe’s works into French by Charles Martins, published in 1837 (see n. 4). Perhaps Darwin mistook the original publication date from the fact that Martins published his translation in 1837, and in relying on Isidore, Darwin took 1837 as the date of Goethe’s publication of his biological works. Also, Goethe published a large volume of work over nearly 50 years, so tracking down the precise publication dates of much of that oeuvre poses challenges even today. In any case, we know that Darwin did not read anything written by Goethe himself prior to writing the first version of the Sketch. What he knew about Goethe came from Isidore, who also apparently had not read anything by Goethe directly, but took his information from Charles Martins 1837 translation. As far as Darwin’s understanding of Goethe’s ideas is concerned, then, we know that his source was Isidore (at least up until 1861) and that Isidore’s source was Martins. Darwin was two steps removed from direct encounter with Goethe. Darwin, then, could have drawn either from Isidore’s 1841 Essais or his 1859 Histoire for his information about Goethe. The two works contain similar information, so much so that it seems likely Isidore, in composing the second work, drew heavily on what he had already written in 1841. But when we move further through Darwin’s footnote entry on Goethe in the Sketch, yet another candidate emerges as Darwin’s source: Karl Meding’s Goethe als Naturforscher. This entry raises yet another question. Darwin’s syntax here indicates that Isidore was also Darwin’s source for Meding. But that cannot be. Isidore did not cite Meding in his Histoire, nor could he have done so because Meding’s work appeared after Isidore’s Histoire, published only in 1861. Who, then, does Darwin mean by “he” in the phrase “he has pointedly remarked”? Darwin inserted the phrase beginning with those words only in 1866, five years after he made his original entry on Goethe, in the third English edition of Origin 1861. In the intervening period Darwin acquired and read Karl Meding’s short work (46 pages) on Goethe; in fact he may have read it soon after the third edition of Origin went to press, in 1861 (Meding published in Dresden in 1861).13 Meding is listed by Darwin as one among authors who had reviewed Origin, which may have prompted Darwin to read him (CDOnline CUL-​ DAR262.8.9–​18).14 Thus, the only person Darwin could be referring to when he

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wrote “he pointedly remarked” is Goethe himself, as Darwin learned more about him from reading Meding. And sure enough, on page 34 of Meding’s volume on Goethe, the page Darwin cited, Meding reports Goethe as holding the very sentiment Darwin highlights, about the horns of cattle. So, while Darwin certainly did get the idea that Goethe was “an extreme partisan of similar views” from Isidore’s Histoire or Essais,15 we cannot attribute the reference to Meding to Isidore, despite appearances to the contrary. The passage “he pointedly remarked” is a direct reference to Goethe himself (as represented in Meding, who in turn was presenting Goethe’s views), based presumably on Darwin’s own reading of Meding’s Goethe als Naturforschunger (in German—​ never Darwin’s favorite language) some short time after he read Isidore’s account in the Histoire. How does all of this bear on the question of Darwin’s concerns about his own priority vis a vis Goethe in discovering his theory? Goethe did precede him, by many decades, in propounding transformist views. Darwin was familiar with some of Goethe’s works long before he composed the Historical Sketch (see Darwin’s “Reading Notebook,” 119: 18b, 22b; *119:14, reproduced in CCD v. 4), including views that at least hinted at descent with modification. Other than brief entries on Goethe in the Transmutation Notebooks, Darwin’s first indication of familiarity with Goethe came in a letter to the Gardener’s Chronicle in August 1843 showing his agreement with what was perhaps Goethe’s most important contribution to natural science, the idea of “unity of type,” a concept that had evolutionary implications (CCD, [late August  1843], to Gardener’s Chronicle, and n.  2. Letter 693). Darwin also acknowledged Goethe’s original contributions in his notes on Isidore Geoffroy’s Vie of his father that Darwin read in 1855 regarding the so-​called “loi de balancement” (Marginalia, p. 320; Natural Selection, p. 49; Origin, first English edition, 1859, p. 147 [Variorum, p. 295, Ch. V, line 124]).16 Beyond that record of evidence, other authors who read Origin detected some anticipation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory in Goethe’s writings. Some early reviews of Origin paired Darwin with Goethe (e.g., Meding 1861, p. 32). One of Darwin’s staunch German supporters, Ernst Haeckel, later noted that Goethe was, along with Darwin and Lamarck, one of the discoverers of evolutionary theory (CCD, 8 January 1867, to E. Haeckel. Letter 5349). But even before Origin was published, George Lewes in 1855, in a book Darwin may have read, had praised Goethe’s morphology as a precursor to other developmental theories such as those of von Baer, Lamarck, and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire (CCD, 10 August 1864, from E. Haeckel, n. 10. Letter 4586). In this work Lewes named one of his chapter headings (as translated into German, 1857) “Goethe als Naturforschunger,” precisely the same title that Karl Meding used to title his own book on Goethe in 1861 (as just discussed).

70  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Despite all of this evidence about Goethe, Darwin could at best acknowledge (in the Historical Sketch) that Goethe was, along with his grandfather Erasmus, one of those earlier ones who had propounded “similar views” as those of Lamarck. He did not spell out what those “similar views” are, and judging from his entries on Lamarck in the Sketch, he was not, in his own eyes, very beholden to them for his own opinions. And, despite the fact that he had read some of Goethe as early as the 1830s, as recorded in his Transmutation Notebooks (see CDN C-​267), he relied only on Isidore’s Essais of 1841, his Histoire of 1859, and later on Meding’s 1861 book, for his appreciation of Goethe’s contributions. It appears from this record of evidence that, while Goethe may have anticipated Darwin, he did not directly influence him (Isidore’s 1859 work, like Meding’s, was published only after Origin was completed). Darwin was thus freed of the need to consider Goethe as any sort of threat to his own priority—​even if this may have involved some self-​deception.

Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. 1772–​1844 Darwin had some familiarity with Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire’s writings prior to beginning the Sketch. He had read Etienne’s Principes des philosophie zoologique (hereafter PPZ) (Paris, 1830), in 1837, as he records in his B Notebook (CDN B110–​4, 1837). He also mentions in the Notebooks another small work by Etienne, “Paleontographie” (1833?, no citation given by Darwin), in which Etienne claimed priority over Lamarck on species change (CDN B178 and notes).17 Darwin evidently did not read this “opuscule” in the original but rather learned of it from another author, G.P. Deschayes (1833–​1834). Deschayes was challenging Etienne’s originality, favoring instead Lamarck as the true founder of transmutationism. (The editors of Charles Darwin’s Notebooks were unable to trace Etienne’s “Paleotographie” but surmise it appeared in a short journal note to the Bulletin Geologie. de Societe de France. 4, pp. 89–​90: CDN B178 n.1.) To set a context for understanding Etienne’s contributions to the species question, as Darwin understood them, we should contrast Etienne’s views with those of Lamarck. Darwin did know that Etienne had claimed difference from the views of Lamarck, even “priority.” And indeed, the two authors did differ on some fundamental elements. Lamarck had argued for “use-​inheritance” as the mechanism of gradual transmutation. (This idea is spelled out more fully in the section on Lamarck.) In essence, it means that animals (and presumably plants) change their original constitutions by adapting their “habits” (use of parts) to meet the needs of changing environmental conditions. Giraffes “stretch” their necks to reach higher foliage, and the elongated necks produced this way are transmitted to offspring.

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Figure 3.4  Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire

Etienne had a different idea. He explicitly rejected Lamarck’s “use-​ inheritance.” In its stead, he proposed a more direct action of changing environments on the organization of organic beings. Colder climates, for example, directly induce longer hair in animals exposed to them. No change in “use” or “habits” is involved in this process. Rather, the longer hair is a direct response to the changed climate. Etienne used the word “changement” to describe what is happening in these cases, and explicitly rejected Lamarck’s “habitude.” Etienne seems to have agreed with Lamarck that such causes were induced by changes in external conditions—​climate, nourishment, human intervention, and others. But he introduced explanatory phrases—​monde ambiant, ambiant circonstances, milieu ambiant, and others—​words that we do not find in Lamarck. But, for Darwin, this difference in wording about causes of change was purely terminological. Both men had missed the key insights of chance variation and natural selection, the cornerstones of Darwin’s theory.18 Etienne’s own works, however, played no role in Darwin’s decision to include Etienne in the Historical Sketch, or at least in how he presented him. Instead, Darwin was again drawing directly from the writings of Etienne’s son Isidore,

72  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” specifically his Histoire naturelle generale, volume 2, 1859. Darwin had already drawn from Isidore’s book: 1) that Buffon had “fluctuating opinions” on whether species undergo change; 2) the date of Lamarck’s first published work on this question; and 3) what Isidore had to say about Goethe’s opinions. All three of these debts were to Isidore’s Histoire, as documented above. This time, however, Darwin drew from another work entirely, Isidore’s Vie of his father, published in 1847. Darwin read this work in 1855 and scored several passages, including the section devoted to Etienne. It is in this work that Isidore made his claim that Etienne had gone into print favoring the doctrine of species change, in opposition to Cuvier’s “immutability” thesis.19 This work by Etienne was published, according to Isidore, in 1828, in a relatively obscure “Rapport” to the French Academy of Sciences on another equally obscure work by M. Roulin (p. 345 and n. 1). Isidore mentioned Etienne’s “Rapport” in his later Histoire, but dated its publication to 1829, claiming that the 1829 publication was based on an oral report delivered to the Academy in 1828. Darwin was no doubt not too concerned with this discrepancy, despite having read both works by Isidore. What mattered to him was the date of Etienne’s first published account as recorded in Isidore’s Vie, and that date is 1828. We can be sure the latter text was Darwin’s source because, in the Histoire, Isidore referred to Etienne’s theory of change as finding its cause in a milieu ambiant, whereas in the Vie he said it was in a monde ambiant. Darwin adopted the latter expression in the Sketch, and that can only be because he was drawing on the Vie rather than the Histoire for his opinions about Etienne as he presented them in the Historical Sketch. But, we must entertain another possibility:  that Darwin, in his entry on Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, was drawing directly from Etienne’s own book Principes des philosophie zoologique, published in Paris in 1830. Darwin certainly read this book in 1837, as Toby Appel observes, because he gave five pages of commentary to it in his B Notebook (B110–​114). But that cannot be the end of the story. When we look at his marginal comments to this work (the entries are not dated), we find two important notes to himself (not discussed by Appel), to include two sections of Etienne’s volume to an unidentified volume that Darwin must have been preparing at the time he made these entries. The first, in a marginal note to PPZ page 65 on the Geoffroyan idea of a “unity of plan,” Darwin said to himself “good to put at end of Chapt. 6” (Marginalia, p. 301a). And then, in a marginal note to a passage in Etienne on monstrosities in the same volume, Darwin again commented “allude to this in Ch 7” (Marginalia, p. 301). The allusions to Chapters 6 and 7 certainly refer to Darwin’s Origin. We know this because, indeed, at the end of Chapter 6 of Origin, Darwin discussed in a short paragraph the competing opinions of Cuvier, on so-​called “conditions of existence,” and Geoffroy’s different idea of “Unity of Type.” That dispute “made headlines,” as we might say today, in the scientific community and was the subject

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of great controversy. Although Geoffroy is not named in this passage, Cuvier is, and the contrasting positions would have been familiar to most scientific readers. As to the other allusion, on monsters, no entry on this subject is to be found in Chapter  7 of Origin. But, Darwin did include a sentence on the subject in Chapter 1 of Origin. It is not hard to resolve the discrepancy. The most likely solution is to assume that when Darwin made his marginal note he wrote “Chapter 1,” but in such a way that the “1” looked like a “7” (he did not spell out the number, and his handwriting was notoriously bad, and “1” in those days often resembled “7”). Alternatively, the editors of the Marginalia may have made an error, or perhaps the printer of that volume did. Or, finally, Darwin may himself have changed his mind about where properly to insert the reference to monsters. In any case, there can be little question that the reference to monsters in Origin Chapter One came from Darwin’s reading (or rereading) of Etienne’s 1830 PPZ probably after 1857, maybe as late as early 1859. We can feel confident in this surmise because in the “monsters” passage in Origin Etienne is mentioned by name and the entry tracks closely with Etienne’s very point in the 1830 book. If Darwin had an understanding of Etienne’s views from his direct reading of the PPZ both in 1837 and then again in 1858-​59, why did he not base his representations of Etienne’s views in the Historical Sketch on the author’s original work rather than on his son’s Vie, which was a recapitulation? The answer can only be that Darwin, in the Sketch, was intent on giving his sources in chronological order as to when they first published on the species question, as far as Darwin could determine, more than giving a comprehensive account of their views. Isidore had better facts about Etienne than Darwin did about dates, and Isidore was the one to show Etienne’s first published contribution was 1828. Darwin’s main source of direct information about Etienne was from the latter’s 1830 work. So, while the 1830 work did find a place in Origin, twice (as shown above), it was not Etienne’s first published contribution—​and that is what Darwin was mainly concerned to show in the Sketch. Despite all of this previous knowledge of Etienne’s contributions, Darwin seems to have been singularly unconcerned about Etienne’s potential priority. Why is not clear. Etienne did foreshadow transmutation, even if equivocally. In the Sketch Darwin devoted little space to Etienne, and again, as observed, from a second-​hand source, Isidore’s Vie. Darwin could not claim in this case, as he did in others, that he was unfamiliar with Etienne’s writings prior to writing Origin, because that is not true, as we have seen. Nor could he say that he had simply forgotten about Etienne: he included two passages from the PPZ in Origin, just months before the first version of the Historical Sketch was published. Most likely is that Darwin did not regard Geoffroy as a true forerunner of his own views. And, he had some warrant for that opinion. If the point of the Sketch was to document authors who had anticipated his own theory, Geoffroy had little

74  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” more claim than Buffon, Goethe, or Lamarck: all three got many things wrong. But all did get the basic fact of transmutation right, or apparently so, which merited their inclusion in the Sketch. Moreover, Etienne was well-​known in the natural science community as a transmutationist of sorts, mainly through his very public confrontation with the renowned comparative anatomist Cuvier, who was an implacable foe of all such opinions (thoroughly documented by Appel 1987). And, Darwin may have felt he had some excuse for not giving Geoffroy greater notice by the simple fact that even Isidore, Goeffroy’s son and greatest promoter in the 1840s and 1850s, could not affirm without qualification that Etienne was really a proponent of transmutation at all. Like Buffon, in Isidore’s estimation, Etienne was “cautious” in affirming transmutation and may actually have not believed this process was still going on today. Isidore concluded, in the Vie, cited by Darwin in the Sketch, that we must admit that we may not know what Etienne’s real opinion was (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 61, line 17). Darwin seems to have adopted this same hesitant attitude, as he revealed in a letter to Charles Lyell in January 1860: “I have been glancing over [EGSH] Life by Isidore & his Principes; & it seems to me he was a rather doubtful maintainer of change of species” (CCD, 14 January [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2650). Not a great need, then, to acknowledge Etienne as a true believer. But perhaps the most telling piece of evidence for why Darwin may have not given Geoffroy greater attention in the Sketch about his potential priority is what Geoffroy had to say about the mechanism of transmutation. For Darwin, it was natural selection; for Lamarck, it was “inheritance of characteristics acquired through habit,” in other words through “use and disuse.” For Geoffroy, by contrast, it was the effect of “circonstances,” in other words the direct action of physical conditions on organic structures, such as, for example, the effect of a colder climate on bringing about longer hair on some animals. Darwin always regarded this “cause” as the least important of all possible causes for organic variation. Thus, if we add up all possible “causes of change” as analyzed by Darwin in Origin, the “direct action” of external conditions, such as food, climate, and other variables, came in dead last. Etienne may have been a transmutationist as early as 1828, but was not close to being a Darwinian one.

Notes 1. Lamarck, J.B. 1778. Flore francaise. 2. Lamarck, J.B. 1809. Philosophie zoologique. 3. The editors of Charles Darwin’s Notebooks think that Darwin was referring here only to one small aspect of Lamarck’s theory: “Darwin’s point appears to be that Lamarck

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placed a great distinction between the higher animals which possessed a ‘sentiment intérieur,’ and the lower animals which do not” (citing Philosophie zoologique 1809, v. 2, p. 256). But it is possible that Darwin was already starting to believe that Lamarck was not a genuine predecessor in any meaningful sense. 4. Darwin possibly read the second edition of this work in 1841, a date on the cover of 1830 edition. 5. Erasmus Darwin, 1791, The Botanic Garden, Part I, The Economy of Vegetation. London: J. Johnson; 1794, Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life, Part I. London: J. Johnson. (1796. Parts I–​III. London: J. Johnson). 6. Daniel Dennett, 1995, pp. 28–​33, discusses similarities between Hume’s ideas and Darwin’s, drawing attention especially to Hume’s arguments for fortuity in the production of living things in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 1779. 7. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1859, Histoire naturelle generale des regnes organique. Paris: Victor Masson. 8. Martins does not give the German title of this work, but the section cited by Isidore is titled in French Introduction Generale de l’anatomie compare, basee sur l’osteologie, with the date 1795 directly under the title. We must thus entertain the possibility, contra Isidore’s assertion, that the essay was indeed published in 1795, not “a long time later.” On the other hand, in his earlier book Essais de zoologie generale (1844), Isidore gives a German title for the work Martins had translated: “Erster Entwurf einer allgemeinen Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie, ausgehend von der Osteologie 1795 entstanden,” Zur Morphologie, Band 1 Heft 2, p. 182 (Essais, p. 164, n. 2). The publication date of this volume is 1817, indicating that, assuming this was the first published date of Goethe’s essay, he did indeed publish it “long after” 1795. 9. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1841, Essais de zoologie generale. Paris: De Roret. 10. Goethe was perhaps best known among naturalists for his Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären, which was published in 1790 and known in English as Metamorphosis of Plants. In this work, Goethe essentially discovered the (serially) homologous nature of leaf organs in plants, from cotyledons, to photosynthetic leaves, to the petals of a flower. Although Sir Richard Owen, the British vertebrate anatomist, is generally credited with first articulating a definition of the word “homology” (in 1843), it is clear that Goethe had already arrived at a sophisticated view of homology and transformation (within an idealist morphological perspective) more than 50 years earlier. Darwin seems to have been unfamiliar with this work when he composed the Sketch. 11. Charles Martins, 1837, Oeuvres d’histoire naturelle de Goethe, comprenant divers mémoires d’anatomie comparée, de botanique et de géologie. Vol. 1.  Paris:  A. Cherbuliez. 12. We should note that Isidore did not give the date of publication in his footnote, which may explain why Darwin did not assign a date either. 13. The full citation to Meding’s work on Goethe is: Karl Heinrich Meding, 1861, Goethe als Naturforscher in Beziehung zur Gegenwart. Dresden: in Commission bei Adler und Dietze. This work was not a transcription of anything Goethe wrote, but more of a commentary, with selective quotes from Goethe’s writings generously interspersed

76  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” throughout. Darwin selected one of these quotes (p. 34) for the Historical Sketch, but Meding did not give citations or references when he quoted Goethe directly, so it is hard to know what Goethe work Meding was drawing from. The editors of the CCD note:  “The Darwin Pamphlet Collection–​CUL contains several ‘discussions’ of CD’s theory sent to him before September 1861 by German authors. These include:  Köstlin 1860, Meding 1861, Pelzeln 1861, Schleicher [1861], and Wagner 1860. For discussions of the reception of Origin in Germany, see Montgomery 1974, Corsi and Weindling 1984, and Pancaldi 1984” (CCD, 10 September [1862], to John Murray, n. 2). 14. Meding’s “review” of Origin was not exactly a review, but two or three paragraphs inserted by Meding into his book on Goethe, pp. 32–​34. 15. In particular, Darwin could have drawn from Histoires v. 2 p. 406, n. 2, where Isidore uses almost the same phrase that Darwin adopted for the Historical Sketch; or from Essais, pp. 160 ff., where Isidore included a long section dedicated to Goethe. 16. The full title of Isidore’s 1847 “Life” of his father Etienne is: Vie, travaux et doctrine scientifique d’Etienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire. Paris: P. Bertrand. Darwin had learned from Isidore’s Vie about Goethe’s idea of “balancement” (the idea that if some structure of an animal or plant gets larger through time, this enlargement is offset by a reduction in some other part) much earlier, in his 1841, 1844, or perhaps 1856 encounter with Isidore’s Essais (1841). I discuss this strand in the section of this work on Isidore. 17. Toby Appel (1987) discusses Darwin’s early encounters with the views of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​ Hilaire in 1837, based mainly on CDN B110–​4. I  add to that discussion below. 18. Darwin’s source for Etienne’s views regarding questions of his theory of transmutation was Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1859, Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques, vol. 2, ch. 4. Paris: Librarie de Victor Masson. 19. Although Darwin drew on Isidore’s Vie of his father, 1855, he had already read, as early as 1844, something about Etienne’s views in another work by Isidore, the Essais de zoologie generale, in Suites de Buffon (1841). Darwin had seen from this volume that “old Geoffroy” was some sort of maintainer of species change, in contrast to Cuvier (Marginalia, 301h).

References Darwin, Erasmus. 1791. The Botanic Garden. Part I. The Economy of Vegetation. London: J. Johnson. Darwin, Erasmus. 1794. Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life, Part I. London: J. Johnson. Darwin, Erasmus. 1796. Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life, Parts I–​III. London: J. Johnson. Dennett, Daniel. 1995. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon and Schuster. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Etienne. 1830. Principes des philosophie zoologique. Paris. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1841. Essais de zoologie generale. Paris: De Roret. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1847. Vie, travaux et doctrine scientifique d’Etienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire. Paris: P. Bertrand.

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Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1859. Histoire naturelle generale des regnes organiques. Vol. 2. Paris: Victor Masson. Goethe, J.W.  von. 1790. Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären. Gotha. Translated into English as Metamorphosis of Plants by Douglas Miller (1991). In Goethe: The Collected Works, 12 volumes, Scientific Studies, pp. 76–​97. Goethe, J.W. von. 1817. “Erster Entwurf einer allgemeinen Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie, ausgehend von der Osteologie 1795 entstanden.” Zur Morphologie, Band 1 Heft 2. Lamarck, J.B. 1778. Flore Françoise, ou description succincte de toutes les plantes qui croissant naturellement en France. Vol. 1. Paris: Impremerie Royale. Lamarck, J.B. 1809. Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considérations relatives à l’histoire naturelle des animaux. Paris: Duminil-​Lesueur. Lamarck, J.B. 1815–​1822. Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertebrates. 7 volumes. Paris: Verdiere. Martins, Charles. 1837. Oeuvres d’histoire naturelle de Goethe, comprenant divers mémoires d’anatomie comparée, de botanique et de géologie. Vol. 1. Paris: A. Cherbuliez. Meding, Karl Heinrich. 1861. Goethe als Naturforscher in Beziehung zur Gegenwart. Dresden: in Commission bei Adler und Dietze.

4

W.C. Wells and William Herbert W.C. Wells. 1757–​1817 This chapter is devoted to two authors who are less well known as precursors to Darwin, but who needed to be included on the score of their priority in Darwin’s eyes: William Charles Wells and William Herbert. Both found their way into the Historical Sketch, despite the fact that Darwin did not know of the contributions of either man until he had been informed about them after Origin appeared in 1859. In the end, Darwin came to assign great importance to the discoveries of both men. Wells made his first entry only in 1866, in the fourth edition of Origin, an entry Darwin expanded slightly in the fifth edition in 1869. Herbert, by contrast, first appeared in the 1861 (third) English edition, the first version of the Sketch that appeared in any English edition (as opposed to the first German and US editions). W.C. Wells (1757–​1817) was an American physician and scientist who settled in London to practice medicine in 1785. Darwin did not know him personally—​ he died in 1817 when Darwin was still a boy. Wells’s contribution to the species question came to Darwin’s notice only in 1865, in a copy of Wells’s “Two Essays Upon Dew and Single Vision,” 1818, a posthumously published work containing reprints of two essays that had been read in 1813 before the Royal Society of London.1 Darwin was prepared to call the book “famous” after he learned of it (Wells had been awarded the society’s Rumford Medal for this contribution). But what mainly attracted Darwin’s attention was a “paper,” attached to the “Two Essays” as an appendix, “An Account of a White Female, whose skin resembles that of a Negro.” This paper had been read before the Royal Society in 1813, placing Wells just after Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire and just before W. Herbert in the chronological sequence Darwin had established for the Sketch. This is the paper in which Darwin detected a clear anticipation of his own theory, indeed a more exact anticipation than any other author besides Wallace. Wells would need to be given a place in the Sketch. He ended up getting nine sentences, more than many others. Wells was clearly interested in how different races might have arisen. After some preliminary remarks on the different races of man, and of the selection of domesticated animals, he observed that: Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Wells and Herbert  79

Figure 4.1 Wells

What was done for animals artificially seems to be done with equal efficiency, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first scattered inhabitants, some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the [country]. This race would multiply while the others would decrease, and as the darkest would be the best fitted for the [African] climate, at length [they would] become the most prevalent, if not the only race. (Two Essays, 1818, Appendix)

Darwin got hold of and read this work in 1865 and bases his comment on Wells in the Historical Sketch, 1866 edition, on it: In this paper he [Wells] distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to man, and to certain characters alone. After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturalists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then he adds, but what is done in this latter case by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more

80  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” slowly, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit.” (Variorum, pp. 61–​2, lines 17.1–​7:d)

Credit for the first appreciation of natural selection could therefore go to Wells rather than to Edward Blyth or Patrick Matthew. The triumph is limited to the extent of being applied only to skin color, and not, as Darwin and Wallace did, to the whole range of life. A form of the idea had already been set out by an earlier Edinburgh author, James Hutton, but in that case the effect was limited to improvement of varieties rather than the formation of new species. Darwin learned about Wells in 1865 from an American correspondent, the Reverend Charles Loring Brace, who was a nephew of Asa Gray’s wife Jane Loring Gray. Brace had sent the reference regarding Wells’s 1818 publications to Darwin in late 1865 (see CCD, 7 August 1866, letter from Asa Gray). Brace had, in turn, learned about Wells from another American, identified in the Sketch only as “Mr. Rowley.” (Rowley’s full name is Robert S. Rowley, but no other information about him has been found, except that he was Brace’s “neighbor”: (CCD, 22 and 28 October, 1865, and n. 18, to Hooker, letter 4921; but see K.D. Wells, 1973, for some useful speculations). In the Historical Sketch prefaced to the fourth edition, Darwin added a reference to Wells’ “Account of a white female, part of whose skin resembles that of a negro” (Wells 1818), and acknowledged Brace for drawing his attention to it (Variorum, Historical Sketch, p. 61, lines 17.1–​9). But then, in April 1867, after Brace had received and read Darwin’s fourth English edition of Origin he recognized that Rowley, not Brace, should be given the credit for the reference to Wells. Rowley was the one, Brace explained to Darwin, “who first called my attention to that passage in Dr Well’s Essay on the Party-​colored [sic] Female, to which you allude in the preface of your New Edition. Your acknowledgement should be to him” (CCD, 29 April 1867, from Brace. Letter 5518). No correspondence between Darwin and Rowley has been found. Darwin had actually been in correspondence with Brace earlier than this, on a somewhat different matter, having written to him in 1863 to thank Brace for the presentation copy of his recent publication Races of the Old World.2 Darwin saw in this work a theoretical issue that had already attracted his own attention—​ the potential correlation between skin color and “constitution” among humans: I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in sending me a copy of your new work on the “Races of the Old World.” I have not had time to read it all, but have looked through the latter part with interest. Your work must have been very laborious & I hope it will prove satisfactory.

Wells and Herbert  81 I was interested by your remarks p. 388 on correlation of colour & constitution. I have long thought this view probable. (CCD, 24 June 1863, to Brace. Letter 4220)

This question was of no merely passing interest to Darwin. Prior to receiving Brace’s book, Darwin had already circulated a questionnaire to “the Surgeons of all Regiments serving in tropical countries,” asking them to “tabulate the proportion of men who suffer from Tropical diseases in relation to the colour of skin and hair” (CCD, 24 June 1863, to Brace. Letter 4220); he apparently received no responses. Darwin continued to be interested in this question for many more years. But, while Brace’s work was not especially similar to Wells’ article on the “skin of a white woman,” it implicitly raised a question that did interest Darwin: Is skin color related to the ability to resist tropical diseases? Darwin had good instincts: it is now well-​established that susceptibility to some tropical diseases is inversely correlated with skin color; for example, the sickle-​cell allele protects in high percentages people of African descent from acquiring malaria. Thus, it is not surprising that Darwin would have taken special note of Brace’s recommendation of Wells’s 1818 publication. Races of the Old World had already alerted Darwin to the fact that other naturalists were probing a subject that he may have believed was one of his own original investigations. Moreover, Brace’s suggestions in Races seemed to move along the same lines as his own thinking on questions about variation and adaptation. Darwin would therefore want to see what Wells had to say on related questions and having immediately acquired a copy of Wells’s book, found its theory to have such prescience on the species question that he soon came to anoint Wells’s 1818 paper as the “first” thoroughly to anticipate his own theory of natural selection. And, indeed, it was. Wells, it must be said, did not use the phrase “natural selection” in his 1818 work. That phrase was Darwin’s coinage, and he could always be sure that he had property rights to it. Nor did Wells recognize “struggle for existence” or “heritable traits” in his work. His work was not a theory of evolution (K.D. Wells, 1973).3 But he did seem to recognize that what Darwin later called “natural selection” was at work in nature’s productions. Darwin explicitly gives Wells credit for this: “he [Wells] distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition that has been indicated [in any source in the Historical Sketch]” (Variorum, p.  61, 17.2d). And, perhaps even more important, Wells made the important point that “accidental variations” in skin color could prove to be successful adaptations in some environments. If we consider “chance variation” plus “natural selection” as the two main pillars of Darwin’s theory, Wells deserves the credit Darwin gave him. Darwin was not the only one to agree that Wells had anticipated natural selection. Both Gray (CCD, 7 August 1866, from Asa Gray. Letter 5184) and Wallace

82  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” (CCD, 19 November 1866, from A.R. Wallace. Letter 5280) saw the same thing, but only after Darwin had brought their attention to Wells’s 1818 book. Wallace went so far as to say, “How curious it is that Dr. Wells should so clearly have seen the principle of Nat. Selectn. 50 years ago and that it should have struck no one that it was a great principle of universal application in Nature!” It is not clear that either man actually read Wells in the original; they seem just to have taken Darwin’s word for it and based their assessment on what Darwin himself wrote in the Historical Sketch. But their responses validated Darwin’s conclusion: Wells was a forerunner. Still, Darwin did not wish to give too much credit to Wells for his priority. Wells certainly did not see the whole of Darwin’s theory, only “natural selection” and “accidental variation.” That may be the greater part, but Darwin did not say this. Nor did he mention that Wells had overlooked “heredity” (the passing down through generations of favorable traits) or “struggle for survival” (the Malthusian idea). Darwin instead quietly downplayed Wells’ contribution by noting in the Sketch that Wells’s first presentation, in 1813, was only an oral “report,” implying that no one who was not present in person at that time could be expected to know of this contribution, and, more importantly, that Wells applied his theory only to humans and then only to “certain characters alone” (Variorum, p. 61, lines 17.1–​2).4 Darwin gave Wells high honor for being “the first” to grasp the essential idea of natural selection, but he removed some of the credit by suggesting Wells was an obscure forerunner who had not seen the full sway of the principle for all of nature—​the point Wallace made in the passage just quoted.

William Herbert. 1778–​1847 From an early time in his scientific explorations, dating to the mid 1830s, Darwin had developed a deep interest in how experiments in hybridization among plants might furnish him with valuable support for his budding theory of evolution by natural selection. Three hybridizers especially caught his attention: Carl Friedrich Gaertner, Johann Gottlieb Köelreuter, and William Herbert. Of these three, Darwin included only Herbert in the Historical Sketch. This inclusion was made despite the fact that Darwin pored over, and more heavily annotated, the published volumes of Gaertner and Köelreuter than of those of Herbert. Darwin also mentioned Gaertner and Köelreuter more often than Herbert in the text of Origin itself. We see, when we look over Darwin’s marginal notes, that Herbert is mentioned more often in Darwin’s annotations to Gaertner and Köelreuter than annotations to Herbert’s own, original works.5 We should investigate why this is the case. Nearly all of Darwin’s entries about Herbert come in annotations to Gaertner and Köelreuter, offering little

Wells and Herbert  83

Figure 4.2 Herbert

detail apart from short observations about some of their hybridization studies. Darwin’s comments along this line are, to the effect, that Herbert often but not always agrees with these two men. Once in a while he will raise a question mark. But mainly, all three men agreed that some plant species can be made by human manipulation to produce new varieties and hybrids. This line of argumentation led Herbert to the conclusion that if varieties and hybrids can be produced through careful nurturing under domestication, new species might also be produced through hybridization in nature, given enough time and with favorable environmental conditions. Darwin included Herbert in the Sketch, and left Gaertner and Köelreuter out, because Herbert was the only one of the three who ventured to say that new species might and probably are produced through hybridization in nature. His ideas brought him into Darwin’s realm of thought in the 1830s.6 Herbert came from a distinguished and noble British family, which allowed him the financial means to pursue his varied interests. He was a botanist, botanical illustrator, poet, and clergyman and also served in Parliament for a number of years. His botanical writings were acknowledged among botanists, including Darwin, for original discoveries and novel insights (e.g., DAR 74:149–​50). He was one of the few hybridizers at the time known for extending his observations

84  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” of controlled hybridization under domestication to speculations about how parallel processes might occur in nature. His treatment of Amaryllidaceae was seen as of special importance and brought him a measure of local fame among naturalists, including Darwin. He was promoted to Dean of Manchester in 1840, but at heart he was always a naturalist. In the Sketch, Darwin showed indebtedness to two works by Herbert: an article in Horticultural Transactions volume 4 (1822) and a major work entitled Amaryllidaceae (1837).7 We shall see that these were not the only works by Herbert that Darwin knew of in 1860, but they are the ones he singled out for inclusion in the first and subsequent editions of the Sketch. In England the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, afterwards Dean of Manchester, in the fourth volume of the “Horticultural Transactions,” 1822, and in his work on “Amaryllidaceae” (1837, p. 19, 339) declares that “horticultural experiments have established, beyond the possibility of refutation, that botanical species are only a higher and more permanent class of varieties;” He extends the same view to animals. The Dean believes that single species of each animal were created in an originally highly plastic condition and that these have produced, chiefly by intercrossing, but likewise by variation, all our existing species. (Variorum, p. 62, lines 18–​20)

Darwin appears to have considered both works by Herbert cited in the Sketch as affirming his belief that Herbert accepted species transmutation in nature from an early date. He entered Herbert in the Sketch, by his customary method of chronological organization, just after Wells (1813), and just before Grant (1826). When, though, did Darwin learn of Herbert’s views and, in particular, these two works? A first glance suggests that Darwin came across them only in 1860. This conjecture is based on the fact that Darwin did not include Herbert’s name in the letter he sent to Baden Powell in January 1860, giving a list of authorities he intended to include in a “Preface” to Origin. But, less than a month later, when he sent the first iteration of the Sketch to Asa Gray, on February 8, 1860, he did include Herbert. Darwin did not change his entry on Herbert in any subsequent version of the Sketch, but neither did he take him out: he retained the original version in every edition of Origin published after 1860. It looks from the information assembled here that Darwin discovered Herbert’s two works, of 1822 and 1837, in the month between his letter to Powell, of January 18, 1860, and his letter to Gray containing the first version of the Sketch, of February 8, 1860. The evidence for this is that, in the brief period between his letter to Powell and his information to Gray, Darwin somehow learned enough about Herbert to make an entry for him in the Sketch.

Wells and Herbert  85 When we look through our sources, however, it appears that Darwin was familiar with Herbert long before 1860. Darwin’s Reading Notebooks show that he read Herbert’s Amaryllidaceae (1837) on March 16, 1839 (CCD, “Reading Notebooks,” v. 4, pp. 434–​573 [DAR 119: 4a; see also DAR 119: 4v and n. 198]). In these entries Darwin made little comment, other than to note that Herbert had included references in his own work to earlier studies by Köelreuter. Again, we find Darwin connecting the hybridization studies of Herbert to those of Köelreuter. Then again, in Darwin’s marginal notes to Herbert 1837, we find him claiming, on October 18, 1855, that “This book [Amaryllidaceae] has been fully abstracted and the abstracts distributed” (Marginalia, p. 372b).9 What Darwin meant by the phrase “the abstracts distributed” is unclear. We have no evidence, apart from this entry, that Darwin “distributed” copies of abstracts of Herbert’s Amaryllidaceae to anyone. But since he made the same claim about his annotations to Köelreuter (1761–​1766) it seems likely that he mailed out his annotations on both works to several other naturalists at about the same time, October 1855 (see Marginalia, pp. 372, 458). The gap in evidence about Darwin’s “distribution,” however, need not be of much concern for our present inquiry. The important point is that Darwin was familiar with Herbert’s Amaryllidaceae (1837) no later than 1855, and evidently as early as 1839. When we probe more deeply into our sources, however, we find that this conclusion is incomplete, indeed incorrect. We have to this point been stuck with a puzzle: How did Darwin learn about Herbert in the first place, and when? Light is shed by looking into Charles Darwin’s Notebooks (henceforth CDN10). These were several volumes (i.e., notebooks) that Darwin began keeping about his reading from the time of the end of the Beagle voyage, or even just before, in 1836, down to 1844. It is a remarkable record of what he read during that period, when he read particular works, and what he took from each one. From his Notebooks, we learn that Darwin in fact studied Herbert’s 1822 work with some care as early as 1837.We find two entries to Herbert in the early “B”(Notebook: B 180 and B 191. These entries are extremely brief, without much comment about what Darwin took from Herbert’s works, or even with certainty what the works were (CDN editors cite only “Herbert 1820, 1822, 1837”). But the two entries, to be dated in late 1837, show importantly that Darwin had read works by Herbert as early as this time, at least his 1822 Transactions essay, and possibly other early works. (The Transactions essay was the first of the two works by Herbert cited by Darwin in the Sketch.) Darwin could not have been drawing his information from another source, because he gives a rather precise citation to the Transactions volume at B191. From the context, we see that Darwin had read this volume in the original in 1837, along with several other essays from the

86  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” same journal. In short, Darwin was familiar with Herbert’s earliest publications as early as 1837. As to Darwin’s acquaintance with the other work by Herbert mentioned in the Historical Sketch, the Amaryllidaceae (1837), we need to turn to the next Notebook by Darwin, Notebook C, specifically the entries to Herbert 1837 (C125, 219, 265, 269). These entries are revealing. The latter two are drawn from Darwin’s “Books examined with ref. to Species;” and books “to be read.” The two lists, created at about the same time but on separate pages of Notebook C, help establish a chronology of Darwin’s readings and note-​taking.11 Some details are obscure or speculative because Darwin often did not provide exact citations to works read or dates of when he read them. The entries in these two lists, however, leave little doubt about the date of Darwin’s encounter with Herbert’s 1837 Amaryllidaccae, precisely dated by Darwin as March 16, 1839 (C269). At least that is when he said he provided marginal notes to the work—​the entry at C265 is not dated, but it notes specific page references to Herbert 1837, and it may have been entered later; from context it may be dated perhaps to December 1840. The important date for us is the former, March 16, 1839, the entry in which Darwin noted “Herbert on Hybrid Mixtures. Marginal notes.” This date entered by Darwin, and the expression referring to Herbert (1837), must refer to the precise time when Darwin studied the volume with some care and heavily annotated it. What all of this goes to show is that Darwin was not only acquainted with Herbert 1837 by March 1839 but that he had studied it closely. He was at that time just putting the pieces of his new theory together and believed Herbert had important supporting evidence. This fact undermines the notion that Darwin was just borrowing from other sources (as was often the case) for his understanding of Herbert’s ideas. He read them first hand, and in great detail. How Darwin learned of Herbert’s writings, specifically his 1820 and 1822 articles in the Horticultural Transactions and his 1837 Amaryllidaceae may also be inferred from the Notebooks, specifically Notebook E 143 (dating from late 1838 to early 1839). Darwin says he learned of Herbert’s works from Henslow at about this time (Henslow and Herbert were then friends) but does not name the volume(s) of Herbert that he learned about from Henslow—​probably just the Amaryllidacea. But from the E Notebook entry we can reconstruct a likely timetable. Darwin wrote to Henslow on or about April 1, 1839 asking him to pass along a series of hybridization questions to Herbert, which Henslow did on April 5, 1839. Herbert sent his answers back to Henslow prior to April 14, 1839, for on that date Henslow dashed off a brief note to Darwin saying that he had received Herbert’s answers. Henslow apparently hand delivered the responses to Darwin a short time later, during a visit to Darwin at Gower Street.12 From that point on, when

Wells and Herbert  87 Darwin wanted information from Herbert he asked him directly. Henslow seems to be Darwin’s original source for learning about Amaryllidaceae (1837), on a date close to April 1, 1839, and possibly for giving Darwin an introduction to Herbert.13 As to Darwin’s acquaintance with Herbert’s 1822 Transactions essay, we must look for a different source: the dates of the Herbert/​Henslow/​Darwin exchange are too late. Two possibilities present themselves. One is that Darwin discovered them on his own just by reading through the Transactions volume. This was a journal that Darwin relied on more than once for information and sources. It seems that Darwin spent a good deal of time in the 1830s looking through not only volume 4, the one containing the 1822 essay, but other volumes as well. Even if that were the case, Darwin would not have run across Herbert’s 1822 essay before 1837. He could not very well have read it on the Beagle voyage. Another, perhaps better possibility is that he learned of Herbert from volume 2 of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, published in 1832. This is a volume Darwin acquired while on the Beagle voyage and read with care. It is in the first part of this volume that Lyell discussed Lamarck’s Zoological Philosophy (1809)14, fairly but with a negative judgment about its transmutationist implications. He also discussed Herbert’s early papers of 1820 and 1822, noticing Herbert’s early hypothesis that different species with close affinities could produce permanent hybrids in nature, but expressing great doubts. Even in gardens under the watchful eye of hybridizers, Lyell questioned Herbert’s judgment, nor did he think any evidence had ever been produced that permanent self-​perpetuating hybrids were produced in this manner in nature either. Until such evidence was provided, one must reject the hypothesis: Mr. Herbert, in one of his ingenious papers on mule plants, endeavours to account for their non-​occurrence in a state of nature, from the circumstance that all the combinations that were likely to occur, have already been made many centuries ago, and have formed the various species of botanists; but in our gardens, he says, whenever species, having a certain degree of affinity to each other, are transported from different countries, and brought for the first time into contact, they give rise to hybrid species. But we have no data, as yet, to warrant the conclusion, that a single permanent hybrid race has ever been formed, even in gardens, by the intermarriage of two allied species brought from distant habitations. Until some fact of this kind is fairly established, and a new species, capable of perpetuating itself in a state of perfect independence of man, can be pointed out, we think it reasonable to call in question entirely this hypothetical source of new species. That varieties do sometimes spring up from cross breeds, in a natural way, can hardly be doubted, but they probably die out even more rapidly than races propagated by grafts or layers. (CD Online A 502.2: Charles

88  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Lyell Principles of Geology, volume 2, 1832, pp.  225–​6, referring to Herbert, 1822, p. 56)15

As with Lamarck, Lyell remained deeply skeptical of any theory pointing toward species transmutation, to say the least. He would later change his mind. Darwin regarded Herbert’s early writings more favorably than Lyell, especially when we add in Herbert’s Amaryllidaceae. He found in Herbert what he termed “Herbert’s law: habits determining fertility” (CDN, C125; the same expression is in Darwin’s annotations to the same work [Marginalia, p. 373b]). The phrase is emphasized, not just a passing reference. Also, whenever Darwin attributed the discovery of a “law” to someone, he meant that it deserved particular notice. The question is, what is “Herbert’s law”? Darwin’s brief gloss, “habits determine fertility,” does not settle the question adequately. The editors of CDN give an interpretation: Herbert’s law is the relation between constitution and fertility, put forth several times in this chapter [from Amaryllidaceae (1837)]. Darwin replaces the term ‘constitution’ with his term ‘habit,’ which here comes close to meaning adaptive situation. The following statement and example . . . show the grounds for Darwin’s formulation:  ‘It was my opinion that fertility depended much upon circumstances of climate, soil, and situation, and there did not exist any decided line of absolute sterility in hybrid vegetables, though from reasons, which I  did not pretend to be able to develop, but undoubtedly depending upon certain affinities either of structure or constitution, there was greater disposition to fertility in some than in others. Subsequent experiments have confirmed this view to such a degree as to make it almost certain that the fertility of the hybrid or mixed offspring depends more upon the constitutional [factors] than the closer botanical affinities of the parents.’ (CDN, C125, n. 3; E103 n. 3)

The CDN editors go on to an attempt to decipher when Darwin wrote these marginal comments—​they are “layered,” as the editors point out, but this layer seems to be from Darwin’s first marginal comments entered by him sometime in 1839. But, whatever the date of composition, the entry makes clear that Darwin’s primary interest in Herbert dated from an early time and was focused on the question of the fertility or sterility of hybrid offspring. Since Darwin had studied Herbert with some care in the 1830s, and saw valuable supporting evidence for his theory of species transmutation, it is something of a mystery as to why Herbert was not mentioned as an authority to go into a historical “Preface” to Origin in his letter to Baden Powell of January 18,

Wells and Herbert  89 1860. Perhaps he simply forgot Herbert at that moment. This conclusion is somewhat uncertain because Darwin had already mentioned Herbert’s studies several times in the first edition of Origin in 1859, prior to his letter to Powell just a month later. No matter. Darwin quickly rectified the omission in the first formal version of the Sketch in his letter to Asa Gray of February 8, 1860. In both places—​ Origin proper and the 1860 (and subsequent iterations) of the Sketch, Darwin leaves no doubt that he regarded Herbert as a predecessor, at least regarding some aspects of his theory, especially the Malthusian idea of the life and death struggle for survival. In Chapter III of Origin, “The Struggle for Existence,” Darwin wrote: Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art. . . . The elder De Candolle and Lyell have largely and philosophically shown that all organic beings are exposed to severe competition. In regard to plants, no one has treated this subject with more spirit and ability than W. Herbert, Dean of Manchester, evidently the result of his great horticultural knowledge. (Variorum, pp. 145–​46, lines 17–​21)

The reference here to Herbert was made in Origin, first edition, 1859, showing at once that Darwin regarded Herbert as a high authority on botany and that he accepted his view that “nature” poses a “severe competition” for natural species.16 In later years Darwin continued to place weight on Herbert’s hybridization discoveries. Darwin’s acknowledgment of Herbert in Origin actually went quite a bit further than his mention of him in Chapter III, “The Struggle for Existence.” Darwin wrote an entire chapter in the first edition of Origin on “Hybridism” (Chapter VIII in the first edition, changed to Chapter IX in the sixth). Not too surprisingly, Darwin mentioned Herbert, along with Gaertner and Köelreuter, as leading experts on hybridization, and he wanted to include their conclusions in Origin proper. What Darwin wanted to convey about Herbert’s research was that Herbert surpassed both Gaertner and Köelreuter in his understanding about the fertility of crosses among different species. This insight was a breakthrough for Darwin. If one is looking for sources of the production of new species, as Darwin was, Herbert’s experiments and conclusions provided more valuable proof than the experiments and conclusions of Gaertner and Köelreuter (see also CDN, E103 n. 3; E107). To solidify his case that hybrids can yield new species over time, Darwin added lines to his chapter on hybridization that singled out Herbert as among the

90  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” most important authorities on the subject. What Darwin wrote about him came in the early pages of his chapter on hybridism: Let us turn to the results arrived at by the third most experienced hybridiser, namely the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert. He is as emphatic in his conclusion that some hybrids are perfectly fertile—​as fertile as the pure parent-​species—​as are Kölreuter and Gärtner that some degree of sterility between distinct species is a universal law of nature [thus contradicting Herbert’s findings]. He experimentised on some of the very same species as did Gärtner. The difference in their results may, I think, be in part accounted for by Herbert’s great horticultural skill, and by his having hothouses at his command. Of his many important statements, I will here give only a single one as an example, namely, that “every ovule in a pod of Crinum capense fertilised by C. revolutum produced a plant, which (he says) I never saw to occur in a case of its natural fecundation.” So that we here have perfect, or even more than commonly perfect, fertility in a first cross between two distinct species. (CD Online, F380, from Origin [1859], pp. 249–​50)

This entry on Herbert comes in the first, 1859, edition of Origin. But Darwin, as we have seen, had already noticed Herbert’s hybridization studies much earlier. There can be no doubt that Darwin had recognized Herbert as an expert on the species question, at least as far as the idea of “struggle for survival” is concerned, as early as 1855. But, as seen, Darwin had come to this conclusion about Herbert’s views much earlier. Further evidence of Darwin’s early (1837–​1839) engagement with Herbert’s ideas may be found in the correspondence. The evidence again is that Darwin was engaged with Herbert’s ideas by 1839, as shown by his lengthy discussion with Herbert regarding correspondence between Herbert and J.S. Henslow. Darwin asked Henslow in 1839 for information about Herbert’s ideas—​Henslow was then a mediator between the two. Why Darwin did not engage with Herbert directly at this time is unclear—​perhaps it was just because he did not know him personally, whereas Henslow was an old friend. For whatever reason Darwin went through Henslow to get in touch with Herbert, at least at first. Darwin gave Henslow a number of questions for Herbert that he hoped Henslow would pass along to Herbert. Henslow did not let Darwin down. Within weeks Darwin got, from Henslow, fulsome answers to his questions about Herbert’s views, received by Henslow from Herbert in mid-​April 1839 and then hand-​delivered to Darwin by Henslow a few days later. Darwin’s questions to Herbert in 1839, sent and answered through Henslow, boiled down to some questions about variation. We get a flavor of Darwin’s concerns by looking at his questions and how Herbert responded. Here is a brief

Wells and Herbert  91 sample (CCD, from W. Herbert to J.S. Henslow, 5 April 1839, letter 503, edited for brevity and clarity). Herbert began his responses with a demurrer: Dear Sir: I wish it was in my power to give definitive answers to Mr Darwin’s questions. They are all fit points to be investigated, but they require a longer course of experience than the life of one man, especially of one who attends to the subject only incidentally, can furnish. (CCD, from Herbert to Henslow, 5 April 1839. Letter 503)

Brushing aside his self-​confessed inadequacies as a scientist, Herbert launched into an extensive catalogue of facts and conclusions that he believed addressed Darwin’s main concerns. The full retail of Herbert’s letter to Henslow need not be reproduced here, except to give the gist of the exchange (CCD, 5 April 1839, from Herbert to Henslow. Letter 503): Darwin to Herbert:  “do varieties that have recently appeared, by crossing or accidentally, persist as long as characters from long-​standing species?” (Herbert replied, in effect, “no”). Darwin to Herbert: How long do new varieties persist? Is there any relation between a facility for varying and a facility for giving hybrids, and especially fertile hybrids? (Herbert’s answer is again “no”). Darwin to Herbert:  Do new variations sometimes skip generations and then reappear later? (Herbert’s answer is “no”). Darwin to Herbert: [do you] guard against the same cause producing the same variations—​that is, the varieties through the generations must be exposed to the same conditions? (Herbert’s answer: “I do guard against same causes producing same results—​ as much as possible”).

The gist of this exchange centers on the important distinction between species and varieties. Darwin had started to believe in the late 1830s, contrary to educated opinion, that “species are only clearly marked varieties” and that “the distinction between species and varieties has no basis in reality” (CCD, v. 2, pp. xvii–​xviii). Herbert had made the same claim much earlier. What Herbert meant is that the “species/​varieties” boundary is “arbitrary” or “artificial” (Amaryllidaceae, pp.9–​ 20, 341, and often). This discovery was a major breakthrough for Darwin. If no “real” distinction exists between clearly marked varieties and species, a fabric of scientific thinking falls. No sharp boundaries exist. Instead, Darwin, directly following on Herbert’s findings, discovered a continuum:  varieties simply are incipient new species, at least sometimes (a point made explicitly by Herbert (Amaryllidaceae, “Preliminary Treatise,” pp.  1–​22). Accepting that idea was a prerequisite for imagining the possibilities of organic evolution.

92  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Herbert did not place his remarkable discovery within a broad theory of evolutionary change, as Darwin did. To put Darwin’s revolutionary breakthrough into historical perspective, we must recall that nearly every naturalist at the time (the late 1830s) accepted the view that variations of wild types frequently occur in nature. But almost no one could accept the idea that the passage of variations into new species was possible. Nothing like that had ever been observed empirically, and a good deal of scientific evidence argued against it. The prevailing assumption was that nature had drawn unsurpassable boundaries between species. Distinct variations of a single species, no matter how clearly marked, were an accepted fact of nature. But to suppose variations could cross a threshold of species fixity to come up with new species forms over time was the rub. Darwin affirmed Herbert’s radical suggestion that they could, and did. If a variety of plant (or animal) could separate itself from a parent form in such a way as to be marked as a variant of the parent form, why should the process of change be halted at the artificial boundary of species type? Darwin saw no good reason for accepting this conclusion. Indeed, Darwin challenged the accepted view that “species” are “natural types” with fixed boundaries. Allowing transition from one species type to another through gradual (but unmistakable) variation opened the door to a vast new possibility, that new species could evolve from earlier prototypes through the gradual process of variation, operated on by Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection, whereby “favorable” variations would be selected for survival and “unfavorable” ones would be ruthlessly eliminated. Given enough time, new species could thus be produced from, and often replace, earlier ones. After Henslow opened the channel of communication between Darwin and Herbert in April 1839, Darwin decided to engage directly with Herbert, both in correspondence and in person (CCD, 26 June 1839, to Herbert, letter 523; c. 27 June 1839, from Herbert, letter 524; 2 June 1847, to Hooker. Letter 1094). This fruitful dialogue lasted from mid-​1839 until the day of Herbert’s death, May 28, 1847. By coincidence, Darwin saw Herbert just one hour before he died, on a visit to his home in Manchester, to discuss, once again, the subject of hybridization. Darwin reported to Hooker that Herbert looked quite ill on that occasion, and still their conversation got into substantive matters about botany.17 Herbert remained a devoted horticulturalist to the very end. Darwin expressed great sorrow to Hooker about his passing (CCD, [2 June 1847] to Hooker. Letter 1094). Herbert published most of the results of his experimental work on plant hybridization in the transactions and journal of the Horticultural Society (Herbert 1820; 1822; 1846a; 1846b; and in Herbert 1837, pp. 335–​80). Darwin annotated or made notes on much of this work. He also compared Herbert’s views with those of Gaertner and Köelreuter, especially Gaertner, whose book he read with the same thoroughness and care as he had given Herbert’s Amaryllidaceae. When

Wells and Herbert  93 we examine the annotations and notes to the two works, we find Darwin often giving preference to Herbert’s conclusions over those of Gaertner and Köelreuter (e.g., Marginalia, pp. 375–​6). We cannot say, then, that Darwin was speaking blindly. Although his German was admittedly poor, he waded through over 1,000 pages of thick German texts to dig out what he could find of value in the latter two authors. Yet he usually gave point of favor to Herbert.18 By this time (1847) Darwin had come to hold Herbert’s botanical views in high regard,19 despite his opinion that Herbert was mostly self-​taught and unlearned in the scholarly literature of his particular area of study.20 But Darwin saw value in Herbert’s hybridization studies, even by 1839, so much so that, despite his aversion to traveling, he went to Manchester at least twice to consult with the Dean in person (CCD, 28 October [1845], to Hooker. Letter 922). Darwin never did let go of the idea that Herbert’s methodology was suspect and some of his conclusions not well grounded in firm scientific understanding.21 But in spite of all of this, Darwin gave Herbert prominent recognition in Origin proper, in the “big species book” Natural Selection, not to mention a privileged place in the Historical Sketch. The conversations between Darwin and Herbert from 1839 to 1847 went much along the same lines as their first exchanges in April 1839, when they were relayed back and forth between Darwin and Herbert by their intermediary, J.S. Henslow. Darwin continued to pepper Herbert with questions about hybridization, and Herbert did his best to report his findings to Darwin, usually with some qualifications about their accuracy. Not much is to be gained in this study by looking closely at the details. Suffice it to say that Darwin remained closely interested in what might be gleaned about organic evolution from Herbert’s careful experiments. In the end, Darwin in some ways promoted Herbert over Gaertner and Köelreuter by giving him pride of place in Origin and Natural Selection. Also, as mentioned, Darwin did include Herbert in the Historical Sketch as an important predecessor. His comments, generally favorable, about the findings of Gaertner and Köelreuter were consigned to scattered sentences in Origin proper but were left out of the Historical Sketch. The only hybridizer of note in the Sketch is Herbert. What, though, did Darwin learn from Herbert that made him decide Herbert deserved a place in the Sketch? For an answer to that question we should go back to Darwin’s two principal sources for his understanding of Herbert’s contributions—​ not the 1839–​ 1847 correspondence or Herbert’s 1846 articles, but the two works by Herbert that Darwin referred to in the Sketch: the essay in the Horticultural Transactions (1822, v. 4) and Amaryllidacaea (1837, pp. 19, 339; Variorum, p. 62, lines 18–​20). Darwin gave no page references to the former work, only the title and volume number of the journal and date of publication.22 His citation to the latter work includes the date of publication (1837),

94  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” and references to pages 19 and 339.23 We also learn more about Darwin’s debts to Herbert from another body of correspondence, that which occurred in the late 1850s between Darwin and other naturalists, especially J.D. Hooker, A.R. Wallace, and Asa Gray.24 The letter to Gray on September 5, 1857 (Letter 2136) is of particular interest. This is the letter in which Darwin famously gave Gray an outline of his theory of natural selection, sent almost a full year before the publication of the Darwin/​ Wallace papers in the Linnaean in 1858, thus helping to secure Darwin’s property rights to the theory and to show his precedence over Wallace’s parallel discovery. What Darwin wrote about Herbert shows both Darwin’s appreciation of some of his observations and underlines where he believed Herbert (and others) had fallen short of a full comprehension of the power of natural selection: I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work, or Natural Selection (the title of my Book), which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being. The elder De Candolle, W.  Herbert, and Lyell have written strongly on the struggle for life; but even they have not written strongly enough. Reflect that every being (even the Elephant) breeds at such a rate, that in a few years, or at most a few centuries or thousands of years, the surface of the earth would not hold the progeny of any one species. I have found it hard constantly to bear in mind that the increase of every single species is checked during some part of its life, or during some shortly recurrent generation. Only a few of those annually born can live to propagate their kind. What a trifling difference must often determine which shall survive and which perish. (CCD, 5 September 1857, to Gray. Letter 2136)

Herbert’s hybridization studies are not explicitly mentioned here, but Darwin was acknowledging implicitly the importance of Herbert’s findings as bearing importantly on his new theory. Hybridization experiments must have indicated to Darwin that hybrid sterility and occasional fertility, along with the power of crossing to produce variations, were important pieces to the puzzle of natural evolution.25 We learn little more about Darwin’s acknowledged debts to Herbert’s works, beyond what he wrote in the Historical Sketch, from a close scrutiny of Herbert’s 1822 Horticultural Transactions essay and his 1837 Amiralldaceae. The latter work recapitulates most of what Darwin found of interest in the former, and Darwin makes specific reference in the Sketch to only two pages of the 1837 book (19 and 339)—​even though he heavily annotated the entire work. When we look at those two pages we find Herbert making brief statements that suggest the possibility of species transmutation through geological time (as, indeed, he had done in his 1822 essay). In the Sketch, Darwin essentially quoted Herbert almost

Wells and Herbert  95 verbatim (I have quoted the passage from the Sketch earlier). Herbert says little more than what Darwin quoted—​not much. But he said enough to establish that he was indeed a forerunner: species can and probably do transmutate. Our remaining question has to do with “mechanism.” Darwin’s mechanism, of course, was “natural selection” acting upon mostly chance variations in a context of “struggle for survival,” that is, “survival of the fittest.” Herbert, as shown earlier, did acknowledge the importance of “struggle for survival” in nature. But his mechanisms for species change were hybridization and changing environmental conditions—​the latter a relatively commonplace view among naturalists at this time, thanks mainly to Lamarck and his spreading influence. But Herbert did not put his finger on natural selection, or even really hint at it. That remained Darwin’s unique discovery, made as early as 1842 or maybe even earlier.26 Darwin could count Herbert’s views on hybrids as an important piece of supporting evidence for natural selection, but they did not amount to a full anticipation. One aspect of Herbert’s views, though, does look like a genuine anticipation: the notion of accidental variations. Herbert uses that exact expression at least twice in Amaryllidaceae (1837, p. 17). On two or three occasions in his 1822 Transactions essay he comes close to the expression, and certainly captures the basic idea. In the former work Herbert was trying to sort out a rational—​that is, a systematic scheme for distinguishing among Orders, Genera, Species, and Varieties. Systematics were, in his opinion, in a state of utter confusion, mainly because different naturalists relied on different characters of importance for proper discrimination among taxa, and even the same naturalist would employ different criteria at different times and in different places. Herbert was trying to establish order where confusion reigned.27 The important point here is that among “Varieties,” an important subclass was what he called “Accidental Varieties” (Amaryllidaceae 1837, p. 17; see also pp. 33–​40). This term signified varieties that were changeable over time through no discernable reason, as opposed to varieties that were “constant,” that is, did not change appreciably from generation to generation.28 We must recall that “accidental variation” was a pivotal idea in Darwin’s theory and is, apart from natural selection, perhaps his most important contribution to the species mystery.29 Without chance variations, natural selection has nothing to work on. Moreover, this phenomenon works entirely differently from the Lamarckian notion of “use/​disuse” occasioned by environmental changes. On Lamarck’s account, animals “adapt” to changing environmental conditions by altering (apparently by an act of will) their life “habits,” and the change in habits give rise to new organic structures. Darwin dismisses any “willing to adapt,” and the most that can be attributed to changing environmental conditions is that they might induce chance variations—​but even that role of the environment is not necessary.30 New variations may just happen to come along, even when environmental conditions remain relatively unchanged.

96  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Somewhat oddly, Darwin did not mention Herbert’s idea of “accidental variations” in Origin or the Sketch. We cannot say he did not notice this idea in Herbert’s writings because he specifically annotated passages that made reference to it. He did allow that Herbert’s “theory of variation” was “like [mine]” (Marginalia, p. 372g), but he did not spell out the details. He contented himself with noting in the E Notebook Herbert’s mention of “accidental seedlings” and “accidental alteration of constitution,” underlining the word “accidental” in both places (CDN E111–​12, E141 and n. 1). Why Darwin left the expression, or even the notion, of “accidental variation” out of the Sketch cannot be known. Perhaps in 1839, when Darwin first studied Herbert with care, he was himself not entirely certain about this component of his theory. From our written sources, we may infer that this discovery did not come into focus for Darwin until 1842, when he first gets at the idea in his unpublished “Sketch” (different from the “Historical Sketch”) written out in that year. If we venture beyond explicit evidence, we might guess that Darwin, subconsciously if you will, recollected the expression, and import, from Herbert 1837 in 1842. But that is mere guesswork. What we may assert with certainty is that Herbert used the expression, with precisely the meaning Darwin applied to it in his own writings, in 1837; that Darwin read this work with care in March 1839; and that by 1842 Darwin incorporated the idea as a pivotal part of his own theory. When we add up the pieces, we must count Herbert as both one of the earliest influences on Darwin and as giving shape to his final theory, descent through modification by means of natural selection. We do not suggest that Herbert was a full anticipation, but he brought to light, or sharpened the light on, some important components: struggle for life in nature (1822); the ability of hybridizers through careful selection to produce fertile hybrids and new varieties; the ability of new variations gradually to evolve into distinct species through time; the confusion surrounding a proper taxonomy among Orders, Genera, Species, and Varieties and a method of resolving the confusion; the role of environmental conditions in contributing to species change; and the role of “accidental variations” in the whole process. Herbert exaggerated the role of changing environmental conditions in Darwin’s opinion, and he placed too much emphasis on hybridization in bringing about transmutation of species. And, obviously, he did not mention or allude to the critical mechanism of “natural selection.” But all told, Herbert was a genuine and significant predecessor of Darwin’s theory. He got more things right than wrong, as Darwin himself confessed in his Marginal notes to Amaryllidaceae (Marginalia, pp. 372–​5), and even his mistakes contributed to Darwin’s understanding in important ways. Darwin studied his works with great care. Of the many naturalists who preceded Darwin, Herbert must rank among the most important. Darwin, in fact, could have expanded

Wells and Herbert  97 his acknowledgments to Herbert in the Historical Sketch. The fact that Darwin noticed him at all and gave him several sentences is sufficient to show that Darwin fully appreciated his contributions to the final theory, and rightly so.

Notes 1. W.C.Wells, 1818, Two Essays:  Upon a Single Vision With Two Eyes, the Other on Dew. With an appendix An Account of a Female of the White Race of Mankind, Part of Whose Skin Resembles That of a Negro, With Some Observations on the Cause of the Differences in Colour and Form between the White and Negro Races of Man. London: Archibald Constable. 2. Brace was best known for his anthropological studies, published in Charles Loring, Brace, 1863, The Races of the Old World. A  Manual of Ethnology. London:  John Murray. 3. K.D. Wells, 1973, “William Charles Wells and the Races of Man,” Isis, 64: 215–​225. 4. This point is developed more fully in Gavin de Beer, ed., 1960, “Darwin’s Notebooks on Transmutation of Species. Part I. First Notebook [B]‌(July 1837–​February 1838),” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). Historical Series 2 (2) (January): 23–​ 73; and especially in K.D. Wells, 1973, “William Charles Wells and the Races of Man,” Isis, 64, 215–​25. 5. Darwin included Herbert as “the third most important hybridiser [after Gaertner and Koelreuter]” for studies on hybrids (Variorum, pp. 429–​431, lines 39–​55). He reports on several of Herbert’s findings, mostly affirming what Herbert said about his hybrid experiments. For Darwin’s references to Herbert in Natural Selection, see CDOnline: F1583. 6. Citations to Gaertner and Koelreuter are:  C.F. Gaertner, 1849, Versuche und Beobachtungen ueber die Basarderzeugungen im Pflanzenreich.Stuttgart; and Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter, 1761–​1766, Vorläufige Nachricht von einigen das Geschlecht der Pflanzen betreffenden Versuchen und Beobachtungen. Leipzig:  Gleditschischen Handlung. 7. Full citations to the two works are: 1) Herbert, 1822, “On the Production of Hybrid Vegetables; with the Result of Many Experiments Made in the Investigation of the Subject. In a Letter to the Secretary.” Transactions of the Horticultural Society v. 4: 15–​ 50 (read to the Society on January 21 1819); and 2) Herbert, 1837, Amaryllidacaea. London: J. Ridgeway. In the Sketch Darwin cites pp. 19, 339 of the latter work as his source of information on Herbert. 8. Frederick Burkhardt et. al, 1885–​present, The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 9. Mario Di Gregorio and N.W. Gill, 1990, Charles Darwin’s Marginalia, vol. 1. New York and London: Garland. 10. Paul Barrett et. al, eds., 1987, Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836–​ 1844. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 11. The details are well-​explained by the editors of CDN, pp. 319–​20, in footnote 2.

98  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 12. Janet Browne, 1995, Charles Darwin:  Voyaging. Princeton:  Princeton University Press, pp. 409–​10. 13. Some of this reconstruction is inferential; there are a few gaps in the historical record, but it is consistent with all the information we do have, and in any case, must be a close approximation. 14. The original French title of Lamarck’s great work is Philosophie zoologique (Paris, 1809). 15. Lyell’s reference to “p. 56” must be an error, either by Lyell or the editor of CDOnline. The page numbers of the 1822 Transactions essay are 15–​50. Perhaps Lyell meant to write “pp. 5–​6,” which would be consistent with where Herbert drew his theoretical conclusions. 16. This phrase was already present in the Darwin/​Wallace paper in Linnean 1858: “Think of the Glacial period, during the whole of which the same species at least of shells have existed; there must have been during this period millions on millions of generations. I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in Natural Selection (the title of my book), which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being. The elder De Candolle, W. Herbert, and Lyell have written excellently on the struggle for life; but even they have not written strongly enough” (Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology 3, 1858, pp. 46–​50). 17. The editors of CCD note: Darwin mentioned that he spent Herbert’s last hours talking with him about hybridization at his home (CCD, [before Feb. 3] 1863, to J. of Hort. and Cottage Gardener, n. 10). 18. Annotated copies of Herbert 1837 and part of Herbert 1846a are preserved in the Darwin Library–​CUL (for Herbert 1837, see Marginalia, 1: 372–​6). Darwin’s 1855 memoranda on the experimental work of Koelreuter, Herbert, and Gaertner are in DAR 116. Darwin apparently started keeping these memoranda as early as 1849 as he pored over Gaertner’s 1849 magnum opus, Versuche und Beobachtungen ueber die Basarderzeugungen im Pflanzenreich, but continued to go back to reread as late as 1855. Herbert is specifically mentioned on pp 6r, 7v, 12r, 13r, 26r, 27r, 31v, 33r, and 35r, all at DAR 116. Darwin also heavily annotated Koelreuter’s massive volume Vorläufige Nachricht von einigen das Geschlecht der Pflanzen betreffenden Versuchen und Beobachtungen (1761–​1766), probably about the same time as he annotated Gaertner. See Marginalia, pp. 458–​72. 19. Darwin’s’ notes to Herbert 1846a, describing “some very original observations” (in relation to Hooker’s work) are in DAR 74:149–​50. The work bears on competition and adaptation. A decade later Darwin wrote to Huxley: “Koelreuter grand, but papers scattered & lengthy; Herbert volume on Amaryllicideae very good & two excellent papers in Hort. Journal” (Herbert 1837; 1846a; 1846b). For CD’s views on W. Herbert’s work, see CCD, 26 June 1839, to Herbert, n. 3, letter 523; and 27 November [1859], to Huxley, letter 2558; and [April 1846], to Robert Hutton, letter 952. See also Natural Selection 195–​96. 20. Darwin visited Herbert in Manchester in October 1845 to talk about hybrids: “He is full of self-​gained knowledge, but knows surprisingly little what others have done on same subjects,-​-H ​ e is very heterodox on ‘species’, not much better, as most naturalists

Wells and Herbert  99 would esteem it, than poor Mr. Vestiges.”(CCD, 28 October [1845], to Hooker. Letter 992). 21. CD comments to Hooker that Herbert was wrong in some of his conclusions about crossings and analogies in his 1837 volume. CD read Herbert (1837) and extensively annotated this work (see n. 2, and Marginalia, pp. 372–​76. Cf. also CCD, [2 June 1847], to Hooker. Letter 1094). 22. Herbert’s Transactions essay appears on pp. 15–​50 of volume 4, 1822. Darwin needed to read no more than the first five or six pages to get the thrust of Herbert’s argument in favor of the hypothesis of species transmutation through hybridization. The rest of the essay is mainly descriptive, showing the results of Herbert’s crossing experiments with dozens of varieties and species of plants. 23. See n. 4 for full citations. 24. To give a sample of Darwin’s interests in Herbert’s writings in the 1850s:  Darwin wrote to Asa Gray in September 1857, as quoted earlier, about the struggle for life due to overpopulation and competition; Herbert’s discovery of “sterile sports” was worth a mention to Hooker (CCD, 22 June [1856], to Hooker. Letter 1908). Again to Hooker in early 1857 Darwin thought it worth reporting that Herbert (1846a) had shown same striking varieties produced under very different external conditions—​ thus setting a limit on this kind of explanation (CCD, 8 April [1857], to Hooker, letter 2073; see also Natural Selection, p. 284); and Darwin wrote to Wallace in May 1857 that Koelreuter, Gaertner, and Herbert have shown with “enormous evidence” contra Wallace’s opinion, the sterility of hybrid animals and plants (CCD, 1 May 1857, to A.R. Wallace. Letter 2806). If Darwin found fault in some of Herbert’s opinions, he gave him enough credit for interesting observations to engage his ideas with his closest botanical friends. 25. Darwin’s annotations to Amaryllidacaea 1837 reveal a great deal about Darwin’s debts to Herbert:  “Hybrids sporting into character like other species.” “I see in Journal [i.e., Hort. Trans. [1822?; see CCD, 26 June 1839, to Herbert. Letter 523] he gives up genera; some genera which will not cross probably descended from one stock.” “Not known when some genera originated, probably because changed gradually; same answer can be made about species.” “Monoecious and dioecious instance of my law of variation agreeing other species of genus.” “Habits important in determining what is a species” (Marginalia, pp. 372–​76). 26. A copy of Darwin’s unpublished 1842 “Sketch” is reproduced in The Foundations of the Origin of Species. Two Essays Written in 1842 and 1844 by Charles Darwin, edited by Francis Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 27. This question was of great interest to Darwin also. In 1842, he was invited to work with other naturalists on a committee, commissioned by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and led by Hugh Strickland, to draw up rules on scientific classification and nomenclature (Browne, p.  451). He noted in Herbert, “Habits important in determining what is a species,” an insight that may have helped his work in this field (Marginalia, pp. 372–​76). He discovered the same confusion in systematics as Herbert did and continued to make adjustments to the committee’s recommendations throughout the 1840s.

100  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 28. Herbert makes other comments in Amaryllidacaea that Darwin annotated:  “accidental seedlings is like sudden appearance of cowslip from primrose and Australian dogs producing piebald young.” “From foregoing facts we should expect change to be slow, [not sudden].” “The two sexes are affected differently by conditions.” “Mentions accidental impregnation.” “My rule of variation from domestication producing changes analogous to those found in other species of same genus, thus is seen to hold good with varieties produced by crosses.” “Introduce my views of all organic beings marrying.” “Internal differences more important than external. The value of crossing as a test of genera” (Marginalia, pp. 372–​76). 29. Darwin’s theory also involved the idea that “accidental variations” were probably due to some alteration in the reproductive organs in the mating individuals before conception. Herbert could only remark that such variations were due to nothing he could imagine, except to say “due to chances.” That statement is, of course, only a tautology. Gaertner came closer to the truth, as Darwin understood it, at least on this point, in his 1849 volume. Darwin’s marginal note reads: “Sterility of Hybrids, even fr[o]‌m same capsule, very variable: this shows not dependent on external conditions so abnormal types—​not on any law of species as real existences—​but on something quite unknown in generative system” (DAR 116: 39r: p 366). A thorough review of the issue of “chance” or “accidental” variation in Darwin’s thought is found in Johnson (2014, esp. ch. 4). 30. Some controversy surrounds the question of whether Darwin accepted Lamarckian use/​disuse in any significant way, and, if he did, whether he augmented or diminished a role for this mechanism over the course of his career. The issue is fully surveyed in Johnson (2014, esp. ch. 7). In any event, even if he did accept it, it always played a subordinate role in his thinking about organic evolution.

References Barrett, Paul, et  al. 1987. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836–​1844. Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press. Brace, Charles Loring. 1863. The Races of the Old World. A  Manual of Ethnology. London: John Murray. Browne, Janet. 1995. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Burkhardt, Frederick, et. al. 1885–​Present. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1909. The Foundations of the Origin of Species. Two Essays Written in 1842 and 1844 by Charles Darwin. Edited by Francis Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Reprint edition. New York: Kraus Reprint Co. 1969. Also reprinted in De Beer ed. 1958.] Darwin, Charles. 1859. [1959] On the Origin of Species:  A Variorum Text. Edited by M. Peckham. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Darwin, Charles. 1856–​ 1858. Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection:  Being the Second Part of His Big Species Book Written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R.C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.

Wells and Herbert  101 Darwin, Charles. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Evolution by Natural Selection. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. [Reprint edition. New  York and London: Johnson Reprint Corporation. 1971. Reprint of the Darwin/​Wallace papers in the Journal of the Linneaen Society, London, July 1 1858]. De Beer, Gavin. See Charles Darwin 1909. Di Gregorio, Mario A., and N.W. Gill. 1990. Charles Darwin’s Marginalia. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland. Gaertner, C.F. 1849. Versuche und Beobachtungen ueber die Basarderzeugungen im Pflanzenreich. Stuttgart. Herbert, William. 1820. [Read 7 July  1818]. “Instructions for the Treatment of the Amaryllis longifolia, as a Hardy Aquatic, with Some Observations on the Production of Hybrid Plants, and the Treatment of the Bulbs of the Genera Crinum and Amaryllis.” Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London 3: 187–​96. Herbert, William. 1822. [Read 21 January  1819]. “On the Production of Hybrid Vegetables; with the Result of Many Experiments Made in the Investigation of the Subject. In a Letter to the Secretary.” Transactions of the Horticultural Society 4: 15–​50. Herbert, William. (1837). Amaryllidaceae:  Preceded by an Attempt to Arrange the Monocotyledonous Orders, and Followed by a Treatise on Cross-​bred Vegetables, and Supplement. London: Ridgway. Herbert, William. 1846a. “Local Habitation and Wants of Plants.” Journal of the Horticultural Society of London 1: 44–​9. Herbert, William. 1846b. [Read 14 October 1846.] “On Hybridization amongst Vegetables.” Journal of the Horticultural Society of London 2: 1–​28, 81–​107. Johnson, Curtis. 2014. Darwin’s Dice: The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Kölreuter, Joseph Gottlieb. 1761–​6. Vorläufige Nachricht von einigen das Geschlecht der Pflanzen betreffenden Versuchen und Beobachtungen. Leipzig:  Gleditschischen Handlung. Lyell, Charles. 1832. Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. Peckham, Morse. See Charles Darwin 1859. Stauffer, Richard. See Charles Darwin 1846–​1848. van Wyhe, John. ed. 2002-​. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. http://​darwin-​ online.org.uk/​. Variorum. See Charles Darwin, 1859. Wells, K.D. 1973. “William Charles Wells and the Races of Man,” Isis 64: 215–​25. Wells W.C. 1818. Two Essays: Upon a Single Vision With Two Eyes, the Other on Dew. With an appendix An Account of a Female of the White Race of Mankind, Part of Whose Skin Resembles That of a Negro, With Some Observations on the Cause of the Differences in Colour and Form between the White and Negro Races of Man. London: Archibald Constable.

5

Robert Grant and Patrick Matthew Robert Edmund Grant. 1793–​1874 If one is looking for Darwin’s first personal encounters with transmutationist views one might well start with Robert Edmund Grant. Grant was a personal mentor to Darwin during his earliest years as a university student at the University of Edinburgh, 1826–​1827. Grant was not a professor there, but he was a licensed physician and was especially engaged in original field studies on marine animals. He was already, by the time Darwin met him in 1826, an accomplished comparative anatomist. He introduced Darwin to the techniques of microscopical dissection and current understanding of small, ocean and freshwater organisms, gathered from the sea, lakes, and tide pools located in proximity to the university. Grant was also a figure of scientific stature in the small society of Edinburgh scientific associations and introduced Darwin into this circle. More important for our study is that Grant introduced Darwin to the ideas of Lamarck. From preserved recollections by Darwin and Grant, we gather that Grant was attracted to Lamarck’s radical opinions on species change before almost anyone else in Great Britain (for details, see Desmond 1984). Grant came to his own opinions from reading Lamarck, whose first major writing on the species question was the 1809 Philosophie zoologique, and from studying for some months over the course of several years in Paris and other European centers of learning at a time when Lamarck’s opinions were being discussed (1815–​1821). Grant apparently did not attend Lamarck’s lectures in Paris, but he was familiar with his ideas. Darwin thus learned about Lamarck from an enthusiastic supporter and a person who knew more than almost anyone else in Great Britain what Lamarck was arguing—​transmutation. Darwin is clear in his autobiography that Grant was his first direct encounter with Lamarck’s views. Grant did not hide his excitement about Lamarck from Darwin. Years later Darwin recollected, after saying he knew Grant well: One day, when we were walking together [Grant] burst forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent astonishment, and as far as I can judge, without any effect on my mind. (Autobiography, p. 49) Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Grant and Matthew  103

Figure 5.1 Grant

The entry comes in the same paragraph in which Darwin also dismissed the idea that Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia had much of an impact on his thinking on species change. Perhaps we can say that the ground was not yet fertile in Darwin’s mind but the seeds of transmutationist thinking were planted that would sprout later. Darwin almost says as much himself in his Autobiography, immediately after saying Grant made no discernable impact on his thinking about transmutation: Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my Origin of Species. (Autobiography, p. 49)

It is curious, then, that in Darwin’s later reflections, after he had come to see that Grant’s effusions about Lamarck may have prepared the way for his own later views, he would not have attributed more than he did to Grant in the Historical Sketch. Darwin had very little to say about Grant in the Sketch, and what he did say was neither flattering nor indicative of the seminal importance Grant may have had in his thinking. He gave Grant just two sentences, neither of which says

104  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” much more than that he had indicated a belief in species change as early as 1826 (thus earning him a spot in the Sketch as predecessor, between Herbert, in 1822, and Matthew, in 1831). Here is what Darwin says about his first real mentor in zoological studies: In 1826, Professor Grant, in the concluding paragraph in his well-​known paper (Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. xiv, p.  283) on the Spongilla, clearly declares his belief that species are descended from other species, and that they become improved in the course of modification. The same view was given in his 55th Lecture, published in the “Lancet” in 1834. (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 62, lines 21–​22)

Why Darwin had nothing more to say about Grant in the Sketch, or in the rest of Origin for that matter, is something of a mystery (Jespersen 1948–​1949). Grant did first publish his belief in species descent in 1826, as Darwin says. But he had quite a bit more to say about his Lamarckism in the following years in lectures and other published works, to which Darwin had access and had read (see Marginalia, p. 345). Perhaps Darwin, with his usual focus in the Sketch on an author’s first published work simply chose to ignore later elaborations of the key insight. Or, it may be that Darwin had very little knowledge of Grant’s later published works. Although several of Grant’s earliest papers were in Darwin’s library at Down (Rutherford 1908; and CCD, 16 May 1861, from Grant, n. 2, letter 3150), it is not clear from the printed sources that Darwin actually read them. Notably, the 1826 Spongilla paper Darwin cited in the Sketch is not listed in this collection (contra CCD, 16 May 1861, from Grant to Darwin, n. 2. Letter 3150). Darwin’s son Francis, who wrote the introduction to Rutherford’s compilation of works in Darwin’s library at Down, mentions Grant as an influence on Darwin, but with little detail, and without mentioning the Spongilla paper (Rutherford 1908, p. x; and Charles Darwin Online A162). Grant’s 20 published papers in 1826 and 1827 do not show up in the Marginalia, nor does Grant make an appearance in Darwin’s Reading Notebooks or any of his other Notebooks on transmutation. The one entry in the Marginalia, to Grant 1835, indicates that Darwin may have only skimmed this work; it shows no annotations, and includes only the single word “Nothing” on the back cover of each of its four parts. Indeed, the pages of the final part remain uncut (indicating that Darwin had not read them). In later life Darwin expressed surprise that Grant did not publish more than he did (CDO CUL-​DAR26.1-​121 Draft: [1876.00.00-​1882.04.00] ‘Recollections of the development of my mind and character’ [autobiography] author’s fair copy). Moreover, it is a possibility that Darwin had not read any of Grant’s early original works prior to 1860. Grant is not mentioned either in the letter to Baden Powell of January 18, 1860 (with the first, preserved list of authors Darwin

Grant and Matthew  105 intended including in the Sketch) or in the first editions of Origin to contain the Sketch, the first German and first authorized US editions of mid-​1860. Grant comes in only in the third English edition, early 1861, in the form of the two sentences quoted above. Why did this not appear earlier, and why did it appear finally in 1861? The answer is that Darwin read Grant 1826 only in late 1860, perhaps for the first time. We learn that in December 1860 he requested a copy of Grant’s 1826 essay from Richard Kippist, the Librarian of the Linnean Society (CCD, 11 December [1860], to Kippist. Letter 3016). This would have been a copy on loan rather than for purchase, explaining no doubt why no copy of it has been found in Darwin’s collections. In any case, assuming Kippist sent a copy to Darwin right after receiving the request, we have a good explanation as to why Darwin included Grant only in the 1861 edition of Origin. He quite possibly had not read Grant’s work before this. How Darwin became aware of Grant’s 1826 work in the first place so that he could request a copy from Kippist in 1860 is another question. By this time Darwin knew the volume number of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal he was looking for (xiv), but could only estimate the date as “about 35 years ago” (it was actually 34 years earlier). I can only surmise that someone else had brought Darwin’s attention to Grant as a possible predecessor after the first editions of Origin appeared, and people started asking him to acknowledge his predecessors in a Historical Sketch. Charles Lyell is one such person, but I can find no evidence that Lyell mentioned Grant at all. Another is Baden Powell. Powell wrote to Darwin in early 1860 suggesting that other authors, including himself, may have a rightful claim to priority for discovering Darwin’s theory first. Unfortunately, the letter from Powell to Darwin has not been found. What it said, therefore, can only be inferred, and most imperfectly, from Darwin’s two responses to it on January 18, 1860. But Powell’s letter did prompt Darwin to set down in print 13 authors he would include in a Sketch. Grant is not one of them, but Powell may have suggested Grant to Darwin in his now lost letter. There is, of course, a third possible source: Grant himself. Very little correspondence between Grant and Darwin has been preserved, and the chances are good that little correspondence actually took place. But it is interesting that Grant dedicated his Tabular View (1861) to Darwin in a lengthy preface, in which he effuses about Darwin’s important achievement in Origin. Jespersen (1948–​1949) has surmised that this dedication is what prompted Darwin to look further into Grant’s previous works and directly induced him to include Grant in the Sketch. The timing of Grant’s dedication and the subsequent appearance of Grant in the Sketch, only months later, favors this interpretation. Unfortunately, Grant did not mention there any of his own earlier works, so at best we must conclude that if Grant’s dedication made any impact on Darwin at all, it would have been only

106  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” to set him on a search for other writings by Grant. He would not have discovered Grant’s 1826 article from Grant’s preface to Tabular View. And more damaging to Jespersen’s speculation is that Darwin requested Grant’s 1826 essay on Spongilla from Kippist in 1860, as we have already seen, well before he read Grant’s preface to Tabular View in 1861. However Darwin was alerted to Grant’s 1826 paper on Spongilla, he did acquire and read it right away for the Sketch. But for an early friend and mentor to have been so completely disregarded by Darwin prior to 1861 is a puzzle that asks for an explanation, no matter how provisional. Some light is shed by considering the immediate context. Almost everyone agrees that Darwin’s personal relations with Grant “cooled” after 1827, the year Darwin left Edinburgh. Obviously, physical separation can cool any relationship. Darwin’s personal falling out with Grant may have simply caused Grant to fall out of his recollections as well. I can find no evidence, however, that Darwin ever lost respect for Grant as an original thinker and scientist. The “cooling” was not a “chill,” as it was in the case of Richard Owen, but just a drifting apart, a loss of contact. But there seems to be more to the story. Grant was a controversial figure who was entangled in British politics when he moved to London in 1827 to assume a teaching position at the newly established University College London, a place seen by some conservative naturalists as a hotbed of radical ideas. Edinburgh itself had something of the same reputation among Oxbridge professors. At the same time, Darwin moved on to Cambridge University and after that to the Beagle voyage. Not only did their physical paths separate, so too did their intellectual and political trajectories. Darwin may have wished to stay away from the controversies swirling in the London scientific community at this time (Desmond 1984; Desmond and Moore 1990). A story is also told about a personal encounter between Darwin and Grant while they were still together in Edinburgh in 1827 that may have colored Darwin’s views about Grant in a negative way. According to this account, which was preserved in a written note (now lost) by one of Darwin’s daughters Henrietta many years later, Darwin was studying the reproductive mechanisms of a small marine creature, Flustra. Darwin, it is reported, rushed into Grant’s lab with the flush of excitement of a first original discovery, only to be rebuked by Grant: “[I]‌ would find it very unfair” for you (Darwin) to work on my subject and publish it before I had a chance to do so (Stott 2012, pp. 225–​6 and notes, citing Jespersen 1948–​1949). Henrietta adds that this encounter affected not just Darwin’s views about Grant but about the pettiness of claims of scientific priority in general. That is a nice story about the jealousies that come with scientific discovery, and Henrietta’s recollection need not be called into doubt. However, it is noteworthy that Grant was not overly protective or proprietary of his own claims to original discovery. In fact, the opposite is true. He was open in acknowledging

Grant and Matthew  107 predecessors and fellow workers in several of his earliest works, including Darwin. He explicitly assigned credit to Darwin, his “zealous young friend Mr Charles Darwin” as deserving the “credit” for bringing some facts of observation about marine animals to his view, and then later dedicated in his own hand two articles from 1826 and 1827 to “his friend” and “with best wishes” to Charles Darwin (cited in Jespersen 1949, p. 162). These acknowledgments and dedications do not seem to show jealousy on Grant’s part, or cause for regret and recrimination on the part of Darwin. Nor do we find any evidence that Darwin harbored any ill feelings toward Grant in his later years. All of his mentions of Grant in the Autobiography show, if anything, only deference and respect for Grant (pp. 49, 51). In his “Recollections of the development of my mind,” written between 1876 and 1882, he remembered that Grant had published “some first-​rate zoological papers” while he was still at Edinburgh (CDO CUL-​DAR26.1-​121). Even many years earlier, in a letter to W.T. Preyer, Darwin offered the following revealing thoughts: I derived no advantage from the Lectures at Edinburgh, for they were infinitely dull & cured me of any taste for Geology for 3 years. Dr Grant was not a Professor, but worked at zoology out of pure love, & his Society was a great encouragement. I used to amuse myself with examining marine animals, but I did so solely for amusement. I believe I was the first person who ever saw the earliest locomotive egg-​like state of a Bryozoon: I showed it to Grant, who stated so at the meeting of the Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc. & this little discovery was an immense encouragement. (CCD, 17 February [1870], to W.T. Preyer. Letter 7112)

Personal antipathy toward Grant seems unlikely to have played any role in Darwin’s decision to mention him in the Sketch in such an abbreviated way. What must interest us more at this point is what Grant’s “theory” was and what Darwin may have learned from it in 1826–​1827. Like Darwin’s, Grant’s theory was a composite. From the start, it was a transmutationist theory, involving the claim that species descend from other species. Grant was not original in this insight, as he acknowledged himself by calling forth Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin as important influences on his own views. But, from the evidence in Grant’s writings at this period and later, we see that he saw further implications of his evolutionary views than either Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck admitted. He took Lamarckian ideas to logical extensions that even other well-​known transmutationists such as Robert Chambers and Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire would not or did not embrace. One would not see much of Grant’s larger theory just from his 1826 paper on Spongilla friabilis. That paper does not go much beyond the assertion that this primitive freshwater organism—​plant or animal was unclear to Grant—​was

108  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” no doubt a progenitor of more well-​developed marine sponges. The paper is largely (and meticulously) descriptive, as were virtually all of Grant’s papers and lectures. But the final paragraph takes the decisive theoretical step to affirm the genealogical ancestry of Spongilla to marine sponges: the Spongilla was the “original parent” of more developed sponges, the latter having “greatly improved their organisation” over the former through the long course of ages and altered environmental conditions. This is a transmutationist theory, and it was published at just the time Darwin was taking his collecting walks with Grant in Scotland. And yet, Darwin claimed years later, it made no discernable impact on his mind. It may be that the extreme brevity of Grant’s venture into evolutionary theory in this paper (as in the 1834 lecture 55 cited in the Sketch) explains why Darwin did not give Grant more room in the Sketch—​Grant did not give Darwin much to work with. But when we look at the larger intellectual context, we find Grant’s views, when taken as a whole, had considerably more to say about transmutation than might be suggested in the Spongilla paper. He affirmed “serial progression,” “unity of type” (a Geoffroyian idea), “spontaneous generation” of new forms (a Lamarckian idea), the effect of external conditions on organization (a point embraced by many naturalists), and above all the “accidental” nature of causes of variations that give rise to new species. The last point may be the important one for Darwin and is admittedly controversial, in the sense that it unclear whether Grant actually endorsed that view. But there is no question that Darwin did. Natural selection cannot work without “variations” to work on, and thus the question arises about how variations come about. Can they be induced by external agencies, including human manipulations, or do they “just happen” to arise. Darwin believed mainly in the latter “cause.” If Grant did in fact embrace this opinion too, he should have had a much larger impact on Darwin’s thinking than Darwin ever let on. The evidence that Grant embraced something like chance variation comes mainly in his “Swiney Lectures on Paleozoology, 1853–​1857,” recently transcribed from an original manuscript in the British Library by Adrian Desmond (1984). In his article about the lectures, Desmond quotes several passages from them, one of which includes the following statement by Grant: As all geological changes which have occurred in the Cainozoic period have been local, limited, and for the most part slowly effected accidents, the animal races capable of migration had leisure to follow the slow changes of the earth’s surface, and thus to shift from region to region. These changes of general condition would however necessarily tend to the gradual extinction of many, and to the alteration and accommodation of others with more pliant constitutions. (Grant, Lecture 2, quoted in Desmond 1984, p. 405, emphasis supplied)

Grant and Matthew  109 We find reference here to the ideas of species extinction, species transformation through time, and “pliancy” of physiological constitution, all important components of transmutationist thinking. But here we also get the important word “accident” as identifying an underlying source of change. Was “accidental variation” part of Grant’s thinking from the beginning? Desmond cautions us against reading too much into Grant’s use of the word “accident” here. He again quotes Grant, showing, he claims, that Grant actually rules out chance as a cause of variation in the same paleozoology lectures: The unbroken continuity of the animal series through all past geological epochs, and the gradual transitions and insensible gradations which connect the fauna of one formation with that of the next in succession indicate that they form the connected parts and continuous links of one organic creation, and not the heterogenous remnants of successive kingdoms begun by chance and destroyed by caprice. (Grant, “Paleozoology,” pp. 256–​7, quoted in Desmond 1984, p. 410 n. 54)

What is clear from this passage is that Grant was again affirming a transmutationist theory. What is less clear is how to account for the “connected parts and continuous links” of these transitions and gradations. He says “neither chance nor caprice,” but if not these, what? Desmond may have extended the analysis beyond the textual evidence. Grant does not necessarily take back what he had said earlier about “accidental” changes in external conditions. His employment of the word “chance” in the second passage is used in a different sense from his use of “accident” in the first. The first refers to “accidental geographical changes” over the long course of ages, the second to “chance origins” of organic change. These are indeed different concepts. But what is missing from Desmond’s analysis is what connects the two. Darwin himself had begun his theorizing about species transformation in 1836–​1837 with the idea that geography, especially the biogeographical distribution of plants and animals across the surface of the globe, was an important key to unlocking the mystery of species origin. Specifically, Darwin’s first foray into the domain of chance was in the context of “chance transport,” the fortuities that regulate how species get from one place to another. Wind patterns, water currents, transport of seeds on the hair of roving animals, and many more such mechanisms are documented in Darwin’s Notebooks, and all of these patterns of transport were reduced by Darwin into an explanation from “chance” (Johnson 2014, ch. 3). It is not a big step from thinking chance regulates the geography of the globe (an idea brought into prominence by Lyell in his Principles of Geology 1831–​1833 and affirmed in the Swiney Lectures by Grant) to the idea that chance also governs transport—​Darwin’s idea. Grant’s

110  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” “accidental geological changes” may thus have been influential on Darwin’s notion of “chance transport” and then ultimately “chance variation” as the original source, acting before natural selection, of species change. These thin pieces of evidence do not add up to a strong case for Grant’s influence on or priority over Darwin with regard to the issue of chance variation. We just do not have enough from Grant’s published writings to be able to say that he was a “chance variation” theorist. And who can know how far Grant took Darwin’s thinking into the realm of “chance evolution” in 1826–​1827 in personal encounters and discussions? It is worth pointing out that Desmond himself (in a book published before his 1984 paper on Grant’s Swiney Lectures) did opine that Grant saw chance at the root of species change. In that 1982 work, Desmond had this to say about Grant (in contrast to Robert Chambers) explicitly connecting chance geological changes with “chance” evolution, which, along with natural selection, is the most “Darwinian” aspect of what today we call “Darwinism:” “The Gower Street Professor [Grant] had seen life steered by ‘random’ climatic changes; not only did the system move under its own impetus, but accidents directed life’s course and man was basically a chance outcome” (Desmond 1982, p. 33 and n. 31, citing Grant’s “Paleozoology” lectures). Perhaps Darwin saw too much in Grant’s anticipation of him, and were he to acknowledge it, Grant would have taken away the originality of a part of his theory that he held dear and distinctive: accidental or chance variation. Lamarck and Geoffroy, in different ways, had assigned the “cause” of variation to the action of “external conditions.” Darwin always thought such an explanation was too facile, just about as useless as saying “the world is the way it is because the Maker made it that way.” Of Darwin’s many predecessors, Grant seems to be the only one who had put his finger on the mechanism of chance in producing variations. Thus, if Grant did in fact anticipate Darwin on the notion of chance variation, or even plant the idea in his mind, Darwin may have had to give up his primary claim to priority. Could it be that Darwin dismissed Grant just because the one part of his theory he did not want to acknowledge as having been propounded before him was “chance variation,” as was suggested by Grant in 1826–​1827?

Patrick Matthew. 1790–​1874 Of those whom Darwin believed may have preceded him in the discovery of the principle of natural selection, no one made a stronger claim to priority than Patrick Matthew, a Scottish landowner, fruit farmer, merchant, and student of arboriculture. Unlike some others, he was still alive and active in his profession

Grant and Matthew  111

Figure 5.2 Matthew

when Origin of Species first appeared in print, in 1859. Thus, unlike most other forerunners, Matthew was in a position to assert his own priority in print, which he did in April 1860, in a letter to the Gardener’s Chronicle. That letter prompted a public reply from Darwin in the same periodical, in which Darwin admitted he had been “anticipated by many years” by Matthew. He then made what amends he could by including a section on Matthew’s priority in the Historical Sketch, 1861. To get a fair idea of the extent of Matthew’s anticipation and how Darwin reacted to it we should look at the chronology: the date of Matthew’s original articulation of the concept of natural selection in 1831, then the public exchange between the two men in the Gardener’s Chronicle, Darwin’s Historical Sketch, other published outlets in the spring of 1860, and finally private assessments in letters and other documents. Matthew first published his account of natural selection in a book on naval timber—​the trees that should be used in constructing naval vessels for the Royal fleet—​in 1831. The subject of natural selection is most evident in an appendix to this work. But it did not come under Darwin’s notice until a letter to the Gardener’s Chronicle appeared in the issue of April 7, 1860, sent in by Matthew himself to assert his priority. It should be noted that Matthew’s 1831 publication made no assertion about a “new discovery,” let alone “priority.” It was simply an

112  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” account of the author’s views, entirely innocent of awareness that his contribution might be novel, or even an important discovery. Yet, by 1860, he had changed his opinion on how to present his views, in light of the publicity Darwin’s work was receiving in the press. The credit that was going to Darwin for discovering natural selection, Matthew thought, should be going to him, in view of discovery of the same principle, published in 1831—​ nearly three decades before Origin. Matthew’s attention to the priority issue was aroused in his mind by his reading of the March 3, 1860, issue of Gardener’s Chronicle, in which a review of Origin appeared, underscoring the notion that Charles Darwin was the one to have developed a theory that could explain the origin of species based on the concept of natural selection. It was this review that evidently prompted Matthew to consider more seriously the central argument of Origin itself. It is not clear that he had read the book before this (it had first appeared in published form in Britain in November 1859), but his later comments about it suggest some degree of familiarity. However he came to his understanding of Darwin’s theory, Matthew decided he saw sufficient similarity to his own published ideas that he should stake a public claim to anticipation, and thus priority. And so, in his letter to Gardener’s Chronicle, published April 7, 1860, he made the following assertion: TRUSTING to your desire that every man should have his own, I hope you will give place to the following communication. In your Number of March 3d I observe a long quotation from the Times, stating that Mr. Darwin “professes to have discovered the existence and modus operandi of the natural law of selection,” that is, “the power in nature which takes the place of man and performs a selection, sua sponte,” in organic life. This discovery recently published as “the results of 20 years’ investigation and reflection” by Mr. Darwin turns out to be what I published very fully and brought to apply practically to forestry in my work “Naval Timber and Arboriculture,” published as far back as January 1, 1831, by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, and Longman & Co., London, and reviewed in numerous periodicals, so as to have full publicity in the “Metropolitan Magazine,” the “Quarterly Review,” the “Gardeners’ Magazine,” by Loudon, who spoke of it as the book, and repeatedly in the “United Service Magazine” for 1831, &c. The following extract . . . clearly proves a prior claim. (CDO, A143)

Matthew’s letter actually makes two claims: first, that he (Matthew) had hit upon “natural selection” in 1830–​1831, and thus deserved a “prior claim” to its discovery; and second, that his book had been widely reviewed at the time of its appearance in several leading outlets, so no one could be excused from not knowing about it. If one is current in the literature, one should know about

Grant and Matthew  113 Matthew’s contribution from its first appearance. It may even be taken to imply that Darwin had deliberately overlooked Matthew’s contribution, but Matthew does not say that, and no credible evidence has been produced to show that Darwin did. Darwin reacted immediately to Matthew’s letter and by April 13, 1860, had composed in response a short letter of his own, intended for publication in the very next issue of the Chronicle, one week later. But first he wanted Hooker to look it over for a judgment about whether he should send it in. No response by Hooker has been found, but we must assume Hooker approved and perhaps even sent it in to the Chronicle himself (as Darwin asked him to do) because Darwin’s letter to the Chronicle did appear in the April 21, 1860 issue. Darwin saw that Matthew’s main point was to claim priority. He did not have fondness for such disputes: “Questions of priority so often lead to odious quarrels,” he had written to Hooker in his letter of April 13, 1860, reminiscent of his comments to Lyell in 1858 when he first read Wallace’s manuscript, and after that in his protracted disputes with Richard Owen on the same subject. But Matthew had forced his hand in a way no one else had, and Darwin knew he would have to respond. In a way, Matthew had backed him into a corner. Darwin had to admit that Matthew had forestalled him. He adopted a tactic that was by now familiar: acknowledging that he had been anticipated, but begging pardon for not having noticed the prior claimant until after Origin was published. Here is Darwin’s response to Matthew’s letter to the Chronicle, which was published in the issue of April 21, 1860: I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I  have offered of the origin of species, under the name of natural selection. I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr. Matthew’s views, considering how briefly they are given, and that they appeared in the appendix to a work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture. I can do no more than offer my apologies to Mr. Matthew for my entire ignorance of his publication. If another edition of my work is called for, I will insert a notice to the foregoing effect. (Gardener’s Chronicle, 21 April 1860, 362–​63, reproduced in CDO F1705, “Charles Darwin, Natural Selection”)

Matthew took notice of this acknowledgment almost immediately, and his public response showed the same kind of deference to a more worthy claimant to an original discovery as Wallace had displayed to Darwin in 1858 and after. In a quick shift from his earlier claim to priority, he sent another letter to the Chronicle, published in the May 12, 1860 issue, in which he downplayed his credit for having discovered natural selection first, without actually disavowing

114  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” priority. In this letter, he wrote that the conception of natural selection had come to him “intuitively, without effort of concentrated thought.” Darwin, Matthew claimed, “seems to have more merit in the discovery [of natural selection] than I  have had” because he worked it out more systematically and inductively” (Gardener’s Chronicle 12 May 1860). The difference from Matthew’s earlier stance is striking, first claiming priority, then within a month ceding it to Darwin. What prompted Matthew to make this about face? One answer might be that Matthew was satisfied with Darwin’s acknowledgment of and apology to him in the April 21 issue of the Chronicle. His reversal came almost immediately—​well before Darwin’s Historical Sketch first appeared in the third English edition, April 1861, the first time Darwin acknowledged Matthew. And he might have been further pleased that Darwin promised in the Chronicle letter to acknowledge Matthew as a forerunner in any subsequent edition of Origin, a pledge that Darwin honored. In the first English version of the Sketch, April 26, 1861, Darwin’s entry on Matthew had two parts. The first is what might be called a standard entry: naming Matthew as a forerunner with a brief recapitulation of his views as Darwin understood them. I reproduce that part here, in full: In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on Naval Timber and Aboriculture, in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself in the “Linnean Journal,” and as that enlarged upon in the present volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew very briefly in scattered passages in an Appendix to a work on a different subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in the “Gardener’s Chronicle,” on April 7th, 1860. The differences of Mr. Matthew’s view from mine are not of much importance: he seems to consider that the world was nearly depopulated at successive periods, and then restocked; and he gives, as an alternative, that new forms may be generated “without the presence of any mould or germ of former aggregates.” I am not sure that I understand some passages; but it seems that he attributes much to the influence to the direct action of conditions of life. He clearly saw, however, the full force of the principle of natural selection.

Darwin retained this entry in all versions of the Historical Sketch after it first appeared in 1861. But Darwin’s entry on Matthew in the first version of the Sketch contained a second part. These two or three additional sentences consisted of a sentence by Darwin drawing attention to Matthew’s May 12, 1860, letter in the Chronicle

Grant and Matthew  115 acknowledging Darwin’s “more merit,” followed by a quote drawn directly from Matthew’s letter: In answer to a letter of mine (published in Gard. Chron. April 13th [actually April 21]) fully aknowledging that Mr. Matthew had anticipated me, he with generous candour wrote a letter (Gard. Chron. May 12th) containing the following passage: “To me the conception of this law of Nature came intuitively as a self-​evident fact, almost without an effort of concentrated thought. Mr. Darwin here seems to have more merit in the discovery than I have had; to me it did not appear a discovery. He seems to have worked it out by inductive reason, slowly and with due caution to have made his way synthetically from fact to fact onwards; while with me it was by a general glance at the scheme of Nature that I estimated this select production of species as an a priori recognisable fact—​an axiom requiring only to be pointed out to be admitted by unprejudiced minds of sufficient grasp.” (Variorum, p. 63, lines 28–​30, quoted by Darwin; the passage was deleted from the Historical Sketch prefacing the fourth and subsequent editions of Origin)

Of note here is that Darwin included both parts of his acknowledgment of Matthew in the first version of the Sketch but deleted the second part in the second version, published as a preface to the fourth edition of Origin in 1866. This is somewhat puzzling. He did not remove Matthew as an acknowledged predecessor in discovering natural selection in any later version of the Sketch, but he did remove the quote from Matthew’s letter to the Chronicle acknowledging Darwin’s “greater merit.” This is also the section of the Sketch in which Darwin praised Matthew for his “generous candour” in ceding priority back to Darwin. Why would Darwin have removed lines that can only be regarded as a friendly and conciliatory gesture by Matthew? Darwin was always quick to acknowledge generosity and candor in his critics, friendly and unfriendly alike. My guess is that Darwin came to suspect during the mid-​1860s that Matthew’s “candor” was not so generous after all and perhaps not even intended by Matthew as a concession. The evidence seems to show that Matthew did not actually change his mind—​ever—​about his rightful claim to priority and that Darwin in time came to understand this, after the 1861 edition appeared and before he deleted Matthew’s “generous” concession from the 1866 edition. In short, Darwin learned more about Matthew between 1861 and 1866, and the added knowledge made Darwin a skeptic about Matthew’s generosity in acknowledging him as the one who deserved the credit for “natural selection.” Matthew’s seeming concession to Darwin’s priority first appeared in print in the May 12, 1860, issue of the Chronicle. One might have expected that after this

116  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Matthew would have dropped his own claim. But that did not happen. Instead, he continued to assert, in other outlets, his own priority. We first see this in an exchange between Matthew and the editor of the Dublin University Magazine in June 1860, a month after his May 12 concession to Darwin in the Chronicle. Matthew had complained to the journal editor in a letter (not found) that he deserved the credit that had been given to Darwin and that he “had been wronged” in the February issue of the same journal for not having been recognized as the discoverer of natural selection. The date when Matthew sent this letter to Dublin University Magazine is not known, but since it was published in June 1860 we must entertain the possibility that he sent it after May 12. The editor replied in a footnote to an article that had been contributed to the same magazine, entitled “Paleontology,” and signed only with the initials D.T.A. The article had made the following somewhat slighting comment on Darwin’s discovery of natural selection: It cannot be said that the enunciation of this law [Darwin’s natural selection] is to be regarded as a great discovery in natural history; but it seems to us that, in applying it to solve the great mystery of the gradual modification of old and the production of new species, Mr. Darwin deserves all the credit that belongs to one who has thoughtfully, and with great labour, investigated a large group of facts, and indicated their meaning. In connecting these facts he has, we think, been the first to see and proclaim the inevitable result; and he has been honest and bold enough to state, prominently and distinctly, all the difficulties and objections, without pretending to explain them away. (CDO A510, p. 717)

The editor of the magazine (name unsigned) responded to Matthew’s complaint in a footnote added to this passage. In the footnote, the editor drew attention to Matthew’s earlier submission to the April 7 issue of Gardener’s Chronicle (incorrectly given in the footnote as “7th February 1860”), noting that Matthew had also claimed priority there. The editor then gave his own verdict: We cannot, however, perceive, either in the extracts from his [Matthew’s] work [of 1831], or in his remarks [of April 7, 1860], anything more than a repetition of a fact long familiarly known, namely, that many species pass into each other by insensible gradations—​a fact acknowledged by all naturalists, and to account for which, Lamarque’s theory of the modification of specific characters was not the first invented. (CDO A510, p 717, note*)

The “dispute” between Darwin and Matthew on the point of priority was adjudicated by the editor of the Dublin University Magazine in Darwin’s favor. He did not find the novelty in Matthew’s 1831 book that Matthew claimed was there. Matthew’s statements, the editor decided, “do not interfere with Mr. Darwin’s

Grant and Matthew  117 claim to be regarded as the first who has put forward the principle of natural selection as the method adopted by nature to insure a succession of varieties resulting in species, adapted to continue, throughout all time and in absolute perfection, the chain of created beings” (CDO A510, p. 717 note*). No reply from Matthew to the editor’s footnote has been found. But, as we shall see, Matthew’s letter to the editor published in the June issue of the Dublin University Magazine was not the last he had to say on the subject. Before we turn to his later statements, we should detour through Darwin’s evolving views about Matthew, as much as we can trace them. We shall see that from 1861 through most of 1864 Darwin remained steadfast in his belief that Matthew was prior to him in just the way Matthew had claimed in April 1860. But at some point, prior to 1866, Darwin’s view changed decidedly. From the outset of his awareness of Matthew’s contribution on April 7, 1860, Darwin’s accepting attitude toward this forerunner was always tinged with self-​ exoneration for not having noticed him before he wrote Origin. Yes, Matthew had “clearly and precisely” seen the full force of “natural selection” as early as 1831. But who can be blamed for having overlooked an “obscure writer” on an unrelated subject whose views were “scattered” in an appendix to a book “no naturalist had ever read”? Darwin made this point as soon as he first responded to Matthew in the April 21 issue of Gardener’s Chronicle: I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr. Matthew’s views, considering how briefly they are given, and that they appeared in the appendix to a work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture. I can do no more than offer my apologies to Mr. Matthew for my entire ignorance of his publication. (Gardener’s Chronicle April 21, 1860)

It is hard to imagine Matthew finding favor with this passage. He had already noted publicly in April 1860, in the Chronicle, that his 1831 book had been widely reviewed, so Darwin’s explanation for not noticing Matthew earlier had already been implicitly rejected by Matthew as an adequate excuse in a letter Darwin acknowledged he had read. Moreover, Matthew continued to complain to others that he had been overlooked and treated unfairly, as already observed. But he gave a different impression in his May 12 reply to Darwin in the Chronicle. Unlike his letter to the editor of Dublin University Magazine, which was sent privately and which he had no reason to expect would be published or even acknowledged in print, Matthew knew Darwin would see the Chronicle response. In it he clearly wanted to show deference to Darwin’s originality, and he was perhaps assuaged by Darwin’s apology and his promise to include him in the next edition of Origin. For his part, Darwin continued all the way through 1862 to regard Matthew as having anticipated natural selection, and he was not reluctant to acknowledge

118  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” his opinion, either to Matthew or to other correspondents. Darwin saw Matthew as an important forerunner of his own views just as soon as he read Matthew’s first published letter of April 7 in the Gardener’s Chronicle. He did not even need to read Matthew’s 1831 book on naval timber to be convinced of this. But at the same time Darwin continued to believe he could be excused from not noticing Matthew earlier because his views first appeared in an “obscure” 1831 book on a different subject, and also because they were not fully developed. On April 10, 1860, he wrote to his friend and sometimes confidante Charles Lyell: Now for a curious thing about my Book, & then I have done. In last Saturday Gardeners’ Chronicle, a Mr Patrick Matthews [sic] publishes long extract from his work on “Naval Timber & Arboriculture” published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Nat. Selection.—​I have ordered the Book, as some few passages are rather obscure but it, is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation! . . . Anyhow one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on “Naval Timber.” (CCD, 10 April [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2754)

Darwin continued to defend Matthew’s priority to other correspondents in 1860 and 1861, but always with the same “excuse” for not having noticed the 1831 book. In a letter to J.D. Hooker on April 13, 1860, Darwin asked for Hooker’s opinion about whether his proposed response to Matthew was adequate. He must have included in this letter the short note he had prepared for the Chronicle to address Matthew’s letter of April 7 to the same journal. By now he had apparently had time to look through Matthew’s 1831 book, however briefly, because on the same date, April 13, 1860, Darwin recorded in his marginal comments to the book that he had received a copy of it (CCD, 10 April 1860, to Lyell, n. 13; letter 2754; see also Marginalia, page 571). Darwin again suggested that he should be excused for having overlooked Matthew, this time because Matthew’s views were not contained in a tightly woven article but rather spread around in various places in his 1831 book: “The case in G. Chronicle seems a little stronger than in Mr. Matthews book, for the passages are therein scattered in 3 places. But it would be mere hair-​splitting to notice that.” (CCD, 13 [April 1860], to J.D. Hooker. Letter 2758). Only weeks later Darwin wrote to A.R. Wallace with the same confession of ignorance about Matthew prior to 1860 and acknowledgment of Matthew’s priority. As we have seen, he had by now read enough of Matthew’s 1831 publication to see what Matthew had argued. To Wallace in May 1860 he had this to say: Here is a curious thing, a Mr. Pat. Matthew, a Scotchman, published in 1830 [actually 1 January 1831] a work on Naval Timber & Arboriculture, & in appendix

Grant and Matthew  119 to this, he gives most clearly but very briefly in half-​dozen paragraphs our view of natural selection. It is most complete case of anticipation. He published extracts in G. Chron. I got book & have since published letter, acknowledging that I am fairly forestalled. (CCD, 18 May 1860, to Wallace. Letter 2807)

Darwin maintained the same sentiment about Matthew’s priority even to people who did not belong to his inner circle. As interest in Darwin’s Origin started to percolate through the continent, Darwin received letters from various scientific men and women on a host of subjects related to his theory. One of these correspondents, French zoologist and anthropologist Armand de Quatrefages de Breau, engaged with Darwin in communication about, among other things, a possible French translation of his book. In the course of this exchange, Darwin wrote to thank Quatrafages for a recently received copy of his most recent book and used the occasion to acknowledge, with no evident prompting by Quatrefages, that he had been preceded by Matthew: “An obscure writer on Forest Trees, in 1830, in Scotland [Matthew] most expressly & clearly anticipated my views—​though he put the case so briefly, that no single person ever noticed the scattered passages in his book” (CCD, 25 April 1861, to Quatrefages de Breau. Letter 3127). Even as late as June 1862, a year after he sent the letter to Quatrafages, Darwin continued to credit Matthew as being the first, in this case in a letter to Matthew himself. Matthew had recently requested a personal meeting with Darwin as part of a planned trip to London. Darwin declined, citing on-​going health issues, but his response reiterated that Darwin regarded him as prior to him in discovery of the theory: Dear Sir, I presume that I have the pleasure of addressing the Author of the work on Naval Architecture & the first enunciator of the theory of Natural Selection. Few things would give me greater pleasure than to see you; but my health is feeble & I have at present a son ill & can receive no one here, nor leave home at present. (CCD, 13 June [1862], to Matthew. Letter 3600)

Darwin’s letters to Lyell, Wallace, Quatrefages, and Matthew in 1860–​1862 give little indication that he wavered from his opinion that Matthew deserved the credit for being the first to discover natural selection, and of course that judgment would imply high honor for Matthew. The honor would only be magnified if Matthew were shown in the Sketch to have declined publicly the honor Darwin wished to bestow on him. In light of Darwin’s letter to Matthew especially, we find no indication of or reason for Darwin’s wishing to remove the second part of his entry on Matthew in the Sketch in which this tribute was paid. If anything,

120  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” the letters only confirm that Darwin thought Matthew deserved the high merit he had given. It would be a noticeably kind gesture to show in the Sketch, in Matthew’s own words, that Matthew was willing to give up title to priority in favor of Darwin, even though Darwin continued to believe it should be the other way around. And yet Darwin did in fact delete in the fourth edition of Origin Matthew’s “generous” concession that had appeared in the Sketch in its first appearance in the third English edition. To understand why, we should look at what Darwin may have come to think about Matthew’s views between 1862 and 1866, the year in which he decided to delete Matthew’s “generous” concession. During this period, several new pieces of information had come to Darwin’s attention that would alter his opinion about Matthew. One was Darwin’s discovery in 1865 of the contribution to the species question by W.C. Wells, first published in 1818. As Darwin saw it, Wells antedated Matthew’s contribution by more than a decade, making him, not Matthew, the first. We have already examined the question of Wells’s priority as Darwin handled it in the Sketch and elsewhere. What we have not yet seen is Darwin’s reaction to his discovery of Wells in 1865 as it pertains to his opinion about Matthew. Darwin saw that Wells had anticipated Matthew as surely as he thought Matthew had anticipated him. This undermined Matthew’s claim to priority and established Wells as “the first.” As Darwin wrote to Hooker in October 1865: Talking of the Origin, a Yankee has called my attention to a paper attached to Dr Wells’ famous Essay on Dew, which was read [by Wells] in 1813 to Royal Soc. but not printed, in which he applies most distinctly the principle of N. Selection to the races of man. So poor old Patrick Matthew, is not the first, & he cannot or ought not any longer put on his Title pages “Discoverer of the principle of Natural Selection”! (CCD, 22 and 28 [October 1865], to Hooker. Letter 4921)

Darwin was here looking past Matthew’s claims in April and June 1860 that he deserved the credit for first discovering “natural selection,” and also past his own acknowledgment of Matthew in the 1861 version of the Historical Sketch. He was referring instead to Matthew’s hanging on to the claim of priority in a recently published pamphlet, “Schleswig-​Holstein” (having to do with another subject entirely regarding German-​Danish relations at the time). On the title page of this pamphlet—​really a political screed—​Matthew had placed the phrase “Solver of the species problem” directly after his name. It is unclear how Darwin learned about this pamphlet—​no copy of it has been found in his collections. Perhaps he did not see the words himself but was told of their gist by someone else, because he does misquote Matthew in his letter to Hooker. But Darwin understood the basic thrust: Matthew was still claiming priority, with no deference

Grant and Matthew  121 to Darwin at all, in 1864 (CCD, 22 and 28 October, 1865, to Hooker, and n. 19, letter 4921; cf. Dempster 1996, p. 34 for a discussion of Matthew’s pamphlet). But even before Darwin learned that Matthew was still claiming priority in 1864, he learned something else about Matthew’s larger “world-​view,” if it can be called that, that may have shifted his thinking. By Matthew’s own account, he was more interested in social and political applications of natural selection than in the phenomena of biological nature (including trees!). Not only that, but Matthew revealed to Darwin in a letter sent in December 1862 that he detected a larger scheme in nature that was, at present, working in favor of superior races (i.e., the British) and that would eventually, by the same logic, bring this superior race to ruin, just as it had before with other “great” civilizations. Natural selection, however true the principle might be, was a force that boded ill for mankind. It destroys superior races and promotes others to take their place. All of this is sketched out in Matthew’s somewhat rambling letter to Darwin of December 1862. Part of the letter is an apology for Matthew’s wish to see Darwin in person; he had learned from Huxley that Darwin often wished not to be “disturbed.” But the rest is a kind of personal manifesto of Matthew’s personal political convictions, and his despair about the future: Dear Sir, While you have been making advances in vegetable science, I  have been attempting to promote a 〈be〉tter system of land occupancy by the 〈f〉armer—​ that there might be protection 〈of〉 property created by the farmer in 〈e〉nriching the vegetable mould. This is a question of the highest importance to the British Empire & Race. My line lies more in the political & social, Your’s in tracing out the admirably balanced scheme of Nature all linked together in dependent connection—​the vital endowed with a variation-​power in accommodation to material change. Altho’ this is a grand field for contemplation, yet am I tired of 〈it〉—​of a world where my sympathies 〈are〉 intended to be bounded almost 〈exclu〉sively to my own race & family. 〈I am〉 not satisfied with my existence 〈 〉 to devour & trample upon my 〈fellow〉 creature. I cannot pluck a flower without regarding myself a destroyer. At present we feel some enjoyment in tracing out the scheme of Nature. Since I have paid attention to the progress of discovery, so much has been done that comparatively little remains to do. What will become of man when all the great facts of material & vital science are pointed out? We may be satisfied that we have lived in the great age of discovery & in the country & of the Race in which & by whom these discoveries have been made. Man cannot advance much higher. A reaction such as attended Babylonian, Egyptian, Grecian & Roman civilizations must soon ensue. The same powers that have reached high civilization cannot support it. Fall we must. (CCD, 3 December 1862, from Matthew. Letter 3843)

122  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” The letter must have come as a revelation to Darwin. Prior to reading it Darwin did not know much about Patrick Matthew—​only that he was a Scottish arboriculturalist with an interest in natural philosophy. But now there was more to consider. Matthew had shown that natural science was not a major concern to him, at least any longer, and that in fact he was more concerned with British imperialism and racial supremacy. Such ideas were not particularly appealing to Darwin, and were certainly far removed from his own studies of biological nature. Darwin also was not interested in the rise and fall of the British empire. Matthew had moved intellectually in a direction that diverged widely from anything Darwin was interested in. Darwin may have seen even more in this letter to alter his opinion about Matthew and his claimed “priority.” He may have detected that Matthew was hinting at a notion of “guided evolution,” or a “providential design” in nature. For Darwin, this would render natural selection superfluous and unnecessary in any account of biological transformation. His suspicions, if this is true, must have been confirmed the following year in another letter Matthew sent to him (not found) in which he apparently backed away from natural selection altogether. We know this because Darwin wrote back on November 21, 1863, expressing disappointment that Matthew had abandoned his brainchild. The letter was dictated to Darwin’s wife Emma, who sent the following: Dear Sir Mr Darwin begs me to thank you warmly for your letter which has interested him very much [letter from Matthew has not been found]. I am sorry to say that he is so unwell as not to be able to write himself. With regard to Natural Selection he says that he is not staggered by your striking remarks. He is more faithful to your own original child than you are yourself. He says you will understand what he means by the following metaphor. [Darwin then gives a version of his famous “architect” metaphor that underscores the non-​ directed, random process of evolution]. (CCD, 21 November [1863], to Matthew. Letter 4344)

Darwin’s intuition that Matthew was not a true “Darwinian” evolutionist, and that therefore his version of “natural selection” in 1831 could not be seen as a “complete” anticipation (as he had maintained in 1860), was confirmed in 1871, in yet another letter from Matthew. Although by this time Darwin had deleted from the Sketch Matthew’s “generous” concession with accompanying quote from Matthew’s May 12, 1860, letter to the Gardener’s Chronicle, Matthew’s latest letter must have confirmed Darwin in his decision to make that deletion.

Grant and Matthew  123 Matthew’s letter is again somewhat rambling, even unfocused, but his commitment to intelligent design in nature is hard to miss: There cannot be a doubt that in the scheme of nature there exists high design & constructive power carried out by general Laws. And the great probability is that these laws are everlasting, as Nature itself is, tho’ under these laws subject to revolution. It is also probable that the spark of life, like light, & heat &c., is radiated from the sun & has a power of building up to itself a domicile suited to existing circumstances & disseminating sparks of its own kind, but possessed of a variation power. That there is a principle of beneficence operating here the dual parentage and family affection pervading all the higher animal kingdom affords proof. A  sentiment of beauty pervading Nature, with only some few exceptions affords evidence of intellect & benevolence in the scheme of Nature. This principle of beauty is clearly from design & cannot be accounted for by natural selection. Could any fitness of things contrive a rose, a lily, or the perfume of the violet. There is no doubt man is left purposely in ignorance of a future existence. Their pretended revelations are wretched nonsense. (CCD, 12 March 1871, from Patrick Matthew. Letter 7576)

Darwin did respond to this letter (on March 15, 1871) with a courteous note, but did not engage Matthew on the issue of design in nature. Darwin was by now living in a different intellectual universe from Matthew, and saw no need to go back. Matthew, then, turns out to be, for Darwin, a complicated subject. When Matthew first published his letter in Gardener’s Chronicle on April 7, 1860, Darwin had never heard of him or read his 1831 book in which he “discovered” natural selection. Darwin conceded the priority immediately:  he had a keen eye for detecting what he regarded as the centerpiece of his own theory in previous writers. He made his concession to Matthew publicly in the April 21 issue of the same journal. Matthew, in turn, handed back to Darwin the lion’s share of priority on May 12, also in the same journal. And Darwin, for his part, gave Matthew a prominent place in the Historical Sketch, handing back priority to Matthew as far as he could. That could have been the end of the story. But, if the argument presented here is correct, Darwin came to change his opinion about Matthew between 1862 and 1866 in a way that lowered his estimation of the importance of Matthew’s contribution. Darwin suspected by 1866 that Matthew was in fact a proponent of intelligent design in nature, more interested in political and social applications of his theory than of biological applications, and, perhaps most troublesome to Darwin, in his own heart of hearts, not to mention published statements,

124  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” continued to believe in his own priority even after he had made a public gesture in May 1860 that Darwin first interpreted as a “generous” concession to Darwin. It seems the generous concession was no such thing, and that realization forced Darwin to rework how he wished to present Matthew in the Historical Sketch of 1866.

References Darwin, Charles. 1859. [1959]. Origin of Species. A Variorum Text. Edited by M. Peckham. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Darwin, Charles. 1860. “Natural Selection.” Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette 16 (21 April): 362–​63. Darwin, Charles. 1876. “Recollections of the Development of my Mind & Character.” Transcribed by Kees Rookmaaker. [Autobiography [1876–​4.1882] CUL-​DAR26.1-​121] CDO http://​darwin-​online.org.uk/​. Darwin, Charles. 1969. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin: 1809–​1882. New York and London: Norton. Dempster, W.J. 1983. Patrick Matthew and Natural Selection:  Nineteenth Century Gentleman-​Farmer, Naturalist and Writer. Edinburgh: Paul Harris publishing. Dempster, W.J. 1996. Natural Selection and Patrick Matthew: Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century. Durham: Pentland Press. Desmond, Adrian. 1982. Archtypes and Ancestors:  Paleontology in Victorian London 1850–​1875. London: Blond and Briggs. Desmond, Adrian. 1984. “Robert E. Grant’s Later Views on Organic Development: The Swiney Lectures on ‘Paleozoology.’ ” Archives of Natural History 11: 395–​413. D. T. A. 1860. “Palaeontology.” Dublin University Magazine 55 (June): 712–​722. Grant, Robert Edmund. 1826. Observations on the Structure of Some Silicious Sponges.” Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 1: 341–​351. Grant, Robert Edmund. 1826. “On the Structure and Function of the Spongilla friabilis,” Edinburgh Philosophical Journal 14: 283. Grant, Robert Edmund. 1828. An Essay on the Study of the Animal Kingdom. Being an Introductory Lecture Delivered in the University of London, 1828. London: John Taylor [1829, 2nd edition]. Grant, Robert Edmund. 1853–​1857. “Swiney Lectures on Paleozoology.” See Desmond (1984) for transcription. Grant, Robert Edmund. 1861. Tabular View of the Primary Divisions of the Animal Kingdom. London: Walton and Maberly. Jespersen, P. Helveg. “Charles Darwin and Dr. Grant.” Lychnos 1948–​1949: 159–​167. Lamarck, J.B. 1809. Philosophie zoologique, ou Exposition des considérations relatives à l’histoire naturelle des animaux. Paris: Duminil-​Lesueur. Matthew, Patrick. 1831. On Naval Timber and Arboriculture; with Critical Notes on Authors Who Have Recently Treated the Subject of Planting. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green. Edinburgh: Adam Black. Matthew, Patrick. 1860a. “Nature’s Law of Selection.” Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (7 April): 312–​13. Matthew, Patrick. 1860b. “The Origin of Species.” Gardener’s Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (12 May): 433.

Grant and Matthew  125 Matthew, Patrick. 1860c. “Letter to the Editor.” Dublin University Magazine (June 1860). Matthew, Patrick. 1864. Schleswig-​Holstein, etc. London: Spottiswoode & Co. Rutherford, H.W. 1908. Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin Now in the Botany School, Cambridge. Compiled by H. W. Rutherford, with an Introduction by Francis Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stott, Rebecca. 2012. Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. New York: Spiegel and Grau. Tort, Patrick. 2008. “The Interminable Decline of Lamarckism in France.” Translated by Matthew Cobb. In The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe, edited by Eve-​Marie Engels and Thomas F. Glick. London: Continuum. Variorum. See Charles Darwin, 1859.

6

Leopold von Buch, C.S Rafinesque, and Samuel Haldeman Leopold von Buch. 1774–​1853 Leopold von Buch made his first appearance in the Historical Sketch only in the fourth English edition, in 1866, and was retained unaltered through the last edition, of 1872. Darwin’s entry on Buch was short, one sentence: The celebrated naturalist and geologist, von Buch, in his excellent “Description Physique des Iles Canaries,” (1836, p. 147) clearly expresses his belief that varieties slowly become changed into permanent species, which are no longer capable of intercrossing. (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 63, line 30.I: d)

This sounds like an important anticipation, but Darwin had nothing else to say about Buch in any subsequent public writing, and not much in earlier writings either. Yet he knew enough to include him in the Sketch. The brevity of the entry, considering Buch’s potential importance as a predecessor, raises a number of questions: What did Buch actually argue about transmutation in 1825 (the publication date of the original German edition of his work on the Canaries), how and when did Darwin learn about his views, and did Darwin give him enough credit as a predecessor? Buch was a distinguished German geologist and paleontologist, remembered today more for his geological than his biological contributions to science. Charles Lyell helped bring awareness of Buch to British geologists by referring to him several times in his Principles of Geology, especially volume 1 (1830). Lyell disputed Buch’s theory of volcano formation, but gave him much credit for his “talents and zeal [as an original observer and thinker in geology]. We ought not to forget how much geology is indebted to his works,” wrote Lyell (1830 [1997], 122). Lyell’s references were to Buch’s 1825 work on geology.1 Darwin, who had studied Lyell’s Principles with care, may have first become acquainted with Buch’s name from this source, although he does not mark or annotate any passage in Lyell (in any of the 11 editions of the Principles) that refers to Buch by name.2 Lyell, however, would not have been Darwin’s source for learning about Buch’s ideas about biology. Those views were also first published in the Description Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  127

Figure 6.1  von Buch

Physique (first German edition 1825, first French edition 1836; see n.  1), the same book from which Lyell had drawn for representing Buch’s volcano theory. Darwin cited the French edition of this work in the Sketch, whereas Lyell drew from the German edition. The French edition is also the one Darwin owned (an annotated copy is in CUL), and from which he drew when he composed the Sketch. In other words, while Darwin learned about Buch’s geological views through Lyell, he learned about his biological opinions through direct reading of Buch’s book, as translated into French. Darwin found much of value in Buch’s work regarding volcanoes and other geological phenomena, as we see especially from several entries in his Notebooks. But more important to Darwin for the Sketch were Buch’s biological speculations. We learn from his Notebooks that he read Buch’s Description Physique 1836 by mid-​late 1837 because he refers to it directly in Notebooks A, B, and D (especially CDN B 156–​9).3 His entries refer precisely to passages in Buch’s text. This is in contrast to his entries into the slightly earlier Red Notebook, in which Darwin refers to Buch’s volcano studies as having been discovered by him through personal correspondence with Lyell (CDN Red Notebook 137e and n. 1). When Darwin made reference to Buch’s biological insights in the Sketch, he was drawing directly from Buch’s text.

128  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Determining just when Darwin read Buch with an eye on his biological (in contrast to his geological) contributions is difficult. Darwin’s annotations to Buch’s Description Physique begin with Buch’s page 155 and continue to the end of the more than 500-​page volume. Darwin was obviously on the lookout at this time for geological findings: Buch’s sections on geology started on page 153. It looks like Darwin simply skipped over the first 152 pages, those containing the biological discussion, when he annotated Buch’s volume, probably in late 1837.4 At this early date he was not closely attuned to or even looking out for authors who anticipated transmutation, but he was still seeking confirmation of his geological views. This finding, however, does not solve our question about when Darwin read Buch with particular attention to his biological speculations, those referred to in the Sketch, especially pages 144–​150 of his Description Physique, which Darwin never did annotate. Yet these are the pages containing Buch’s suggestion that he recognized transmutation of species as early as 1825.5 And these are the pages, it seems, that Darwin was looking at when he made his entries on Buch in his B Notebook. In B-​158 (December? 1837) Darwin made explicit reference to Buch’s transmutation theory (in his 1836 book): “Von Buch distinctly states that permanent varieties become species,” citing pages 147 and 150, just where Buch in fact did make this claim. Darwin made other specific references to the same passages in the same place in the B Notebook. Darwin knew enough about Buch’s biological views by late 1837 that he could summarize them in more or less the same words that he would employ 20 years later in the Sketch. Why, then, did he not annotate these pages in his own copy of Buch’s work? And why did he not include Buch in the first editions of the Sketch, written well after he had read Buch’s original work? We have seen already that he knew of Buch’s geological views through Lyell by 1837 and also of Buch’s biological views at about the same time, as he records in Notebook B. But is that when he annotated and scored his copy of Buch himself? And why did he annotate only the geological sections but not the biological ones? Some light is shed by looking again at the annotations he did make. It looks like Darwin made them later than when he first read Buch in 1837, because in his endnotes to Buch’s volume he cites an 1839 “discovery [of a new island] by Enderby’s ship” in that year (Marginalia, p. 96). This entry shows Darwin must have annotated Buch after he first read it in 1837. We thus get a strong impression that Darwin actually read the book twice: once, shortly after it first appeared in 1836 in French and a second time in 1839 or after, when he made his annotations. However, the 1839 date recorded in Darwin’s annotations does not settle when he made his annotations. It could have been at any time after 1839, all the way up to the time when he decided to include Buch in the Sketch written for the 1866 edition. The available evidence suggests a date close to 1839 for his second

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  129 reading, when he was not yet working systematically on the species question but was occupied in correspondence with Lyell on geological subjects, a conversation that continued after 1850 (for letters that refer to Buch’s geological studies, cf. CCD, 29 August and 5 September 1837, Lyell to Darwin. Letter 376; 8 October 1845, from Darwin to Lyell. Letter 919; 2 September 1849, from Darwin to Lyell. Letter 1252; 1 November 1849, from Darwin to Lyell. Letter 1264; 8 March 1850, from Darwin to Lyell. Letter 1308; 3 January 1850, from Darwin to Lyell) Letter 1287. All of Darwin’s annotations to Buch’s work are to the geological sections, none to his biological speculations. Buch was familiar to Darwin, at least in terms of his geological writings, well prior to his inclusion in the 1866 Sketch. We are still left with a puzzle about why Darwin did not annotate Buch’s passages on transmutation and are here forced to rely on conjecture. Buch was on Darwin’s radar, even concerning transmutation, by late 1837. Evidently, he reread Buch after 1839 when he annotated the sections on geology (pp.  155 to the end), and he finally included Buch in the Sketch only in 1866. How can these pieces be fit into a coherent explanation for our central question: Why did Darwin wait until 1866 to put Buch in the Sketch when it is clear he knew of his transmutationist views in 1837? My suggestion is that Darwin forgot about Buch after his first encounters with his work on the geology of the Canary Islands but was reminded of his biological contributions later by someone else. The reminder presumably came after April 1861 but before 1866. When he was reminded that Buch may be someone worth including in the Sketch, Darwin went back to his own earlier notes on Buch—​not the 1836 volume itself but his jottings in the B Notebook. This might also explain why he did not annotate the biological sections of Buch’s work. As he read Buch in 1837, for the first time, he was not annotating; he was making “notes” for his Notebooks. When he reread it in or after 1839 he did make annotations, but his interest at this time was geology, not biology; hence the skipping over the biological passages, as far as annotations are concerned. The conjecture that someone prodded Darwin into looking again at Buch after he first composed his Sketch is confirmed in the correspondence. His source was none other than A.R. Wallace, co-​discoverer of the theory of natural selection. Sometime in December 1860 or just after (the editors of the correspondence have been unable to assign an exact date) Wallace wrote to Darwin a letter that not only drew his attention to Buch’s biological ideas in the Description physique, but provided Wallace’s translation of a key passage. This was at just the time Darwin was composing the second version of the Sketch, the first having appeared in the first US and German editions earlier in 1860. He brought out the second version for the third English edition of Origin in 1861, but with no mention of Buch—​yet. Possibly he did not have enough time between receiving Wallace’s letter and when he had to get the third edition to press, before April

130  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 1861. Or perhaps Darwin received Wallace’s letter only after April 1861, in which case he would not have even seen the reference to Buch before the first English version of the Sketch.6 By the next edition, 1866, Darwin had enough time to go back to his own notes on Buch and make the appropriate reference in the 1866 version of the Sketch. Wallace, then, seems almost certainly to have been Darwin’s source for thinking again about Buch in 1860 or 1861, after the first edition of Origin had appeared.7 The reason why Darwin may have forgotten about Buch between 1837 and 1860/​1861 is suggested by some interesting correspondence Darwin had in the interim period: he had lost confidence in Buch’s authority on scientific questions as early as 1846. In a letter in November of that year he wrote to Daniel Sharpe, stating that he has less “deference” for Buch now than he formerly had: With respect to cleavage-​ laminæ dipping inwards, on mountain-​ flanks I have certainly often observed it, so often that I thought myself justified in propounding it as usual; I might perhaps have been some degree prejudiced by Von Buch’s remarks, for which in those days I had a somewhat greater deference than I now have. (CCD, 1 November 1846, from Darwin to Daniel Sharpe, Letter 1016).

The reference is to Buch’s geology (Buch 1813), not his biology, but the point stands: by 1846, Darwin had come to think Buch was not a trusted scientific authority. He confirmed this opinion in even stronger terms in a letter to Edward Sabine in January 1854. Sabine had asked Darwin to write an obituary notice of Buch for the Royal Society, of which Sabine was treasurer. Darwin declined, saying: My dear Sir I must consider the request you make me as a very high compliment, but several reasons lead me to wish to decline it. In the first place (& this alone would suffice) I should not do it at all well, for I have no particular taste for criticism or for attempting biography; & I should not, consequently, do it with gusto. Moreover I could not conscientiously rank Von Buch so high as the world at large does, though certainly some of his descriptions are models in that line; & this would make the task, even if easy in itself, very difficult for me, & disagreeable to anyone holding my opinions.—​I am, also, a slow worker, & have heaps of my own half-​worked out materials; & I think I should do better by plodding on in my own line, than by attempting a quite new field of literature & the History of a Branch of Science. (CCD, 31 January 1854, from Darwin to Edward Sabine, Letter 1550).

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  131 By this time Darwin saw Buch not only as an unreliable authority but someone opposed to his own views. Why Darwin eventually decided to include Buch in the Sketch at all is thus a question to confront. We suggested earlier that Wallace’s letter may have prompted Darwin to go back to his earlier notes and annotations to Buch’s work. Maybe he then realized Buch was more important than he had come to believe. Wallace seemed to direct Darwin to a passage that clearly established Buch’s priority. But it is not clear that Darwin actually went back to reread Buch. He may have simply taken directly from Wallace’s letter what he wanted to put into the Sketch. We observe that Darwin did not quote Buch directly in the Sketch, but he did closely paraphrase what Wallace had sent to him. On the other hand, in the Sketch Darwin did include an exact page reference, page 147 in the French translation (1836) of Buch’s 1825 book, a reference, we should note, that Wallace did not supply. Yet even the citation is not quite right: the entire passage translated by Wallace is actually pages 147–​8. Darwin was assiduous in his citations to other authors in the Sketch, so it would be unusual for him to fail to give the precise page numbers here. How might we account for the discrepancy? When we look at the entire section of Buch’s 1836 volume that Wallace extracted from and translated, we see that Wallace himself gave an incomplete view of Buch’s views. In fact, he missed what may have been Buch’s most important contribution to the species question, not the simple fact of transmutation, but the circumstances that facilitate or hinder the evolution of new species. Buch’s discussion of transmutation occupies seven pages, pages 144–​150, not one, and concerns mainly a different idea, one that has come to be known as “allopatric speciation.”8 This was a subject in which Darwin had a long-​standing interest. He had been speculating for years about how geographical barriers, including oceans and mountain ranges might influence the ability of species to evolve, either by hindrance or facilitation. Buch’s simple statement that varieties may eventually become distinct species was embedded in a larger discussion about the role geographical isolation plays in this process. Yet in the Sketch, Darwin entirely ignores that part of what Buch had to say. I give here the passage Wallace translated within its context. The passage Wallace quoted is included in italics. [p. 147] [There is in the islands an astonishing amount of the forms of plants . . . . In many genera one finds a unique species]. On continents the individuals of one kind of plant disperse themselves very far, and by the difference of stations of nourishment & of soil produce varieties which at such a distance not being crossed by other varieties and so brought back to the primitive type, become at length permanent and distinct species. Then if by chance in other directions they meet with another variety equally changed in its march, the two are become very

132  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” distinct species and are no longer susceptible of intermixture.9 It is not like this on islands. Ordinarily restricted in narrow valleys or surrounded by a restricted zone, the individuals can run into each other, and these encounters neutralize the tendency of all varieties to become fixed. [Analogy to the transmission of language: when a language stays localized it remains fixed, but when it travels, it no longer retains its purity indefinitely, and the novelty becomes a new dialect; and as it becomes solidified by morals, governments, etc., becomes a totally different language.] We find these isolated plants [on islands] always presenting some particular things [in common]. We find a place isolated by mountain chains, establishing a separation as effectively as wide oceans, and one can expect to find there species of plants that are entirely new and not crossing to other parts of the island. A  favorable accident [hasard] has perhaps taken place, by a chain of particular circumstances, of seeds being spread over the mountains. Left to itself, the variety that is a result of new conditions to which it is subject, form in the course of time, a distinct species, departing so much from the primitive type, that it remains in this isolated locality, exempt from other influences. [Examples from the Canary Islands, New Zealand, and St. Helena: isolated genera have only a single species because nothing new to mate with. The reason for the pattern of distribution is linked to ease or difficulty of transport of seeds.]

Darwin used the idea contained in the italicized section of this passage, translated by Wallace from the French, in the Sketch, but not the rest of it having to do with geographical, especially insular isolation and the role of natural barriers in the process of species transformation. In particular, we note that Wallace omitted the key passage just preceding the passage he quoted, the section on “island flora” (complete with tables10) that set the context for the entire discussion: how island flora differ from continental counterparts in the number of species generated from a single genus. This was central to Buch’s overall argument: what happens on continents is “strikingly” different from what happens on islands and other geographically isolated places. In addition, Wallace ends his translation just before the key words, “it is not like this on islands.” Buch’s main point had to do with his insight about the importance of geographical isolation. Darwin did not make even slight reference to this discovery, despite its importance in his own theorizing about how species evolution occurs.11 Another notable point in Buch’s passage is the role he assigns to “chance transport.” How did a new variety become isolated from its parent species in the first place? Buch twice mentions “par hasard,” or by chance. He mentions specifically the transport of seeds, perhaps carried by an eagle and deposited in an isolated area. This, too, is a stunning anticipation of Darwin. Darwin had long suspected

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  133 chance transport of seeds across wide expanses of territories, including oceans, to explain the appearance of new species in places “far and wide” from their point of origin (Johnson 2014, ch. 3). Darwin again paid no heed to these sentences from Buch’s 1836 work. Our question is, why these curious silences? I surmise that when Darwin received Wallace’s translation of the passage from Buch 1836, he went back not to Buch’s work but to his own Notebook B for a reminder about what Buch had to say. Here is his entry on Buch, recorded in 1837: Von Buch distinctly states that permanent varieties become species. p.  147, p. 150.—​not being crossed with others. Compares it to languages. But how do plants cross? -​-​ = admirable discussion. (CDN  B-​158)

This is nearly the same language he used to describe Buch’s views in the Sketch (quoted at the beginning of this chapter), even including the page number (inaccurate as it was, omitting p. 148). Darwin, evidently, did not go back to read Buch in the original French. Nor did he simply copy from Wallace’s letter. Instead, he went back to Notebook B-​158, without bothering to check further. It is interesting that Darwin noted Buch’s comparison of species formation to language formation, but he did not make anything out of this in the Sketch.12 He simply observed that Buch had only argued that “permanent varieties become species.” However you look at it, Darwin was stinting in his acknowledgement of Buch as a predecessor in the Sketch. Again, as in other cases we have examined, it does not seem at all plausible that Darwin was trying to hide evidence that Buch may have stolen his priority from him. It seems far more likely that he composed the Sketch hastily in early 1861 and simply was not as thorough as he could have been in tracking down his debts in the many sources he felt a responsibility to discuss in the Sketch. In the case of Buch he drew only on Wallace’s letter and his own B Notebook that he had compiled in 1837–​1838. Darwin wrote nothing more about Buch in any published outlet (including private correspondence) after his brief entry of him in the Sketch in the 1866 edition of Origin (probably composed much earlier, sometime after April 1861 but no doubt close to that date). Had he gone back to Buch’s original work when he was writing this part of the Sketch he would have discovered more than he allowed in the one-​sentence entry in the Sketch. He would have discovered that Buch’s contribution actually came in 1825, in German, not in the 1836 French translation. That alone would have moved him up in the Sketch chronologically, between Herbert (in 1822)  and Grant (in 1826). He would also have noticed Buch’s insights about the importance of geographical isolation in helping to account for species change. And he should have seen that Buch beat him to the punch on the discovery of the role of “chance” in geographical transport. These

134  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” were significant omissions for Darwin to make. But it is impossible from the evidence to say that he was trying to suppress information. When he re-​encountered Buch in 1861, under prompting from Wallace, he had too many other things on his mind and in his writing program to go fishing in deeper waters for what Buch had actually written.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. 1783–​1840 C.S. Rafinesque is the next author to appear in the Historical Sketch after Buch. Unlike Buch, however, who was first acknowledged only in the fourth English edition, 1866, Rafinesque made his entry in the first English version of the Sketch, 1861. In the original English edition, Rafinesque was placed directly after Matthew (in 1831). Both Buch and Rafinesque published their works in 1836, and in the Sketch Darwin gave priority in chronology to Buch, hence the change in the order of authors represented. Darwin makes no attempt to explain why Buch should come before Rafinesque chronologically, but he was correct in assigning the date 1836 to both works. In truth, Darwin had good instinct here

Figure 6.2 Rafinesque

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  135 because Buch had originally published his views, in German, in 1825—​but there is no evidence Darwin knew that. As with the acknowledgment of Buch, Darwin’s entry on Rafinesque is brief: Rafinesque, in his “New Flora of North America,” published in 1836, wrote (p. 6) as follows: “All species might have been varieties once, and many varieties are gradually becoming species by assuming constant and peculiar characters:” but farther on (p. 18) he adds, “except the original types or ancestors of the genus.” (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 63, line 31)

The entry shows how little anticipation Darwin saw in Rafinesque’s views. Yes, he saw a potential foreshadowing of his own views, but nothing to approximate a full-​throated theory about the mechanism of change or about the causes of variation that natural selection works on. The quoted sections from Rafinesque show only that he believed in the gradual “evolution” (a word Rafinesque did use in other works, but not in the passages cited by Darwin13) of varieties into species over time. Nevertheless, this much alone warranted a place for Rafinesque in the Sketch. In 1861, the year Darwin entered Rafinesque into the Sketch, he was not well known among British biologists. He spent most of his professional career in the United States, after emigrating from Europe in the early 19th century. He was particularly attracted to the prospects of discovering and classifying new species of plants and animals in what was then the North American western frontier. Much of his time in the states was spent in Kentucky, with an affiliation with the new Transylvania University in Lexington. But he spent an equal portion of his time traveling back and forth through the Alleghenies Mountains, mostly on foot, so that he could see natural productions close up and first hand. He records having traversed over 6,000 miles by foot over his time in the region. During his travels he collected, described, and drew literally thousands of specimens of both flora and fauna. In a collector’s sense, he was prolific. He also published a small library of papers and books on his discoveries. The quality of this oeuvre has been questioned since it first started to appear; it came under particularly harsh criticism from US botanists and biologists, especially Asa Gray.14 The sheer volume of his writing and the criticism it engendered from experts of his day have undoubtedly tarnished Rafinesque’s reputation in history as an important figure. Nevertheless, he has excited a fascination in recent times among botanists, historians, and aficionados of the “new American west.” For a less well-​known light in the history of science, he has garnered a great deal of scholarly attention. Darwin, like most in Britain at the time of Origin, knew little or nothing of Rafinesque. This fact naturally raises a question for us: How did Darwin learn

136  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” about him—​that is, from what source and under whose prompting? This is the question Charles Ambrose has tackled in a recent study, providing valuable insights that need not be repeated here.15 But Ambrose, and others who have spent time studying Rafinesque, have not quite solved the problem. Moreover, too little has been said about what Darwin actually said, and did not say, about Rafinesque’s views in light of his overall understanding of “evolution.” Darwin cited two passages from Rafinesque’s “New Flora,” precisely, including proper pagination, in the 1861 version of the Sketch. This suggests firsthand acquaintance. But “New Flora” is not mentioned by Darwin in his Notebooks, his Reading Notebook, or the marginalia. We have no correspondence from or to Darwin regarding Rafinesque prior to December 1860, at which time he was actively soliciting information from J.D. Hooker and Daniel Oliver about the exact date (though not title) of Rafinesque’s work, but not asking for a copy of the book. He needed the date for the Sketch, in order to situate Rafinesque in his proper chronological order. Darwin’s requests to these two botanists suggest Darwin already had the passages he wanted to quote in written record—​somewhere—​and also the title of the book. But this scant record sheds no light on when or how Darwin acquired Rafinesque’s book, or when he read and made a copy of selected passages that he included in the Sketch. Nor does it tell us anything about why we have no other record of Darwin’s firsthand encounter with Rafinesque’s “New Flora.” Did Darwin read these passages himself? We cannot say that Darwin owned this book, or even read some or most of it. But he did know the title (but not the date of publication) by December 1860, when he asked Daniel Oliver and J.D. Hooker for the publication date. Possibly Darwin borrowed a copy—​perhaps through a book-​lending institution—​and drew his comments from that volume, before returning it. If this were true, presumably he would have done this sometime in 1859 or 1860, noting in his transcription the title of the book but not the publication date. That he would have neglected to note publication date at the presumed time of his reading would be unusual for Darwin, but not impossible. It could have been a simple oversight. Some evidence that Darwin did read at least some of the book is found in a copy of Rafinesque’s 1836 book that eventually came into the hands of the Biodiversity Heritage Library website. In this copy of the book, two—​and only two—​passages are scored in the familiar way Darwin often scored passages: a vertical pencil line in the margins. Somewhat surprisingly, the two passages thus scored (and the only passages marked in any way in the entire volume) are the two sentences Darwin included in the Sketch.16 It might seem that Darwin was the one to have read and scored these passages. But a better possibility presents itself. Asa Gray, a frequent and friendly correspondent of Darwin, especially after Origin first appeared, was an astute reader

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  137 and critic of botanical works published in the United States in the early 19th century. He had read some of Rafinesque’s works in the 1830s and published a severely negative review of some of Rafinesque’s other works in 1841.17 Ambrose (2010) plausibly suggests that Gray was responsible for bringing Rafinesque to Darwin’s attention and probably also for Darwin’s negative opinion about his views (as recorded by Darwin in a letter to Hooker dated 29 December 186018). Some of Gray’s correspondence with Darwin has been lost, but one letter may have given the two quotes verbatim from Rafinesque, perhaps with a cautionary note about his inadequacies as a scientist. If this conjecture is true, it would have been Gray, not Darwin, who read and scored Rafinesque 1836. In that case, Darwin copied his quotes from Gray’s (now lost?) letter. Gray, on this supposition, would have neglected to give the date of publication, but did include the title of the “New Flora.” Hence Darwin’s need in late 1860 to track down the publication date when he was composing the Sketch in late December of that year. He could not ask Gray directly because the time taken for trans-​Atlantic mail to travel from London to Boston and back would have made receipt of the information too late to include Rafinesque in the Sketch. So, he sought publication date information from contacts closer to home: Hooker and Oliver. One of these men must have supplied Darwin with what he needed, because Rafinesque’s publication date, 1836, is included in the Sketch. Whoever was responsible for Darwin’s coming across Rafinesque 1836, Gray, Darwin on his own, or someone else, it remains to be seen just what Darwin was able to glean from Rafinesque’s thinking about evolution. The two passages quoted by Darwin in the Sketch are certainly part of the story, but not the whole of it. Rafinesque had a bit more to say about evolution in his Flora Telluriana of 1836, which Gray had read by 1841 (as shown in his review in that year of several of Rafinesque’s publications). There was even more said in a brief notice in the 1833 edition of the Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge (a short-​lived journal published by Rafinesque himself) and in an 1833  “letter,” where not just evolution but also a mechanism for species change are spelled out, which is reproduced in Leonard Warren’s (2004) study of Rafinesque (I have not been able to trace the letter further, beyond restating what Leonard reported).19 Had Darwin read further into Rafinesque, he would have found these additional facts. Darwin was drawing, as we have surmised above, from a lost letter sent to him by Asa Gray, probably late 1860, in which Gray evidently quoted two passages from Rafinesque’s “New Flora” (1836), and added a cautionary note about the quality of Rafinesque’s work. Gray did not include passages from Rafinesque’s Flora Telluriana, although he had read and commented on it in his 1841 review essay. Nor did Gray include mention of or reference to Rafinesque’s 1833 article in the Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge, where Rafinesque first put into print his “evolution” idea. Gray referred to this short paper in his

138  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 1841 review, again in disparaging terms, but without mentioning the evolution idea. In any case, these latter two writings by Rafinesque show that he was more attuned to Darwin’s idea of transmutation than the short entry in the Sketch would indicate. In particular, what we find from these two published sources, and the 1833  “letter,” is that Rafinesque was onto something more than just “variations sometimes become new, distinct species.” For one thing, the process is “gradual,” not sudden, although Rafinesque’s idea of “gradual” was far more compressed than Darwin’s eons. Asa Gray in his 1841 review asserts that Rafinesque allowed, on average, 30 to 100  years for the appearance of new species and 500 to 1,000 years for the formation of new genera. Gray essentially dismissed Rafinesque’s opinion that new species are constantly forming before our very eyes. The “spin” Gray was putting on Rafinesque’s views is that he was an egregious blunderer, not a prescient forerunner of evolution. In view of his low opinion of Rafinesque as a careful observer of natural productions in botany, it is surprising he would have wasted ink on him in a 20-​page review essay. In 1841, Gray’s approach to Rafinesque was no indication of a failure on Gray’s part to recognize Rafinesque’s importance to the advancement of science. Darwin was as yet unknown to Gray, as to the rest of the world. Transmutation was in the air as early as Lamarck, and even earlier, but not the Darwinian version, and Gray himself was not attuned to transmutationist possibilities until at least 1857, when Darwin, who had been corresponding with Gray for at least two years, sent him a short abstract of his theory of natural selection. From that time on, Gray was on board, at least partially, with Darwinian ideas. But even as late as 1860, when Gray notified Darwin about Rafinesque as a possible predecessor, he evidently did not draw Darwin’s attention to his own 1841 review of Rafinesque’s writings. Or, if he did, Darwin did not read it. Had he done so he may have had more to say about Rafinesque in the Sketch. Instead, he drew only from the two limited passages Gray sent him from “New Flora,” perhaps the least important of Rafinesque’s works that bore on the subject of transmutation. We may pinpoint four ideas, beyond the mere view that “varieties become species over time,” in Rafinesque’s 1833–​1836 publications, all of which (excepting the 1833 “letter”) had been read and commented upon by Gray by 1841. These are:  1) that the process of species formation from varieties should be called “evolution;” 2) that the process is “gradual” (although not on a Darwinian time-​scale); 3) that new varieties better suited to existing conditions will have an advantage for survival; and 4) that varieties that depart significantly from progenitors have come about through “mutation,” a remarkably modern concept. Gray had little sympathy for any of this. He was mostly caught short by Rafinesque’s boundless enthusiasm for creating new species and genera, with

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  139 his own name attached as indicating his priority in discovery and asserting his propriety in naming these new genera and species. Nevertheless, as Gray’s biographer Dupree shows, Gray bent over backward to give Rafinesque a fair hearing, urging his readers to cross-​check him for possible errors of fact or interpretation (Dupree 1959, p. 100). One additional contribution by Rafinesque to the botanical literature was his implicit definition of “species.” This question was a common preoccupation among naturalists and scientists in the 19th century. Without a working definition, how can one possibly assign species status to any group of individual organisms, let alone genus categories? Yet Rafinesque did so with almost reckless abandon. When we look into his assumptions, we see yet another anticipation of Darwin. Rafinesque was critical of existing schemes, especially Linnaean ideas. He accused predecessors of using careless, amorphous, and unscientific concepts for species sorting. No wonder, he explained, the science of systematics was in such disarray. Rafinesque proposed a new idea: a “natural method.” This is precisely the term Darwin adopted and used as the foundation for his own research. Moreover, “the natural system” of Rafinesque bears clear affinities with Darwin’s idea—​common descent, rather than sexual characters (Linnaeus) or morphology (Owen, Cuvier, and others). Gray did not comment on this important aspect of Rafinesque’s work, and Darwin showed no familiarity with it either. But the connection does establish an important link in the history of Darwin’s idea, one that has been mostly overlooked in subsequent literature. Gray’s disdain for all things Rafinesque is evident in everything he wrote about the “eccentric genius” and European émigré. But Darwin was entirely in the dark about any of this. He had not read anything by Rafinesque himself, ever, and the few fragments he did learn about in 1860 came from a hostile critic of Rafinesque, Asa Gray. Yet, enough seeped through in Gray’s correspondence to Darwin to give him sufficient evidence that Rafinesque belonged in the Sketch. On balance, Darwin’s verdict about Rafinesque was fair, if ill-​informed overall. Even taking into account all of Rafinesque’s occasional and sometimes prescient views about transmutation, he did not have a “theory” of species change. He certainly did not identify natural selection as a mechanism, even in different words (pace a contrary opinion published by Curtis during Gray’s time of ascendency20). His timescale was off by orders of magnitude. Even his promising idea of “mutation” as a cause of the origin of new varieties leading eventually to new species does not add up to much of substance in broader context. Why Darwin, in view of what little he knew about Rafinesque’s views, included him in the Sketch remains a mystery. Perhaps it was only in deference to Asa Gray, who took the trouble to bring Rafinesque to Darwin’s attention in 1860.

140  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

Samuel S. Haldeman. 1812–​1880 Samuel Haldeman was a distinguished American naturalist who spent most of his life in Pennsylvania where he was a professor of zoology at the Franklin Institute (where, incidentally, Rafinesque had taught in 1826–​1827, and is an interesting case of possible anticipation. His specialty was butterflies, but his thinking ranged widely over a number of subjects. To this day he is sometimes credited with “influencing” Darwin’s thoughts about transmutation, primarily because Darwin gave him a short entry in the Sketch. The work cited by Darwin in the Sketch did indeed precede Origin by 15 years. But little is known about the extent or nature of Haldeman’s “influence” on Darwin. The evidence shows that Darwin was familiar with Haldeman’s “transmutation speculations” perhaps as early as mid-​1845 (the publication date of Haldeman’s essay is 1843–​1844). But it does not substantiate any plausible claim to “anticipation,” much less influence. Haldeman figured in Darwin’s thinking about predecessors from the very beginning of his planned Sketch. Darwin’s first letter to Baden Powell on January 18, 1860 included mention of “An American, (name this minute forgotten),” then remembered in the second letter to Powell, that same day, as Haldeman. This shows Darwin was familiar with Haldeman’s contribution to the species question

Figure 6.3 Haldeman

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  141 no later than sometime in 1856 when he began to compose the Sketch, and he had by that time come to think of Haldeman as worthy of inclusion in a preface to his own species book. The evidence reveals he knew about Haldeman earlier than this, despite some false leads to the contrary in the sources. Haldeman first shows up in Darwin’s public writings as a potential predecessor in the first US edition of Origin, May 1860. Darwin gave him one sentence: Prof. Haldeman (Boston Journal of Nat. Hist., U.  States, vol. iv, p.  468) has ably given the arguments for and against the hypothesis of the development and modification of species: he seems to me to lean towards the side of change. (CCD, v. 8, p. 573)21

This brief entry, notably omitting the title of the journal entry and precise page references (the relevant pages are pp. 473–​75), contains almost the only evidence we have about how and why Darwin may have regarded Haldeman as a potential predecessor. Haldeman published his views in 1844, earning him a place in the Sketch just after Herbert (contribution 1837) and just before Robert Chambers’s Vestiges (first edition 1844). But Haldeman was already in Darwin’s mind as a predecessor even before this. As noted, he is mentioned in Darwin’s letter of January 18, 1860, to Baden Powell as an author he would wish to acknowledge in a “history of opinion [of species change]” (CCD, to Powell, 18 January 1860). Darwin actually wrote two letters to Powell on that date. In the first he was dealing with Powell’s apparent suggestion (Powell’s letter to Darwin has not been found) that he had been anticipated in his theory by other authors, including Powell himself. In his response to Powell, Darwin listed several authors who might be considered to have anticipated him. But he at first could not remember Haldeman’s name. He could only say “an American (name this minute forgotten)” (CCD, 18 January 1860, from Darwin to Powell). But later the same day Darwin composed a second letter to Powell, this time “remembering” the name of the American as Haldeman. This is the same letter in which Darwin recollected that he had already started composing a Sketch, and in view of the authors he mentioned to Powell it seems clear Darwin had started writing the Sketch in 1856, and had already by that time included Haldeman (see Johnson 2007, for details). Darwin gave only a brief mention of Haldeman in the Sketch—​one sentence. This by itself is not unusual: several others got even less notice. Nor was it unusual for him to give ambiguous credit, or no credit at all. Mere inclusion in the Sketch did not necessarily indicate that Darwin felt any real debt. What is somewhat unusual about the Haldeman entry is that Darwin did not change what he had to say about him in any version of the Sketch, even though, as the evidence shows, he became reacquainted with Haldeman’s views after his first mention of

142  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” him in the 1860 US version of the Sketch, and recalled new details. Sometimes Darwin would revise an entry to a particular author as he learned more, or had his memory refreshed. Not so with Haldeman. No changes were made from the first 1860 edition to the last 1872 edition. When did Darwin first encounter Haldeman? And why did he decide to include him at all in the Sketch? No doubt the answers to these two questions can only be answered provisionally, given a paucity of evidence. But at least one thing is clear. When Darwin composed his Sketch for the first US edition, he drew from notes he had kept about predecessors from at least 1856, and no doubt earlier, and Haldeman was in that group of writers. Darwin had acquired a copy of Haldeman’s 1844 article in the Boston Journal of Natural History by 1845 and made annotations to it (DAR 74: 163–​8), filling six short pages. Notably missing from the annotations is any mention of Haldeman’s theoretical views about transmutation, save one short note. It seems clear that when Darwin composed his entry on Haldeman for the Sketch, he was not drawing directly from these annotations. If not from them, then from where? If one reads only Darwin’s correspondence with other naturalists in the 1850s and early 1860s, one might get the impression that Haldeman came back to Darwin’s notice only through references to him from these other sources, especially Lyell, and only in 1859. Lyell had sent T.H. Huxley a letter on June 17, 1859, in which he noted: I stumbled yesterday on a paper in the Boston Journal of Nat.l Hist.y for January 1844 by S.S. Haldeman in which the transmutation theory is defended in a spirit & with a skill that appears to me to deprive Wallace of much of the originality of his two Essays [Lyell is referring to Wallace, Annals 1855, and Linnean 1858]. (CCD, 17 June 1859, from Lyell to Huxley)

The letter from Lyell to Huxley must have been sent on by Huxley to Darwin, or else Lyell sent a separate letter to Darwin with the same information (no such letter has been found), for only days later Darwin replied to Lyell: It was extremely kind of you to take so much trouble to tell me about Haldeman’s paper, which I read several years ago & abstracted, & I have just looked at my abstract [DAR 74: 163–​8]. I well remember thinking it a very clever paper; but I did not find much of any actual use to me. I think I have quoted him in my large book about range of varieties; but in my present condensed volume, I have not alluded to the paper. The speculations approach mine and Wallace’s, but did not on any point seem to me identical. (CCD, 21 June 1859, from Darwin to Lyell)

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  143 Darwin did in fact read Haldeman 1844 in 1845, just as he recollected to Lyell and as we find him recording in his Reading Notebook in May 1845. He there notes he read Haldeman in that month; that date is in fact when he made his abstract of the work. He cited this publication in his “big species book” (now known as Natural Selection; Stauffer 1975, p. 116).22 The comment he made in that work was only about geographical distribution, not natural selection. But the entry shows Darwin’s familiarity with Haldeman long before Lyell informed him about Haldeman’s 1844 comments on the species question. To this point, then, we know that Darwin read Haldeman’s 1844 paper in 1845 and made annotations. We also know that he did not find much of value in it at that time, a point he confirmed in a letter to Hooker in July 1859: I read some years ago & abstracted Haldeman’s paper, and thought it very clever; but it did not seem to me to give any idea, like natural selection—​it did not attempt, I believe, to explain adaptations & this point has always seemed to me the turning point of the theory of Natural Selection. From my abstract I seem to have got very little from it. (CCD, 2 July 1859, to Hooker)

And yet, by 1856 Darwin had already given room to Haldeman in the planned Sketch, and did in fact include him in the first US edition, 1860. He must have seen enough in Haldeman’s work even before hearing from Lyell in 1859 to have come to consider him as a predecessor in some sense. But if not from Lyell, how did Darwin come to know of Haldeman’s 1844 work almost as soon as it appeared in the Boston Journal of Natural History? This was a journal that Darwin did not often refer to or draw from, but one observes that Darwin read and scored several passages from several issues he did read covering the years 1837–​1844 (Marginalia, p. 160h, date when read not given). Haldeman’s name is not included in his marginal notes, and the page numbers of Haldeman’s paper (v. 4, pp. 468ff.) show no indication of having been read by Darwin. On the other hand, Darwin did list both the Boston Journal (no volume number or dates given) and, immediately following that entry, Haldeman’s 1844 paper in his Reading Notebooks (*119:19v; CCD, v. 4, App. 4, p. 449). The Boston Journal entry is accompanied by the comment “must be read.” This entry appears to have been made in May 1845—​it too is not dated but appears in a place where that date would be the most likely one, 1845, and another entry in the Reading Notebook to the Boston Journal volume 4 (with no mention of Haldeman by name) is precisely dated as May 31, 1845, (Reading Notebooks 119: 16a, in CCD, v. 4 App. 4, p. 471; and CCD, 21 June 1859, to Lyell, n. 2). The first entry to Haldeman does not include Haldeman’s name but only the topic of the paper: “Paper on transmutation of shells” with the date “1844.” That entry includes the word “already,”

144  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” presumably meaning “already read” (at the time of this entry). The entry also includes “VI. vols. published [acquired from?] Lib. Geological Society (read).” These entries confirm what we already inferred from the Marginalia entry—​that is, that Darwin had acquired and read at least some of volumes 1–​6 sometime in 1845. They also show that Darwin apparently acquired the volumes on loan, perhaps from the Library of the Geological Society, London, a major lending resource for leading scientific periodicals and journals. But how did Darwin learn of Haldeman’s paper in the Boston Journal in the first place, and why was he especially drawn to a short paper on freshwater mollusks by an author unknown to him at that time in volume 4, on page 468? The evidence to this point is inconclusive. It could be that, as Darwin skimmed through the hundreds of pages of contributions in the journal he just happened upon Haldeman’s paper and was sufficiently struck by its transmutationist implications that it stuck with him. That possibility cannot be ruled out, but it seems improbable, given the length of each issue of the Boston Journal and the large number of scientific papers it contained during the seven-​year period 1837–​1844. More likely is that Darwin had already been alerted to Haldeman’s paper by another source and that this is why he thought he must acquire and read the issue and paper in question. And we do find just such a potential source in another work Darwin read in 1845, Robert Chambers’s Explanations (1845), a sequel to his by this time famous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844). Darwin records having read Explanations almost as soon as it appeared in early February 1845, and if he read it with sufficient care he would have discovered what Chambers had to say about Haldeman (CDO, A3; Darwin’s abstract of Chambers’ book is in DAR 205.9(2), 215). In Explanations, Chambers referred to Haldeman twice, both entries appearing between pages 113 and 117. Darwin records in his abstract of this book (DAR 205.9[2]‌) that he read at least the latter entry, and his entry into his Reading Notebooks gives the date February 6, 1845, as when he read it. Thus, the timing matches up perfectly with when he read Haldeman’s 1844 paper, May 31, 1845. One might well surmise that Chambers’s 1845 book was Darwin’s source for learning about Haldeman and causing him to think he “must read” him. That impression is strengthened when we consider what Chambers had to say about Haldeman in Explanations. His entry is brief, but it does name Haldeman as an author of a “learned book on the fresh water mollusks of America” (Explanations, p. 113). Chambers goes on to say that Haldeman had discovered the great difficulty in discriminating varieties from species, thus suggesting a powerful argument for transmutation. If naturalists agree that varieties and species cannot clearly be discriminated from one another in some cases (as with fresh water mollusks), that might be taken as evidence for transitional forms that

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  145 are ambiguous as to species status, and so, implicitly, an argument in favor of transmutation. Indeed, notwithstanding the assumption to the contrary, by authors who have little practical acquaintance with the details of natural history, the proper discrimination between species and variety, is one of the greatest difficulties which the naturalist has to encounter; and he who is successful in this department is entitled to a rank which comparatively few can attain. (Explanations, p. 113)

Chambers at this point invoked Lamarck and his followers as those who would appreciate the value of these findings for their theory of species descent. Haldeman then goes on, according to Chambers, to say that, while variations under domestication have not been shown to cross the line from varieties to species, it would be “hasty” to conclude that nature, given the enormous amount of time for change to occur, would not be able to breach that line. “Although,” says Mr. Haldeman, “we may not be able, artificially, to produce a change beyond a definite point,” it would be a hasty inference to suppose that a physical agent acting gradually for ages, could not carry the variation a step or two further. (Explanations, pp. 116–​7)23

Haldeman, while not arguing that descent from one species to another does occur, certainly opens up that possibility. This seems precisely the point Darwin wanted to mention about Haldeman in the Sketch: he gave arguments for and against change, but “seems to lean” toward the side of change. To solidify the case that Chambers was Darwin’s source for Haldeman, we should note one other feature of Chambers’s comments. Chambers had written in Explanations about the fine line between mere variations and real species: But where is this [line] to have its limits? If the cabbage and sea plant are now to be regarded as one species, it seems to me that we have to go very little further, to come to the lines of successive forms or stirpes [branches of descent], which my hypothesis suggests. This view becomes more striking when we remember that any variations which we now see, take place within a space of time extremely small in comparison with those which geology allows for its phenomena. (Explanations, pp. 116–​7)

Although Darwin did not mention Haldeman by name in his abstract of Explanations, it is striking that he would have noticed Chambers’s reference to “cabbage and sea plants” as being “one species” in the same paragraph in which Chambers mentioned Haldeman’s views on transmutation. Hooker and Darwin

146  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” privately exchanged some jokes in the 1850s about Chambers’s conclusions that Kerguelen cabbage descended from primitive algae (CCD, 13 July 1856, from Darwin to Hooker). Chambers was again invoking the same example in Explanations, this time in the same paragraph in which he alluded to Haldeman’s transmutationist opinions. Darwin might have noticed this juxtaposition in Chambers. It may even be the case that he got Chambers’s “cabbage/​sea plants” equation from the Explanations, not the Vestiges, as is usually assumed. But joke or not, Haldeman had most certainly opined in his 1844 work on fresh water mollusks that, if one can go one step down the path of transmutation by considering the distance between recognized varieties, one should not be hindered from “carrying the variation a step or two further,” that is, to species transformation, given sufficient amount of time. That insight by Haldeman in 1844 no doubt explains why Darwin saw a reason for including Haldeman in the Sketch. Darwin may have had even more reason for including Haldeman than just what he learned from Explanations, based on what Haldeman himself wrote in his 1844 essay on mollusks. Darwin, as noted, read this paper in 1845. The paper supports a version of “transmutation” that, while quietly objecting to Lamarckian excesses of “willing” and “desire to change” (“appetency” in Haldeman’s language) on the part of organisms, nevertheless gives approval to the notion that “transmutation” may be an important element in explaining the mystery of species origins. Haldeman’s short (20-​page) article is premised on an acknowledged problem in philosophical biology: What is the line of demarcation between mere “varieties” and “species”? Naturalists disagree. To resolve this issue, Haldeman poses a central question that was of great interest to Darwin: What bearing does the geographical location of animals and plants have on proper species identification? Two opposing hypotheses had emerged in the literature:  one, that geographical separation (present or past) indicates difference of species, regardless of morphological similarity; the second, that “similar animals,” no matter where found, constitute but one species. Haldeman opts for the second proposition, and then sets out to explain how it could be so. He proposes four possible means by which geological separation of members of the same species could be brought about: transport; former geological connection between remote global surfaces that have since been sundered; distribution from several centers of creation; and transmutation. The outlier from this group of possible explanations is “transmutation,” the very point Darwin wanted to include in the Sketch entry on Haldeman. The first two essentially resolve into “transport,” suggesting various ways this could be effected. Darwin had become convinced long before Haldeman’s 1844 essay that “transport” by various means could account for many or most of the known facts of geographical distribution (Johnson 2014, ch. 3). The third was another

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  147 familiar postulate—​similar animals springing up as original creations in regions geographically far apart because of the suitability of environmental conditions for flourishing of those types in those conditions. Darwin had already come to settled convictions about all three well before he read Haldeman, accepting the first two but rejecting the third as highly improbable. Haldeman, too, thought this third explanation was far-​fetched, assigning a probability of one in ten thousand that it would occur. But in 1845, when he first read Haldeman, Darwin was still working on the puzzle of transmutation. Haldeman devoted most of his article to this fourth possibility and brought forward several arguments that are in some degree similar to Darwin’s. Darwin overlooked the specifics of Haldeman’s case for transmutation but saw enough “anticipation” in them to give him a place in the Sketch. To make the case for possible transmutation of species (an idea that Haldeman apparently learned from his reading of Lamarck), Haldeman tried to unite several “groups of facts” under a single explanatory idea, just as Darwin had done. Geographical distribution was one. The fossil record was another. Possible land bridges in earlier eras made a third. The absence of “intermediate forms,” both past and present, also needed to be addressed. Does the hypothesis of transmutation shed light on any of this, Haldeman was asking? No evidence, Haldeman agrees, has ever been observed that transmutation actually bridges the gap between distinct species. But he resists the conclusion that species change does not occur. On the contrary, he defends a “Lamarckian” view of gradual change over eons of time, a position that entailed taking on a giant of geology, Charles Lyell. Lyell was correct, Haldeman suggests, that “Lamarckian willing” is a non-​starter. But he resists Lyell’s conclusion that transmutation is therefore false. In plain terms Haldeman says that one can give up “willing change” without giving up transmutation. Lyell had erred, in Haldeman’s view, in accepting the supposition that variation within a species reached its limit within a few generations. Lamarck had challenged that supposition, and so did Haldeman. That is what Darwin argued too, and here his reasoning is quite close to Haldeman’s. Species transmutation requires eons of time. Rather than assign the limits of variation to what can be observed over the course of several generations, one should extrapolate to a vastly expanded time scale. Who, then, can say what the limits of variation are? And, like Haldeman, Darwin found a way to give up on Lamarckian “willing” while retaining Lamarckian “use-​inheritance” as one mechanism for effecting species change, albeit a minor one. Darwin would also to some extent have approved of Haldeman’s resolution of the difficult problem of the absence in the living or fossil record of clearly intermediate forms between admittedly distinct species. Haldeman acknowledges the difficulty naturalists often encounter in discriminating varieties from

148  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” true species and the resultant disputes about proper identification. In effect, he argues, varieties are themselves sometimes “intermediate forms.” But where that is not the case, Haldeman points out that the “hiatus” that must occur in the passage of one species to another may not be filled at all. A particular variety, properly equipped for taking the next step in becoming a new species, simply bridges a gap that for allied species is unbridgeable. If intermediate forms are to be found, they are to be sought in those varieties that approached but did not cross the species barrier. Haldeman, interestingly, did not invoke the Lyellian principle of the “imperfection of the geological record,” as Darwin often did. But he provided other serviceable ideas that Darwin, too, sometimes employed. When we add it all up, we see Haldeman was indeed an important forerunner of Darwin. Of the many intriguing suggestions in Haldeman’s 1844 article, Darwin chose only to say that Haldeman gave good arguments both for and against the idea of species change, but “seems to lean toward the side of change.” But Haldeman surveyed the terrain with a comprehension of the issues that extended far beyond what Darwin gave credit for. Why the stinting acknowledgment? For one thing, that strategy—​if it can be called a strategy—​was a common tactic of Darwin’s. He did not intend his “history” to be comprehensive and was always candid in that claim. Moreover, without question, Haldeman did not identify “natural selection” as a mechanism and did not quite put his finger on “chance variation” either. He was, to coin a phrase, a reformed Lamarckian, agreeing that species may transmutate given sufficient length of time, that new species may prosper because of better fit with environmental conditions, and that “use-​inheritance” may well be the hidden factor behind all of this. He only rejected Lamarck’s “willed effort” in bringing about new adaptations, as did Lyell before him and Darwin after him. Haldeman himself seems like a missing link between Lamarckian and Darwinian transmutation theories. One would not gather that from the little Darwin had to say about Haldeman in the Sketch.

Notes 1. Leopold von Buch, 1825, Physische Beschreibung der Canarischen Inseln. Berlin. Darwin did not draw upon this edition. Instead he used the French translation of 1836, Description physique des Iles Canaries, suivie d’une indication des principaux volcans du globe. Paris: F.G. Levraut. Buch visited the Canaries in 1815 and based his book on that research. Lyell cites the original German edition in his entries on Buch in the Principles. 2. Darwin acknowledged Lyell as his source for some of Buch’s geological findings in Red Notebook 137e (mid-​1837), but according to the editors of CDN this

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  149 information came from “personal communication” with Lyell (citing Darwin’s Geological Observations on South America, p. 239 for evidence), not the Principles. 3. This fact has already been pointed out by de Beer (1960, p. 34). 4. This date is established by reference to Notebook B 156–​9. The entries come just before B-​161, a note Darwin made in reference to a personal communication from Richard Owen that was based on an Owen lecture published in December, 1837. Cf. CDN B-​161 and n. 1. 5. It is unlikely that Darwin had ever seen the first German edition of Buch’s Canary Islands studies, published in 1825, and perhaps did not even know about it. He places Buch in the Sketch between Matthew (in 1831) and Rafinesque (in 1836), thus assigning him in the chronological position that he would occupy if the 1836 French edition were the original account. 6. The possibility that Darwin received Wallace’s letter after April 1861 must be kept open. The editors of the CCD date the letter by reference to Wallace’s itinerary abroad at this time, and acknowledge that it may have been written even well into 1861 (CCD, December? 1860, n. 1, Letter 2627). A later date than December 1860 for when Darwin received Wallace’s letter seems a probability given that December 1860–​February 1861 was the period during which Darwin was working hardest on the Sketch for the English edition and would have wanted to include Buch in that edition had he had fresh knowledge about his work. 7. We may dismiss the possibility that Lecoq’s nine-​volume work on the geographical botany of Europe, published in 1854–​1858, was Darwin’s source. Lecoq had mentioned Buch in volume 1 as a transmutationist. Darwin scored and annotated this passage: “Von Buch . . . believe in mutation of species & so Lecoq.” Just after this entry Darwin jotted “Lecoq believes in Transmutation” (Marginalia, pp. 488–​9). But Darwin did not read Lecoq prior to December 1861, too late for the first English edition of the Sketch, as we learn from Darwin’s correspondence with Hooker in 1861 (CCD, 9 December 1861, from Hooker, J.D. Letter 3341). 8. Ernst Mayr, 1998, The Evolutionary Synthesis:  Perspectives on the Unification of Biology. Harvard University Press, p. 36. 9. I translate the same passage as follows: “On continents the individuals of one genus are dispersed far and wide, and by the diversity of stations, of nourishment, and of soil, form varieties which, at this distance, having not been crossed by other varieties, and returned from there to the primitive type, finally become constant and [p. 148] particular species. Then if, by chance, [wandering or transported] in some other direction, they come to encounter another variety equally changed in its march, both are entirely different species and unable to mix (meler)”. 10. Buch’s table on page 147 illustrates that island genera have a much smaller ratio of genus to species (about 1:1.5) than the ratio found on continents (about 1:4 or more). 11. Darwin discussed the importance of island habitat in relation to the number and types of genera and species in Origin, Chapter XII, “On Geological Distribution” (Variorum, pp. 617–​23). It is noteworthy that two of his star-​witnesses for demonstrating the phenomenon of allopatric speciation (not his term) were New Zealand and St. Helena (but not the Canaries), two of the most important case-​studies cited

150  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” by Buch. And, like Buch, he used for comparison what was found on continental Africa. Darwin does not refer to Buch in these passages, but he could almost have used Buch’s words himself to convey the idea he was defending here. 12. It is worth noting that Darwin appropriated the analogy of species formation to language formation in the first edition of Origin, on three occasions, most notably in Chapter XIII, “Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings” (Variorum, pp. 658–​69, lines 99–​ 101; cf. also pp. 113–​4, lines 285–​8; pp. 519–​20, lines 248–​51;). Perhaps he drew unconsciously from Buch, who employed the analogy to good effect in his Description Physique. But he may also have taken the idea from Lyell, who produced a memorable comparison of the imperfect geological record of fossils to the imperfect record we have of an ancient book which, over the ages, changes in language as well as degree of preservation. Darwin did acknowledge Lyell as his source for the book metaphor, but not Buch. Perhaps Lyell got the idea from Buch? 13. Aydin Örstan, 2014, “Two Early Nineteenth-​Century Uses of the Term ‘Evolution’ to Denote Biological Speciation.” Archives of Natural History 41 (2): 360–​62. 14. Asa Gray, 1841, “Notice of the Botanical Writings of the Late C.  S. Rafinesque.” American Journal of Science and the Arts. First Series 40: 221–​241. 15. Charles T.  Ambrose, 2010, “Darwin’s Historical Sketch—​ An American Predecessor: C.S. Rafinesque.” Archives of Natural History 37: 191–​202. 16. I  have been unable to discover how the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) acquired this particular copy of Rafinesque 1836. It is a rare book, hard to find elsewhere (although the BHL does have another copy, originally owned, as we can tell from the owner’s signature on the title page, by John Torrey, founder of the Torrey Botanical Gardens). The BHL does not include this title among books they have reproduced from Darwin’s own collection of books. The book was published in Philadelphia, in 1836. A later typed note following the title page, dated 1907, gives instructions to the reader to consult J.H. Barnhart, Torreya [1907] 7: 177–​81 (the Journal of the New York Botanical Society), for precise dates of publication of Parts I–​IV of the “New Flora.” Below that entry is a Toronto University Library stamp, dated April 3, 1967. In 1907, J.H. Barnhart was an editorial assistant at the library of the New York Botanical Garden and was apparently involved in cataloging books and writing bibliographic articles for its journal, Torreya. One speculates that this library acquired Rafinesque in 1907 or thereabouts, then later sold or gave it to the University of Toronto library in 1967, and this, perhaps is the copy digitalized by the BHL. 17. Gray (1841). See n. 14. 18. Darwin wrote the following to Hooker: “Poor Naturalist as he was, he has good sentence [sic] about species & vars. which I must quote in my Historical Sketch & I sadly want the date at once” (CCD, 29 December 1860, from Darwin to Hooker, Letter 3034). Ambrose (2010) took this to mean that Rafinesque was in Darwin’s mind a “discredited taxonomist.” 19. Warren reports that in a letter of 1833 Rafinesque wrote: “The truth is that Species and perhaps Genera also, are forming in organized beings by gradual deviations of shapes, forms and organs, taking place in the lapse of time. There is a tendency to

Von Buch, Rafinesque, and Haldeman  151 deviations and mutations through plants and animals by gradual steps at remote irregular periods. This is a part of the great universal law of perpetual mutability in everything. Thus it is needless to dispute and differ about new genera, species and varieties. Every variety is a deviation which becomes a species as soon as it is permanent by reproduction. Deviations in essential organs may thus gradually become new genera” (Warren 2004, p. 31). 20. Cited in Dupree (1959, p. 279). 21. The full citation is Samuel S.  Haldeman, 1843–​1844, “Enumeration of the Recent Freshwater Mollusca Which are Common to North America and Europe, With Observations on Species and Their Distribution.” Boston Journal of Natural History 4: 468–​84. In the Sketch, the citation is given in the language quoted in the text (see Variorum, p. 63, line 31.I:f). The editor of Variorum, Morse Peckham, must have erred in this entry: the italicized line 31.I: f (on p. 63) signifies the 6th edition of Origin as the first appearance of this line, whereas the Haldeman entry was in the Sketch in every edition from the first US edition of 1860, to the last, 1872. 22. R.  Stauffer, ed., 1975, Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, p. 116, n. 1. Darwin here cites the same journal entry by Haldeman, again without the title of the article but giving a more exact page reference, p. 480. 23. R.  Chambers, 1845, Explanations; a sequel to “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” London: Longmans.

References Buch, Leopold von. 1813. Travels Through Norway and Lapland during the Years 1806, 1807, and 1808. Translated by J. Black. London, Henry Colburn. Buch, Leopold von. 1825. Physische Beschreibung der Canarischen Inseln. Berlin. Buch, Leopold von. 1836. Description physique des Iles Canaries, suivie d’une indication des principaux volcans du globe. Paris: F.G. Levraut. Chambers, R. 1845. Explanations; a Sequel to “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” London: Churchill. Darwin, Charles, and A.R Wallace. 1958. Evolution by Natural Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1985–​2017. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. 24 volumes. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1988. “Darwin’s Reading Notebooks.” Appendix IV, in Volume IV of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, pp. 435–​573. Darwin, Charles. 1987. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks 1836–​1842. Edited by P. Barrett et al. New York and London: Cornell University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1959. On the Origin of Species: A Variorum Text. Edited by M. Peckham. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Darwin, Charles. 2003–​2016. The Darwin Manuscript Project. Directed by D. Kohn et al. New York: American Museum of Natural History. On-​line. de Beer, Gavin, ed. 1960. “Darwin’s Notebooks on Transmutation of Species. First Notebook [B]‌(July 1837–​February 1838).” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). Historical Series 2, no. 2 (January): 23–​73.

152  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Di Gregorio, Mario. 1990. Charles Darwin’s Marginalia. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc. Dupree, A. Hunter. 1959. Asa Gray: American Botanist, Friend of Darwin. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Gray, Asa. 1841. “Notice of the Botanical Writings of the Late C. S. Rafinesque.” American Journal of Science and the Arts. First Series 40: 221–​41. Haldeman, Samuel S.  1843–​1844. “Enumeration of the Recent Freshwater Mollusca Which are Common to North America and Europe, with Observations on Species and Their Distribution.” Boston Journal of Natural History 4: 468–​484. Mayr, Ernst. 1998. The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology. Harvard University Press. Orstan, Aydin. 2014. “Two Early Nineteenth-​Century Uses of the Term “Evolution” to Denote Biological Speciation.” Archives of Natural History 41: 360–​61. Stauffer, R.  ed. 1975. Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Warren, Leonard. 2004. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque:  A Voice in the American Wilderness. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

7

Robert Chambers, J.B.J. d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Henry Freke Robert Chambers. 1802–​1871 Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was first published anonymously in 1844, and made an immediate impact on Victorian natural science and a large popular reading public in Great Britain (Secord, 2000).1 It was republished in nine more editions by 1853—​meaning one new edition per year, on average. Darwin read the first edition in November 1844 (Reading Notebook, *119.19v; 119: 15a) and the subsequent editions of 1847 (sixth) and 1853 (10th) shortly after they appeared. He cites both the first and 10th editions in the Historical Sketch, calling the 10th edition “much improved” over the first. He may have read or skimmed other editions, for in the Sketch Darwin referred to the “want of scientific caution” in “the earlier editions,” implying that all editions prior to the 10th displayed this defect. In any case, the author of Vestiges remained officially “anonymous” through all 10 editions, and Darwin, although suspecting as early as 1847 that the author was Robert Chambers (CCD, [18 April, 1847], to Hooker, and n. 17, letter 1082), referred to the author as “anonymous.” When he began composing his Sketch in 1856, Darwin drew mainly on the sixth and 10th editions of Vestiges for an understanding of the theory it contained. We know that the 10th edition was in front of him when he wrote because he quotes a lengthy passage from that volume, page 155. But I surmise the sixth edition was also near at hand. This is the only edition that appears in Darwin’s Marginalia, and it is heavily annotated. Some of the passages Darwin scored in this volume contain information that Darwin included in the Sketch. Moreover, next to one scored passage Darwin noted to himself, “Quote in Preface”—​an obvious reference to the Sketch, because “Preface” was the short title Darwin had adopted for the Sketch prior to 1861. And the material he quoted was just the material he scored in his marginal notes to Chambers’s sixth edition (Marginalia, p. 164). Apparently, when he composed the section on Chambers in the Sketch, he glanced over his marginal notes in the sixth edition, then found the corresponding passages in the 10th edition and drew directly from the latter for his quote, it being the more recent. Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

154  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

Figure 7.1 Chambers

Darwin’s entry of Vestiges in the Sketch is lengthy, compared to others—​seven sentences, one of which contains a long quotation from the Vestiges itself: The “Vestiges of Creation” appeared in 1844. In the tenth and much improved edition (1853) the anonymous author says (p. 155):—​“The proposition determined on after much consideration is, that the several series of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent, are, under the providence of God, the results, first, of an impulse which has been imparted to the forms of life, advancing them, in definite times, by generation, through grades of organisation terminating in the highest dicotyledons and vertebrata, these grades being few in number, and generally marked by intervals of organic character, which we find to be a practical difficulty in ascertaining affinities; second, of another impulse connected with the vital forces, tending, in the course of generations, to modify organic structures in accordance with external circumstances, as food, the nature of the habitat, and the meteoric agencies, these being the ‘adaptations’ of the natural theologian.” The author apparently believes that organisation progresses by sudden leaps, but that the effects produced by the conditions of life are gradual. He argues with much force on general grounds that species are not immutable productions. But I cannot see how

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  155 the two supposed “impulses” account in a scientific sense for the numerous and beautiful co-​adaptations which we see throughout nature; I cannot see that we thus gain any insight how, for instance, a woodpecker has become adapted to its peculiar habits of life. The work, from its powerful and brilliant style, though displaying in the earlier editions little accurate knowledge and a great want of scientific caution, immediately had a very wide circulation. In my opinion it has done excellent service in calling in this country attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.

Darwin does not spell out in detail why he has reservations about Vestiges, but his entry regarding it in the Sketch is little more than faint praise. Darwin’s letters, marginalia, and Reading Notebooks leave no room for doubt about when Darwin read the several editions of Vestiges. They do not, however, answer how Darwin became aware of this book in the first place. But there can be little mystery. Vestiges was, in James Secord’s memorable phrase, a “Victorian sensation.” Someone with Darwin’s ranging interests in British biology, especially in evolutionary ideas, would have been finely attuned to new developments when Vestiges appeared. It almost does not matter if someone else alerted Darwin to the work or if he discovered it on his own. In view of its immediate popularity, Vestiges would have come to Darwin’s attention one way or another almost as soon as it first appeared in published form. And it did. Darwin’s immediate reaction to Vestiges, when it first appeared in 1844, is reflected in the following note, which he kept with his material on divergence and classification (DAR 205.5: 108): Nov/​:—​/​44/​. After the “Vestiges of *Nat Hist [interl] Creation,” I  see it will be necessary to advert to Quinary System, because he brings it to show that Lamarck’s willing (& consequently my selection) must be erroneous—​I had better rest my defence on few English, sound anatomical naturalists assenting & hardly any foreign.—​Advert to this subject, after Chapter on classification, & then show, from our ignorance of comparative value of groups, source of error. (CCD, [7 January 1845], to Hooker, n. 5. Letter 814)2

The reference to “Chapter on classification” must be a reference to Darwin’s 1844 “Essay,” not the Origin, since he had not yet begun to work on the latter but was just completing the “Essay” at the time of this note. The “Essay” did include a chapter on Classification, Chapter VII. Darwin made reference to the Quinarian System of Macleay in that chapter, stating “if Quinarism is true, I false” (“Essay,” 1844, p.  202, Darwin’s footnote 3). This statement was not just a slap against Macleay’s Quinarism, which Chambers supported, it also was a way of putting

156  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” distance between his own theory and that of Chambers. Chambers was obviously not arguing against natural selection when he endorsed Macleay—​Darwin had not published yet. But Darwin drew the inference that an argument that worked against Lamarck, whose theory Chambers opposed in favor of Macleay, could also be deployed against natural selection, and Darwin wanted to foreclose that possibility. In fact, whether the Quinary system of Macleay was believed to be true or false—​Vestiges holding it to be true and so an argument against Lamarck, Darwin holding it to be false and so no argument against natural selection—​is only one aspect of the disagreement Darwin had with Chambers. There were many others. The point here is that Darwin’s encounter with Vestiges in November 1844 alerted him to a possible rival. The Quinary debate did not make it into the Historical Sketch (although it did come up again in Chapter XIII of the Origin), but Darwin was already, in 1844, composing arguments to himself about why Chambers could not claim priority for any theory that could be called Darwin’s theory. Even if we set Quinarism aside as of no immediate worry to Darwin, he should have had good reason for seeing Chambers’s Vestiges as a real threat to his own originality. Chambers did bring forward a credible theory of transmutationism that attracted a great deal of attention in the 1840s and 1850s in Britain. Many of Darwin’s earliest reviewers of the Origin drew comparisons between the two theories, usually disparaging both, along with Lamarck’s, as dangerous rank materialist philosophies and even possibly atheistic ideas. This was the opinion, for example, of Darwin’s former geology mentor at Cambridge, Adam Sedgwick, who wrote to Darwin in November 1859 shortly after reading the Origin. He found more to dislike than like in the book, and suggested to Darwin it was reminiscent in some ways of Vestiges, a book he had reviewed scathingly in 1845 (CCD, 24 November 1859, from A.  Sedgwick, and n.  5).3 Darwin expressed worry to T.H. Huxley in 1860 that one reviewer, in the Daily News of December 26 1859, had accused Darwin of “stealing” his theory from his “Master, the author of Vestiges” (CCD, 1 January 1860, to Huxley, and n. 10). The editors of the CCD note that Darwin was “particularly anxious to distance his theory from the discredited views expressed in Vestiges” (Letter 2633), presumably because he did not want his own theory to be confused or identified with Chambers’s theory in Vestiges. But Darwin had decided much earlier, before comparisons started to emerge in the literature, that Chambers could not be taken too seriously as a predecessor. He had many reasons for supposing so. The work was, he told Lyell in 1848, “a poverty of intellect, an intellectual curiosity,” meaning not scientifically respectable. Darwin was more or less preaching to the choir, because Lyell had himself recently noted to a friend that a Chambers paper on geology presented to the British Association in 1847 lacked scientific sophistication, saying that

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  157 “reasonings in the style of the author of the Vestiges would not be tolerated among scientific men” (CCD, [16 June, 1848], to Lyell, and n. 12. Letter 1186). That was no doubt the main issue about Chambers for Darwin as well.4 For his part, Chambers quickly came to realize, after the first edition of Vestiges appeared in 1844, that his views were being greatly misunderstood. He hastily composed a clarification of sorts in a volume he titled Explanations, published in 1845.5 To set the record straight, he attempted some important clarifications: I must start with a more explicit statement of the general argument of the Vestiges, for this has been extensively misunderstood. The book is not primarily designed, as many have intimated in their criticisms, and as the title might be thought partly to imply, to establish a new theory respecting the origin of animated nature; nor are the chief arguments directed to that point. The object is one to which the idea of an organic creation in the manner of natural law is only subordinate and ministrative, as likewise are the nebular hypothesis and the doctrine of a fixed natural order in mind and morals. This purpose is to show that the whole revelation of the works of God presented to our senses and reason is a system based in what we are compelled, for want of a better term, to call LAW; by which, however, is not meant a system independent or exclusive of Deity, but one which only proposes a certain mode of his working. The nature and bearing of this doctrine will be afterwards adverted to. The Edinburgh reviewer will observe that this view of the animal kingdom leaves much of his opposition in a very awkward predicament. He has everywhere assumed that the genealogy of the orders of each class was supposed to be en suite, which it certainly never was in my book. In the early editions I spoke with diffidence of the course of the supposed development, because I  had not then seen or conceived any arrangement of the animal kingdom which answered to that hypothesis, although I thought proper to attempt to show that the quinarian and circular classification, which I found in vogue at the time when I was writing, did not necessarily militate against it. In the third edition, the present view was first hinted at; and in the fourth it was sketched, though with liability to correction; thus anticipating by some months the publication of the criticism to which I am adverting. (Explanations, pp. 3, 76, in Charles Darwin Online, A6)

These clarifications could not have done much to strengthen Darwin’s confidence in Chambers’s theory. If anything, they must have affirmed his reservations. In particular, Chambers here seems to show the beginning of his doubts about the validity of the Quinarian system, leaving unexplained what proper classification should be placed in its stead. More of a red flag to Darwin must have been Chambers’s insistence on an overarching Divine providence that lay behind, or

158  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” above, the rule of law in nature’s productions. Darwin’s theory made no attempt to explain the origin of these laws, thus dispensing with the need for invoking higher powers. Chambers made this clarification presumably under the pressure of criticisms that his theory bordered on atheism. And, most surprising of all, Chambers here appears to be asserting that his intention never was to explain the origins of organics nature, only to elucidate the laws that regulate biological life. The Explanations is almost, but not quite, a repudiation of the entire substructure of Vestiges. Bur Darwin’s disagreements with Vestiges did not depend on the Explanations. He directed most of his criticism to Vestiges itself. Chambers did not have a demonstrable mechanism of change. He had posited two forces at work in nature (as had Lamarck), an innate tendency on the part of organisms to “progress,” and another vital force that allowed organisms to adapt to local circumstances. But these impulses and vital forces had no observable foundations. They were pure speculations. In a rare acknowledgment of predecessors in the very first iteration of the Origin, before he had completed his Historical Sketch for publication, Darwin included a short paragraph on Chambers in the “Introduction,” in which he claimed that Chambers’s “explanation” of species change was no explanation at all because it left the question of “adaptations”—​that is, how and why they arise—​unaccounted for. Chambers’s opinions were mere assertions, not demonstrations (Variorum, p. 73, line 26; the sentence was removed from later editions of Origin, and at the same time the sentence was included in the “Historical Sketch” and reproduced in slightly altered form). In Darwin’s opinion, Chambers’s speculations led to many errors, so much so that he could say to Hooker in 1847 that much of Vestiges was just “rubbish” and that many of its conclusions were “absurd,” even “impossible” (CCD, [7 January  1845], to Hooker. Letter 814). To another naturalist, J.D. Dana, Darwin wrote “but my views are very different from that clever but shallow book, the Vestiges” (CCD, 29 September [1856], to J.D. Dana. Letter 1964). Hooker and Darwin privately exchanged some jokes in the 1850s about the conclusions drawn in Vestiges, such as, the notion that Kerguelen cabbage descended from primitive algae (CCD, 13 July [1856], to Hooker, letter 1924); or that seeds would turn into tadpoles (CCD, 13 April [1855], to Hooker, letter 1667). “He must be a funny fellow,” Darwin mused (CCD, [7 January 1845], to Hooker. Letter 814). Nevertheless, Darwin did find some positive things to say about Vestiges. Even if the book was “strange” and “unphilosophical,” it was certainly “capitally written,” Darwin wrote to his old friend W.D. Fox. He added: “it has made more talk than any work of late, & has been by some attributed to me.—​at which I ought to be much flattered & unflattered” (CCD, [24 April 1845], to W.D. Fox. Letter 859). Even earlier, only two months after Darwin first read Vestiges, he

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  159 exclaimed to Hooker, “I have been delighted with Vestiges, from the multiplicity of facts he brings together,” even though Darwin immediately went on to criticize its conclusions as being incompatible with his own (CCD, 7 January 1845, to Hooker. Letter 814). Darwin even wrote to Chambers himself sometime before 1860 (date of letter unknown, letter not found) to acknowledge to Chambers that he had anticipated at least some of Darwin’s theory (CCD, 18 January [1860], to Baden Powell, n. 7. Letter 2655). Above all, Darwin believed Vestiges, for all its faults, did a “great service” in awakening interest in the subject of transmutation and perhaps in removing some prejudices among naturalists and interested lay readers. In view of his earlier, private statements, we see that Darwin could not ignore Vestiges in the Historical Sketch. It was too well-​known among naturalists and non-​naturalists as a theory of species change for Darwin simply to overlook it. It had admitted appeal for readers, even by Darwin’s estimation, for its vigorous style and clarity of expression. It was a comprehensive account, in the sense that it ranged over a number of issues—​geological, botanical, and zoological—​that were fascinating to an interested audience. At the same time, Darwin saw too many flaws in Chambers’s theory, and too much deficiency in scientific method, for him to take it seriously as a precursor. Darwin’s strategy in the Sketch, then, was to acknowledge Chambers for raising awareness of the transmutation issue and, in the process, for removing prejudice—​and this latter, he often insisted to himself and his friends, was a “service” to science that could not be discounted. This is the very point Darwin made to Huxley in 1854, after Huxley’s review of Chambers’s 10th edition of Vestiges appeared: I cannot think but that you are rather hard on the poor author [Chambers]. I must think that such a book, if it does no other good, spreads the taste for natural science.—​But I am perhaps no fair judge for I am almost as unorthodox about species as the Vestiges itself, though I hope not quite so unphilosophical. (CCD, 2 September [1854], to T.H. Huxley. Letter 1587)

But, as a serious forerunner of his own views, Darwin treated Chambers, in private and public, as no more deserving of a claim to originality of the “true” theory of transmutation of species than Lamarck. Darwin’s only real worry about Vestiges was not about its priority but rather that the book would “prejudice” his own audience against the theory of natural selection (CCD, 24 April, 1845, to W.D Fox, letter 859; and editors’ note, v. 3, p. xiv; 29 September, 1856, from Darwin to J.D. Dana. Letter 1964). Darwin even asked his American correspondent and friend Asa Gray to keep his (Darwin’s) ideas about natural selection (revealed to Gray in an enclosure to this letter for the first time) private, lest he would be forced to refer in his own publication to a work (i.e., Vestiges)

160  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” that had already been widely discredited among naturalists (CCD, 5 September, [1857], to Asa Gray. Letter 2136). And here we come, perhaps, to the crux of the difference between Vestiges and Origin, at least in Darwin’s view. In Vestiges, Chambers suggested two mechanisms of change: an inner impulse within biological organisms to advance in the scale of life; and an “adapting” power that enabled organisms to adjust to changing local conditions. For Darwin, the first of these posited mechanisms was incapable of empirical verification—​a flaw Darwin also found in most other transmutationist theories. The second mechanism seemed to be nothing more than reworked Lamarckism, minus the Lamarckian addition of “conscious willing” to change. Darwin always believed this issue—​how do animals and plants “adapt” to environmental conditions was key to explaining the origin of species. He invoked quite different mechanisms: chance variations that would be worked upon by the impersonal and “blind” force of natural selection. Vestiges, for all its self-​confidence and persuasive power, had entirely missed Darwin’s two key insights, and so must fail as a plausible account of the question at issue. Throughout the period from 1844, when Vestiges first appeared, to 1861 and beyond when he worked on the Sketch, Darwin kept Chambers’s opinions at arm’s length. He did not want to be associated with Chambers’s unscientific ideas. But he did see a need to give Chambers credit where credit was due: bringing the most important biological question of his time, the “mystery of mysteries,” into the mainstream of thinking in the broader community of interested naturalists and the larger public. That is what Darwin tried to convey in the Sketch.

J.B.J. d’Omalius d’Halloy. 1783–​1875 When Darwin wrote to Baden Powell in January 1860 indicating his intention to add a historical preface to the Origin, giving a list of names of authors he wanted to include, J.B.J. d’Omalius d’Halloy was not among them. Yet, within a month, when he sent his first version of the Preface (i.e., the Historical Sketch) to Asa Gray on February 8 1860, d’Omalius was included, and remained a fixture in the Sketch in every published edition thereafter. Darwin’s decision to include him gives rise to a number of questions: How and when did Darwin come to learn of the contributions of this author? Why did he not mention him to Powell in January 1860 but then include him in the list of authors he sent to Gray in February of the same year? Did Darwin encounter d’Omalius himself or only through reading about him in someone else’s writings? What was Darwin’s reason for including him at all in the Sketch? By most accounts, d’Omalius (or Omalius, as Darwin sometimes referred to him) is a minor figure in the transmutation debates of the early to mid-​19th

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  161

Figure 7.2  d’Omalius d’Halloy

century. But that is mainly because of the relative obscurity into which he has fallen in subsequent scholarship. Today, his main claim to fame may be just Darwin’s decision to include him in the Sketch. But in his own day, and certainly in his native Belgium, he was a significant figure in the scientific community of the early 19th century. He published an important book on geology, Elements de Geologie, in 1831 that went through at least 14 editions. By 1850 he had become the president of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Brussels. He published many notable papers on geology and zoology in the early decades of the century. And he was noticed with favor by several of the leading intellectual lights of the time, especially Charles Lyell, Bory de St. Vincent, and Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Yet none of this reputation, seemingly, would have brought Omalius to Darwin’s attention, mainly because Omalius published in relatively unknown (to Darwin) French-​language journals and minor presses. Yet, Darwin did notice him, finding him sufficiently important as a forerunner of his own theory to give him a place in the Sketch, just after Vestiges (1844) and just before Owen (1849). Darwin’s entry on Omalius in the Sketch reads: In 1846 the veteran geologist M. J. d’Omalius d’Halloy published in an excellent, though short paper (‘Bulletins de l’Acad. Roy. Bruxelles,’ tom. xiii. p. 5816), his opinion that it is more probable that new species have been produced by

162  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” descent with modification, than that they have been separately created: the author first promulgated this opinion in 1831. (Variorum, p. 64, line 39)

The entry, by including a precise page number, suggests firsthand familiarity. On the other hand, Darwin did not quote any passage, but apparently only paraphrased. The 1831 Elements de Geologie is not named by title, but the passage does indicate Darwin’s familiarity with that work too.7 The date of publication of Omalius’s essay, 1846, does not help determine when Darwin first learned about or read it; he often discovered an earlier writer’s contribution long after the author published. Nor does it answer why Darwin chose this essay for special mention in the Sketch. By his own account, Omalius (in this very essay) indicated he had first promulgated his view that species descend from other species by modification as early as 1831, in the Elements. Darwin always wanted to assign authors chronologically in the Sketch according to their first published contribution. The fact that Darwin overlooked the 1831 Elements, except by bare reference to its date of publication, suggests that he was not directly familiar with this work in 1860, when he first included Omalius in the Sketch. Yet Darwin did cite Omalius 1846 in the Sketch, a work in which, as noted, Omalius drew direct attention to his 1831 book as having already included an argument in favor of transmutation. It thus becomes another question as to why Darwin did not rely on Omalius 1831, in keeping with his customary chronological ordering of authors in the Sketch. Possibly, Darwin did read Omalius’s 1846 essay sometime in late 1859 or early 1860—​any earlier date is implausible—​but not with sufficient care to notice his reference to his 1831 volume, or at least to go back himself to read it. That possibility cannot be ruled out, because when Darwin was hastily composing the Sketch for Asa Gray (for inclusion in the first authorized US edition of Origin) he may have only skimmed earlier authorities for key passages that would show anticipation. This surmise, though, does not get us very far. It presupposes that Darwin actually did read Omalius’s 1846 essay before he wrote his first draft of the Sketch, the version he sent to Gray on February 8 1860, and with enough attention to be able to represent Omalius’s key idea about descent with modification. Yet, that presupposition is the very point in question here: did Darwin actually read Omalius 1846, or indeed anything by Omalius, prior to February 8, 1860. We have almost no evidence that he did. Neither his Reading Notebooks nor anything he wrote in his marginal notes shows any indication that Darwin read anything by Omalius directly. His correspondence is just as silent about this author, and none of the recently published “annotations” or other “Darwin On-​ Line” sources indicate any direct familiarity.8 Omalius carved his scientific reputation in geology, early in the 19th century, so one might suppose Darwin

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  163 came to learn of his ideas during his own “geology” days, the late 1830s and early 1840s. That conjecture receives some support from the facts that several naturalists of that time, including Bory de St. Vincent and Charles Lyell, noticed his works in their own publications, and Darwin was familiar with these works. But even if Omalius had come under Darwin’s notice through these sources, he would not have made an impression on Darwin regarding biological ideas. Omalius’s first contribution to the species question came only in the 1831 Elements, and none of the geologists Darwin studied made any reference to that aspect of Omalius’s thinking. Yet it would be incorrect to conclude that before 1860 Darwin was entirely unfamiliar with anything Omalius wrote about transmutation. The Marginalia shows Darwin had two brief encounters with Omalius through the works of other writers. One of these is C.F. Gaertner, whose massive work on hybridity caught Darwin’s attention; it is among the most heavily annotated in Darwin’s collection of books.9 Darwin read this book in 1855, and clearly saw in it an important insight regarding his own theory of transmutation. But whether he made much of his discovery of Omalius through this book is doubtful. The annotations to Gaertner are so extensive that the brief notice of Omalius may not have registered in Darwin’s memory when he got around to composing the Sketch. In any case, while Darwin did frequently rely on Gaertner’s hybridization studies to undergird his own case for transmutation in the Origin, he did not specifically mention Omalius as having contributed to the development of his own ideas, particularly in any edition of the Sketch. The other entry referring to Omalius in the Marginalia is a more promising lead for discovering Darwin’s source:  Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire’s Vie, a biographical-​bibliographical study of his father Etienne, published in 1847 and read by Darwin in 1855.10 Darwin annotated this volume too, much less extensively than Gaertner’s work, but with a more focused concentration on transmutation. Darwin was already familiar with Isidore before this encounter and had come to admire Isidore’s keen sense of the history of the subject of species change (see ­chapter 10). So, when Isidore referred to Omalius as having promulgated transmutationist ideas, Darwin took note. His entry to Omalius reads:  “336–​ 357—​Omalius d’Halloy on changes in species.” In view of the fact that Darwin drew on Isidore for vital information about other authors, we must entertain the possibility that Isidore’s Vie was Darwin’s primary source for Omalius. If Isidore’s Vie was Darwin’s source, we should look more deeply into what Isidore had to say about him. The first thing to observe is that Darwin’s page references in his annotations to Isidore’s Vie immediately preceding his remark about Omalius—​"336–​357”—​is misleading. In fact, most of this section of the Vie is devoted to a discussion of other authors, in particular the competing views and opinions of Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore’s father. It

164  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” is a lengthy and fascinating discussion, but Oamlius is not really central to it. Isidore gives him only one page, and that in a footnote (p. 356, n. 1), the entry being intended to show that Omalius was a supporter of Etienne against his rival Cuvier. The specific point of dispute, moreover, was not a question centrally focused on positive evidence for transmutation, or even a positive endorsement of it. The context, rather, was whether Cuvier’s argument against species transformation, that “man” has never been able to bring about species change through domesticated breeding projects, could stand up to the challenge that “man” has not had sufficient time in recorded human history to bring about species transformations. Etienne Geoffroy had suggested that eons of time would provide the necessary change in conditions to enable species to transmutate. The reference in the Vie to Omalius was to bring in another voice in support of Etienne’s position. Isidore did not, however, give much evidence here for what Omalius believed in a positive sense. He refers to Omalius’s 1846 essay as his source, but does not quote any passage. He only says that Omalius was a “distinguished geologist” who promoted views of “truth” and “progress,” that is, views supportive of Etienne against Cuvier. We find nothing here about what those views are, only a reference to the 1846 essay, by title and date, and with a page number, 581. Equipped with this information, it is possible that Darwin went back at this time—​1855 or thereabouts—​to look for himself at what Omalius had written in 1846. It is notable that Darwin in the Sketch, like Isidore in the Vie, did not directly quote from Omalius. But he did give in his citation in the Sketch the same title and the same page number as that in the Vie. This discovery brings into play the possibility that Darwin merely borrowed for the Sketch what he had learned from Isidore’s Vie about Omalius, but without checking the reference himself. This surmise is consistent with our earlier finding that we have no evidence Darwin ever read Omalius 1846 on his own. Yet, we are confronted with a difficulty. Isidore did not say much in his footnote about Omalius’s own positive thoughts about the possibility of transmutation. The most we can glean from Isidore’s brief entry in the Vie is that Omalius leaned more toward Etienne (species change) than toward Cuvier (species fixity) in the notorious debate between these two men.11 Moreover, Isidore made no reference in his footnote to Omalius’s 1831 Elements, whereas Darwin did mention this work (though not by name) in the Sketch. Isidore’s Vie may thus have been one of Darwin’s sources for learning about Omalius, but not the only one. Fortunately, we have another candidate, even more promising, another work by Isidore: the Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques, volume 2, 1859, specifically page 446.12 In this work Isidore cites “two remarkable essays” by Omalius. The first one cited is the 1846 essay in the Bulletins de l’Academie Royale just discussed; the second is an untitled address in 1850 to the members of the Royal Academy, of which Omalius was then president.13 The argument

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  165 Omalius makes in the latter address is pitted against a fellow academy member, recently deceased, M. Wesmael, who posed the question of origins in terms of whether the correct account is “successive creations” or “gradual transmutation.” Omalius argues for the latter, suggesting that the process is governed by natural laws rather than divine fiat. Darwin did not mention Omalius’s 1850 address in the Sketch or elsewhere. It is doubtful that he read it, despite Omalius’s interesting arguments supporting transmutation—​his remarks on hybrid sterility are especially pertinent to Darwin’s theory. But, no matter. Our interest here is more about what Darwin may have learned about Omalius from Isidore’s Histoire than what he could have learned firsthand from Omalius himself. Isidore’s discussion of Omalius in the Histoire appears in the context of his lengthy historical review of previous naturalists on the “species question,” broadly considered (v. 2, 1859, ch. IV). Darwin read this section of the Histoire in 1860 (month and date not recorded, but must have been in January or early February: Reading Notebooks, in CCD, v. 4, p. 497 [DAR 128: 26]).14 Darwin had abstracted volume 1 of Isidore’s Histoire in February 1858 and had a low opinion of the book: “Miserable book—​all words, words, words” (Marginalia, p. 316g)15. But his views about Isidore’s volume 2 were markedly different. He was especially stunned by the “history of opinion” that Isidore included in chapter IV. Darwin had “no idea” about the list of authorities, and noted to himself that he could only include in the Sketch the “most conspicuous writers.” One of these was Omalius, if in fact the Histoire volume 2 was Darwin’s source for his information about this author. The speculation that it was receives support when we look at what Isidore wrote about Omalius in the Histoire. As noted, he appears in a historical survey of previous authorities on the species question. Isidore’s catalogue begins with Buffon and includes perhaps two dozen other respected naturalists, including Linnaeus, Cuvier, Goethe, Lamarck, Lecoq, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, and Omalius. The historical survey is an appendix of sorts—​Isidore calls it a “bibliographic footnote”—​to a more detailed review of the opinions mainly of Etienne and Cuvier and focuses specifically on the question of the “definition” of what a species is. Omalius is placed alongside Etienne as a supporter of Etienne’s views. That placement suggests Omalius’s views were more important to Isidore than those of other writers, particularly because much of Isidore’s writing on zoology was devoted to vindicating the opinions of his father Etienne against the more accepted position (at the time) of Cuvier and his followers. Omalius stood with Etienne against a rival school, thus boosting his stature in Isidore’s eyes. What view was Omalius supporting? To get the full scope one needs to read back to what Isidore had already said at length about Etienne’s views. We need not detail that discussion here, except to say that Darwin learned from Isidore (see ­chapter 3) that Etienne seemed to lean in favor of transmutation. That is a

166  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” good approximation of what Darwin concluded about Omalius as well. Darwin’s reasoning seems to be no more complicated than that if Etienne leaned toward transmutation, and if Omalius was paired with him, then Omalius must have leaned toward transmutation also. Isidore gives no other direct details of Omalius’s views. He refers to Omalius again, as he did in the Vie, as a “distinguished geologist” who gives views “very analogous” to those of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. He then makes reference to the “two remarkable essays” published by Omalius in the Bulletins de l’Academie des sciences de Bruxelles, 1846 and 1850 (mentioned earlier). What is new in Isidore’s Histoire is his reference to Omalius’s Elements de Geologie, 1839, page 711. This appears to refer to page 526 of the first, 1831 edition of the Elements. Darwin could not have learned about Omalius’s Elements from Isidore’s Vie, but he would have learned at least the title from Isidore’s citation in the Histoire to the edition of Elements published by Omalius in 1831. But Isidore’s citation to Omalius’s Elements was not the citation that Darwin used in the Sketch. Isidore referred to the 1839 (third) edition of Omalius’s Elements. Darwin cited in the Sketch the first, 1831 edition of this work. So, we must look further into Darwin’s source for an understanding of where Darwin learned about the first edition of the Elements. If not from Isidore, then from where? What we are looking for is how Darwin was able to cite Omalius’s 1831 edition of Elements (although without the title) in the Sketch without having read the work itself and without having learned of the date from Isidore’s Histoire. One strong possibility presents itself: Darwin’s own encounter with Omalius 1846. Unfortunately, we have no direct evidence that Darwin read this work. But we do know that Darwin saw a reference to Omalius 1846 in Isidore’s Histoire, which he read apparently twice, once in in 1854 and again in 1858 (see n. 15). It is possible that he went back to the original source, Omalius 1846, to read for himself what Omalius had written. This is the only work I can find in which Omalius identifies by accurate date, 1831, and by accurate title, Elements de Geologie, this earlier work as his first contribution to the species question. Because Darwin got the date right—​1831, not Isidore’s 1839—​and because it is not clear that he got the date from any other source with which he was familiar, it stands to reason that Darwin learned at least something about Omalius from reading Omalius 1846 himself, including the date of the Elements after learning about this work from Isidore’s Histoire. This finding, conjectural as it is, brings us to our final question:  What did Darwin learn about Omalius’s transmutationist views from the 1846  “Note” in the Bulletins de l’Academie Royale de Bruxelles, assuming that was Darwin’s source? Given the brevity of Darwin’s reference to Omalius in the Sketch, we need not expect to find much in Omalius’s short essay that bears significantly on the issue of species origins. And that is what we find—​very little.

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  167 But not nothing. After noting the significant advances in recent years of the new discipline of paleontology, his specialty, Omalius goes on to assert that that the most recent findings from this field of research “force” him to support the hypothesis of species change through the long span of geological time: In 1831, when I published the Elements of Geology, I gave the preference to those who suppose that living beings today descend, by means of generation, from those of the first times [of the earth], even though their forms present diverse successive modifications; but the zoologists are mainly opposed to this way of seeing things. And since it is recognized that none of the species of the first times [of the earth] any longer exist, and even that these first species do not exhibit any intermediate forms, most [of the zoologists] admit that there were several creations prior to the complete destruction of living nature [prior to today]. (p. 582)

Omalius goes on to affirm that more recent paleontological findings, that is, those made since his 1831 volume, only confirm his support for the transmutationist hypothesis. This brief excerpt from Omalius’s 1846  “Note” would have given Darwin enough information for his entry on Omalius in the Sketch. When we look back at the Sketch, we find Darwin saying more or less what Omalius says here: descent with modification (by means of generation) is a more likely account of how species have appeared on the surface of the earth than “separate, special creations.” Darwin’s familiarity with the views of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, learned from Isidore’s Histoire, would have only bolstered his opinion about Omalius’s anticipation. And the fact that Omalius cited his own 1831 Elements by title and date as his earliest statement on the species question would have permitted Darwin to include that work by precise date in the Sketch. He would not have been able to learn the date from Isidore. All the evidence points to Omalius’s 1846 “Note” as Darwin’s immediate source for the Sketch, however he may have come to learn about this short essay in the first place. All of this makes sense in terms of how Darwin learned about Omalius, from whom, and what he learned. But it does leave us with two puzzles. One is, if Darwin did read Omalius 1846, when did he read it, and why did he leave no trace in any public or private outlet that he had done so? All of our inferences about this question—​and they are no more than that—​are based solely on his entry to Omalius in the Sketch. Of perhaps greater interest is why Darwin did not refer to Omalius’s 1831 Elements for his main reference in the Sketch. As noted, he did say Omalius had first weighed in on the species question “in 1831,” but Darwin did not mention the title or attempt to say what Omalius had argued in this work. Darwin’s omissions here are curious. He always wanted to present

168  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” his predecessors in the Sketch chronologically, that is according to the first published opinions. Omalius’s first publication addressing the species question was 1831, and Darwin knew this. Why, then, did he not cite Omalius 1831, by reference to title, page numbers, and argument in the Sketch? The puzzle becomes more complicated when we examine Omalius’s 1831 Elements de Geologie. As the title suggests, it is a work mainly devoted to geological subjects, particularly recent findings in paleontology, Omalius’s area of expertise. But the final few paragraphs (pp. 606–​8) at the end of the lengthy book are explicitly devoted to an examination of the question of “successive changes” in the form of “living beings” on earth through time. Omalius’s discussion of this question is both more thorough and more carefully reasoned that his “Note” published 15 years later. Omalius accepts as fact that the form of organic beings has changed through geological history. The only question is, how did this happen. He proposes three rival hypotheses: 1) new forms have come in through successive creations; 2) partial cataclysms (destructions) have brought about extinctions and displacements during various historical periods; or 3) species have undergone transmutation, earlier forms giving rise “by means of reproduction” to new forms through long ages. Omalius rejects, by means of argument and evidence, the first two hypotheses and accepts the third as a far more plausible alternative. This is a nicely reasoned argument that would have been serviceable to Darwin for the Sketch, more so than the 1846 “Note,” but Darwin referred to it only by date, not title or content, in the Sketch. That Darwin did not give full hearing to Omalius 1831 in the Sketch must mean he had not read this work. The only thing he knew about it was the date of publication, 1831, and he presumably acquired that bare detail from his reading of Omalius’s “Note,” published in 1846, but with little doubt read by Darwin in late 1859 or early 1860, as documented earlier. If Darwin had gone back to Omalius’s 1831 Elements for personal inspection before he wrote the Sketch, would he have had more to attribute to this author than he actually did? The answer is, probably not, except for giving Omalius an earlier spot in the Sketch, 1831, than he was given, 1846. Omalius’s 1831 argument is certainly more thorough, in the way of defending transmutation, than his 1846 “Note.” The earlier work pitted gradual succession of species against two competing hypotheses, whereas the “Note” does not provide any oppositional context, except to say that “most zoologists” do not accept the transmutation idea. But both works come to essentially the same conclusion: species change by way of “reproduction” is the most plausible account of the arrangement of species forms and distribution on the planet. Neither work says much more than this. What is missing from both accounts, and what may have most influenced how Darwin chose to represent Omalius in the Sketch, is a mechanism of change. We find in Omalius no approach to this fundamental question, except for the

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  169 platitude that changes in the environment over time give rise to alterations in species to adjust to these changes. That view was commonplace by 1831, much more so by 1846. Nor did Omalius say anything about the importance of “variations” as being “incipient species,” or about how variations arise in the first place. Omalius revealed only that he understood human breeding practices could give rise to new variations. He extrapolated from this understanding to the idea that, given enough time, natural agencies (changes in climate, nourishment, mating habits, and so forth) might push the limits of variation further than human agents had been able to do in breeding experiments during the brief time of human history. A “cause of variation” is missing from Omalius’s account, yet that was a major preoccupation of Darwin. In particular, if we acknowledge that for Darwin variations are mainly due to “chance,” Omalius is on a different page. Omalius is clear in his rejection of “chance” (hazard) as playing any plausible role in the appearance of new species on earth. Nevertheless, Omalius was a closer ally of Darwin in deciphering the puzzle of species transformation than Darwin allowed in the Sketch. Omalius was clearer in his opposition to the prevailing view of his time of “special, separate creations” than almost any other authority, perhaps excepting only Lamarck and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Omalius showed little interest in Lamarck’s views—​he did not mention Lamarck by name in his publications and had no interest in Lamarck’s notorious doctrine of “inheritance of acquired characters”—​and he was less agnostic than Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire about the possibility of serial transmutation. About Darwin’s comparative silence about Omalius’s important contribution, we can only surmise that Darwin had not taken the full measure of the man. What little he knew came from a short entry that he seems to have read in early 1860, Omalius’s 1846 “Note” in the Essais of the Brussels Royal Academy. The 1831 Elements de Geologie would have given Darwin more grist for his mill, but he appears never to have read it.

Henry Freke. 1813–​1888 Perhaps the most peculiar decision Darwin made in putting together his list of authorities for the Sketch was his inclusion of Henry Freke. I call this a peculiar decision because, unlike virtually all the other authors discussed by Darwin in the Sketch, Freke was almost entirely unknown in the scientific community in which Darwin dwelt. Certainly, he was unknown to Darwin himself, prior to 1860, and unknown to Darwin’s dozens of correspondents and friends. How Darwin came to learn of him at all is, indeed, something of a mystery, though one that can be solved. Why Darwin decided to make room for him in the Sketch is yet a deeper mystery that is more difficult to penetrate.

170  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin’s entry on Freke in the Sketch, as is true of many others, is quite brief, two sentences, the second of which almost seems to suggest that the first might well be dismissed: From a circular lately issued, it appears that Dr. Freke, in 1851 (“Dublin Medical Press,” p. 322), propounded the doctrine that all organic beings have descended from one primordial form. His grounds of belief and treatment of the subject are totally different from mine; but because Dr. Freke has now (1861) published his Essay on the “Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity,” the difficult attempt to give any idea of his views would be superfluous on my part. (Variorum, p. 67, lines 51–​2)

In this brief entry Darwin draws attention, almost unnoticed, to three works by Freke that led Darwin to decide to include him in the Sketch: a “circular lately issued” (not further identified), an 1851 article in the Dublin Medical Press (a daily news outlet in Dublin), and an “Essay” entitled “Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity,” published in early 1861. These three sources are the foundation for understanding Freke’s opinions and how and when Darwin came to learn of this obscure author. Who was Henry Freke? Not much is known about him, even with later investigations to draw upon. He was an Irish physician who, after working in various hospitals in Dublin, and publishing a number of minor articles mainly in the Dublin Medical Press, otherwise known as the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, in the late 1840s and early 1850s, gave up his hospital practice to enter service at the first Irish “lunatic asylum.” His forays into what might be called evolutionary theory (a phrase he did not use) came in short essays published in the years 1851–​1853, in the journal just mentioned. As he noted himself later, these works did not attract much attention. When Darwin’s Origin appeared in 1859, Freke thought he saw enough anticipation of Darwin’s ideas in his own essays to warrant him bringing forward his earlier views into a separate, more lengthy treatment: his pamphlet On the Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity, published in Dublin, Edinburgh, and London in 1861. This is the work Darwin drew upon when he crafted his two sentences on Freke for the Sketch. Darwin presumably would not have learned about this relatively short (135 page) essay from its mere appearance in published form. It attracted almost no scientific notice at the time, and later scholarship has done little to rescue it from scientific obscurity. Freke was painfully aware of this neglect, attributing it, variously, to his precocious originality, his failure to appear in leading journals where he would have been noticed, and his being an Irishman in a Britain-​centric world. I can find no evidence in any of the sources we have that Darwin was notified about the essay by friends or acquaintances. Indeed, what little evidence we

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  171 have suggests Darwin learned of Freke’s essay on his own and spread word about it to others—​two or three people at most, judging from his correspondence. We actually have two candidates for Darwin’s source for learning about Freke, both from Freke himself, the first coming to Darwin’s notice in October 1860, the second only months later, no later than early January 1861. The former is a review Freke published on Darwin’s Origin: “Observations upon Mr. Darwin’s recently published work—​‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’ ” (1860, Dublin: printed for the author). A copy of this review, in the CUL Darwin Pamphlet Collection, shows it to have appeared in October 1860, and the annotations show that Darwin read it about that time. It is a short essay—​four pages with a two-​page “Postscript”—​and it is annotated by Darwin.16 Darwin informed his old friend J.S. Henslow in October 1860 that Freke sent him a copy of the review. It is doubtful Darwin would have learned about it otherwise, as it was privately printed and not widely circulated. Darwin was intensely interested in the early reviews of Origin during the 1860s, which makes it likely that Darwin would have read it as soon as he received a copy. The letter from Darwin to Henslow suggests a low opinion of the review: Dr. Freke has sent me his paper—​which is far beyond my scope—​something like the capital quiz in the Anti-​Jacobin on my Grandfather, which was quoted in the Quarterly Rv. (CCD, 26 October [1860], to Henslow, and nn. 7–​8. Letter 2964)

The date of this letter—​late October 1860—​indicates Darwin was referring to Freke’s self-​published review of the Origin, not to any of Freke’s own earlier published views on evolution or to his later published “pamphlet” on the origin of species that appeared in January 1861. But Darwin also learned about Freke’s ideas, again in early 1861, in Freke’s pamphlet, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity.” We know that Freke sent Darwin a copy of this work, probably in early January 1861.17 Freke indicates in the “Preface” to this pamphlet why he believed publishing his earlier views again in a separate pamphlet should be undertaken. He thought he had been overlooked and needed to set the historical record straight. Freke claims that in papers in the Dublin Medical Press, 1851, p. 52 and 53 on “fevers” he had incidentally (original emphasis) given his opinion on the origin of species by means of organic affinity. With the success of Darwin’s book, and the relative obscurity of his own earlier publications, Freke now thought he should make his earlier views more widely known through this independent publication: The interest created by Mr. Darwin’s recently published work on the same question, connected with the fact of that distinguished naturalist having reached an

172  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” identical conclusion with one I had myself attempted to establish, has led me to think this would be a favorable time to reintroduce my views . . . . I feel great satisfaction that we have arrived at a coincidence of ideas on the one important fact of the origin of species, “the belief that all organic creation has originated from a single primordial germ.” We had both reached the same result through a totally different channel. Darwin attained by analogy to what I had attempted to establish by induction; and it is important to science that naturalists should be aware that such is the case. I must add that nothing herein is not in perfect accord with the Mosaic record of creation. (“Preface,” pp. vi-​viii, dated January 1861)

Darwin’s Origin gave Freke an opportunity to attempt to establish his priority once again. Darwin was not impressed. He sent a note to Hooker on January 15, 1861, commenting briefly on some of the early reviews and criticisms of the Origin and drawing particular attention to Freke’s “Origin”: If you come across Dr Freke on “Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity,” read a page here & there just to see the maximum of ill-​written unintelligible rubbish, which he tells the reader to observe has been arrived at by “induction,” whereas all my results are arrived at only by “analogy.” (CCD, 15 January [1861], to Hooker. Letter 3047)

Neither Freke’s review of Darwin’s Origin, published in October 1860, nor his own independent treatment of the species question, published in early 1861, gave Darwin any reason to see Freke as a forerunner. Judging from Darwin’s harsh comments, the opposite would seem a more likely conclusion. Yet Darwin did include Freke in the Sketch, assigning him a date of 1851, based on essays Freke had written then and in subsequent years in the Dublin Medical Press but that were never read by Darwin himself. Darwin’s letters to Henslow and Hooker, quoted earlier, give clear indication that Freke came to Darwin’s attention only from publications Freke sent to Darwin just after they were published in 1860 and 1861, but these did not include the 1851–​1853 articles upon which Freke based his claim to priority. Darwin’s judgment about the two essays he received from Freke, as expressed in the letters to Henslow and Hooker in 1860 and 1861, reveals that he saw no anticipation, and for both essays he showed little more than contempt. And perhaps with good reason. Freke was not an especially careful scientist, and was an even less a lucid writer.18 Darwin expressed perplexity about whatever it was Freke was claiming, and Darwin’s confusion is somewhat our own.

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  173 Neither Freke’s 1860 review of Darwin’s Origin nor his 134-​page pamphlet of 1861 outlining his own theory gives us much to go on for deciphering his views. When we turn to Freke’s 1860  “Review” of Darwin’s Origin, we see more clearly why Darwin would have said to Henslow that the review was “far beyond my scope.” Darwin did not elaborate, but we must assume irony. The review is not so much profound as it is opaque in meaning, even to a naturalist of Darwin’s talents in the art of interpretation. Despite its title, it says almost nothing about Darwin’s theory in Origin. Instead, it is a mere summary—​or more precisely a verbatim reporting—​of Freke’s views about the origin of species as he published them in 1851–​1853 in the Dublin Medical Press. One need not go back to the original essays to learn what Freke was claiming. His 1860 “review” of Darwin’s Origin was not really a “review,” but rather an excuse for Freke merely to repeat what he had already argued a decade earlier. Presumably he believed he would attract a larger reading audience if he presented his views as a response to the now-​famous Charles Darwin. Freke began his review with a quote from Darwin’s Origin, claiming that this passage contained the whole of Darwin’s theory, taken from the book’s final pages: Analogy would lead to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. . . . Therefore I should infer from analogy, that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from one primordial form into which life was first breathed by the Creator—​ p. 484. (“Observations,” p. 1)

The quote is taken from Darwin’s second edition of Origin, published on December 26, 1859, as indicated by the expression at the end of the quote “by the Creator,” words not used in the first edition (November 26, 1859) but added to the second edition (Variorum, p. 753, lines 220–​220:b). “By the Creator,” however, was not the expression that suggested to Freke that he had anticipated Darwin. Rather, he was moved to stake his claim for priority on the other prominent idea in Darwin’s passage: that all organic beings have probably descended from one primordial form. Freke had no desire to denigrate a role for a Creator in the beginning of the earth’s history, but neither did he have much interest in promoting a theological explanation. He was instead trying to explain that he, like Darwin (as he believed), saw organic life springing originally from minute organisms that possessed the capacity for increasing organic complexity by means of reproduction through time. These minute organisms, in turn, must have originated from inorganic matter in a remote and ancient past—​ although Freke allowed only “centuries” for this process to unfold, whereas

174  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin’s theory required hundreds of millions of years. That particular difference did not elicit notice from Freke. What did attract his attention was Darwin’s claim that all organic life forms on the earth today must have descended from one primordial form. Freke presented the similarities in views in the paragraph immediately following the quoted passages: Nine years before the appearance of Mr. Darwin’s publication, I, as the result of mature and deliberate reflection, submitted this identical hypothesis to the judgment of physiologists. (Freke, Henry 1860, p. 1, original emphasis)

“Nine years” before Darwin points to the year 1851, the year of Freke’s first contribution on this issue in the Dublin Medical Press. “Identical hypothesis” must be the words that attracted Darwin’s attention to the possibility that Freke may have been a precursor. Darwin did not need to go back to Freke’s 1851–​1853 essays to find out what Freke was talking about. Freke proceeded in the remaining five pages of this review essay to quote his earlier works extensively. In these lengthy quoted passages, we do find that Freke had indeed argued for an origin of existing species from a single primitive germ cell. But the details of his theory are entirely unlike anything Darwin had argued, and, moreover, were entirely unsupported by any empirical evidence. Darwin was sometimes criticized for being too “speculative,” but Freke easily outdoes Darwin in this regard. Darwin’s work is distinguished by almost an overabundance of empirical confirmation. In Freke’s case, there is almost none. Strange, then, that Freke should characterize his own conclusions as arrived at “inductively,” whereas, he claims, Darwin’s can only claim “analogy” as the basis of his views. The comment is ungenerous to Darwin, and Darwin felt the sting, as he reported to Hooker in the letter quoted earlier—​the same letter in which Darwin urged Hooker to “read a page here and there” of Freke’s “Origin” to get a sense of Freke’s “ill-​written, unintelligible rubbish.” Before we turn to the particulars of Freke’s hypothesis on the origin of species, we pause to note that Freke’s characterization of his own method (“induction”) as contrasted with Darwin’s method (“analogy”) is itself grossly misleading. If “induction” is a scientific method that builds from a foundation of empirical observations to some generalizations induced from those observations, leading to the establishment of an explanation or “cause” of what is observed, Freke’s method cannot be called inductive.19 What we have instead, at best, is a “deductive proof:” because we understand current physiological mechanisms for how organic beings “develop,” we may extrapolate backward to the earliest organic forms to postulate how they may have “developed.” The argument assumes both

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  175 that “developmental” processes remain the same throughout organic history (a version of Lyellian “uniformitarianism”) and that extrapolation backward from present to distant past can yield useful insights about organic origins. It is an “if/​then” formula: if present organic processes are understood, then ancient processes are understood. Freke presents no evidence about present processes of development, at least in the writings he presented in 1851–​1853 or in 1860, so his deduction about ancient processes lacks empirical foundation. He acknowledges he has no direct evidence for ancient organic forms and processes, and he provides no evidence for present ones. His hypothesis is entirely speculative. Even to call it a deductive demonstration is somewhat generous. Darwin, by contrast, based his theory on an abundance of empirical observations: it can explain “several large classes of facts,” as he often stated in Origin and elsewhere. It is true that he invoked “analogy” for some of his claims, particularly in the first two chapters of Origin. He freely admits that he analogized from what he observed in domestic breeding—​the ability of breeders to refine their specimens in favored directions by careful selection—​to what must also happen in “nature,” but without the careful guidance of human breeders. In the case of nature, the selecting “agent” is an unconscious “nature,” or “natural selection.” The argument is “by analogy,” to be sure. But it is much more than that. The analogy is bolstered by an abundance of empirical evidence, without which it would not have much value. Darwin may have been led to natural selection by the analogy of domestic selection, but he confirmed his case by a large number of independent inductions from empirical observation. Freke did nothing of the sort. Freke’s argument hinged upon a hypothetical reconstruction of a three-​stage “development” of organic life on earth. The first stage was the origin of life itself, buried in the mists of history; a second stage was “development” from these first beginnings of what are called “organizing atoms” or “granules” as they unite and “progress” upward in complexity of organization; and finally, life as it exists “today” or “at present.” Freke claims already to have placed before his readers his understanding and analysis of the latter two phases.20 Working backward from a physiological explanation of current life, and applying principles of “development” as we currently understand them, we should be able to glean important information about the earlier “development” phases, assuming the same principles have always been in operation. From that understanding, Freke reasoned, we can get back to “origins” of life itself, what he termed “the embryo of all organic creation” (“Observations,” p. 2, original emphasis). Freke claimed that this “theory,” sketchy as it is, is “identical to” Darwin’s. He also seems to believe he has captured the essence of Darwin’s theory in the notion of “development of life forms from a single primordial organism.” The latter belief displays only a deep lack of understanding of Darwin’s theory. Where are

176  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” “natural selection” and “chance variation,” for example? They are not mentioned. The key idea for Freke was the development of all organic life today from a simple beginning, centuries ago, in a single organizing atom. As to whether Freke’s theory is “identical” to Darwin’s, little need be said. Apart from a superficially similar statement about descent of all organic life from an original organic form, it bears no similarity at all. Freke’s theory lacks both substructure—​the foundational pillars—​and a superstructure—​the wealth of supporting evidence—​ necessary for it to be seen as foreshadowing Darwin’s theory in any way. Perhaps we are being too ungenerous to Freke. He did publish more on the species question after his October 1860 review of Origin, including a pamphlet, published in 1861, entitled “On the Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity,” and in 1862, An Appeal to Physiologists and the Press, in Dublin.21 Darwin read the 1861 pamphlet—​which was sent to him by Freke just after it was published—​and found nothing of value in it (as detailed earlier). But we might consider the Appeal because it was an advance over Freke’s previous writings and may shed more light than his earlier works on Freke’s thinking at the time. The details of Freke’s theory in the Appeal (a work Darwin apparently did not read) are perhaps less important than how Freke cast his views in the larger context of British natural science in the 1840s–​1860s. This 34-​page essay is mainly a jeremiad: Freke has been “overlooked,” and he has been treated “unfairly” in the few scientific reviews of his earlier writings that had hitherto been published. His obsession with these perceived slights to his originality, even to his honesty and honor, is much more prominent than any concern to reassert the novelty and importance of his work. He had been deeply wounded, both from the neglect his work had received and by the negative comments—​few as they were—​about it in the journal literature. In truth, almost no reviews appeared at all. We wonder why Freke would have wanted to resurrect his 1851 ideas in 1860–​1862. The answer seems to be that he was encouraged to do so by a scientific acquaintance, identity unknown. This person had recently read Darwin’s Origin and apparently encouraged Freke to re-​enter the lists of Darwin’s alleged anticipators. In his 1862 Appeal Freke wrote: Towards the close of the year 1860, an eminent friend of mine, who was intimately acquainted with the circumstances connected with my publications, asked me my opinion on Mr. Darwin’s work on Species. I replied, that having long since withdrawn myself from pursuits of that kind, I had not read Mr. Darwin’s work. “I understand,” my friend observed, “he has reduced all species to a single primordial germ.” “ Why, I did that nine years ago,” I replied, “and no one would read me.” My friend replied, “If that be the case, you have now an opportunity that may never occur again of attracting attention to your physiological views.” I had never specially contemplated the question of the origin

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  177 of Species. It was a subject I had never placed directly before my mind. I had inductively and unexpectedly arrived at the same conclusion as Mr. Darwin, while engaged in inquiries of a different kind; and I was myself as much astonished when that result forced itself upon my mind as any man could be who contemplated it for the first time. I introduced incidentally in a note the conclusion I had thus unexpectedly reached, attaching but little moment to it at the time, as I was occupied with other inquiries; and I banished it entirely from my mind. Accordingly, in October, 1860, I did publish a short circular embodying simply the note I had published on that one topic in 1851. I found, however, that without the context this was scarcely intelligible, the more particularly so, as the terms I had employed required that context for their explanation. It thus became necessary—​if I wished to be understood—​to publish a volume embodying my general views. I did so, and such was the origin of my volume on Species. (p. 22)

Not only Freke himself, but also an “eminent friend,” saw enough in Freke’s earlier works for Freke to decide to stake a claim to priority.22 In his 1862 Appeal Freke puts the greatest emphasis on what he perceived to be the unkindest cut: he had substituted “abstract reasoning” for “concrete proof.” This is just what Darwin noted to Hooker in his January 15 1861 letter: “he tells the reader to observe has been arrived at by ‘induction’, whereas all my results are arrived at only by ‘analogy.’ ” The import of the distinction is obscure, because neither Freke nor Darwin expanded upon it. Darwin apparently thought the claim was misleading, or even wrong, but this idea is only implied in his letter to Hooker, not made in explicit terms. When we look at Freke’s theories as articulated in this Appeal and elsewhere, we see again that they do not come close to resembling, let alone anticipating, Darwin’s theory. He bases his views on two premises. The first is that an “organizing principle” must be at work in nature’s processes that counteracts a simultaneous “degenerating principle.” The result is development counterbalanced by decay. The second, an “induction” from this insight, is that all life forms must have descended from an original “primordial form,” an “organic atom” (not further explained). The second insight is the one that convinced Freke that he had anticipated Darwin, as he had already concluded and asserted in his 1860 “review” of Origin. Darwin had argued at the end of Origin that it is possible all life forms had descended from a single first living entity. Since this was Darwin’s position in 1859, argued Freke, and since he thought he had articulated this view in 1851, he deserved as much credit for grasping the “origin of species” as Darwin was receiving. These claims are thin reeds, as Darwin understood. Darwin had little interest in the question of the “primordial being,” whatever it was. He chose not to explore

178  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” its origins, as being beyond the possible ken of science in his day. Darwin’s focus was on “evolution,” how new species arise from progenitors, and so his concerns were with the causes of variation and the mechanism of natural selection, themes not even hinted at by Freke who displays no grasp whatsoever of the core elements of Darwin’s theory. Moreover, Freke’s twin hypotheses of “organic progression” and “organic degeneration” are irrelevant to Darwin’s theories. They simply miss the mark. In short, the 1862 Appeal, written by Freke at the urging of an “eminent friend,” did nothing to advance his case as a forerunner of Darwin. If anything, by introducing the new idea of “counteracting forces” of development and decay into nature’s processes, he hurt his cause still further. “Rubbish,” Darwin complained to Hooker. It thus remains a mystery, one for which I am able to offer no plausible explanation, why Darwin included Freke in the Sketch. We might forgive him for biting on Freke in the first edition, after Freke had announced an “identical theory” to Darwin’s. But when Darwin learned more, in 1861, he had the option to remove Freke, and with good reason. But, for whatever reason, he did not do that. Freke remained (and remains) in every edition.

Notes 1. [Robert Chambers], 1844, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. London:  J. Churchill.; 6th edition 1847; 10th edition 1853. 2. Chambers’s specific disagreement with Lamarck’s theory was that Lamarck could offer no evidence that animals adjust their habits to changing environmental conditions through “conscious willing.” That error, in turn, led to Lamarck’s incorrectly detecting a “progression” of forms brought about by the mechanism of conscious volition. The Quinary system, by contrast, had the advantage of being able to classify groups of animals by a system of intersecting “circles” which did not presuppose volitional efforts by animals to adjust themselves to their local circumstances. (See CCD, [7 Jan. 1845], n. 5. Letter 814). 3. On the other hand, Sedgwick later appears to have moderated his opinion about the Origin. J.S. Henslow reports in a letter to T.H. Huxley that Sedgwick had told him in person that his chief attacks in his review of Origin (the review Darwin found to be quite scathing) were actually directed against Oxford Professor Baden Powell in his “late Essay” (Powell 1860), and that he was attacking Powell for accepting views that would and should astonish Oxbridge academics. In the same conversation Sedgwick assured Henslow that he still retained his “good opinion” of Darwin himself (CCD, 10 May 1860, Henslow to Hooker. Letter 2794). 4. Darwin had already come to doubt the reliability of Chambers as an authority in scientific disputes after he read Chambers account of the Glen Roy Roads in Scotland. He wrote his misgivings in 1847 to Lyell (CCD, 7March [1847], to Lyell. Letter 1070).

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  179 Darwin also disputed Chambers’s published views on glaciation (CCD, 7 June [1853], to Lyell. Letter 1853). 5. [Robert Chambers], 1845, Explanations:  a sequel to “the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” London. Darwin records having read this book on February 6 1846 (CCD, v. 4, Reading Notebooks, 119.16a). An abstract is in DAR 205.9(2):215. 6. The full citation is J.J. D’Omailus d’Halloy, 1846, “Note sur la succession des etres vivants.” Bulletins de l’Academie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-​arts Bruxelles, tom. xiii: 581-​91. 7. The Elements first appeared in 1831 as, Elements de Geologie. Paris: F.G. Levrault. 8. I  can find no work written by Omalius in the Darwin library collections at CUL or Down House. Nor have I been able to locate any work by Omalius that shows annotations by Darwin. 9. C.F. Gaertner, Versuche und Beobachtungen ueber die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich. Stuttgart, 1849. Darwin’s annotations of this work cover more than 40 pages of the Marginalia (pp. 256–​98). The sole entry on Omalius appears on p. 297g, where Darwin noted “Omalius disputes vars [i.e., varieties] going back [i.e., reverting to original types].” 10. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1847, Vie, travaux et doctrine scientifique d’Étienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Paris: Bertrand. 11. See Appel (1987) for a comprehensive discussion of the debate. 12. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1859, Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques. Vol. 2. Paris: Librarie de Victor Masson. 13. J.J. D’Omailus d’Halloy, December 16 1850, “Quatrieme note sur les forces naturelles,” Bulletins de l’Academie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-​arts. Bruxelles XVII part 2: p. 498–​510. 14. The date is established by: 1) the fact that the next entries in the Notebooks are dated precisely as “February 23;” and 2) that late January to early February 1860 was when Darwin was working hardest on putting together his Historical Sketch for the first authorized US edition, sent to Asa Gray on February 8 1860. 15. Darwin had apparently read volume 1 of Isidore’s Histoire some years earlier than when he made his annotations. His Reading Notebooks show a date of July 27, 1854 as when he first read this volume, the same year it appeared in published form. In the Marginalia, Darwin explicitly claims “Feb 58” as the date of the “Abstract” of this volume. 16. Copies of Freke’s “review” of Darwin’s Origin of Species, full title given in the text, are extremely scarce. Darwin’s annotated copy has not yet been published online, but through the kind services of the special collections librarians at Cambridge University Library I  was able to acquire a photocopy of the document. Darwin’s “annotations” are minimal—​no written notes, just a few scored passages. This is the “circular” to which Darwin referred in the Sketch. 17. The date of publication is established by reference to the date assigned in the “Preface” of Freke’s work as “January 1861.” A more precise dating is given by Freke in his 1862 Appeal (p. 24) as January 1, 1861. 18. A small sample is the first sentence of Freke’s “Preface” to his Appeal of 1862: “It being my anxious desire to avoid, as far as possible, inconveniencing physiologists in the

180  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” perusal of the following statements, I have studied to obviate, to the utmost of my power, the necessity of perplexing them with long and numerous quotations” (Freke 1862, p. 2). 19. Darwin acquired most of his understanding of scientific method from John Herschel (1831) and William Whewell (1840), both of whom wrote influential books on the subject in the first half of the 19th century. Herschel in particular elaborated the important distinction between “induction” and “analogy,” and Darwin demonstrated understanding of it in his own writings. We cannot say Freke was equipped with comparable understanding. Other than using the terms, he does not explain them or indicate his source for learning about them. (See Ghiselin 1969; and Johnson 2014, ch. 4, for additional discussion). 20. Where Freke had placed his analysis of stages one and two in this process of development cannot be gleaned from reading this review essay, nor other works written before 1853; Freke gives no references or citations. 21. Henry Freke, 1862, An Appeal to Physiologists and the Press. Dublin:  Fannin and Company. 22. Freke’s 1862 Appeal says no more about his views of Darwin at this time than what is recorded in the cited passage. When we look further into the essay we find that Freke was in fact more concerned about a different author, [Thomas Field?] Savory, than he was about Darwin. Savory had published some reflections on physiology in 1861 (Lancet, June 15, 1861, p. 580), focusing especially on two questions: the creation of “muscular fibre” and the question of “the distinguishing features of life.” Freke was more concerned in establishing his priority over Savory than over Darwin. As far as Freke was concerned in 1862, Savory (otherwise unknown) was a more important figure than Darwin in the race to be “first.”

References Appel, Toby. 1987. The Cuvier-​Geoffroy Debate:  French Biology in the Decades before Darwin. New York: Oxford University Press. [Chambers, Robert]. 1844. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. London: J. Churchill. [6th edition 1847; 10th edition 1853] [Chambers, Robert]. 1845. Explanations: a Sequel to “The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” London. D’Omailus d’Halloy, J.J. 1831. Elements de Geologie. Paris: F.G. Levrault. D’Omailus d’Halloy, J.J. 1846:  “Note sur la succession des etres vivants.” Bulletins de l’Academie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-​arts Bruxelles, tom. xiii: 581–​91. D’Omailus d’Halloy, J.J. 1850. .“Quatrieme note sur les forces naturelles,” Bulletins de l’Academie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-​ arts Bruxelles XVII part 2: 498–​510. Freke, Henry. 1860. “Observations upon Mr. Darwin’s Recently Published Work:  ‘On the Origin of Species by Means Of Natural Selection.’ ” Dublin: printed for the author. (Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library). Freke, Henry. 1851. “On the Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity.” Dublin Medical Press, (27 August): 322.

Chambers, d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Freke  181 Freke, Henry. 1861. On the Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity. London, Dublin, and Edinburgh: Longman & Co. Freke, Henry. 1862. An Appeal to Physiologists and the Press. Dublin:  Fannin and Company. Gaertner, C.F. 1849. Versuche und Beobachtungen ueber die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich. Stuttgart. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1847. Vie, travaux et doctrine scientifique d’Étienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Paris: Bertrand. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1859. Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques. Vol. 2. Paris: Librarie de Victor Masson. Secord, James. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

8

Part I: Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review Richard Owen. 1804–​1892 No single author presented Darwin with a more difficult question about his priority in discovering natural selection than the British comparative anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen. Owen was arguably the most influential biologist in Great Britain in Darwin’s time. By some he was called the “British Cuvier” in the 1840s, supplanting as claimant to that title Robert Grant, the Scottish zoologist who had mentored Darwin at Edinburgh in the 1820s. Owen was a towering figure in the British scientific community, and Darwin wanted his approbation for what he believed to be his own theory of natural selection. Owen was among the first people to whom Darwin sent a copy of the first edition of Origin, asking Owen to read it carefully and without interruption, and with a forgiving eye because, without deep reflection, no reader could be expected to understand the theory the book contained. I have asked Mr Murray to send you a copy (as yet only an abstract) on the origin of species. I fear it will be abominable in your eyes, but I assure you that it the result of far more labour than is apparent on its face.—​If you honour me by reading it at all, I beg you read it straight through, otherwise from being much condensed it will be unintelligible. I fear that my meaning will not be clear to anyone, without a considerable amount of reflexion.—​Whether I be in the main part right, as I naturally think myself to be, or wholly wrong, the old saying of magna est veritas et prevalebit is a grand conclusion to all doubts. (CCD, 11 November [1859], to Owen. Letter 2515)

Darwin already betrayed uncertainty about how Owen would react to Origin, hoping perhaps against hope Owen would tilt in his favor. Owen responded immediately, assuring Darwin he would read Origin with an unbiased mind, and even suggested he was open to speculations about the origin of species. Indeed, Owen had long been “disposed to believe” in “the incoming” [i.e., origin] of new species according to some as yet unknown law-​ governed process, in contrast, for example, to the prevailing notion among many Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  183

Figure 8.1 Owen

naturalists of the time that new species are the product of direct, divine creation. Owen says that he has sometimes been rebuked for holding the opposite opinion, so that Darwin need not worry about his opinions being colored by theological prejudices (CCD, 12 November 1859, from Owen. Letter 2526). Unfortunately for Darwin, when Owen first commented in publication about Darwin’s theory of descent with modification he hardly showed “indebtedness.” Instead he was openly hostile ([Owen] 1860). Darwin understood immediately that the review was written by Owen, and he was caught off guard. In private meetings and correspondence prior to 1860 Owen had been nothing but polite and friendly to Darwin, as one sees from the November 12, 1859 letter just quoted, and he had done Darwin a great service in cataloguing and analyzing Darwin’s zoological specimens from the Beagle voyage. Darwin and Owen were friends in London from 1836, when Darwin returned from his voyage, to the mid-​1840s, after Darwin had moved to Down. Every early indication predicted a life-​long friendship and collaboration. But that was not to be. Owen viciously attacked Darwin’s Origin as soon as it appeared in 1859. Was his attack rooted in the belief that Owen thought he had anticipated Darwin? Darwin struggled to explain his views about Owen’s opinions at length in the Historical Sketch when it was added to Origin in 1861

184  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” (in the third English edition). He devoted more space in the Sketch, by a wide margin, to Owen’s views than to any other author. Darwin also made more changes to the Sketch’s several revised versions regarding Owen’s views than he allowed himself to do for the 34 other authors mentioned in it. By the final version of the Sketch, in 1872, Darwin had decided to leave Owen to stew in his own juices: Owen apparently wanted to claim priority, but he had so befuddled every other scientist of repute that it would be pointless to pin him down to any single position on the species question. He allowed Owen to stay in that final iteration of the Sketch, but in a much more attenuated form than in earlier versions and with a final verdict that simply said, in effect, no one really understands Owen.1 We should wonder, however, what Owen’s views were about descent with modification, and how, if at all, he may have shifted his opinions in light of the first publication in 1858 (Darwin and Wallace 1858)  of Darwin’s theory. We should also ask whether Owen had a legitimate claim to priority. He thought he did, and made clear to him in correspondence and other outlets that he was unfairly taking away the credit for a new theory that Owen wanted to claim, at least eventually, for himself. But that was not Owen’s initial position in 1860. It took him six years to realize that Darwin had caught the big fish, and at that point, in 1866, he began to assert his priority with vigor.2 The shift in attitude took almost everyone by surprise, not least Darwin himself. Darwin had written with confidence in 1859 that Owen was “vehemently opposed to transmutation,” and he had good reason for thinking so, in view of Owen’s prior writings with which Darwin was familiar. But Owen’s 1860 review of Darwin’s Origin in the Edinburgh Review forced Darwin to re-​evaluate. What ensued was a prolonged exchange between Owen and Darwin that reveals, when we peel off the layers of personal animus and willful misrepresentations, especially on Owen’s part, that the two men were talking past each other. They did not fundamentally disagree with each other about the fact of evolution, even though they thought they did. From 1859 to 1869 Owen and Darwin were engaged in a classic case of mutual misunderstanding that came to an end only in 1872 when Darwin, after finally penetrating what Owen was up to, put the controversy to rest in the final iteration of the Sketch, in which he made some last adjustments. When considered in full detail, we see that the disagreements between Owen and Darwin were mainly due to a failure by either man fully to comprehend what was at issue between them. In view of Owen’s hundreds of publications both prior to the appearance of Origin and after, Owen’s evolution in viewpoint is hard to follow. His perceived personality flaws—​especially arrogance and jealousy of scientific rivals—​no doubt have colored some opinions about his contributions to evolutionary theory. But if Owen had a legitimate claim to priority, it can only be revealed by a close examination of his writings before Darwin’s theory first appeared

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  185 in print—​1858 in the Linnaean—​and those that came after Origin was first published in 1859. When discussing priority, it is important to put special focus on published writings, because this was Owen’s criterion for assigning priority in scientific discoveries.3 Darwin accepted the same criterion, as he showed in the Sketch by arranging the 35 authors discussed therein in the chronological order of their first published contributions to the species question. Examining their respective comments over the years reveals their mutual misunderstanding about a proper resolution of this issue.

Owen’s Views on the Species Question Prior to Origin At the time Darwin was putting the final touches on the first edition of Origin in late 1859, he was already anticipating with some anxiety how the book would be received. From what we can tell from his private correspondence, Darwin was especially concerned about Owen’s reaction. Darwin was ambivalent. On one hand, Owen was known or believed to be, at least among naturalists, generally opposed to “progressive change” of species in nature. He had already, in the 1830s and 1840s, shown his oppositional colors in writings denouncing Lamarck and, more mutedly, the notorious Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844).4 Darwin was probably aware of Owen’s stand. But on the other hand, Owen had expressed an “open mind” to Darwin both in private conversation and in written letters. Darwin wrote to Lyell on December 10, 1859 that in a private meeting with Owen two days earlier in London, Owen had welcomed Darwin’s book, claiming that his was “the best explanation” of the species question ever to appear (CCD, [10 December 1859], to Lyell, letter 2575), and earlier, in written correspondence, had promised to “welcome your work” with an open mind (CCD, 12 November 1859, from Owen. Letter 2526). He claimed to have no prejudices against a new theory and promised to read the book in that spirit. He certainly assured Darwin that the subject Darwin was undertaking was the most worthwhile and important of what the best minds could offer. His written and spoken gestures to Darwin were cordial and reassuring: “For the application of your rare gifts to the solution of this supreme question I shall ever feel my very great indebtedness.” Indeed, Owen went so far as to suggest to Darwin that he himself had entertained transmutationist ideas for some time: “I am, and have been disposed to believe in the operation of existing influences or causes in the ‘ordained becoming and incoming of living species.’ ” He goes on to say that demonstrating the nature of “such continuously operating creative forces” can hardly be “heterodox” to my way of feeling (CCD, 12 November 1859, from Owen. Letter 2526). Owen confessed that he had himself been rebuked for his own views expressed in the “Paleontology”

186  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” entry in the eighth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1859, v. 17, p. 176). He quotes the relevant section in an enclosure to the letter he sent to Darwin (the enclosure has not been found), and explained to Darwin in the same letter: I am, and have been, disposed to believe in the operation of existing influences or causes in the “ordained becoming and incoming of living species.” No attempt, therefore, to demonstrate the nature of such continuously operative creating forces can be “heterodox,” in any way, to my feelings. I have, indeed, received grave rebukes from some Masters in Philosophy for publishing my present state of belief in such terms as the subjoined extract from “Palæontology,” in Encyclo. Brita. (CCD, 12 November 1859, from Owen. Letter 2526)5

Darwin must have taken some comfort from Owen’s letter. Whatever Darwin might argue in Origin, it seemed that Owen would be open to the new ideas and might even be an ally. Yet, the entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica to which Owen refers does not seem to match closely Owen’s words to Darwin. True, Owen does not dispute the possibility of transmutation. But neither does he affirm that transmutation occurs. Rather, what he seems to be saying is that scientists must exercise great caution in speculating about “causes of change” and above all avoid venturing down any path of explanation that is not firmly grounded in “observation,” the standard Owenian position. He suggests, moreover, that biologists who “speculate” about the incoming of new species without direct empirical evidence are going beyond acceptable scientific bounds. Since he had not yet read Origin, he could not be referring to Darwin’s magnum opus. Yet he had read the Darwin/​ Wallace contribution to the Linnaean Journal of 1858,6 in which the theory of natural selection is clearly set forth, and it was probably that contribution that Owen had in mind when he cautioned against unwarranted speculation. Here is the relevant section of the Encyclopedia entry: As to the successions, or coming to be, of new species, one might speculate on the possibility of a variety of auk being occasionally hatched with a somewhat longer winglet and a dwarfed stature,—​of such a variety better adapting itself to the changed climatal conditions than the old type,—​of such an origin, for example, of Alca torda;—​but to what purpose? Past experience of the chance aims of human fancy, unchecked and unguided by observed facts, shows how widely they have ever glanced away from the gold centre of truth. (CCD, 12 November 1859 from Owen, and n. 3. Letter 2526)7

Owen was clearly not on board with natural selection at this point. The whole idea was too speculative.

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  187 In a short article that appeared in the April 12, 1859 Proceedings of the Royal Institution (Owen 1859b), Owen makes two further points. The first is that paleontology proves the fact of extinction through geological time, though not the cause. Owen suspects that the cause must be “changing external conditions,” and that animals with smaller overall individual size—​bulk, to use his word—​are better able to adapt to a gradually shifting environmental landscape. But he says that he cannot prove this cause, only that it is the most likely suspect. The other point he has demonstrated through his investigations is the existence of the “beneficence and intelligence of the Creative power” and the “unity of the Creative Cause . . . the wisdom and power of that Cause which could produce so much variety, and at the same time such perfect adaptation and endowments, out of means so simple.” This “Cause,” he adds, “is an active and anticipating intelligence . . . which manifests His power in our times . . . and times long anterior to the records of our existence; a Great First Cause which is certainly not mechanical [but intelligent]” (Owen 1859a: 112, 115–​6). That Owen claimed a “Creative power” as important for understanding the creation and distribution of biological species across the globe must be emphasized, for it figures prominently in the disagreements between Darwin and Owen. Among 19th-​century naturalists, speculations about origins were often seen to separate scientists into “special divine creationists” and “evolutionists.”8 This certainly was Huxley’s view, and no doubt many others’. Ospovat (1978, 33–​56) was correct in finding this simple dichotomy flawed, and the one he substituted for it, those scientists who were teleologists (and found plan and purpose in nature’s productions) and those who attributed natural life forms to “natural causes and secondary laws” is a more accurate description from our modern vantage point. But Huxley’s view, which appeared without the benefit of historical hindsight, captures better how naturalists of his day saw the issue. When Darwin read Owen’s works, he was often trying to discern which camp Owen belonged to in terms of Huxley’s schema: a creationist or an evolutionist. As we shall see, Owen did not make this task easy. From the four sources mentioned earlier—​the “Paleontology” entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1859, the short article that appeared in the April 12, 1859, Proceedings of the Royal Institution, the 1859  “Lecture” at the University of Cambridge, and the 1860 book Paleontology—​we can make out Owen’s position before he had read Origin with some precision. It can be compressed into three broad claims: 1) the paleontological record demonstrates the fact of extinction, though not the cause, but the likelihood is changing external conditions favored smaller (in bulk or size of individuals) over larger size, because on land at least the larger animals are the ones that have gone extinct; 2) nothing can profitably be said about the incoming of new species without unwarranted speculation, and Darwinian transmutation is implicitly rejected because of a lack of proof; 3) Owen demonstrated

188  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” the “beneficence and intelligence of the Creative power” and the “unity of the Creative Cause  .  .  .  the wisdom and power of that Cause which could produce so much variety, and at the same time such perfect adaptation and endowments, out of means so simple.” He analogizes from human artifacts and contrivances to show intelligence and foresight in the creation of natural organisms, evidenced by their perfect adaptations of assigned or desired purpose, but with infinitely greater complexity and perfection. The “Cause is an active and anticipating intelligence . . . which manifests His power in our times . . . and times long anterior to the records of our existence; a Great First Cause [throughout time] which is certainly not mechanical [but intelligent]” (Owen 1859a: 112, 115–​6). For anyone reading these sources, a natural inference would be that Owen was some sort of special creationist.9 He may not have believed in direct, daily intervention by a deity in nature’s productions, but he does not highlight at all what he was telling Darwin privately—​that he was open to “natural” transmutation governed by “natural laws and causes.” The closest he comes to affirming a “law of change” in nature is with regard to extinction, not “the incoming of new beings.” True, a “law-​governed creation of new species” may play the deciding role, but evidence is lacking for adequate demonstration of what that law is. If Darwin had read or heard of any of these sources before he finished Origin (although it is not clear that he had prior to 1860), he should be forgiven for assuming Owen was against natural mutability of species. And that is in fact the inference Darwin drew and made explicit in the first edition of Origin. Although he wrote to Lyell in early December 1859 that he held out some hope for Owen’s endorsement (CCD [3 December 1859], to Lyell, letter 2567), he was already suspicious that Owen’s private attitude was against him, even before he read Owen’s Encyclopedia entry or the Edinburgh Journal review (April 1860). Just a week later, in another letter to Lyell that he begged would remain confidential, Darwin expressed concern about Owen’s actual opinion. He again noted Owen’s personal cordiality, but doubted his sincerity. The letter is more revealing about Darwin’s state of mind about Owen in late 1859 than anything else he ever wrote. It also shows the impenetrability of Owen’s inner character. Darwin took Owen, from his words, to be civil and encouraging, but his body language revealed a different reality: I have very long interview with Owen, which perhaps you would like to hear about, but please repeat nothing. Under garb of great civility, he was inclined to be most bitter & sneering against me. Yet I infer from several expressions, that at bottom he goes immense way with us.—​He said to effect that my explanation was best ever published of manner of formation of species. I said I was very glad to hear it. He took me up short, “you must not at all suppose that I agree with in

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  189 all respects.”—​I said I thought it no more likely that I shd be right on nearly all points, than that I shd toss up a penny & get heads twenty times running. I asked him which he thought the weakest parts,—​he said he had no particular objection to any part.—​He added in most sneering tone if I  must criticise I shd say “we do not want to know what Darwin believes & is convinced of, but what he can prove.”—​I agreed most fully & truly that I have probably greatly sinned in this line, & defended my general line of argument of inventing a theory, & seeing how many classes of facts the theory would explain.—​I added that I would endeavour to modify the “believes” & “convinces.” He took me up short,—​“You will then spoil your book, the charm of it (!) it is that it is Darwin himself.”—​He added another objection that the book was too “teres atque rotundus,”—​that it explained everything & that it was improbable in highest degree that I shd succeed in this.” I quite agree with this rather queer objection, & it comes to this that my book must be very bad or very good.—​Lastly I thanked him for Bear & Whale criticism, & said I had struck it out.—​“Oh have you, well I was more struck with this than any other passage; you little know of the remarkable & essential relationship between bears & whales.”—​ I am to send him the reference, & by Jove I believe he thinks a sort of Bear was the grandpapa of Whales! I do not know whether I have wearied you with these details which do not repeat to any one.—​We parted with high terms of consideration; which on reflexion I am almost sorry for.—​He is the most astounding creature I  ever encountered. (CCD, [10 December  1859], to Lyell. Letter 2575)

Owen’s private assurances to Darwin were thus at best ambiguous and at worst signaled a negative reception. As Darwin wrote to Wallace in late 1859: Owen, I do not doubt, will bitterly oppose us; but I regard this very little; as he is a poor reasoner & deeply considers the good opinion of the world, especially the aristocratic world. (CCD, 9 August 1859, to Wallace. Letter 2480)10

Darwin predicted correctly. He made much the same comment to Lyell three months later, just days after Origin first appeared (CCD, [3 December  1859], to Lyell. Letter 2567). Owen was one of the first people to read the first edition of Origin and also one of the first to publish a review. And Darwin had his suspicions about why Owen would react negatively. It would not be from genuine disagreement with the theory, but from jealousy: Upon my life I am sorry for Owen; he will be so d-​-​-​savage; for credit given to any other man, I strongly suspect is in his eyes so much credit robbed from

190  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” him. Science is so narrow a field, it is clear there ought to be only one cock of the walk. I could hardly sleep for thinking of the wonderful fact. (CCD, 28 December [1859], to T.H. Huxley. Letter 2610)

Obvious suspicions of jealousy are here betrayed, not by Darwin of Owen but the other way around. This is certainly a big part of the story. It is not altogether surprising that Darwin expected a negative review from Owen. In a letter Darwin sent to Owen in December 1859, he had this to say: You made a remark in our conversation something to the effect that my book could not probably be true as it attempted to explain so much.—​I can only answer that this might be objected to any view embracing two or three classes of facts.—​Yet I assure you that its truth has often weighed heavily on me; & I have thought that perhaps my book might be a case like Macleay’s Quinarian system. So strongly did I feel this, that I resolved to give it all up, as far as I could, if I did not convince at least 2 or 3 competent judges.—​ You smiled at me for sticking myself up as a martyr; but I assure you, if you had heard the unmerciful & I think unjust things said of my Book & to me in a letter by an old & very distinguished friend [i.e., Adam Sedgwick; CCD 24 November 1859, from Sedgwick], you would not wonder at me being sensitive, perhaps ridiculously sensitive. Forgive these remarks: I shd be a dolt not to value your scientific opinion very highly. If my views are in the main correct, whatever value they may possess in pushing on science will now depend very little on me, but on the verdict pronounced by men eminent in science. (CCD, 13 December [1859], to Owen. Letter 2580)

A few months s later Owen’s review of Origin appeared in the Edinburgh Review. It was, as Darwin might have predicted, mainly negative. It was also unusually mean-​spirited, even by Owen’s standards. What had Darwin written that provoked this reaction? Was it something perhaps that Darwin had written about Owen’s views? Owen may have found much to object to in Origin even apart from anything Darwin said about him. But Owen’s review suggested he found personal insult in how Darwin represented his beliefs. We should examine more closely the basis of Darwin’s opinions about Owen’s opinions prior to the appearance of Owen’s review of Origin in 1860.

Sources of Darwin’s Opinions about Owen’s Pre-​1859 Views Why might Darwin have believed Owen was opposed altogether to mutability of species in 1859? And why did Owen beg to differ? To get to an answer we

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  191 need to look to Owen’s pre-​1859 works with which Darwin was familiar and that may have brought him to the conclusion that Owen was opposed to any notion of transmutation. We must tread carefully. Darwin’s sources apparently did not include the three works by Owen written in late 1859 mentioned earlier and could not have included the 1860 Paleontology book or the Edinburgh Review essay because both appeared after Origin was published. We need to know what Darwin believed about Owen’s views and where he got these beliefs on transmutation and immutability prior to these two works. In the Edinburgh Review essay especially, Darwin learned a great deal more about Owen’s views (thanks in part to Owen’s many references in the review to his prior works) than he knew in 1859. Why, in other words, did Darwin believe that Owen was a “vehement maintainer” of immutability when he composed the first edition of Origin in 1859? One source for Darwin’s view may have been private conversations Darwin had with Owen after he returned from the Beagle voyage. He had solicited Owen’s help in sorting out the precise identities and classification of a number of mammalian fossil remains he had brought back with him, mainly from South America. A partial record of these conversations is preserved in some letters between Darwin and other research collaborators in which Owen’s findings are briefly reported and also in Darwin’s record of the Beagle voyage. The most we can make out from these shavings is that the question of transmutation seems to have come up on occasion. This is not surprising: the question was “in the air.” The general impression generated from Darwin’s conversations with Owen and with other naturalists was that Owen was opposed to transmutation (e.g., CCD, [10 December 1859], to Lyell. Letter 2575). But as to Owen’s position on the question, it seems that, if anything, Owen in the 1830s and early 1840s was confirming Darwin’s earliest suspicions that species had evolved from earlier forms. This is best seen in Darwin’s description in Journal of Researches (now known as The Voyage of the Beagle) of living and fossil forms that he had discovered in South America. Darwin had puzzled over how large (now extinct) quadrupeds in the hostile territory of Patagonia could have ever survived at all. Owen examined the remains and found them to form a continuous series with the still-​living llama or guanaco, though they had attained a much larger physical size. In other words, the living specimens were physically smaller than fossil remains of allied species. This discovery led Darwin to one of his most important theoretical conclusions in the Journal: The most important result of this discovery, is the confirmation of the law that existing animals have a close relation in form to extinct species. . . . Th[is] law of the succession of types, although subject to some remarkable exceptions, must possess the highest interest to every philosophical naturalist, and was first

192  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” clearly observed in regard to Australia, where fossil remains of a large and extinct species of Kangaroo and other marsupial animals were discovered buried in a cave. (Journal of Researches, 1845 [1989], pp. 162–​3)

This discovery—​and Darwin’s coinage of the term “law of succession of types” to describe it—​bears on two questions that were pivotal in the evolution of Darwin’s thinking: the gradual appearance of new species replacing earlier allied forms; and extinction. Owen’s examination of Darwin’s Beagle specimens would only have spurred along Darwin’s growing suspicion that species in fact did “evolve” through geological time (Brinkman 2010). If Darwin did think Owen was open to transmutation of species prior to 1845, his view changed. Darwin wrote to Hooker in September of that year that he now firmly believes Owen is “vehemently opposed” to mutability: I was, however, pleased to hear from Owen (who is vehemently opposed to any mutability in species) that he thought it was a very fair subject & that there was a mass of facts to be brought to bear on the question, not hitherto collected. My only comfort is, (as I mean to attempt the subject) that I have dabbled in several branches of Nat. Hist: & seen good specific men work out my species & know something of geology; (an indispensable union) & though I shall get more kicks than half-​pennies, I will, life serving, attempt my work. (CCD, [10 September 1845], to Hooker. Letter 915)

This is the first written indication I have been able to trace of Darwin explicitly stating his opinion that Owen was anti-​transmutationist. The word “vehemently” reminds us of his use of the same word in the first edition of Origin cited earlier in reference to Owen’s opinion. It seems that Darwin carried over his 1845 belief about Owen’s “vehement objection” all the way down through 1859 when he included the same expression in Origin. But, where did Darwin acquire this belief? He does not cite a reference in his letter to Hooker. It may have come in private conversation. But it also may have come from something Darwin had read in the early-​to mid-​1840s. In view of the date of the letter, September 10, 1845, we should look with special care at Owen’s publications prior to that date. Rupke (1989) suggests that Owen, in the aftermath of the Cuvier-​Geoffroy dispute in the 1820s over transmutation, was decidedly Cuverian—​that is, a special creationist and thus opposed to transmutation, and that this fact would have been well-​known in the British scientific community of the 1830s. He draws special attention to Owen’s 1841  “Report” to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in which Owen “publicly and unambiguously” stated his belief in special creation (Rupke 1994, p. 142). Rupke may have overstated the case: Owen does not exactly affirm a belief in “special divine creationism.” He

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  193 says only that organic characters could not be the result of gradual transmutation but rather “were originally impressed on [organic beings] at their creation” (142–​3). The specific statement to which Rupke refers is more easily interpreted as a statement against progressive development rather than a statement in favor of special divine creation. But Rupke’s inference is fair, in the sense that anyone who read the 1841 report and who was attuned to the controversy would likely have drawn the same inference: Owen, as explicitly anti-​transmutationist, must have been a special creationist. It is far from clear, however, that Darwin read or even knew of Owen’s 1841 report; it does not appear in Darwin’s Reading Notebooks or in the Marginalia. Nor is it mentioned in any version of Origin (Historical Sketch included) or in the extensive correspondence surrounding the priority question in the late 1850s and 1860s. Wherever Darwin got his opinion in 1859 that Owen was “vehemently opposed to transmutation, it was not directly from this report.11 Owen did write a book-​length treatment of the subject History of British fossil Mammals, 1846 (see also Richard Owen, 1846, “On the Geographical Distribution of Extinct Mammals,” Athenaeum 14 (February): 178–​9, for a brief suggestion of the same view), which Darwin read in May 1846, but that volume does not show Owen to be anti-​transmutation—​by then he had come to downplay that position (Rupke 1994, pp. 143–​4). He goes only so far as to affirm that a “law of geographical distribution” may exist, but the available evidence is insufficient to support it (pp. xxxvii–​xliv). In any case Darwin’s reading of Owen’s History of British Fossil Mammals would not have influenced anything he wrote to Hooker on the subject in 1845, as these publications appeared later than Darwin’s letter to Hooker.12 Perhaps his opinion about Owen’s views came from a different source, one closer in time to Darwin’s 1845 letter to Hooker. A possible source is Owen’s report to the 14th annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1844, published just before that letter. The chronological proximity between Darwin’s letter and Owen’s report raises the suspicion that it was Owen’s recent publication more than personal conversations that brought Darwin to his firm conviction that Owen was “vehemently opposed” to transmutation. What had Owen written in 1844 that may have brought Darwin to this conclusion? I quote the relevant sections of Owen 1844 in full: Since therefore the Mammalia fossils of the pliocene, post-​pliocene, or diluvial period are already shown to be widely distributed over Australia, and appear, from the numerous specimens obtained, by three or four collectors within a few years, to be as abundant in the superficial deposits and caves of Australia as are the analogous fossil remains of the corresponding formations and caves of Europe, we may soon hope to be in possession of a body of evidence which

194  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” will establish the law of geographical distribution of extinct Mammalia, as satisfactorily in regard to Australia as it seems now capable of being determined in regard to the larger continents of the globe. (p. 236) I am however far from assuming that our present observations are sufficiently extensive to have established the law of the geographical distribution of the Mammalia of the pliocene and post-​pliocene periods; to speak of the sum of such observations as a “law” may perhaps be deemed premature. But the generalizations enunciated in the present Report appear to be sufficiently extensive and unexceptionable to render them of importance in a scientific consideration of the present distribution of the highest organized and last-​created class of animals; and to show that, with extinct as with existing Mammalia, particular forms were assigned to particular provinces, and, what is still more interesting and suggestive, that the same forms were restricted to the same provinces at a former geological period as they are at the present day. (p. 240; Owen repeated the last sentence in his 13 April 1859 Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, v. 3, p. 109)

It is hard to say whether Darwin knew of or had read this report or Owen’s April 1859 Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (v. 3, p. 109) prior to November 1859, but he seems to be referring to one or the other of them in a letter he wrote to Lyell in December of that year: Why I gave in some detail references to my own work is that Owen (not the first occasion with respect to myself & others) quietly ignores my having ever generalised on the subject [of geographical distribution] & makes great fuss on more than one occasion at having discovered the law of succession.13 In fact this law with the Galapagos Distribution first turned my mind on origin of species.—​ My own references, are diag Large 8vo Edit 1839 Murrays Edit. 1845. (CCD, 27 [December 1859], to Lyell. Letter 2608)14

The editors of the CCD claim that this statement is in reference to Owen 1844 quoted earlier. No firm evidence for that claim is given, but it has some plausibility, as I shall explain. Whether that is the case or not, however, we cannot glean insight from anything Darwin wrote to Lyell or anyone else about how he came upon Owen’s Report. Assuming Owen 1844 was Darwin’s source, though, we can draw some interesting inferences about Darwin’s understanding of Owen’s position in 1859 from Darwin’s letter to Lyell. The first is that by 1844 Owen was open to the idea that “law,” and not direct, divine intervention, could explain the distribution of species across the globe, both in past and present times. At this point Owen was reluctant to say what the

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  195 “law” or “laws” are, but he has moved beyond a traditional theological view that the immediate hand of the Creator is to be seen in all of nature’s productions and arrangements. By 1859, Owen was even more convinced that these phenomena were “law governed,” to the point that he could confidently affirm its existence on several occasions in that year and in 1860; “extinction” could be affirmed as true in geological time, while incoming of new species was no doubt “law-​governed,” but any claim about the “nature of that law” was still premature.15 A second inference that could be drawn by Darwin from Owen’s 1844 Report, if he had indeed read it by 1845, is indirect:  Darwin’s opinion in 1845 that Lamarck was the “only” naturalist with sufficient scientific credentials to dispute immutability and that he had made a credible case with his empirical evidence: Lamarck is the only exception, that I can think of, of an accurate describer of species at least in the Invertebrate kingdom, who has disbelieved in permanent species, but he in his absurd though clever work has done the subject harm, as has Mr Vestiges, and, as (some future loose naturalist attempting the same speculations will perhaps say) has Mr D. (CCD, [10 September 1845], to Hooker. Letter 915)

Owen was certainly an accurate describer of species (with a few exceptions), but he is not mentioned as a “disbeliever in permanent species.” Only Lamarck and the author of Vestiges can lay claim to that distinction, even though with faint praise. And since they are both juxtaposed in Darwin’s letter to Owen’s presumed position, by a process of elimination we may infer that Darwin seems to be affirming his opinion that Owen was opposed to transmutationism, at least of the Lamarckian and Vestiginarian varieties, and by presumption, of any variety. Thus, at the time Darwin published the first edition of Origin in November 1859, sans Sketch, he had at least some evidence for believing Owen to be anti-​ transmutation, even if not a “direct, divine creationist,” although often the former view entailed the latter for professional naturalists as well as an educated public (see Owen’s reaction to his rather benign statements in his “Paleontology” entry for the Encyclopedia Britannica, cited earlier). And Darwin made clear in Origin that this was his view: Owen “vehemently opposed transmutation.” Darwin’s opinion had not changed materially by the time he wrote the first English version of the Historical Sketch in April, 1861. By this time, he had read a newer work by Owen, the 1849 Nature of Limbs. Darwin noticed this work in the Sketch; in fact, it is the first work written by Owen of which Darwin makes any mention. The appearance of the Sketch opens a new chapter in the Owen-​Darwin dispute over priority, requiring separate treatment, as detailed in the following chapter. In sum, by the time Darwin wrote the first edition of Origin, he had good reason for supposing Owen was “vehemently opposed to transmutation.” He

196  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” may have heard Owen affirm that position in private conversations between 1836 and 1844, although that surmise cannot be established with certainty. He had certainly heard other naturalists report that this was Owen’s view, as he told Lyell in December 1859. He may have read scientific reports written by Owen that appeared in 1841, 1844, and 1858–​1859, and he did read Owen’s 1849 Nature of Limbs in 1850. In all of these works Owen invoked expressions that strongly suggested not only could he not support transmutation but he actually believed in special divine creation, however understood. No one who knew of Owen’s writings would have faulted Darwin for believing what he did about Owen’s position. It was only after Origin first appeared and Owen wrote his critical review in 1860 that Darwin would have any reason for coming to a different conclusion.

Owen in Origin Darwin made reference to Owen’s works and opinions 14 times in the first edition of Origin. Most of these are non-​controversial statements about several of Owen’s anatomical and paleontological empirical findings that tended to provide small bits of evidence in favor of Darwin’s theory. Owen did not situate the statements within philosophical systems, and neither did Darwin. Neither man even referred to Owen’s comments about geographical distribution as a “law.” That particular priority dispute between them played out in other places.16 Owen, it seemed to Darwin in 1859, had “vehemently maintained” immutability, just as he had remarked to Hooker, in the same words, in 1845 (see page XXX). Owen spelled out his displeasure in harsh terms in his 1860 review of Origin. How Darwin came to believe as late as 1859 that Owen was “vehemently” opposed to transmutation is a complicated story, as documented here.17 Debates about transmutation were commonplace in the late 1830s through mid-​1840s in Britain, and Owen was deeply engaged in these disputes. He had published his own negative opinions especially regarding the transmutationist works of R.E. Grant and Robert Chambers, both of whom were in turn influenced by the French zoologist J.B. Lamarck’s notorious hypothesis of “serial continuity.” Darwin may well have been aware of these controversies, and if so, would have learned that Owen was in fierce opposition to serial transformation, maybe from Owen himself, at this time. But we have little direct evidence that Darwin was well acquainted with Owen’s views at this early time. He was familiar with Lamarck’s theories (from several encounters, including from Grant himself), and also knew of Vestiges not long after it first appeared in 1844. But Owen and Darwin did not exchange written correspondence about Owen’s role in the anti-​ Lamarckian campaign in the 1830s and 1840s, so it cannot be shown that he acquired his beliefs about Owen’s position on the species question from Owen

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  197 himself. And, in any case, Darwin had no serious run-​ins with Owen over the question prior to 1860.18 And, in fact, Owen’s hostile review seems somewhat odd in light of what Owen himself was saying to other people about Darwin’s book after it first appeared and after he had written his nasty review. In 1861 Owen was compiling a collection of John Hunter’s earlier essays for publication. Hunter himself had, much earlier, already referred to the “natural gradation” of species, giving examples from domesticated species (Hunter, Owen ed., 1861, v.1: 37, n. 219). Owen supplied a note to these passages (Hunter 1861, v.1: 37, n. 2), writing, ‘The best attempt to answer this supreme question in zoology has been made by Charles Darwin in his work entitled “On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,” &c. 8vo, 1859.” This scarcely sounds like the same man who had a year earlier excoriated Darwin’s Origin in print.20 (Darwin’s copy of Hunter 1861 is in the Darwin Library–​CUL [CCD, 10 December 1859, n. 4 to letter to Owen. Letter 2576]). Most mentions of Owen in Origin, apart from the Sketch, are short references to his findings and conclusions about anatomical and physiological traits of biological organisms. For the most part Owen in these cited passages stays away from speculations about transmutation in any of its several versions prior to Darwin’s 1859 book. Thus, Darwin reports on Owen’s views about the teeth of living horses in La Plata being similar to those of extinct species (Origin, Variorum [henceforth Variorum], p. 528, line 58); and more generally about similarities of numerous fossil remains to existing species living in the same geographical area (e.g., marsupial fossil remains resemble their living descendants—​exemplifying the so-​called “law of succession of types”: Variorum, p. 554 lines 213–​6); about parts of some animals developed to an “extraordinary degree” (e.g., the length of arms of the orang-​outang) tending to be “highly variable” (Variorum, p. 298, line 149); about a few notable homologies, such as of swim-​bladders in some fish and vertebrate lungs (Variorum, p. 347–​8, lines 151, 157c); about the importance of “reproductive organs” compared to general morphology in identifying closely related species (Variorum, p. 650 line 33); and about the futility of using “final causes” (i.e., use or function of parts) for identifying similarity of species (Variorum, p. 677, lines 199–​201). Some of these “observations” have theoretical implications for a “philosophy of biology.” For example, Owen’s rejection of “final causes” (or functional utility) as an adequate basis for identifying and separating closely allied species seems to be an implicit rejection of Cuvier’s famed “conditions of existence” criterion for making these discriminations. The “law of succession of types” seems perhaps a nod in support of the “Archtype” or “Bauplan” of the European Naturphilosophie school of thought, or more likely a reference to Owen’s earlier promotion of the “law of geographical distribution” (see n. 16). Owen’s reliance on “reproductive organs” as of crucial value in species identification seems to invoke implicitly the

198  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Linnaean system of classification. These philosophical positions, however, are only hinted at in the passages cited by Darwin and not spelled out in any detail or with any systematic defense. They are, as Owen would say, strictly “observations,” not “speculations,” let alone affirmations of philosophical systems. But Owen paid slight notice to these several references in his review of Origin. Instead, he seems to have paid special notice to a single assertion by Darwin that he thought was personally insulting: Darwin’s inclusion of Owen among a group of “eminent paleontologists and geologists” who deny species mutability. Darwin noted this objection explicitly in his letter to Lyell of December 10, 1859: He was quite savage & crimson at my having put his name with defenders of immutability. When I said that was my impression & that of others, for several had remarked to me, that he would be dead against me: he then spoke of his own position in science & that of all the naturalists in London, “with your Huxleys”, with a degree of arrogance I never saw approached. (CCD, [10 December 1859], to Lyell. Letter 2575)

This particular comment regarding Darwin’s private opinion about Owen is revealing. The dispute was not about scientific priority as much as personal jealousy. What else could a “savage and crimson face” mean? Nevertheless, Darwin promptly removed Owen’s name from his list of renowned scientists who, Darwin claimed were “vehemently opposed” to transmutation, in the 1861 edition, and then removed some other names in the next edition, in 1866 (Variorum, p.  519, lines 244–​244b–​c), in seeming acknowledgment that he no longer believed Owen was “vehemently opposed” to transmutationism. To appreciate Owen’s visceral reaction to Darwin’s assertion about his views in Origin we should quote the passage in entirety. It comes at the end of Chapter Nine on the imperfection of the geological record. Referring to difficulties posed for his theory by this imperfection, Darwin wrote: We see this [difficulty] in the plainest manner by the fact that all the most eminent paleontologists, namely Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchinson, Sedgwick, &c., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species. But I have reason to believe that one great authority, Sir Charles Lyell, from further reflection entertains grave doubts on this subject. (Variorum, p. 519, line 244)

Darwin got into trouble with Owen for including his name in this list of eminences who opposed transmutation. The other references to Owen in

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  199 Darwin’s Origin did not come under Owen’s critical glare when he wrote his review of Origin for the Edinburgh Review in 1860. Nor did he seem to notice that, by affirming intermediate “links” in the fossil record and “succession of types” he was giving Darwin important evidence in support of transmutation (Variorum, pp. 539–​40, lines 136–​7). He did not even complain that Darwin had failed to notice that Owen had much earlier affirmed the possibility of a “law of succession,” what he called “law of geographical distribution,” as we have seen. What got under Owen’s skin was his inclusion in a list of scientists who opposed transmutation of species.

Owen’s 1860 Review of Origin Owen read Origin of Species soon after it first appeared in November 1859 and was commissioned by the Edinburgh Journal to write the review that appeared in April 1860. The fact that it was published anonymously is in itself not too surprising; anonymous reviews of new scientific contributions were not uncommon in that age. But because the review made no disguise of the author’s extreme disdain for the book, its being published anonymously only increased Darwin’s negative reaction. He could have little doubt the author was Owen. At that point he realized Owen’s earlier friendly gestures toward Darwin must have been insincere and hypocritical. From a structural point of view, Owen’s review follows conventional lines. He opens with a few polite comments about Darwin’s earlier works, particularly the Journal of Researches and the meticulously empirical eight-​year study Darwin undertook on barnacles. He then turns to his high expectations for Origin and his subsequent disappointment at its lack of solid empirical foundation—​with the exception of a few original observations on social insects and geographical distribution of species through hitherto unrecognized means of transport of seeds and animalcules. (Darwin referred to these morsels as “small praise.”) This polite gesture is followed by a brief review of other transmutationist theories—​those of Lamarck, Vestiges, Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire (unnamed), and Buffon, faulting all of them alongside Darwin as being deficient in empirical proof and faulting Darwin for failing to acknowledge their anticipation of his theory. The review concludes with some self-​promotion (not uncommon in Owen’s writings) about his own speculations about “possible” modes of transmutation (thus admitting the possibility of species transformation), but not committing himself to any particular version.21 Here he seems to be faulting Darwin for overlooking or ignoring previous works by “the leading naturalists” of the time, in particular Owen himself. The final sentence, somewhat incongruously, is a quote from Linnaeus: “classis et ordo est sapientiae, species naturae

200  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” opus.” In other words, while human wisdom identifies classes and orders of biological organisms, species are the work of nature, not of arbitrary human classifications. Not nominalism but essentialism is the way of nature. This sentiment speaks against transmutation.22 When we probe the review more deeply, however, a different logic emerges—​ or rather, a lack of any discernable logic in terms of argument development. Owen instead is chafing at Darwin’s perceived deficiencies on three separate scores and launches volleys against them sporadically and haphazardly. What is clear in all of them is that Owen holds a personal animus against Darwin and Darwinism, and this, more than academic or scholarly concerns, is the real driving force behind the entire review. The first is that Darwin’s work is “speculative” and lacks adequate empirical grounding. He forces us to make leaps of faith without the evidential foundation necessary for supporting shaky assumptions and even more dubious conclusions. Second, and related, Darwin confuses two entirely different questions: whether “law” governs the unfolding of biological organisms through time (Owen agrees with Darwin that they do), and what the nature of that law is (Owen claims no sufficient evidence exists, whereas Darwin advances “natural selection” as the governing law). And finally, Darwin misrepresents Owen’s own opinions about the species question and overlooks or ignores Owen’s true opinions. Owen took this as a personal slight. Of these three criticisms, the first, that Darwin’s work was “too speculative” and not supported with adequate empirical evidence, was a common criticism in the 19th century by “factual writers” of new scientific works that ventured too far into the realm of what Lamarck called “philosophical zoology.” Factual writers were those whose writings may be called mainly descriptive, mere reporting, often accompanied by illustrations, of what is actually observed in individual specimens and the taxa to which they belong—​species, genera, and so on. Cuvier was a pioneer in this sort of descriptive analysis and cautiously avoided speculating about deeper questions about how species arose in the first place. Among this group it was fair to pose philosophical questions about the origin of species, but not fair to affirm anything in a positive sense about answers to these questions, or at most to suggest possible mechanisms of organic change, but without taking a firm stance. Owen belonged to this group. If, for example, no observations had ever been made of one species transmuting into another, no conclusion about mechanism was allowed. A common refuge from such uncertainty was to attribute the creation of new species to God or to a personified “Nature.” Darwin’s first sin was to presume to say what the mechanism of organic change is—​natural selection. For Owen, that was mere surmise that exceeded

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  201 the available evidence. He asserted (unfairly) in fact, that apart from two or three original observations (none of which confirmed natural selection), Darwin’s work contained almost no empirical evidence in support of his theory. On the contrary for Owen, all the available evidence showed that no transmutation of species has ever been observed in the history of the world, and all the greatest scientific minds (including his own) had found nothing but continuation of forms. He invoked the usual examples—​e.g., the mummified cats from Egyptian tombs dating back some 3,000–​5,000 years—​and some new ones that were even more definitive—​coral reefs studied by the great Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz that had exhibited continuity of species form over at least 30,000 years. And, to make matters worse, none of the hypothesized intermediate forms that supposedly connected different species were anywhere to be found, not on the earth today or even in the deepest geological strata among fossil remains. Darwin was, of course, nonplussed by these objections. Speciation events do not happen in real human time, that is, during the lifetime of individual humans, or even in recorded human history. His theory, as he often said, required millions upon millions of years to take place, and even if a speciation event were occurring before our own eyes, it would be taking place so slowly as to be unperceivable by the limited agency of human observation. As to the “missing links” between well-​defined separate species, Darwin had recourse to the Lyellian principle of the imperfection of the geological record and to the predictable disappearance of transitional types as being, by definition, unstable and short-​lasting. To Owen, Darwin’s responses were just so much more “fanciful speculation.” Owen’s second and third criticisms—​that Darwin illicitly jumped from the agreeable principle that “laws govern natural processes” to an assertion about the nature of those laws, and that Darwin misrepresented Owen’s views, can be treated as one. To Owen they were simply different facets of the same issue. Owen supposed that he did not make the first mistake (while Darwin did); and further believed that Darwin mistook Owen’s sober philosophical caution for a position he in fact did not hold, namely, that he was a “special creationist.” Owen, according to Owen, had been a “transmutationist” for years—​at least since 1849—​but had the good sense, unlike Darwin, to decline to identify any particular mechanism of change as the correct mechanism. In fact, Owen held, he had identified at least six possible mechanisms (most discovered, he believed, by himself), and rated the Wallace-​Darwin mechanism as the least likely of all of them. Beyond these criticisms, Owen also faulted Darwin for failing to fulfill the promise he set out at the very beginning of Origin. Darwin opened Origin with the claim that his observations during the Beagle voyage about “geological distribution,” especially the distribution of Galapagos species resembling South

202  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” American counterparts was the first real catalyst that got him thinking about the possibility of transmutation. These are the classic opening words of Origin: When on board the H.M.S. “Beagle,” as naturalist, I  was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and the geological relations of the present and the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species—​that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers.” (Origin, 1)23

When Owen wrote his 1860 review of Origin for the Edinburgh Review he claimed that these words written by Darwin promised more than the book delivered, to his great disappointment. After opening the review with bits of small praise for a few of Darwin’s original observations, he then cited the first sentence, just quoted, and continued: What is there, we asked ourselves, as we closed the volume to ponder on this paragraph,—​what can there possibly be in the inhabitants . . . of South America, or in their distribution on that continent, to suggest to any mind that man might be a transmutated ape, or to throw any light on the origin of man or other species? . . . Perhaps what was meant might be, that the distribution and geological relations of organised beings general in South America, had suggested transmutational views. They have commonly suggested ideas as to the independent origin of such localized kinds of plants and animals. But what the “certain facts” were, and what may be the nature of the light which they throw upon the mysterious beginning of species, is not mentioned or further alluded to in the present work. (Edinburgh Review, p. 496)24

Statements like this, which fill Owen’s review, betray a shocking lack of understanding of Darwin’s work. The “nature of the light” is the very “one long argument” that Darwin set out over nearly 500 pages. Perhaps to correct that impression, Owen moved on to a different sort of criticism, not that Darwin had “shed no light,” but that the light he did shed was dim and hazy: The origin of species is the question of questions in Zoology; the supreme problem which the most tireless original labourers, the clearest zoological thinkers, and the most successful generalizers, have never lost sight of, whilst they have approached it with due reverence. We have a right to expect that the mind proposing to treat of, and assuming to have solved, the problem, should show its equality to the task. The signs of such intellectual power we look for in clearness of expression, and in the absence of all ambiguous or

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  203 unmeaning terms. Now, the present work is occupied by arguments, beliefs, and speculations on the origin of species, in which, as it seems to us, the fundamental mistake is committed, of confounding the questions, of species being the result of, a secondary cause or law, and the nature of that creative law. (Edinburgh Review, p. 496)

In other words, it was not that Darwin “shed no light” on his question, but that the light came from an illicit source—​speculation. Darwin could only defend his propositions as being “beliefs,” not “facts.” Above all, Darwin presumed to affirm not only the operation of “law” as governing transmutation, a proposition Owen could and did readily accept, and had for some years, but dared to claim that he had discovered the “nature of that creative law.” Darwin would be the first to admit the validity of this claim: “natural selection,” he would and did affirm, was “only” a working hypothesis, or as Kohn put it, “a theory to work by” (Kohn 1980), not yet an “established fact.” Yet it had virtues that made it worthy of consideration. The first is that it laid out a research agenda that could be scrutinized through the hard filter of empirical investigation. And also, it was at least a plausible attempt to “explain” several “classes of facts.” The “classes of facts” were not speculative inventions but fully appropriate to the task at hand. As we all know now, Darwin created a research program whose central propositions have been largely proven to be correct through the most rigorous scientific research. Had Darwin heeded Owen’s advice to avoid all speculation, science, he understood, would come to a grinding halt. In an enclosure to a letter Darwin sent to Asa Gray in May 1860, shortly after Owen’s review of Origin appeared, he observed in reference to Owen’s review: “What an illiberal sentence that is about ‘any pretension to candour’ & about my rushing through barriers which stopped Cuvier: such an argument would stop any progress in science” (CCD, 22 May [1860], to Asa Gray. Letter 2814). Owen could well have ended his criticisms with the three objections just described. But he was determined to drive the nail even further into the Darwinian coffin by alleging further defects that, in sum, only show how poorly Owen understood Darwin’s theory. For example, Owen asserted that Darwin’s theory requires that all previously existing forms cannot escape the influence of surrounding conditions and so must have perished. Yet the most numerous existing forms are precisely those which have existed from earliest recorded history. As Owen put it, “No living organism, thus, [according to Darwin’s theory] can now manifest the mysterious primeval form [but in fact many of them do]” (Edinburgh Review, p.  512). This must show Darwin’s theory to be false (Edinburgh Review, p. 512–​5). But of course, Darwin makes no such claim. He argues only that many forms undergo transmutation and drive competitors to extinction, not that all of them do. Some forms rarely if ever undergo modification

204  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” and persist for eons. The point is only that if this were true of all species, evolution would not happen. Some species change, others do not. Moreover, unlike Owen, Darwin attributed very little variation—​the first step in species transformation—​to the direct or indirect effects of environmental conditions. He assigned far more to “so-​called spontaneous variation,” wherein the precise causes of variation are unknown. Another criticism leveled against Darwin’s theory is that it is belied by the geological and paleontological record of fossilized plants and animals. Centuries have elapsed, Owen averred, without any marked change in the antlered deer of the forests of Great Britain. Going even further back in time, Owen referred to the works of the Swiss paleontologist Agassiz and the French comparative anatomist Cuvier that show that even over some 30,000 years no remarkable transmutation of species form is to be observed in slowly growing coral colonies in various parts of the world (Edinburgh Review, pp. 520, 530). Darwin, of course, found no force in this objection. His theory requires not thousands or tens of thousands but millions of years. Owen is aware of this, but rather than allow Darwin his assumption he dismisses it as more “speculation.” He does so despite the fact that by this time scientific consensus had converged on the idea of the great antiquity of the earth and the earliest of its biological inhabitants. Owen himself understood this through his own researches, even if he gave no precise dates to the formation of such well-​known geological strata as the Triassic, Jurassic, Pliocene, and Tertiary. Worth mentioning, also, is Owen’s misguided assertion that Darwin is proved wrong by the fact that, contrary to Darwin, sometimes different varieties of the same species do not cross, due to different structures and instincts (Edinburgh Review, p. 524). The problem here is, as before, that Darwin nowhere says anything contrary to this view. In fact, he affirms the very opposite. His actual opinion is that inter-​se crossings among varieties of the same species do not always occur or are impossible, only that the phenomenon is common enough that is should be included among the “class of facts” that can be explained by natural selection and that presumably assist in the formation of new species over time. Perhaps the most unusual thing about Owen’s review is that it suggests Owen’s views are totally at odds with Darwin’s. This is not true. As we have seen, Owen for a long time had been advocating many of the same ideas: the great antiquity of the earth and of biological fossil relics; the established fact of ancient migrations of mammals from one region of the globe to another; and above all, the “law of geographical distribution,” by which Owen meant two things: that extinction could account for current distributional patterns compared with former ones; and that the similarities of antique fossil forms to existing analogous forms might suggest “law-​governed transmutation,” as distinct from individual distinct acts of divine creation that occurred periodically through time.

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  205 In fact, Owen affirms the probability of law-​governed change in this very review, excepting only the notions that such law-​governed transmutation is “progressive” or “gradually transmutationist” and that the “law” is understood (Edinburgh Review, p. 504). Despite the appearance one gets from the Edinburgh Review essay, Owen’s views were much closer to Darwin’s than he was willing to let on. Certainly, this was the impression of other scientists who had read both Origin and Owen’s review of it, some even going so far as to suggest Owen was in fact not only a transmutationist but a progressive one. How can Owen be so savage with your views when his own are to a certain extent of the same character? If I understand him, he thinks the “Becoming” of species (I suppose he means the producing of species), a somewhat rapid and not a slow process—​but he seems to think them progressive organised out of previously organized beings—​(analogous (?) to minerals simple and compound out of some +/​-​60 elements). I don’t think it is at all becoming in one Naturalist to be bitter against another—​any more than for one sect to burn the members of another. (CCD, 5 May 1860, from J. Henslow. Letter 2783)

J.D. Hooker entertained the same idea. In a letter to a friend in 1860 he wrote: I hope you have read Owen’s review in the Ed. I should think it must add gall to the Balfourians’ bitterness of spirit, for not content with snubbing me and spitefully entreating Darwin and Huxley, the cool fish hedges for a transmutation view of his own (L. Huxley ed. 1918, I, 515.) The reference is to Owen 1860 (CCD, 15 [May 1860], n. 12, Hooker to Thomas Anderson. Letter 2802).

No wonder, then, that Darwin was taken aback by Owen’s review. It showed a striking lack of comprehension of the central pillars of Darwin’s theory and the appropriateness of the supporting evidence. It was written in an unfriendly tone, betraying more than just disagreement over the science. And it was contrary to much of what Owen himself had previously written about the possibility of transmutation. It seemed as though Owen was, for whatever reason, determined to discredit Darwin’s theory, no matter what it might take to do so. After Owen’s hostile review of Origin in the Edinburgh Review, Darwin had to reassess his previous opinion about Owen’s views. The review prompted Darwin to go back to the sources Owen claimed showed he himself was not a biblical creationist: Nature of Limbs (1849) and the “Presidential Address to the British Association at Leeds” (1858). Darwin can hardly be blamed for not being sure where Owen stood on the pivotal question of “special creation” from his reading of these two works. In the first Owen spoke of “Divine Power” and the “slow, stately steps” of a personified

206  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” “Nature” as guiding, by the “archetypal light” the “orderly progression” of organic phenomena (Owen 1849, p. 86). Darwin had marked this passage in his marginal notes of 1850. Owen’s language and expressions could well sound to an uninstructed student of nature as a concession to special creation. Darwin perhaps drew the same inference. Matters do not clear up when we look at the 1858  “Presidential Address,” which refers to “the axiom of the continuous operation of creative power, or of the ordained becoming of living things.” It concludes with the rather unambiguous assertion that as far as “observation has yet extended, the cycle of changes is definitely closed,” a phrase that can only mean that no evidence for transmutation by natural means can be shown to exist and, even more strongly, that species do not change, as far as observation can discern. In short, Darwin found in Owen and his published views a two-​faced friend: one who encouraged and supported him in his scientific endeavors and novel views, another who was antagonistic and mean-​spirited. Darwin rightly came to understand this friend was no friend at all. Owen, whether through personal jealousy or scientific disagreement, managed to separate himself from a scientific colleague who, as late as 1855, claimed to his friend Hooker that, despite his (Owens’s) peculiarities, “I cannot help but liking him.”

Notes 1. Darwin remained unclear about Owen’s “true” opinions on species origins well into the 1860s. As late as April 1866 Darwin was still bewildered: “If you can remember to look in Histor. ‘Sketch’ at my account of Owen’s views: it is rich and shows what a muddle those who ‘utter sonorous commonplaces about carrying out the Plan of Creation &c.’ fall into” (CCD, [19] April [1866], to B.D. Walsh. Letter 5061). 2. Owen’s views on the species question have received considerable scholarly attention especially since Roy Macleod’s influential 1965 paper (Desmond 1979, 1982, 1984, 1985, 2011; Appel 1987; Bowler 1976; Brinkman 2010; Brooke 1977; Ospovat 1976, 1978, 1981; E. Richards 1987; Ruse 1979; Rupke 1994, 2009). Most treatments have been critical of Owen, suggesting that his supposed anti-​transmutationist prejudices blinded him to the validity of Darwin’s theory. That is an oversimplification (see, for example, E. Richards 1987, and Ospovat 1976, 1981). Nicholas Rupke (1985, 1989, 1994, 2009) provides an important corrective to this distorting view. But Rupke, in turn, goes too far in attempting to vindicate Owen by suggesting Darwin willfully misrepresented Owen’s views. The story is actually more complicated. 3. In 1851, in a different priority dispute with Milne Edwards over a proper interpretation of embryological findings, Owen wrote, “the date of publication is that alone which science accepts as the grounds for her awards of priority” (cited in E. Richards 1987, p. 141, and n. 48).

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  207 4. Owen was not always entirely clear in stating what he believed. Sometimes he seemed to allow at least the possibility of the appearance of new species as a “law-​governed process” in the 1840s, as documented in R. MacLeod (1965, pp. 260–​2); and Richards (1987). However, he remained agnostic about a mechanism for this entire period. In his own words in a January 1848 letter to “a correspondent,” Owen says, “present evidence . . . is against the hypothesis of . . . self-​developing energies adequate to a change and exaltation of specific characters” (R.S. Owen 1894, v. 1: 310–​1). 5. See also CCD, 1 January [1860], to T.H. Huxley, and n. 5, letter 2633. The letter and note contain additional references to Owen’s “willingness to consider CD’s heterodox views” given in person and in other letters mentioned here. 6. Owen had discussed Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s paper (Darwin and Wallace 1858) favorably in his presidential address at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 1858, referring to Darwin’s illustrations of the principle of natural selection as ‘ingenious suppositions’ (R. Owen 1858, pp. xci-​xcii, cited in CCD, 12 November 1859, from Owen, and n. 2. Letter 2526). 7. Owen reproduced the same language in his 1860 book Paleontology (2nd ed., 1861, p. 443), in reference not only to Darwin but also to Lamarck, Buffon, Geoffroy, and Wallace. They shared the common defect of “speculation without evidence,” Owen’s cardinal sin for philosophical naturalists. The paragraph originally appeared, with precisely the same wording, in Owen (1859a); and again in a published lecture delivered before the University of Cambridge (Owen 1859b, p. 486). 8. According to the OED, Darwin in 1856 was the first evolutionary biologist to employ the term “creationist” in reference to the group of scientists he was opposing in defending his own evolutionary views. Cf. CCD, 5 July [1856], to Hooker. Letter 1919. 9. The question of Owen’s “real” opinion about special creation and transmutation in the 1840s and 1850s has been amply discussed in recent years. In addition to sources cited in n. 2, see Richards (1987), Ospovat (1976, 1981), Rupke, (2009), Gould (2002), and J.H. Brooke (1977). Richards shows that the question remains a matter of controversy, some scholars finding Owen to be a “closet transmutationist” as early as 1844, or even earlier (e.g., Desmond 1985; and Richards 1987, pp. 147–​50, drawing attention to an 1837 entry in Darwin’s “first transmutationist notebook,” De Beer, ed. 1960 [1837], hinting at Owen’s transmutationist leanings); while others (Ospovat, Brooke) find him to be a special creationist. 10. As the editors of CCD remark in note 10 to this letter:  “Richard Owen, as CD predicted, was severe in his anonymous review of Origin in the Edinburgh Review in April, 1860, although in December 1859 he gave CD the impression that he was a friendly critic.” 11. I say “directly,” for it could be the case that Darwin’s knowledge of Owen, as the best-​ known comparative anatomist in England in the 1830s and 1840s, came indirectly from the general impression of others, which in turn could well have been founded on Owen 1841 and his earlier writings. Darwin says as much to Lyell in his letter of December 10, 1859 letter. The last part of Owen 1841 appeared in Jameson’s 1842 Ed. New Phil. J. 3: 65–​88, but I find no evidence Darwin read that version either. 12. See Rupke (1994, pp. 220–​4) and notes for details on Owen’s publication record in 1841–​1842.

208  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 13. Darwin was not entirely exact is this assertion. I can find no reference to a “law of succession of types” in any of Owen’s writings, pace the CCD editors’ reference to Owen’s statement being a “succinct” description of a “law of succession” (CCD, 27 [December 1859] to Lyell, n. 5. Letter 2608). Owen does refer to a “law of geographical distribution” in many places, and by that “law” he seems to mean much the same thing as Darwin meant by “law of succession of types.” In any case, the important thing is that both men took the two expressions to be essentially synonymous: it is a “law” (however named) that postulates the gradual transformation of species inhabiting the earth by the two mechanisms of extinction and new species creation (Owen accepted the former but not the latter as early as 1841, Darwin accepted both). Darwin is also correct in saying that he articulated this law well before Owen, namely in his Journal of Researches that first appeared in 1839, as he earlier told Sedgwick, “who, of course, disbelieved it.” The law is verified by showing analogies and homologies between extinct and currently existing animals, while also demonstrating sometimes great differences in morphologies, especially (in the case of Owen) the physical size of representatives of these groups separated in time. This issue, as we shall see, bears importantly on the contest for priority between the two men that erupted in the 1860s. 14. The editors of CCD (27 [December 1859], to Lyell, nn. 4 and 6, letter 2608) note, “In Origin, p. 339, CD had referred to his own early work on the succession of types rather than citing Charles Lyell or Richard Owen directly. CD cited both the first (1839) and second (1845) editions of Journal of researches.” 15. Darwin described this law as his own original discovery in the first and subsequent editions of Origin (p. 309) without mentioning Owen as one who had also hypothesized the existence of this law. This may have further fueled Owen’s hostile reaction to Origin in his 1860 Edinburgh Review article, although he did not allude to this particular point in his review. Owen did affirm the likelihood of a “law of extinction” as early as 1841, pace MacLeod (1965, p. 273), who places his first mention of it in Owen’s 1860 review of Origin in the Edinburgh Review. 16. Darwin’s “discovery” of the “law of succession of types” has an important bearing on the much-​discussed question about when Darwin “converted” to transmutationism. Scholarly consensus, until recently, has converged on the idea that Darwin converted only after the Beagle voyage, when Owen and Lyell especially were able to point out to him the transmutationist implications of his fossil finds in South America. If true, this would give Owen some claim to an important assist in helping Darwin find his theory, if not a partial claim to “priority.” More recently this view has been challenged. P.D. Brinkman has argued persuasively that Darwin’s conversion actually came while he was still on board the Beagle (see Brinkman 2010, pp. 366–​8 and n. 14 for a review of the literature). Brinkman also comments on the priority question in terms of who was the first to publish on the succession law, giving the nod to Darwin (p. 374, n. 36). 17. A number of studies have tackled the question of Owen’s “transmutationism” (or lack thereof) in the 1830s and 1840s, although with insufficient attention to Darwin’s acquaintance (or lack thereof) of Owen’s views. See especially Ospovat (1976), MacLeod (1965), Desmond (1982, 1985), Brooke (1977), Rupke (1994), and Brinkman (2010).

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  209 18. See A. Desmond (2011), especially pp. 276–​9, 306–​30 for detailed discussion. See also E. Richards (1987), for Owen’s reaction to Vestiges; also, Ospovat (1976); and Desmond (1985). Brooke (1977) offers a different view. 19. Owen’s compilation is entered in the Marginalia as: “Hunter, John. [n.d.]. Essays and Observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology and Owen, Richard. 1861.” The introductory lectures on the Hunterian collection of fossil remains. 2 volumes. London: John Van Voorst. An annotated copy is in CUL. The Works of John Hunter, with Notes, edited by James F. Palmer, were published in 1837 (in 5 volumes) in London by Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman. 20. Another interesting piece of evidence that Owen was not as hostile to transmutation as Darwin might have believed is Owen’s 1851 Quarterly Review article of three recent publications by Charles Lyell (Quarterly Review 89, September 1851, pp. 412–​ 51). As the editors of the CCD write, the journal “carried an unsigned review of the eighth edition of Charles Lyell’s Principles of geology (C. Lyell 1850), of the third edition of the Manual of elementary geology (C. Lyell 1851a), and of Lyell’s anniversary address to the Geological Society (C. Lyell 1851b), in which Lyell attacked the doctrine of progressive development in the fossil record. The review, entitled ‘Lyell—​ on life and its successive developement’, was critical of Lyell’s views and defended the idea of progressive development. Richard Owen was the author (Wellesley index 1: 735, no. 1040)”. Darwin was “sickened” by Owen’s review, as he told Hooker in November 1851: “I have been reading Owen upon Lyell in the Qly & am sick of it & from it” (CCD, [November 1851], to Hooker, and n. 13. Letter 1460). 21. In a letter to John Chapman, 1848, Owen claims that he told a recent visitor to the Hunterian museum (whom he took to be Chambers, author of Vestiges) that he (Owen) knew of at least six possible explanations of species transformation, the least attractive of which were theories of the Lamarckian/​Vestiginarian type. When pressed to say what they are, Owen demurred, suggesting that museum evidence pointed to one explanation above the others, his own soon to be published theory of “metagenesis” (see E. Richards 1987, pp. 159–​60; and Rupke 1994, p. 148 for details; Desmond, 1982, p. 60 first identified Owen’s correspondent as Chapman). Later he would bring forward two more of his own candidate explanations as superior to all of these others, and to complain that his “superior hypotheses” had been entirely overlooked by other natural philosophers. 22. See Ernst Mayr, 1982, pp. 304–​8, for a detailed discussion of the distinction. 23. As the editors of CCD note, (27 December 1859, to Lyell, n. 6, letter 2608), “For CD’s early recognition of the succession of types, see the famous entry of July 1837 in CD’s ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 2, App. II, p. 431): ‘In July opened first note Book on ‘transmutation of Species’.—​Had been greatly struck from about month of previous March—​on character of S. American fossils—​& species on Galapagos Archipelago.—​ These facts origin (especially latter) of all my views’. He opened Origin with this remark (Origin, p. 1).” 24. It is odd that Owen would have included the hypothesized origins of “man” in his critique of Darwin’s theory. Darwin notoriously avoided any speculations about the origins of man in Origin.

210  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

References Amundson, Ron. 2005. The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots of Evo-​Devo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2008. See Owen, Richard, On the Nature of Limbs, 1849. Appel, Toby. 1987. The Cuvier-​Geoffroy Debate: French Biology in the Decades before Darwin. New York: Oxford University Press. Benton, Michael. 1982. “Progressonism in the 1850’s: Lyell, Owen, Mantell, and the Elgin Fossil Reptile Leptopleuron (Telerpeton).” Archives of Natural History 11: 123-​36. Bowler, Peter. 1976. Fossils and Progress:  Paleontology and the Idea of Progressive Evolution in the Nineteenth Century. Science History Publications: New York. Brinkman, P.D. 2010. “Charles Darwin's Beagle Voyage, Fossil Vertebrate Succession, and ‘the Gradual Birth & Death of Species.’" Journal of the History of Biology 43: 363-​99. Brooke, John Hedley. 1977a. “Richard Owen, William Whewell, and the Vestiges.” The British Journal for the History of Science 10: 132-​145. ———. 1977b. “The Natural Theology of the Geologists: Some Theological Strata.” British Journal for the History of Science 10: 132-​45. Browne, Janet. 1995. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Corsi, Pietro. 1988. The Age of Lamarck: Evolutionary Theories in France, 1790-​1830. Berkeley: University of California Press. Darwin, Charles and A.R. Wallace. 1858. “On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection,” Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society 3: 45-​62. Darwin, Charles. 1959. On the Origin of Species: A Variorum Text. Edited by M. Peckham. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———-​. 1975. Natural Selection. Edited by R. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1985-​2017. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1987. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks 1836-​1842. Edited by P. Barrett et al. New York and London: Cornell University Press. ———. 1988. “Darwin’s Reading Notebooks.” Appendix IV, in Volume IV of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: op. cit., 435-​573. ———. 1989. Voyage of the Beagle: Charles Darwin’s Journal of Researches. Edited by Janet Browne and Michael Neve. London: Penguin. De Beer, Gavin, ed. 1960. “Darwin’s Notebooks on Transmutation of Species, Part I, First Notebook.” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, 2. Desmond, Adrian J. 1979. “Designing the Dinosaur: Richard Owen's Response to Robert Edmond Grant”. Isis 70:  224-​34. [University of Chicago Press, History of Science Society]. ———. 1982. Archetypes and Ancestors: Paleontology in Victorian London 1850-​1875. London: Blond and Briggs. ———. 1985a. “Richard Owen’s Reaction to Transmutation in the 1830’s.” British Journal for the History of Science 18: 25-​50. ———. 1985b. “The Making of Institutional Zoology in London 1822-​1836: Parts I and II.” History of Science 23: 153-​185; 223-​250.

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  211 ———. 2011. The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Di Gregorio, Mario. 1990. Charles Darwin’s Marginalia. New York: Garland Press. Elwick, James. 2007. “Styles of Reasoning in Early to Mid-​ Victorian Life Research:  Analysis:  Synthesis and Palaetiology.” Journal of the History of Biology 40: 35-​69. Friedman, William E., and Pamela Diggle. 2011. “Charles Darwin and the Origins of Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology,” Plant Cell 4: 1194–​1207. Gayon, Jean. 1998. Darwin’s Struggle for Survival: Heredity and the Hypothesis of Natural Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ghiselin, Michael. 2009. Darwin: A Reader’s Guide. Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences, number 155. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences. Glick, Thomas F. and Kohn, David, eds. 1996. Darwin on Evolution. The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection. Indianapolis; Cambridge:  Hackett Publishing Company. Gould, S.J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hull, D.L. 1973. Darwin and His Critics: The Reception of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hunter, John. [n.d.]. Essays and Observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology and Owen, Richard. 1861. The introductory lectures on the Hunterian collection of fossil remains. 2 volumes. London: John Van Voorst. Huxley, Leonard. 1900. Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. New York: D. Appleton and Co. Johnson, Curtis. 2007. “The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the ‘Historical Sketch.’ ” Journal of the History of Biology 40: 529-​556. ———-​. 2014. Darwin’s Dice:  The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Kohn, David. 1980. “Theories to Work By: Rejected Theories, Reproduction, and Darwin’s Path to Natural Selection,” Studies in the History of Biology 4: 67-​170. ———-​, ed. 1985. The Darwinian Heritage. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———-​, et al. editors. 2003-​2017. The Darwin Manuscript Project. New York: American Museum of Natural History Mayr, E.  1988. Toward a New Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Moore, James. 1989. History, Humanity, and Evolution. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. MacLeod, R.M. 1965. “Evolutionism and Richard Owen, 1830-​1868:  An Episode in Darwin's Century.” Isis 56: 259-​80. Ospovat, Dov. 1976. “The Influence of Karl Ernst von Baer's Embryology, 1828-​1859: A Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen's and William B. Carpenter's ‘Palaeontological Application of 'Von Baer's Law.'" Journal of the History of Biology 9: 1-​28. ———-​. 1978. “Perfect Adaptation and Teleological Explanation:  Approaches to the Problem of the History of Life in the mid nineteenth century.” Studies in History of Biology 2: 33-​56. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———-​. 1981. The Development of Darwin’s Theory: Natural History, Natural Theology, and Natural Selection, 1838-​1859. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

212  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Owen, R.  1844. “Report on the Extinct Mammals of Australia, with Descriptions of Certain Fossils Indicative of the Former Existence in that Continent of Large Marsupial Representatives of the Order PACHYDERMATA.” Report of the 14th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science: 223-​40. ———. February 1846. “On the geographical distribution of extinct Mammalia,” Athenaeum 14: 178-​79. ———-​. 1849 [2008]. On the Nature of Limbs: A Discourse. Edited, with prefatory essays, by Ronald Amundson and Brian Hall. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. ———. 1850. “On Dinornis (Part IV):  Containing the Restoration of the Feet of that Genus and of Palapteryx, with a Description of the Sternum in Palapteryx and Aptornis. Transactions of the Zoological Society 4: 1-​20, and plates i-​iv. ———. 1858. “Address of the President.” Report of the 28th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Leeds: xlix–​cxi. ———. April 12 1859a. “Summary of the Succession in Time and Geographical Distribution of Recent and Extinct Fossil Mammalia.” Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 3: 109-​16. ———. 10 May 1859b. On Classification and Geological Distribution of the Mammalia, with Appendices on Extinction and Apes with References to the Transmutation of Species, being the Lecture delivered before the University of Cambridge. To which is added an Appendix “On the Gorilla” and “On the Extinction and Transmutation of Species.” London, J.W. Parker. ———. See Hunter, John. ———. 1860a. Paleontology. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black. (2nd. ed. 1861). ———-​. 1860b. [Anonymous]. “Darwin On the Origin of Species.” Edinburgh Review, vol. 111, Article VIII: 487-​532. ———. 1863. “On the Aye-​aye (Chiromus, Cuvier; Ciromus madagascariensis, Desm.; Sciurus madagascariensis Gmel., Sonnerat; Lemur psiodactylis, Schreber, Shaw). Transactions of the Zoological Society 5, pt. 2: 33-​101. ———. 1866a. “Letter” to the London Review, May 5: 516. ———. 1866b. On the Anatomy of Vertebrates, volumes 1-​ 2. London:  Longman, Green & Co. ———. 1868. On the Anatomy of Vertebrates, volume 3. London: Longman, Green & Co. Owen, Richard S. 1894. The Life of Richard Owen. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Richards, Eveleen. 1987. “A Question of Property Rights: Richard Owen’s Evolutionism.” British Journal for the History of Science 20: 129-​171. Richards, Robert J. 1989. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———1992. The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———-​ . “Did Goethe and Schelling Endorse Species Evolution?” Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution, eds. Joshua Lambier and Joel Faflak (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017). Rudwick, Martin. 1976. The Meaning of Fossils. New York: Science History Publications. Rupke, Nicolaas. 1985. “Richard Owen’s Hunterian Lectures 1837-​1855.” Medical History 29: 237-​258. ———-​. 1994. Richard Owen:  Victorian Naturalist. New Haven and London:  Yale University Press.

Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review  213 ———. 2009. Richard Owen:  Biology Without Darwin. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press. Ruse, M. 1979. The Darwinian Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Secord, James, ed. 2008. Charles Darwin:  Evolutionary Writings. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. ———. 2014. Visions of Science: Books and Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sloan, Philip R.  1985. “Darwin’s Invertebrate Program, 1826-​1836. Preconditions for Transformism.” The Darwinian Heritage. Edited by D.  Kohn. Princeton:  Princeton University Press. Stott, Rebecca. 2012. Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. New York: Spiegel and Grau. Sulloway, F. 1982. “Darwin’s Conversion.” Journal of the History of Biology 15: 325-​96. Van Wyhe, John. ed. 2002-​. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://​ darwin-​online.org.uk/​). Young, R.M. 1980. “Natural Theology, Victorian Periodicals, and the Fragmentation of a Common Context. In Darwin to Einstein: Historical Studies on Science and Belief. Edited by C. Chant and J. Fauvel. Harlow and New York.

9

Part II: Owen After Origin I now find that Owen claims to have been the originator of Natural Selection. Asa Gray always said he wd. do so. (CCD 31 May [1866], to J.D Hooker and n. 12. Letter 5106) Owen says my book will be forgotten in 10 years; perhaps so, but with such a list [of supporters], I feel convinced the subject will not. The outsiders, you say, are strong. (CCD, 3 March [1860], to Hooker. Letter 2719)

Owen’s 1860 Review of Origin in the Edinburgh Journal The pivotal moment of change in Darwin’s professional (and personal) relationship with Owen came in 1860, with the appearance of Owen’s crushing review of Origin in the Edinburgh Review. The review was published anonymously, but Darwin knew immediately that Owen was the author. He was stunned. Up until then, while their earlier friendship had become somewhat chilled by Owen’s hostile, written treatment of other zoologists over questions of scientific accuracy and priority, no serious breach had come between Owen and Darwin himself.1 These earlier disputes had given Darwin and some of his inner circle, especially J.D. Hooker and T.H. Huxley, some reason to question Owen’s honesty and professionalism, but they had opened no irremediable rift between Darwin and Owen. They simply signaled that Owen was perhaps overly sensitive in guarding his vaunted position among British scientists, but not that he was a scoundrel willing to go to extreme lengths to do down his perceived rivals with slashing attacks against and willful misrepresentations of Darwin’s theory. The 1860 review changed all that. The review was not simply negative; it was mean-​spirited, downright nasty. After finishing the book, Owen wondered out loud “what is there” that approaches an answer to the “question of questions in Zoology” in the entire book? Owen’s answer, developed over 60 pages, was, basically, nothing. Yes, it contains a few “gems,” but these are “few and far apart.” The book left the determination of the origin of species “very near where the author found it.” Owen’s overall verdict was that Darwin’s contribution, especially Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Owen After Origin  215 in view of the book’s grand claim to have solved the mystery, was an utter “disappointment” (Owen 1860b, 490–​7). One can only imagine Darwin’s own disappointment. No author likes to be raked over the coals like that, and Darwin was no exception. He felt a personal slight and betrayal, the former because of what Darwin perceived to be ad hominem attacks, the latter because Owen had always been, in person, nothing but cordial and flattering. To make matters worse, Owen also brought into the review, for undisguised criticism, Darwin’s close personal friends J.D. Hooker and T.H. Huxley, and even the co-​discoverer of natural selection A.R. Wallace, for supporting the Darwinian theory. Darwin had enough to complain about in Owen’s unwarranted attack against him. But to attack his friends and supporters was a step too far. Darwin now had more to fight for than just his own theory and reputation. Owen had in effect declared war on the whole budding assembly of “Darwinians.” But, notably, one thing Owen did not claim in his 1860 review was that he had anticipated Darwin’s theory. To a casual reader, in fact, it seems to be a complete repudiation, certainly of natural selection and apparently of much else. In this respect, the review is notably different from Owen’s writings after 1866 when he started to claim that he had originated Darwin’s theory. His strategy in 1860 was quite different: Darwin’s theory was at best unsupported by empirical evidence, and at worst downright wrong. Owen recalibrated between 1860 and 1866 under the realization that he could not make Darwin’s theory go away simply by slamming it in a review essay. He also came to see, incongruously, that he needed to stake his own claim to having discovered the theory much earlier. Darwin too made adjustments in his written statements, especially in the Sketch, as he learned more about Owen’s views as they emerged in the 1860s. The back and forth between the two men between 1860 and 1869 shows barely concealed resentment, but also significant misunderstanding on both sides. In any case, the review, and Darwin’s reaction to it, along with the incredulous reactions of Darwin’s inner circle, created an irremediable rift between Owen and Darwin. “We shall never be friends again,” Darwin wrote with prophetic accuracy to Huxley in early 1861 (CCD, 3 January [1861], to Huxley. Letter 3041). The specifics of Owen’s review were discussed in the previous chapter.2 Darwin mentioned some of them, and accompanying errors and misrepresentations, to several of his friends in the months and years after it appeared. Owen’s main objections were that Darwin was “too speculative,” that he confused the idea that “law” governs natural processes with the idea that he (Darwin) had discovered “the nature of this law,” and that he had overlooked or misunderstood Owen’s own, earlier writings and discoveries. It is this latter belief that perhaps most rankled Owen, who was prone to taking personal slight under the mildest of provocations. Owen’s sensitivity was what perhaps most irritated Darwin and

216  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” his sympathizers. How could Owen be so mean-​spirited toward a theory (not to mention its author) when his published views, even by 1860, were so similar to Darwin’s? Darwin read Owen’s review almost as soon as it appeared. He was, as he might say, staggered by its hostility and saw a need immediately to address and rebut it, point by point. Most of this work he undertook in letters to his private correspondents—​Lyell, Hooker, Huxley, Wallace, and Asa Gray. (The most thorough rebuttal appears in a letter of May 22, 1860 that Darwin sent to Gray.)3 Darwin was not easy to provoke to anger, but Owen uniquely managed it. It is one thing for one scientist to disagree with another. It is one thing for one author to misrepresent or misunderstand a bit or a piece here and there in a complex new theory. It is even one thing for one scientist to be strongly critical of the work of another—​that is a precondition for the scientific enterprise. But it is another thing entirely for one person to condemn another person in personal and reckless terms while holding forth one’s own views (buried and obscured in other places) as “essentially the same” as the theory being criticized. Yet that is what Owen did. Unlike Owen, Darwin was not one to go public with his anger and reserved his spiteful comments for his inner circle. Privately he almost seemed ashamed to have been so vicious: Huxley’s letter [challenging Owen] was truculent & I see that everyone thinks it too truculent; but in simple truth I am become demoniacal about Owen, worse than Huxley, & I told Huxley that I shd. put myself under his care to be rendered milder. But I mean to try to get more angelic in my feelings; yet I shall never forget his cordial shake of the hand when he was writing as spitefully as he possibly could against me . . . Bell thinks the Editor made Owen’s review more spiteful and “mutilated” his review. Perhaps the opposite view is more probable. Oh dear, this does not look like becoming more angelic in my temper. (CCD, 12 April [1861], to Charles Lyell. Letter 3117)

Darwin wanted to calm down about Owen, but he obviously had trouble doing so.

Owen in the Historical Sketch: A Question of Priority Nevertheless, Darwin was inclined to believe from 1861 on that Owen was open to some version of transmutation, as Owen himself had insisted in his review of Origin.4 Obviously influenced by this 1860 review article, Darwin conceded Owen’s claim to being a transmutationist in every version of the Sketch.

Owen After Origin  217 But whether Owen accepted natural selection as a mechanism was much less clear to Darwin. He could discern nothing in Owen’s 1849 work on Limbs or his 1858 “President’s Address to the British Association at Leeds” that indicated any notion of natural selection. The first volume of Anatomy of Vertebrates in 1866 and Owen’s 1866 letter to the London Review (v. 12, p. 516) in which he claimed priority for discovering “Darwin’s theory” in the 1850 Transactions article gave Darwin pause. What is certain from Owen’s 1866 letter to the London Review is that he was claiming priority for “Darwin’s theory.” What is less clear is whether his claim was warranted. Darwin immediately began to doubt that it was. In the very following lines of the Sketch, just after he acknowledged Owen’s claim to priority in an 1850 Transactions article (vol. 4, p.15), Darwin states that, after going to the 1850 source for personal review, he found only the ideas of preservation and extinction of species through the ages, but not of their modification or of natural selection (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 66, lines 45.  6–​7d). In short, Owen claimed to have discovered Darwin’s theory in 1850 and made this point explicitly in 1866, but Darwin read the evidence differently. We should start with a look at the 1850 article. The title and citation are: “On Dinornis (Part IV),” in Transactions of the Zoological Society (iv): 1–​20, plates i–​iv. The key page number with regard to the question before us is page 15, and the key idea is that smaller species (i.e., species smaller in the physical size of individual members) are less likely to go extinct than larger species of analogous type when confronted with new “external agencies” that are different than those in which the species “may have been originally adapted to exist.” He spells out the idea more fully in these words: [A change in external agencies over time] will militate against the [continued existence of a species] in a degree proportionate, perhaps in a geometrical ratio, to the bulk of the species. . . . The actual presence, therefore, of small species of animals in countries where the larger species of the same natural animals formerly existed, is not the consequence of any gradual diminution of the size of such species, but is the result of circumstances . . . ; the smaller and feebler animals have bent and accommodated themselves to changes which have destroyed the larger species. (Transactions 4:  15; Owen had made precisely the same arguments in his 12 April 1859 article in Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 109–​13.)

In this passage Owen does seem to acknowledge species transformation (i.e., the replacement of larger species by analogous smaller species) through time by means of extinction as a result of changing external conditions. Darwin’s question was, does that acknowledgment add up to a real anticipation of his theory?

218  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Before we engage what Darwin thought we should ask ourselves what we think Owen was saying. From the small amount of text, the question is not free of ambiguity. Our first problem is deciphering what Owen meant by the phrase “smaller species.” It could mean either a species whose number of individual members is smaller than a different though related species. Or it could mean a species whose individual members are physically smaller than the members of another, related species; for example, among kangaroos (one of Owen’s examples in this passage), some species are composed of physically smaller members than other species. Common usage does not settle this question, for zoologists often use terminology having the same ambiguity. When someone claims that kangaroo species come in larger and smaller forms, are they referring to the physical size of individual members or to the population size of members within a given species? Owen’s examples and discussion point in the direction of “smaller individual members,” not “smaller population size.” In the passage quoted above, for example, he speaks of “smaller and feebler animals,” not of “smaller number of members.” His other examples support the same interpretation: But just as the smaller Sloths and Armadillos still linger in South America, so the smaller Kangaroos, Wombats, Dasyures, and other Marsupials have continued to exist in Australia, and a few species of the comparatively diminutive wingless birds of the genera Apteryx and Brachypteryx still exist in the island where their peculiar families were much more richly represented and by species on a far larger scale. (Transactions 4: 15)

These sentences strongly suggest physical size of individual members of different species, not population size. The argument overall is saying that when environmental pressures change, smaller creatures have a better chance of surviving than larger creatures: In proportion to its bulk is the difficulty of the contest which, as a living organized whole, the individual of such species has to maintain against the surrounding agencies that are ever tending to dissolve the vital bond, and subjugate the living matter to the ordinary chemical and physical forces. (Transactions 4: 15)

Owen meant body size (the “bulk” of “individuals”), not population size. Owen continued to affirm “individual bulk” in his 1866 Anatomy of Vertebrates, volume 1. After asserting that “in a previous work” (citing his 1850 Transactions article) he had maintained “the larger species of particular groups

Owen After Origin  219 of animals have become extinct, whilst smaller species of equal antiquity have remained,” he added: The existence of [a species will be militated against] in a degree proportionate . . . to the bulk of the species. If a dry season be gradually prolonged, the large mammal will suffer from the drought sooner than the small one; . . . if new enemies are introduced, the large and conspicuous quadruped or bird will fall prey, whilst the smaller species conceal themselves and escape. Smaller animals are usually, also, more prolific than larger ones. (Owen 1866b, v. 1, p. xxxiv)

One cannot escape the conclusion that Owen did not change his mind between 1850 and 1866 about the greater importance of individual body size over the size (number of individuals) of a species for understanding the gradual transformation in appearance among analogous species. Indeed, it is not clear he recognized the importance of the latter, or even saw a distinction at all. This has an important bearing on whether, judging from these two works, Owen could really be considered a transmutationist. Darwin had an entirely different view. Changing environmental conditions certainly play some role in differential species extinction and preservation. But that is only a fraction of the story. Sometimes variation and species change may be partly attributed to change in external conditions. But sometimes the distribution of species changes even where the environment undergoes no significant change; and conversely, sometimes environmental conditions can change without accompanying change in species. Moreover, “individual bulk” is, for Darwin, not explanatory of much if any species change. For Darwin, more important than species extinction, which was Owen’s focus, was the origin of new species. This often went hand in hand with extinction, but it was a separate process. The arrival of a new species often led to the extinction of previous (and allied) forms, but not always. Extinction could occur independently of the arrival of new species; and conversely, when a new species did arise, it did not always spell the doom of existing forms. And, in any case, Darwin consistently downplayed the importance of “external factors” in either process, especially as concerns species origin. Variations that may lead to the formation of new species may occur in any form, in any direction, and in any structure. The question is not whether physically smaller individuals have a better chance of surviving than larger ones, but whether variations of any kind that arise and spread in a population are better suited to external conditions than original types. More generally, for Darwin, the big-​picture question about species transformation must focus on populations, not individuals, as Ernst Mayr has

220  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” emphasized. Darwin did accept the idea that an incipient species begins as an individual variation: longer legs in hares, brighter colors in shells, and so forth. But unless these individual variations find their way into populations, as a result of hereditary transmission of a particular favorable variation, such individual variations have no importance for understanding species transmutation. Darwin spells this out in many places in his writings: “Variations that are not inherited have no interest for us.” Darwin knew he would have to confront the issue of Owen’s negative views in a published work. For this purpose, Darwin selected the Historical Sketch preface to Origin in the third, 1861, English edition.5 This reflects only Darwin’s views, but Darwin was a careful reader of sources he believed may have anticipated him or that were critical of his theory, and he was perhaps more careful in assessing Owen’s views, as he could discern them, than of any of the other 34 authors mentioned in the Sketch. Darwin revealed privately in 1861 that he had made a deliberate decision to embarrass Owen in the Sketch just after he had composed it. What he wanted to get across to the discerning reader was that Owen’s published views were, in fact “creationist,” and thus by inference anti-​mutationist, if they could be penetrated at all. But he wanted to do so discretely. He would quote revealing passages from Owen’s writings but would quote them without editorializing. He explained all of this to Huxley in a letter in January 1861, before the Sketch had appeared in print in England. Referring to a recently published article by Huxley on Owen’s mistakes about the comparison between human and ape brains, specifically the mistake of using brain morphology as the sole criterion for species identification, he wrote: What a complete and awful smasher (& done like a ‘buttered angel’) it is for Owen! What a canting humbug he is to have left out that sentence in the Lecture before the orthodox Cambridge Dons . . . . [in reference to a paper read by Lubbock] . . . It strikes me as very good, & by Jove how Owen is shown up. –​ this “great & sound reasoner.” By the way this reminds me of a passage which I have just observed in Owen’s address at Leeds, which a clever reviewer might turn into good fun. He defines (p. xc) & further on amplifies his definition that Creation means ‘a process he knows not what.’ And in previous sentence he says facts shake his confidence that the Apteryx in New Zealand & Red Grouse in England are “distinct creations.” So he has no confidence that these were produced by “a process he knows not what.” What miserable inconsistencies & rubbish this truckling to opposite opinions lead the great generaliser. P.S. In my little historical Sketch of opinion on Species, I have picked out the foregoing sentences and his axiom of ordained becoming &c.; and if the reader has any acuteness, I shall thus take some revenge; but I shall make no comments; -​-​I am

Owen After Origin  221 not bold enough and do not want to come to open quarrel. But we shall never be friends again.6 (CCD, 3 January [1861], to Huxley. Letter 3041)

Darwin predicted correctly:  Darwin and Owen had no further personal or friendly contacts after this date. The passages that Darwin quoted here did show up in the first English version of the Sketch, 1861, but they were not Darwin’s first references to Owen in the “Sketch,” and certainly not the last. To appreciate the full extent of Darwin’s treatment of Owen in the Sketch we will need to look at everything he had to say over the next eight years. He revised the Sketch frequently, but no revisions of detail and length come close in comparison to those he made to his entries on Owen. In the Historical Sketch, if one counts all four English editions of Origin in which it appeared from 1861 (third edition) through 1872 (sixth edition), Darwin mentions six works written by Owen. The first mention, in the 1861 edition, includes citations to two works by Owen: Nature of Limbs 1849, page 86; and “Address to the British Association [for the Advancement of Science],” 1858, pages li-​xc. In the next version (1866) Darwin included three new references to Owen’s writings: On the Anatomy of Vertebrates volume 1 (1866); a work by Owen that appeared in the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, February 1850; and a letter by Owen to the London Review, 1866. In the fifth edition (1869) Darwin included one final reference to a new work by Owen, Anatomy of Vertebrates, volume 3 (1868). We thus have references in the Sketch to six works by Owen that span the years 1850 to 1868 (I am treating volume 1 and volume 3 of Anatomy of Vertebrates as two separate works, even though they are part of a single three-​volume work under the same title). We are able to pinpoint precisely when and where Darwin first became familiar with all six. We might expect Darwin to have discovered at least the first two entries, 1849 and 1858, on his own, that is, without prompting by someone else. But that is true only of Nature of Limbs 1849 (Darwin read it in 1850 and made marginal notes to the passage on page 86 that he cited in the Sketch; Marginalia 655; CUL-​DAR 71:44–​9). But he did not know of Owen’s 1858 “Address” when it first appeared in print the same year. He learned of the latter work, in terms of the priority question, only after Owen’s review of Origin (Owen 1860b), wherein Owen himself drew direct attention to both works as showing his contribution to the species question. This review essay—​itself, surprisingly, never mentioned in the Sketch—​was Darwin’s source for learning about Owen’s views about the species question in Owen 1858. His marginal notes from Owen’s Nature of Limbs would have reminded Darwin in 1861 where Owen seemed to stand on the species question.7 And, as soon as he read Owen’s fiercely critical review of Origin in 1860 Darwin went back to Owen’s earlier work of

222  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 1858 and then included relevant citations in the first English version of the Sketch in 1861. On the other hand, Owen did not mention his 1850 Transactions essay in his 1860 review of Origin. He brought it up only in 1866, in a letter to the London Review. This is why that earlier work showed up in the Sketch only in the 1866 edition of Origin. Why Owen failed to mention this critical piece of evidence to show his priority in his 1860 review can be nothing more than a matter of conjecture. By 1860, Owen had already published hundreds of articles and several books. Perhaps he just forgot the 1850 Transactions essay when he wrote his review of Origin, or perhaps he did not, in 1860, when Darwin’s theory was first making its big splash in the scientific community, realize how high the stakes for claiming priority were. Contrary to expectations, Darwin’s citations of Owen’s writings do not occur in the chronological order of their appearance. Nature of Limbs (1849) is mentioned first in all editions of the Sketch beginning with the first English edition in 1861. The “Address to the British Association” (1858) always comes second. This chronology shows Darwin was familiar with both of these works by the time he composed the first English edition of the Sketch. The remaining four works were added to the Sketch only in the fourth and fifth editions of Origin, of 1866 and 1869. The reason is straightforward: Owen published Anatomy of Vertebrates in three volumes, the first two in 1866 and the third in 1868, just when Darwin first included mention of them in the Sketch. Likewise, with Owen’s May 5, 1866, letter to the London Review: Darwin could reference it only after it appeared. On this reconstruction, the only outlier from an obvious chronology in the Sketch is Owen’s 1850 Transactions article. Crucially, this is where Owen believed he had first articulated a defense of a theory “identical” (Owen’s word) with Darwin’s. Darwin was unfamiliar with this work until Owen brought it to his (and, more generally, his readers’) attention in the May 5, 1866, letter to the London Review. The letter was written by Owen in response to criticisms that were starting to appear in the scholarly and popular press of his just-​published Anatomy of Vertebrates, volume 1. The editor had written that he took Owen to be saying he had anticipated Darwin, and Owen in his letter agreed with the editor’s appraisal (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 66, line 45.11e). It was his encounter with Owen’s letter, which Darwin must have read shortly after it appeared in 1866, in which Owen claimed to have discovered Darwin’s theory in 1850, that prompted Darwin to include the Transactions publication of Owen 1850 in the 1866 version of the Sketch. But in the very next edition of the Sketch, published in 1869, Darwin removed the direct reference to Owen’s 1850 Transactions article, replacing that citation by the words: “Owen claimed to have propagated the theory of natural selection before I had done so.” Here, in the fifth and also the sixth and final edition of

Owen After Origin  223 Origin, Owen’s 1850 Transactions article disappears, and is replaced only by the vague assertion that Owen claimed to have discovered natural selection “before” Darwin. I detect some frustration here on Darwin’s part. Why would he remove an exact citation to the one work in which Owen might plausibly be said to have anticipated Darwin? Was Darwin trying to bury incriminating evidence? The answer to these questions must be sought in what Darwin learned about Owen’s views between 1866, when he did include reference to Owen 1850, and 1869, when he took the reference out. The evidence shows that Darwin was not trying to hide evidence about Owen’s priority. It shows instead that in that period he learned new details about Owen’s views that he did not know or fully appreciate in 1866. Both Owen’s 1850 article and his 1868 Anatomy volume 3 gave Darwin definitive evidence that Owen had missed the main insights Darwin had given in Origin. In hindsight Darwin decided no work needed to be cited in the Sketch that was no real anticipation at all.

The Darwin–​Owen Debates 1861–​1869 Appreciating the significance of Owen’s 1850 Transactions article and volume 3 of Anatomy for Darwin’s thinking requires situating his encounter with the two works in a larger context. For Darwin, the question about Owen’s position on the species question usually boiled down to a question about whether Owen accepted or did not accept “mutability” of species. If he was opposed to mutability, he could not be a supporter of evolution in any form. At the time he published the first edition of Origin in 1859, Darwin regarded Owen as a special creationist, opposed, in other words, to natural transmutation. The evidence for Darwin having this belief is to be found in Origin itself in its first published form—​the one Owen drew upon for his 1860 review and that did not yet contain the Historical Sketch (as documented in the previous chapter). In this work Darwin included Owen among a group of scientists who were “vehemently opposed” to transmutation (Variorum, p. 519, line 244). Darwin’s assertion provoked Owen to dissent vigorously in his 1860 Edinburgh Review article. He effectively ridiculed Darwin’s representation of his actual beliefs and seemed astonished that Darwin would have so grossly misunderstood him. What followed was a prolonged exchange between the two men, spanning the years between 1860 and 1869. The exchange took place in the impersonal domain of published writings; they did not engage in private conversation. This record reveals a series of misunderstandings compounding one upon the next as the exchange progressed. Personal animosity on both sides is obvious. But to get to underlying causes we need to sort through every episode in their written exchanges, six in all. In

224  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” brief, Darwin mentioned Owen 14 times in the 1859 Origin; Owen responded to Origin in an 1860 review of the book; Darwin responded to Owen in the first English version of the Sketch in 1861; Owen responded to that in 1866, in two places; Darwin revised the Sketch to reflect Owen’s new published views in the 1866 version of the Sketch; Owen responded again in 1869; and Darwin put a period to the protracted debate in the 1869 Sketch. Additional light is shed about the Owen affair by looking at Darwin’s private correspondence during this period with his closest friends, especially T.H. Huxley and J.D Hooker, both of whom had their own axes to grind with the “British Cuvier.” Darwin can hardly be blamed for not being sure where Owen stood on the pivotal question of “special creation” from the two works Darwin read or reviewed prior to the first version of the Sketch in 1861: Owen’s On the Nature of Limbs (1849) and the “Presidential Address to the British Association at Leeds” (1858). In the first Owen spoke of “Divine Power” and the “slow, stately steps” of a personified “Nature” guiding, by the “archtypal light” the “orderly progression” of organic phenomena (1849, p. 86). Darwin had marked this passage in his marginal notes to that volume in 1850 (Marginalia, p. 665). Owen’s language and expressions could well sound to an uninstructed student of nature as a concession to special creation. Darwin perhaps drew the same inference. Matters do not clear up when we look at the “Presidential Address” (1858), which refers to “the axiom of the continuous operation of creative power, or of the ordained becoming of living things (li).”8 Later on, Darwin in the Sketch quotes Owen 1858 to show that he doubts apteryx and red grouse were “distinct creations. By the word creation, he means he knows not what.” Because he “does not know,” he attributes their being situated geographically as they are to a “great first Creative Cause.”9 Darwin not surprisingly drew the conclusion that Owen seemed to be a special creationist. Darwin could have gone even further, providing seemingly indisputable evidence that Owen was not only a special creationist but also an anti-​ transmutationist. Owen (1860b) frequently quoted himself, including several references to this same 1858 “Address” to which Darwin had drawn attention. One passage from Owen’s review that Darwin did not notice in his Sketch was that, as far as “observation has yet extended, the cycle of changes is definitely closed.” Why Darwin did not include a reference to, or better, quote this unambiguous passage, cannot be known, but if he had wished to show Owen to be opposed to transmutation, this passage perhaps more than any other would have done the trick. The evidence Darwin had before him prior to 1866 was thus somewhat ambiguous, but certainly seemed to supply sufficient evidence for thinking Owen was a special divine creationist. Darwin was inclined to believe from 1861 on that Owen was open to some version of transmutation, as Owen himself insisted in

Owen After Origin  225 his 1860 review, somewhat in contrast to his position as shown here. But Darwin was not yet, in 1861, willing to concede that Owen was a believer in transmutation. The closest he came to that concession was to remove Owen’s name from the list of those scientists who were “vehemently opposed” to transmutation from Origin proper, but he made no mention of this in the 1861 version of the Sketch. The quotes from Owen’s works in the Sketch continued to suggest Owen was either a special creationist or, more likely, confused. But whether Owen accepted natural selection as a mechanism was much less clear to Darwin. He could discern nothing in Owen’s 1849 work on Limbs or his 1858 “President’s Address to the British Association at Leeds,” or even in his Edinburgh Review essay that indicated any notion of transmutation, let  alone natural selection.10 But then came the first volume of Anatomy of Vertebrates in 1866 and Owen’s 1866 letter to the London Review (v. 12, p. 516) in which he claimed priority for discovering “Darwin’s theory” in the 1850 Transactions. These three works, all read by Darwin in 1866, gave him pause. In Owen’s preface to volume 1 of Anatomy of Vertebrates (1866), he began by allowing the possibility of some kind of species transmutation: No doubt the type-​form of any species is that which is best adapted to the conditions under which such species at the time exists; and as long as those conditions remain unchanged, so long will the type remain; all varieties departing therefrom being in the same ratio less adapted to the environing conditions of existence. But if those conditions change, the variety of species at an antecedent date and state of things may become the type-​form of the species at a later date, and in an altered state of things. (Owen 1866b, v. 1 p. xxxv)

This statement is, at minimum, a confession of the possibility of some form of natural transmutation of species. Even allowing that possibility, however, it is not remotely an acknowledgment, let alone endorsement, of natural selection. Owen immediately makes this conclusion explicit. He goes on briefly to summarize Darwin’s “conjectural” opinion that reciprocal influences of external conditions and inherent tendencies may lead to species transformation. About these conjectures, Owen wrote: All these, however, are conceptions of what may have, not observations of what have, originated a species. Applied to the structures which differentiate Troglodytes from Homo, or Chiromys from Lemus, they are powerless to explain them: and the structural differences in these instances are greater than in many other species maintaining their distinction by sexual incapacity to produce fertile hybrids. (Owen 1866b, p. xxxv)

226  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” When “an innate tendency or susceptibility in an offspring to differ from a parent is carried beyond a certain point the issue is called, from its rarity, a ‘monster.’ But this tendency and its results are independent of internal volitions and external influences” (Owen 1866b, p. xxxv). Owen then spells out his own position on species transmutation as it stood in 1866: Therefore, with every disposition to acquire information and receive instruction as to how species become such, I am still compelled, as in 1849, to confess ignorance of the mode of operation of the natural law or secondary cause of their succession on the earth. [The quote from Owen 1849 is reproduced in a footnote: “To what natural laws or secondary cause the orderly succession and progression of species may have been committed, we are, as yet, ignorant.”] But that it is an “orderly succession,” (or according to Owen, a law), and also progressive or in the ascending course, is evident from actual knowledge of extinct species.” [Owen then gives four pieces of evidence for this assertion, all claimed by him to be his own original discoveries]. (Owen 1866b, p. xxxvi)

In short, Owen claims that he had already affirmed “orderly progression [of species] according to law” in previous writings, but the speculations of Darwin, Wallace, Lamarck, and others as to the nature of that law are merely “guess-​ endeavors” (Owen 1866b, p. xxxvi). So Owen states in 1866. Darwin could no longer doubt that Owen was opposed to the conventional theological position that species arose through special, separate acts of divine creation.11 Some “law-​governed” process or “secondary causes” must be at work instead. Darwin conceded the point in the 1866 version of the “Sketch,” but still was confused about whether Owen was also claiming to have anticipated natural selection. At first Darwin thought he was. In commenting on volume 1 of Anatomy of Vertebrates (1866b) Darwin wrote: Professor Owen has clearly stated his belief that species have not been separately created, and are not immutable productions. But he still denies that we know the natural laws or secondary causes of the successive appearance of species; yet he at the same time admits that natural selection may have done something toward this end. (Variorum, p. 65, line 45d 2)

Why Darwin drew this latter inference is not clear. There is nothing in the cited passage that suggested it. Darwin too thought better of this. He would soon come to retract it in the same version of the Sketch (see Variorum, p. 66, line 45d 6). At about the same time that Darwin read Owen’s first volume of Anatomy of Vertebrates he also read two additional publications by Owen that seemed only to add to the confusion: a “Letter” to the London Review (May 5, 1866, p. 516); and

Owen After Origin  227 an article published much earlier by Owen, a paper read before the Zoological Society in 1850 that was published in the Transactions of the Zoological Society volume 4, in the same year. What is certain from Owen’s letter to the London Review (1866a) is that he was claiming priority for “Darwin’s theory.” What is less clear is whether his claim was warranted. Darwin immediately began to doubt that it was, for in the very following lines of the Sketch, after acknowledging that Owen was opposed to special separate creation, Darwin saw no real anticipation of natural selection, or even transmutation. Darwin states that, after going to the Transactions article (1850) for personal review, he found only the ideas of preservation and extinction of species through the ages, but not of their modification or of natural selection. Darwin seals his case by quoting directly from the 1850 article: “We have not a particle of evidence,” wrote Owen, “that any species of bird or beast that lived during the pliocene period has had its characters modified in any respect by the influence of time or change of external circumstances” (Variorum, pp. 65–​6 lines 45. 6–​7d). Nevertheless, by 1866 Owen was making reference to this 1850 publication to prove he had anticipated Darwin’s theory by eight years! In short, Owen claimed to have discovered Darwin’s theory in 1850 and made this point explicitly in 1866. Darwin read the evidence differently. The key passage in Owen’s Transactions article (Owen, 1850) is on page 15, in which he discusses his idea that smaller species (i.e., species smaller in physical size of individual members) are less likely to go extinct than larger species of analogous type when confronted with new “external agencies” that are different than those in which the species “may have been originally adapted to exist.” He spells out the idea more fully in these words: [A change in external agencies over time] will militate against the [continued existence of a species] in a degree proportionate, perhaps in a geometrical ratio, to the bulk of the species. . . . The actual presence, therefore, of small species of animals in countries where the larger species of the same natural animals formerly existed, is not the consequence of any gradual diminution of the size of such species, but is the result of circumstances . . . ; the smaller and feebler animals have bent and accommodated themselves to changes which have destroyed the larger species. (Owen 1850, p. 15)12

In this passage Owen does seem to acknowledge species transformation (i.e., the replacement of larger species by analogous smaller species) through time by means of extinction as a result of changing external conditions. Darwin’s question was, does that acknowledgment add up to a real anticipation of his theory?13 Darwin did not quote this part of Owen’s passage directly in the Sketch. But he did quote Owen’s later reflections about this passage as submitted in a letter

228  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” in May 1866 to the London Review (Owen 1866a). In that letter, according to Darwin, Owen claimed an “essential identity” of the argument of his 1850 article with “the basis of [the so-​called Darwinian] theory” and added: “[the theory shows] the power, viz., of species to accommodate themselves, or bow to the influences of surrounding circumstances” (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 65, line 45.3d). He immediately goes on, as Darwin put it, to “speak of himself as the author of the same theory [i.e., Darwin’s] at the earlier date of 1850” (Variorum, “Historical Sketch,” p. 65, line 45.4d). In this letter Owen subtly changes the point he was making in the 1850 article. He now speaks of “species” accommodating themselves or bowing to surrounding circumstances, not individuals. Perhaps this only shows that Owen himself was not entirely clear on the distinction. In any case, when Darwin went back to read the 1850 article he decided that, whatever it was intended to say, it was still no anticipation of Darwinian evolution by means of natural selection. Darwin took Owen to mean that the argument in 1850 “applies exclusively to the extermination and preservation of animals and in no way to their origination, gradual modification, or natural selection” (Variorum, lines 45.6–​7d). This judgment was based on Darwin’s firsthand reading of the 1850 article, not Owen’s reconstruction of it in the 1866 letter to the London Review. Darwin clearly had the upper hand in the dispute with Owen at this point. He actually went further in 1866 in acknowledging Owen as a predecessor than he may have felt required to do. In Darwin’s opinion, Owen’s 1850 statements in the Transactions article did not pose a serious challenge to Darwin’s originality. Owen’s mutually inconsistent statements in his 1860 review of Origin, his 1866 Anatomy of Vertebrates volume 1, and his 1866 Letter to the London Review could only make Darwin shrug off any attempt to penetrate to the core of Owen’s beliefs. He registers his befuddlement in the1868 version of the Historical Sketch. In a wry acknowledgment that Owen was now (1866a) claiming priority, Darwin wrote: It is surprising that this admission [that species are not immutable productions] should not have been made much earlier, as Professor Owen now believes that he promulgated the theory of natural selection in a passage read before the Zoological Society in February, 1850 (‘Transact.’ vol. iv, p. 15); for in a letter to the ‘London Review’ (May 5th 1866, p. 516) . . . he says, “No naturalist can dissent from the truth of your perception [i.e., that of the Editor of the London Review] of the essential identity of the passage cited with the basis of that [the so-​called Darwinian] theory, viz., of species to accommodate themselves, or bow to the influence of surrounding circumstances.” Further on in the same letter he refers to himself as “the author of the same theory at the earlier date of

Owen After Origin  229 1850”. This will surprise all those who are acquainted with [his works] in which he strenuously opposes the theory; and it will please all those on this side of the question . . . that his criticism will now cease. (Variorum, pp. 65–​6, line 45d 4–​5, emphasis supplied)

As we shall see, the words that I have italicized in this letter are critically important for grasping the exact nature of the dispute between Owen and Darwin. We should take special note of Owen’s precise words in representing his views of 1850: “[the ability] of species to accommodate themselves, or to bow to the influence of surrounding circumstances.” Contrary to Darwin’s assertion that Owen was claiming to have “promulgated the theory of natural selection,” the passage need not be read that way, and in fact should not. Owen, on a generous interpretation, could have been referring to any theory of transmutation, including one or more of his own speculations in prior works. Or, more narrowly, he could merely be a referring to his well-​established position that larger species (i.e., larger in individual body size) may go extinct when external conditions change, leaving behind only smaller allied species to take their places. The only reason Owen gives for making Darwin’s inference plausible is that he also claimed “an essential identity” of his theory to that of Darwin. Whatever Owen meant, Darwin quickly saw that Owen could not have anticipated natural selection. Having gone back himself to the original 1850 Transactions article, he found Owen endorsing only “preservation and extinction of species,” not their gradual modification or natural selection. Immediately following the just quoted passage he quotes Owen directly: “we have not a particle of evidence of any species of bird or beast that lived during the pliocene period has had any of its characters modified in any respect by the influence of time or change of external circumstances” (Variorum, p. 66 lines 45d.6–​7). A plainer repudiation of species transformation, let  alone natural selection, cannot be imagined. Darwin saw this too: “[Owen’s comment] applies exclusively to the extermination and preservation of animals, and in no way to their gradual modification, origination, or natural selection” (Variorum, p. 66 lines 45d.6–​7). Perhaps stung by the quotation of Owen 1850 that Darwin included in the 1866 Sketch and his interpretation of it, Owen would not let the matter drop.14 He again asserted priority in volume 3 of the Anatomy of Vertebrates published in 1868. Darwin must have read this work, or some of it at least, shortly after it appeared, because he cites it by specific reference to page numbers three times in the 1869 version of the Sketch. Darwin was not pleased. He records in his marginal comments to this volume, in reference to page 798 and its lengthy footnote in which Owen dismissed previous transmutationist views, including Darwin’s, that Owen was claiming priority for the theory of natural selection: “damn this,” exclaims Darwin; “[it is] my basis” (Marginalia, p. 648, original emphasis).

230  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” By 1868 the dispute between Owen and Darwin had come down to whether Owen, in Darwin’s opinion, had actually anticipated “natural selection” in any published work. In the fifth edition of Origin (1869), Darwin continued to suggest in the Sketch that Owen believed “natural selection may have done something in the formation of new species” (Variorum, p. 66 line 45e.10). Here he continued to insist that his earlier “inference” that Owen was claiming “natural selection” as his own discovery was fully justified on the basis of page xxxv of Anatomy of Vertebrates volume 1 (1866). Darwin removed this concession in the final version of the Sketch, in 1872. But, in view of Owen’s more recent denial of the legitimacy of any such inference Darwin saw the need to draw back: “this [inference] it appears is inaccurate and without evidence” (citing Anatomy of Vertebrates, v. 3, p. 798). The question is, why? The answer is to be found in Owen’s lengthy footnote (p. 798, footnote 1) in volume 3 of Anatomy of Vertebrates (1868).15 The footnote takes up three pages of small print; in a larger font, it would have occupied five pages of text. Despite its relegation to a footnote at the end of a three-​volume work, Owen’s comment here is perhaps more illuminative of his views about the Darwinian theory than any other thing he ever published. The footnote deserves careful scrutiny. It was published in 1868, long after the firestorms surrounding Owen’s 1860 review of Origin had died down. It was also published after Owen’s 1866 London Review letter, which prompted Darwin to change his assessment of Owen’s contribution to the species question in the 1869 edition of Origin. We should thus regard it as Owen’s last verdict on the question of his own priority. He did not add to that particular conversation after this footnote. What becomes immediately clear from the footnote is that Owen, in 1868, was now more strongly than ever claiming priority. The occasion of the footnote was the appearance in the April 28, 1866 issue of the London Review of several reviews of the first volume of Owen’s Anatomy of Vertebrates, 1866. One anonymous reviewer in particular had noted passages in Owen’s “Preface” that suggested to him that Owen was now “admitting the Darwinian Theory!” Owen huffed a response: With the bulk of two volumes before him an able reviewer could hardly be expected to waste valuable time upon “notes” [that Owen had added to volume 1] and so the fact escaped him that the “admission” or “adoption” [of the Darwinian theory] was, in whatever degree it might relate to the D[arwinian] T[heory], an anticipation. (Anatomy of Vertebrates, 1868, v. 3, p. 798, n. 1)

Owen is claiming here that he “anticipated” Darwin, not that he “admitted [i.e., adopted]” his theory.

Owen After Origin  231 Owen’s footnote continued with a citation to another review of the same volume, this one appearing in Popular Science Review, April 1866, in which the very same “mistake” was made: a reviewer seeing Owen as a latecomer to Darwinism, not an anticipator, and citing the same passage in the “Preface” as proof. As is often the case, Owen’s prose is not especially felicitous in these footnote passages, but his meaning is clear: he did not “admit” or “adopt” Darwinism, he “anticipated” it. How could the reviewers have made such a significant blunder? Owen chalked it up to their careless reading of the “Preface” to volume 1 of the Anatomy of Vertebrates. When we go back to the passage in question, we find the issue is not so clear-​cut. Both reviewers pointed to the last full paragraph on page xxxiv, where Owen used the expression that better adapted animals “fare better in the ‘battle of life’ ” for evidence that Owen had “adopted” Darwinism in 1866. Owen’s complaint was that this paragraph needed to be viewed in light of the immediately preceding paragraph, which was a lengthy quotation from Owen’s 1850 Transactions article (cited in footnote 1 on page xxxiv). Owen was saying, in effect, that the “battle of life” idea that so strongly had suggested the Darwinian theory to his reviewers had actually been published by him in 1850, not 1866. On Owen’s reasoning, since the idea the reviewers drew attention to had actually been asserted in 1850, he was indeed an “anticipator,” not an “adopter” of Darwinism. Owen had a point. The paragraph that should have guided the reviewers’ interpretations, in Owen’s opinion, was the previous paragraph, the one that quoted the 1850 article and that was clearly cited in a footnote. If he said “battle of life” and survival of better-​adapted animals in a “contest for existence” in 1866, he certainly accepted that view in 1850. If the criterion for “anticipating” Darwin’s theory is the Malthusian idea of struggle for survival, Owen should be given credit for articulating that view as early as 1850. The reviewers did get this wrong. The problem here is that, even if we allow that Owen acknowledged “battle of life” in the 1850 Transactions article (an expression he did not use there, we should note, but was close enough in concept), it is hard to see any real anticipation of “natural selection.” Yet that is the point in question. In fact, the author of the Popular Science Review 1866 used that exact expression: “Not the least important feature in the work before us is, that it contains a partial concurrence, on the part of the author [Owen], in the theory of Natural Selection” (quoted in Owen 1868, p. 798, n. 1). Darwin himself, when he went back to the 1850 Transactions essay in 1860, found no anticipation. “Struggle for survival in nature” was even by 1850 an old idea; Owen was hardly the first to have discovered it. And while “struggle” was certainly a part of Darwin’s theory, it was not the only part and was by itself

232  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” no indication of natural selection. Darwin’s claim to priority for solving the “mystery of mysteries” in biology was having discovered the mechanism of natural selection, operating usually on “chance” variations, not the simple fact of “struggle for existence.” So, while Owen was right in thinking his reviewers had not read with sufficient care, he was wrong in supposing the 1850 Transactions essay established any claim to priority about natural selection. Or so Darwin thought. Yet Owen disagreed. He read the 1866 edition of Darwin’s Sketch soon after it appeared. In it Darwin claimed he found no anticipation of natural selection in Owen’s 1850 Transactions essay. Owen “deeply regretted” that Darwin had failed to see his (Owen’s) anticipation. His reasoning is a choked and tangled bed of weeds, but one can, with effort, make out Owen’s line of argument. It is cast syllogistically: if Owen in 1866 was an “adopter” of the basis of the Darwinian theory, as his reviewers claimed, then Darwin must be regarded as the real “adopter” of the theory as propounded by Owen in 1850. To meet Darwin’s criticism that the 1850 essay did not really anticipate his theory, Owen responded that it actually did. To show this Owen offered another syllogism: if “struggle for life” (Owen’s 1850 idea) can explain “preservation and extinction of species,” as Owen claimed in 1850, then the same idea could explain the “origin of all species,” as Darwin’s theory of natural selection later claimed to do. The inference should be “obvious,” Owen insisted: Owen was first. And then, as a concession, he allowed that Darwin “no doubt” had hit upon the same idea independently and with a great deal of original observation in support. It is strange that such confusion and disagreement should surround the issue of who really was “prior.” As we work our way further through this lengthy footnote the reason starts to emerge. Darwin and Owen were talking about two different things. Owen was claiming priority for having discovered the “basis” of Darwin’s theory in 1850. Darwin took this to mean Owen was claiming priority for “natural selection.” But Owen, it turns out, was making no such claim. He was claiming priority only for the idea of “struggle for existence” in nature, or “battle of life.” The key issue here is what Owen meant by the word “basis” and what Darwin took him to mean. In a nutshell, by “basis” Owen was referring to “struggle for existence,” whereas Darwin took him to mean “natural selection.” The two men—​and the various reviewers and editors of Owen’s 1866 writings for that matter—​were confused about what the actual subject of dispute was. Owen decided to clear up this confusion in the last part of his footnote 1 to Anatomy of Vertebrates volume 3, page 798. Owen did not dispute in 1868 that he had claimed to anticipate the “basis” of Darwin’s theory in 1850. If anything, he only strengthened this claim as the years

Owen After Origin  233 went on. He simply believed that this “basis” was the notion of “struggle for existence.” The footnote reveals why he believed this was a fair way to present the Darwinian theory. Darwin titled his 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Owen took the second half of this title as a clarification of the first half: since “natural selection” would not be clearly understood by most readers, Owen surmised that Darwin added the second half to make the “basis” of his theory clearer—​ “struggle for life.” By Darwin’s own account, therefore, and in the most conspicuous place—​the title page—​Darwin had announced the “basis” of his theory to be “struggle for life,” the very idea Owen had propounded in 1850. At the same time, Owen was entirely disavowing any commitment to “natural selection,” and claimed that this had been his constant position from the start. In other words, the “basis” of the Darwinian Theory, in Owen’s view, was only about species “preservation and extinction” brought about by “struggle,” not about the proposed “mechanism” of natural selection to account for species transmutation, especially the origin of new species. To that part of Darwin’s theory Owen was consistently opposed. Why he rejected natural selection is another story that would require separate treatment. In the footnote, though, he does give a brief summary of the reasons for his opposition. First, natural selection (unlike “struggle”) had not been demonstrated through observation. Perhaps more important for his own reputation as a leader in this line of inquiry is that Owen believed several other mechanisms besides natural selection for species change had been proposed—​some by himself—​and these had at least as much plausibility as Darwin’s theory. Indeed, Darwin’s theory was the “least likely” among all the other theories available to be a true account of how species come into being. This reconstruction of the dispute between Owen and Darwin, especially between 1866 and 1872, explains why Darwin removed all reference to Owen as an anticipator of “natural selection.” Owen had provided the evidence himself in his 1868 footnote. Perhaps Owen now finally realized why he was rejected by Darwin as a predecessor of his theory of the origin of species. In any case, Owen made no further contributions to the dispute after 1869. But with his failure to contest Darwin’s 1872 reassessment of his views, Owen let slip away what he had been trying at great pains to establish as early as 1866—​his priority in the transmutation dispute with Darwin. And, at the end of the day, perhaps the dispute was in Darwin’s eyes a tempest in a teapot. As he confessed in the Historical Sketch and to his closest friends, it really did not matter who was “first,” Owen or Darwin, in discovering natural selection, because they had both been preceded by many years by W.C. Wells and Patrick Matthew.

234  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

Notes 1. In 1848 Darwin wrote to Hooker to say, “[At Royal Society Meeting] Owen fell foul of Mantell with fury and contempt about Belemnites. What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame; the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly.” The editors of CCD suggest that Owen believed Mantell had misunderstood his work and so made a “virulent attack” upon him. Owen had received the Royal Medal for his work in 1846 (CCD, 10 May 1848, to Hooker and n. 19, letter 1174; see also Benton, 1982). Similarly, Owen’s professional and personal relations with Darwin’s close friend T.H. Huxley deteriorated significantly in 1857 over disputes about competing interpretations of the fossil record and zoological anatomy. Darwin sided with Huxley in these disputes, faulting Owen for the inadequacy of many of his opinions, not to mention his unfailing nasty tone, but without engaging Owen directly. Cf. CCD, 9 May 1856, to Hooker and n. 5., letter 1870; 9 November 1856, from Hooker and n. 6, letter 1983; 3 February 1857, to Huxley and nn. 4–​5, letter 2045; [before 12 November 1857], to Huxley and nn. 3–​4., letter 2166, for details. Ruse (1979, p. 144) hints that Huxley’s disputes with Owen in the 1850s may have contributed to Owen’s later disdain for Darwin and “Darwinism.” 2. Owen’s review was quite long, even by the standards of his time, and also quite detailed. An outline of specific criticisms of Darwin’s theory would comprise perhaps 25 items. I  shall focus here only on our central question:  Did Owen “anticipate” Darwin’s theory? 3. See also CCD, 10 April 1860, to Lyell, letter 2754; CCD, 18 May 1860, to Wallace, letter 2807. Darwin also names the many other naturalists who have opposed him in print, but takes satisfaction in the few, but eminent, scientists, who are supportive (CCD, 26 April 1860, to Hooker. Letter 2796). 4. Owen was notorious in scientific circles for his endless equivocations and obfuscations. For recent reviews, see J.H. Brooke (1977) and R.M. Young (1973), and E. Richards (1987). 5. The Historical Sketch actually appeared in print before this, in the 1860 first authorized US edition of Origin. Details in Johnson, 2007. 6. The “axiom” continuous creation etc. was first used by Owen in his 1858 BAAS presidential address, at Leeds, p. 27 (i.e., lxv). 7. Gould (2002, pp. 317–​23) situates Owen’s On the Nature of Limbs within the larger 19th century debate between “structuralists” and “functionalists,” showing Owen to be a major British voice on the side of structuralism. Darwin on this view was a functionalist: natural selection leads to exquisite adaptation. This particular controversy is mooted in the Darwin–​Owen exchanges in the 1860s. 8. In his review of Origin Owen changed wording and emphasis from the “Address,” as he had already done in his 1860 book Paleontology. What had been in the 1858 “Address,” “the axiom of the continuous operation of creative power, or the ordained becoming of living things” and a “great first Creative cause” now became in the review “the axiom of the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of living things.” Notice the italicization of the new rendering, and the complete omission of the “creative power” and

Owen After Origin  235 the “great first Creative Cause.” (Owen’s references in the review, pp. “3” and “27” of his 1858 “Address” are actually to pp. li and lxxv. Owen renumbered the page numbers of the British Association “Address” from the original small Roman numerals to Arabic numbers and started the pagination with “1” rather than “51”.) The context of the latter quote “great first Creative Cause” is Owen’s defense of parthenogenesis—​at first hoped to be the solution to the mystery of origins, but observation had not been able to confirm this, thus the quote. The review was anonymous, so he had to refer to himself as “the author.” About the deficiencies of other authors on what this law of operation is “the author is silent;” but their deficiencies are spelled out in Paleontology (1860a) on p. 404 [=441–​4 in 2nd ed., (1861)]: they are Buffon, Lamarck, and another theorist (likely either Geoffroy or von Baer); Darwin and Wallace are dismissed. Owen observes that he can accept law (“creative cause”), but none of the earlier theories have been supported through observation/​induction/​the “gold centre of truth.” This critique is recapitulated in Owen (1860b, pp. 508–​12). 9. Darwin evidently drew his quotes of Owen in the Sketch from the original 1858  “Address,” not from the review where mentions of “creative Power” were removed. But if Owen 1858 was Darwin’s source, as he claims, he misquoted Owen. Owen’s actual words in the 1858 “Address” were: “The whole process [of organic production] is the chief of the ‘mode’ or the ‘group of ideas’ we call ‘creation,’ viz., that the process was ordained by and had originated from an all-​wise and powerful First Cause of all things” (Owen 1858, xc). 10. Wallace exhibited no confusion about where Owen stood and also had a fine grasp of his dissimulations: “The shabby way in which your opponents [missing words] is amusing. First comes Owen with his new interpretation of what naturalists mean by ‘creation’ which turns out is not creation at all, but the unknown manner in which species have come into existence!!!. [Darwin had included the passage from Owen in the 1861 Sketch.] This new interpretation ought certainly to raise up the bench of bishops against [those who adopt it], for what then becomes of ‘special creation’ & ‘special adaptation’ and ‘intelligent forethought visible in each special creation’—​if creation is not creation at all, but a mere convenient expression of ignorance of the laws by which species have originated” (CCD, 30 November 1861, from A.R. Wallace. Letter 3334). 11. Owen had already disavowed any adherence to the “sacerdotal” prejudices of those who denied, on religious grounds, the operation of secondary laws to explain the origin of organic diversity (Owen 1860b, p. 511). He even suggested Darwin was guilty of holding such prejudices in Origin when he affirmed the probability that all organic forms that have ever existed have descended from “one primordial form, into which life was first breathed” (Variorum, p. 759, line 270). Owen, in apparent derision, called this statement a “scriptural phrase” (Owen 1860b, p. 510). Somewhat strangely, Darwin actually strengthened the theological overtones of this statement in the second edition by adding the words “[into which life was first breathed] by the Creator” (emphasis added). He quickly regretted in private having done so but did not remove these “pentateuchal terms” in any of the following editions.

236  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 12. Owen made precisely the same arguments in his article in Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (1859a, pp. 109–​13). 13. Owen’s passage raises a second issue in addition to the priority question: whether Darwin accepted “physical size” of individual organisms under the pressure of environmental conditions creating a differential survival rate of species in nature as a decisive factor in evolution of species. The short answer is “no.” First, Darwin was more interested in the origin of new species, not the “preservation” of existing species, as he says in the Sketch. More subtly, Darwin did not regard individual size—​“bulk” in Owen’s terms—​as playing a significant role in species change through time. More important by far were “so-​called spontaneous variations” that could only be acted on by natural selection after they appeared. Details in Johnson (2014, ch. 5). 14. Darwin’s American friend Asa Gray guessed this would be the case, as he had already guessed correctly that Owen would eventually claim natural selection as his own original discovery. After reading the 1866 version of the Sketch, Gray observed: “Owen’s proceedings are characteristic. And your note is the prettiest piece of work of the kind I ever had the pleasure to see. I never read a more telling page. Owen must be mad enough at being ‘knocked into a cocked hat’—​as we say. But I see not how he can complain.” (CCD, 7 August 1866, from Asa Gray and n.  9, emphasis in the original. Letter 5184). I pass over Owen’s brief embrace of a quasi-​evolutionary theory of his own in 1862, different from Darwin’s but convergent with it at several points. He seems to have abandoned it by 1866, instead preferring to stake his fortunes on the attempt to establish priority to Darwin’s theory. For details, see MacLeod (1965, p. 275); and below. 15. One may well ask if Owen added this footnote after he had already composed volume 3 of Anatomy of Vertebrates, in direct response to Darwin’s most recent version of the Sketch. The timing would be right for this supposition, but we have no evidence that it is justified. Owen already knew enough of Darwin’s position in early 1868 to allow him to stake a claim to priority even before Darwin tightened the knot in 1869.

References Amundson, Ron. 2008. See Owen, Richard, On the Nature of Limbs, 1849. Appel, Toby. 1987. The Cuvier-​Geoffroy Debate:  French Biology in the Decades before Darwin. New York: Oxford University Press. Benton, Michael. 1982. “Progressionism in the 1850s: Lyell, Owen, Mantell, and the Elgin Fossil Reptile Leptopleuron (Telerpeton).” Archives of Natural History 11: 123–​36. Bowler, Peter. 1976. Fossils and Progress: Paleontology and the Idea of Progressive Evolution in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Science History Publications. Brinkman, P.D. 2010. “Charles Darwin’s Beagle Voyage, Fossil Vertebrate Succession, and ‘the Gradual Birth & Death of Species.’ ” Journal of the History of Biology 43: 363–​99. Brooke, John Hedley. 1977a. “Richard Owen, William Whewell, and the Vestiges.” The British Journal for the History of Science 10: 132–​145. Brooke, John Hedley. 1977b. “The Natural Theology of the Geologists: Some Theological Strata.” British Journal for the History of Science 10: 132–​45.

Owen After Origin  237 Browne, Janet. 1995. Charles Darwin:  Voyaging. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press. Corsi, Pietro. 1988. The Age of Lamarck:  Evolutionary Theories in France, 1790–​1830. Berkeley: University of California Press. Darwin, Charles, and A.R. Wallace. 1858. “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.” Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society 3: 45–​62. Darwin, Charles. 1959. On the Origin of Species: A Variorum Text. Edited by M. Peckham. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Darwin, Charles. 1975. Natural Selection. Edited by R. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1985–​2017. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1987. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks 1836–​1842. Edited by P. Barrett et al. New York and London: Cornell University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1988. “Darwin’s Reading Notebooks.” Appendix IV, Volume IV of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 435–​573. Darwin, Charles. 1989. Voyage of the Beagle:  Charles Darwin’s Journal of Researches. Edited by Janet Browne and Michael Neve. London: Penguin. De Beer, Gavin, ed. 1960. “Darwin’s Notebooks on Transmutation of Species, Part I, First Notebook.” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, 2. Desmond, Adrian J. 1979. “Designing the Dinosaur: Richard Owen’s Response to Robert Edmond Grant.” Isis 70:  224–​34. [University of Chicago Press, History of Science Society]. Desmond, Adrian J. 1982. Archetypes and Ancestors: Paleontology in Victorian London 1850–​1875. London: Blond and Briggs. Desmond, Adrian J. 1985a. “Richard Owen’s Reaction to Transmutation in the 1830s.” British Journal for the History of Science 18: 25–​50. Desmond, Adrian J.  1985b. “The Making of Institutional Zoology in London 1822–​ 1836: Parts I and II.” History of Science 23: 153–​185, 223–​250. Desmond, Adrian J. 2011. The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Di Gregorio, Mario. 1990. Charles Darwin’s Marginalia. New York: Garland Press. Elwick, James. 2007. “Styles of Reasoning in Early to Mid-​ Victorian Life Research:  Analysis:  Synthesis and Palaetiology.” Journal of the History of Biology 40: 35–​69. Friedman, William E., and Pamela Diggle. 2011. “Charles Darwin and the Origins of Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology.” Plant Cell 4: 1194–​1207. Gayon, Jean. 1998. Darwin’s Struggle for Survival: Heredity and the Hypothesis of Natural Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ghiselin, Michael. 2009. Darwin: A Reader’s Guide. Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences, no. 155. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences. Glick, Thomas F. and Kohn, David, eds. 1996. Darwin on Evolution. The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection. Indianapolis; Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Gould, S.J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hull, D.L. 1973. Darwin and His Critics: The Reception of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

238  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Hunter, John. [n.d.]. Essays and Observations on Natural History, Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and Geology and Owen, Richard. 1861. The Introductory Lectures on the Hunterian Collection of Fossil Remains. 2 volumes. London: John Van Voorst. Huxley, Leonard. 1900. Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. New York: D. Appleton and Co. Johnson, Curtis. 2007. “The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the ‘Historical Sketch.’ ” Journal of the History of Biology 40: 529–​56. Johnson, Curtis. 2014. Darwin’s Dice: The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Kohn, David. 1980. “Theories to Work By: Rejected Theories, Reproduction, and Darwin’s Path to Natural Selection.” Studies in the History of Biology 4: 67–​170. Kohn, David, ed. 1985. The Darwinian Heritage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kohn, David, et al. eds. 2003–​2017. The Darwin Manuscript Project. New York: American Museum of Natural History. Mayr, E. 1988. Toward a New Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Moore, James. 1989. History, Humanity, and Evolution. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. MacLeod, R.M. 1965. “Evolutionism and Richard Owen, 1830–​1868:  An Episode in Darwin’s Century.” Isis 56: 259–​80. Ospovat, Dov. 1976. “The Influence of Karl Ernst von Baer’s Embryology, 1828–​1859: A Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen’s and William B. Carpenter’s ‘Palaeontological Application of ‘Von Baer’s Law.’ ” Journal of the History of Biology 9: 1–​28. Ospovat, Dov. 1978. “Perfect Adaptation and Teleological Explanation: Approaches to the Problem of the History of Life in the Mid Nineteenth century.” Studies in History of Biology 2: 33–​56. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ospovat, Dov. 1981. The Development of Darwin’s Theory:  Natural History, Natural Theology, and Natural Selection, 1838–​1859. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Owen, R.  1844. “Report on the Extinct Mammals of Australia, with Descriptions of Certain Fossils Indicative of the Former Existence in that Continent of Large Marsupial Representatives of the Order PACHYDERMATA.” Report of the 14th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 223–​40. Owen, R. 1846. “On the geographical distribution of extinct Mammalia,” Athenaeum 14 (February): 178–​79. Owen, R 1849 [2008]. On the Nature of Limbs: A Discourse. Edited, with prefatory essays, by Ronald Amundson and Brian Hall. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Owen, R. 1850. “On Dinornis (Part IV): Containing the Restoration of the Feet of that Genus and of Palapteryx, with a Description of the Sternum in Palapteryx and Aptornis. Transactions of the Zoological Society 4: 1–​20, and plates i-​iv. Owen, R.  1858. “Address of the President.” Report of the 28th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Leeds, pp. xlix–​cxi. Owen, R. 1859a. “Summary of the Succession in Time and Geographical Distribution of Recent and Extinct Fossil Mammalia.” Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 3 (April 12): 109–​16. Owen, R.  1859b. On Classification and Geological Distribution of the Mammalia, with Appendices on Extinction and Apes with References to the Transmutation of Species, being the Lecture Delivered before the University of Cambridge. To Which is Added an Appendix “On the Gorilla” and “On the Extinction and Transmutation of Species.” London: J.W. Parker.

Owen After Origin  239 Owen, R. See Hunter, John. Owen, R. 1860a. Paleontology. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black. [2nd. ed. 1861.] [Owen, R.] 1860b. “Darwin On the Origin of Species.” Edinburgh Review, vol. 111, Article VIII: 487–​532. Owen, R. 1863. “On the Aye-​aye (Chiromus, Cuvier; Ciromus madagascariensis, Desm.; Sciurus madagascariensis Gmel., Sonnerat; Lemur psiodactylis, Schreber, Shaw). Transactions of the Zoological Society 5, pt. 2: 33–​101. Owen, R. 1866a. “Letter.” London Review (May 5): 516. Owen, R 1866b. On the Anatomy of Vertebrates. Vols. 1–​2. London: Longman, Green & Co. Owen, R. 1868. On the Anatomy of Vertebrates. Vol. 3. London: Longman, Green & Co. Owen, Richard S. 1894. The Life of Richard Owen. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Richards, Eveleen. 1987. “A Question of Property Rights: Richard Owen’s Evolutionism.” British Journal for the History of Science 20: 129–​71. Richards, Robert J. 1989. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Richards, Robert J. 1992. The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Richards, Robert J.  2017. “Did Goethe and Schelling Endorse Species Evolution?” In Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution, edited by Joshua Lambier and Joel Faflak. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Rudwick, Martin. 1976. The Meaning of Fossils. New York: Science History Publications. Rupke, Nicolaas. 1985. “Richard Owen’s Hunterian Lectures 1837–​1855.” Medical History 29: 237–​58. Rupke, Nicolaas. 1994. Richard Owen: Victorian Naturalist. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Rupke, Nicolaas. 2009. Richard Owen: Biology Without Darwin. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ruse, M. 1979. The Darwinian Revolution. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Secord, James, ed. 2008. Charles Darwin:  Evolutionary Writings. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Secord, James. 2014. Visions of Science: Books and Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sloan, Philip R.  1985. “Darwin’s Invertebrate Program, 1826–​ 1836. Preconditions for Transformism.” in The Darwinian Heritage, edited by D.  Kohn, pp.  71–​119. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stott, Rebecca. 2012. Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. New York: Spiegel and Grau. Sulloway, F. 1982. “Darwin’s Conversion.” Journal of the History of Biology 15: 325–​96. Van Wyhe, John. ed. 2002–​. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. http://​darwin-​ online.org.uk/​. Young, R.M. 1980. “Natural Theology, Victorian Periodicals, and the Fragmentation of a Common Context. In Darwin to Einstein: Historical Studies on Science and Belief, edited by C. Chant and J. Fauvel, pp. 69–​107. Harlow and New York.

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Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. 1805–​1861 Sometime in late 1859 or early 1860, after Darwin had completed the first edition of the Origin of Species but before he sent his first draft of the Historical Sketch to Asa Gray on February 8 or 9, 1860, Darwin received a letter from Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire suggesting that Isidore and his father Etienne had already maintained in writing the doctrine of transmutation of species, well before Darwin. The letter has not been found, but we know that Darwin received it and took note of its message because on January 14, 1860, Darwin wrote to Charles Lyell that Isidore was claiming anticipation, both for his father and himself (CCD, 14 January [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2650). Isidore’s claim—​from what we can infer—​was not exactly one of “priority,” only of having promulgated “transmutation of species” before Darwin. This claim earned Isidore a spot in the Historical Sketch even as it first came to Gray in February 1860.1 Our questions are: What did Darwin know about Isidore’s views in early 1860. Where did he learn about them, and when? Isidore was the son of the controversial, but influential, naturalist and zoologist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. He showed skill from an early age in mathematics, but eventually came around to natural history as his primary vocation and followed in his father’s footsteps in studying what were then called “anomalies,” or, as Darwin had it, “monstrosities.”2 His original contributions have mostly been forgotten. Darwin did make annotations to his works in this field of inquiry, but did not make mention of them in the Sketch. Rather, his main interest in Isidore seems to be Isidore’s extensive understanding of the views of many other naturalists, both those favoring the Geoffroyian doctrine of species transmutation and those who were opposed. Before we turn to the Sketch, we should take note of Darwin’s earliest encounters with Isidore’s writings. Darwin had read, and annotated, several works written by Isidore, going back to 1826. Between 1843 and 1855, Darwin recorded in his Reading Notebooks his encounter with several of Isidore’s earliest publications,3 showing that Darwin had a high regard for Isidore’s thinking about the species issue and the scope of his understanding of the views of other naturalists. Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  241

Figure 10.1  Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire

Darwin’s earliest annotations to Isidore’s published works, however, were not uniformly positive. He disputed Isidore’s claim about domesticated geese with a dismissive “I contradict his statements flat—​think of S. America former” (in Essais de zoologie generale, 1841, p. 433). Then again, the question: “why man more perfect than beetle?” (p. 143). About Isidore’s representation of the views of Goethe, Buffon, and Lamarck, Darwin had this to say: “why new species to every small variation of conditions?” (pp. 239–​40): “does not allude to selection, Man some involuntary selection;” “principal value is about variation under domestication” (p. 299). And so on. Perhaps Darwin’s most cutting comments came in his annotations to Isidore’s 1832–​1837 Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux. Darwin read this work in 1844–​1845, according to his Reading Notebooks (*119:2v; 9v; 119:15a). In this work Darwin was mainly on the search for information about variations: how do they come about, and what do they tell us about how species might evolve? Darwin had much to say. He annotated all three volumes. [Volume I]: “Parts [or organisms] that that have changed much will tend to change more”, but such “endless remarks” appear vague, considering “what endless

242  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” diversity the whole series must present” (page 459). Changes in embryos depend on which [parts] are first developed, the first being most constant (page 485). “The tendency to monstrosities by arrest of development [in embryos] is perhaps allied to avitism [sic], [which bears on] arrest of variation” (p. 607). [Volume II]. Classification. Are rudimentary parts more variable than other parts? Use the word anomaly for [Isidore’s] variations or Monstrosities. “Anomaly” not quite correct [because] monstrosities help discover the laws of variation (p. 288). [Volume III]. Owen says this book inaccurate. Serres not to be trusted; some truth in law of eccentricity. Meckel good authority (page 352). Evident relation between monsters and varieties. [He] again insists on law of number varying in part when numerous, & being in itself variable (p. 456). “Pooh” on idea that tailless animals show excess of development because man does not have tail (page 439). “Pooh” (p. 448): I shd. think the cause must be often anterior to impregnation. Dogs and Men with polydactylism show that germ can communicate such tendency . . . according to this male would have no influence in producing monstrosities (p. 501): I must allude to this when I give my view of cause of deviations to parent treatment before impregnatation. In plants it may be said gestation of seeds causes anomaly—​but seeing what effect male pollen can do, I shd greatly doubt. This applies to all slight deviations (p. 608): rather attributes species to monstrous births than to small changes.

In a way, Darwin’s interest in Isidore’s extensive writings on teratology were, in the end, something of a distraction from his central concerns. Monstrosities are a curiosity to naturalists, to be sure. They do have some bearing on understanding the phenomenon of variation. They are, by definition, a radical departure from the regular order of nature. But they have little to tell us about evolution. It is hard to understand how they come into being, and they often leave no trace in the history of biological life on the planet. They either die young, or they do not replicate. These considerations may have led Darwin to adopt the phrase “anomalies” to describe them. But it would be incorrect to say that these anomalies shed no light on the origin of species. If we adopt a properly Darwinian perspective, we should be curious to know why anomalies arise in the first place. I believe Darwin’s study of Isidore’s early work in this area of study led him to see, or to confirm, a belief that unusual new organic forms can only be explained by factors working on the reproductive system of the parents prior to impregnation. I shd. think the cause must be often anterior to impregnation. Dogs and Men with polydactylism show that germ can communicate such tendency . . . according to this male would have no influence in producing monstrosities

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  243 (p. 501): I must allude to this when I give my view of cause of deviations to parent treatment before impregnatation. (Annotations to Volume III of Isidore’s Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux (1832–​1837)

That particular insight was not the only thing Darwin may have learned from Isidore. His annotations were mainly negative—​such as his notable “poohs”—​ but one often learns from another’s mistakes. Darwin did not find much to praise in the three-​volume work by Isidore. But, perhaps by way of disagreement, Darwin found a component of his own theory—​congenital variations that come about before conception (in contrast, say, to embryonic changes or, more famously, to environmental factors acting upon adult organisms)—​that made its way into his mature theory and stands as perhaps as important a discovery as natural selection. Despite Darwin’s poor opinion of Isidore’s magnum opus on teratology, Darwin made room for him in the Sketch, in two places: one, in a footnote to Darwin’s comments on Lamarck, in which he acknowledged Isidore as a source for information about Lamarck, and a second much later, in a paragraph devoted to Isidore “in his own right,” as we might say. To mention an author twice was an unusual procedure for Darwin in the Sketch. In fact, Isidore is a rare exception to Darwin’s rule that each of the 35 authors be mentioned only once, and in the chronological order of their first published account of any view that might be seen to have contributed to the “progress of opinion” on the species question. We can see without much trouble why Isidore was mentioned twice. His first mention is really only an acknowledgement by Darwin that an 1859 work by Isidore was Darwin’s source for vital information about other authors whose views Darwin was discussing in that part of the Sketch. The second entry is to Isidore’s own original contributions, which came in history some decades later. Darwin was fulsome in his acknowledgment of Isidore’s work: M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, in his Lectures delivered in 1850 (of which a Résumé appeared in the “Revue et Mag. de Zoolog.,” Jan. 1851), briefly gives his reason for believing that specific characters “sont fixes, pour chaque espèce, tant qu’elle se perpétue au milieu des mêmes circonstances: ils se modifient, si les circonstances ambiantes viennent à changer. En résumé, l’observation des animaux sauvages démontre déjà la variabilité limitée des espèces. Les expériences sur les animaux sauvages devenus domestiques, et sur les animaux domestiques redevenus sauvages, la démontrent plus clairement encore. Ces mêmes expériences prouvent, de plus, que les différences produites peuvent être de valeur générique.” In his “Hist. Nat. Générale” (tom. ii. p. 430, 1859) he amplifies analogous conclusions (Variorum, pp. 66–​67, lines 46–​50).4

244  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Isidore’s statement is reserved in its conclusions. When “ambient circumstances,” in other words local environmental conditions, remain the same, so do species, but when they change, they may induce transmutation. This is, more or less, just what Isidore’s father Etienne had claimed much earlier, except that Isidore claimed that certain “experiments” had “proved” this hypothesis. Etienne did not go that far. The second entry to Isidore, the one in which Darwin acknowledged Isidore’s own contribution, immediately raises a question for us. How did Darwin learn about his views? In the Sketch Darwin cites Isidore’s “lectures delivered in 1850” as his source, noting that “a Resume [of these lectures] appeared in the Rev. et mag. de Zoolog., Jan., 1851.”5 Darwin did acquire a copy of this periodical at some point, for a lightly annotated copy is in the Darwin pamphlet collection in the Cambridge University Library (CCD, 14 January [1860], to Lyell, n. 12, letter 2650), but when he read it is not known. When we turn to Darwin’s various records of works he read prior to 1860, the 1851 work by Isidore he cited in the Sketch does not show up. Beyond that, from what we can tell, Darwin was not a frequent consulter of the Revue et magasin de Zoologique. Indeed, this entry to Isidore in the Sketch is the only mention anywhere of the Revue et magasin in all of Darwin’s writings that I have been able to find. How did Darwin stumble on this (for him rather obscure) periodical? Darwin does not give an answer, but he does give clues, one in the same paragraph of the Sketch itself. After delineating Isidore’s contribution to the species question, as far as he could understand it, and providing some quotes in the original French from Isidore’s 1851 Revue essay, Darwin added that Isidore “amplifies analogous conclusions [in his] ‘Hist. Nat. Generale,’ (tom. ii, p. 430, 1859).”6 When we look at the cited page in the latter volume we do indeed find a reference to the 1851 Revue essay. It is thus a possibility that Darwin learned about Isidore’s 1851 Revue essay from Isidore himself, in his 1859 volume. A related question is whether Darwin even read Isidore’s Revue essay before he wrote the Sketch. He read it at some point, but when? The fact that Darwin in the Sketch quoted passages in the original French from what he said was the Revue article does not settle this question:  Isidore essentially repeated what he had written in 1851 in his 1859 book Histoire naturelle generale, and noted that this was so in a footnote. It is thus possible that Darwin simply quoted from Isidore 1859 rather than Isidore 1851. In terms of what Darwin learned about Isidore’s views it does not really matter: the two texts in question are nearly identical. But for the sake of historical accuracy and other details about Darwin’s acquaintance with Isidore we should want to know Darwin’s original source: the Revue or the Histoire naturelle generale. The answer mainly depends on when Darwin read the two works. Our chronological point of reference must be February 8, 1860, because that is the date on

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  245 which Darwin sent the first draft of the Sketch (at that point called a “Preface”) to Asa Gray in Boston for the first authorized US edition of Origin. Isidore is included in that early draft, in just the words Darwin used to describe his views in every subsequent edition of the Sketch. It is thus certain that Darwin had looked at either the Revue, or the Histoire naturelle generale, or both, prior to that date. And he must have done more reading than just the title page or volume number or page number, because he directly quotes passages in the original French. But was it the earlier work, the later one, or both, that he drew from? The quoted language is virtually the same in the two texts. The timing needed to support the conjecture that the Histoire naturelle generale 1859 was Darwin’s immediate source is difficult but not impossible. Darwin records that he read this volume in 1860, but he does not give us a date.7 To make Isidore’s Histoire a plausible source for Darwin’s first learning about Isidore’s earlier 1851 Revue article, it would be necessary for him to have read it in the very first days of January 1860. This is not impossible, since Isidore’s book came out in 1859—​time enough for Darwin to have acquired and read it. But the same is true of the 1851 Revue essay. Darwin learned of it before January 14, 1860, but probably not much earlier. This is suggested by a letter Darwin wrote to Charles Lyell on that date. In it he informs Lyell that he, by that time, knew of Isidore’s 1851 Revue essay but had not yet read it: With respect to [Etienne] Geoffroy St. Hilaire, I have been glancing over his Life by Isidore & his Principes & it seems to me that he was a rather doubtful maintainer of change of species.—​Isidore writes to me that he himself is a firm maintainer of such views: he says he has sent me a publication of his to show this, but it has not arrived. (CCD, 14 January 1860, to Lyell. Letter 2650)8

Darwin does not indicate in this letter what “publication” he was referring to, but that it was Isidore’s 1851 essay is confirmed in a letter Darwin wrote to Isidore himself barely two weeks later. I beg pardon for troubling you again. The pamphlet on the origin or variation of species, which you kindly said you had sent me has never arrived & I fear is lost. In your letter you say it was published in the Magasin de Zoologie; but your reference is defaced by a blot. It seems like 1850, but I can find nothing; would you be so good as to give me the volume year & page of the Magasin, for I am very anxious to see the paper. To save you as much trouble as possible I enclose an envelope. Perhaps your paper was printed in the Revue de Zoologies: I searched many volumes in vain. (CCD, 28 January 1860, to Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Letter 2665A)

246  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” What we learn from these two letters—​one to Lyell on January 14, 1860, and one to Isidore on January 28, 1860—​is that Isidore sent Darwin a letter along with a copy of his 1851 Revue essay by separate post either in late 1859 or early January 1860. As of January 14, 1860, Darwin had received the letter but not the Revue essay. We know this because Darwin told Lyell these things on that date. The letter to Darwin from Isidore—​not found—​must have been in reaction to the Origin, which had first appeared in November 1859. That is the most plausible guess as to why Isidore sent the letter and essay: to point out to Darwin that he had been anticipated in some sense by Isidore and possibly his father Etienne. Thus, the date of Isidore’s lost letter to Darwin was sometime between late November 1859, when the Origin first appeared in print, and mid-​January 1860. Allowing time for Isidore to have read and digested the argument of the Origin before he wrote to Darwin, we should assign its composition closer to the latter date than the former. In addition, the promised article must have been Isidore’s 1851 Revue essay. Since Darwin did not receive it—​he surmised it must have been lost in the mail—​we cannot know this with certainty, but different strands of evidence point strongly to that conclusion. One is that this is the essay in which Isidore first articulated his own hypothesis of “limited” transmutation of species—​that, at least, was Darwin’s judgment—​and this is what he would have most wanted to show to Darwin.9Second, Isidore referred to the article as having appeared in the “Magasin de Zoologie,” and, as far as Darwin could make out from the illegible date in Isidore’s letter, in 1850. The citation led Darwin astray and so he could not locate it on his own. The title of the periodical is actually Revue et magasin, not just Magasin. And the date was 1851, not 1850. If one went only by the citation Isidore evidently gave Darwin, it is no wonder Darwin could not locate it. Nevertheless, Isidore’s citation is so close to the actual title and date, it points unmistakably to his 1851 Revue essay. We still do not know, however, whether Darwin got the exact citation to the Revue article of 1851 from the article itself—​which he had not seen as late as January 28, 1860—​or from the reference to it in Isidore’s 1859 book Histoire naturelle generale, which Darwin read sometime early in 1860. It is clear that by February 8, 1860, Darwin had read the relevant passage in this book (different from the Revue essay entry) because he cites it by exact title, date, and page number in the first version of the Sketch, just after his reference to the Revue. In the book Isidore duplicates what he had written in the 1851 Revue article, giving the correct citation to the latter in a footnote to the duplicated passage. Darwin could not have cited Isidore’s 1859 passage unless he had seen it before he wrote to Gray. The question is, did Darwin get his information about the 1851 Revue article from the 1859 book or from the Revue itself.

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  247 That is an interesting question because, to maintain that he got it from reading the Revue itself forces a highly compressed timeline on Darwin’s acquisition, reading, and commenting on it. In brief, Darwin had not yet seen the article as late as January 28, 1860, as he told Isidore himself in a letter of that date. And yet by February 8 of the same year—​less than two weeks later—​he was able to include reference to it not only by title but by content and exact quotation in the Sketch that he sent to Gray. If we allow some days for mail to pass from Darwin to Isidore asking for a copy of the article, and a return post from Isidore to Darwin, the amount of time that Darwin would have had to read and comment on Isidore could not be much more than five days. This is not impossible. Darwin obviously wanted badly to see the article. He knew before he read it that it would no doubt need to be included in the Sketch. And this is just the time during which Darwin was working hardest on composing, or at least finishing up, the Sketch. Given all the other evidence, it is safe to conclude that Isidore dashed off a second copy of the Revue to Darwin in early February, Darwin read it immediately, and, having already read Isidore 1859 (which included much the same information as the Revue essay), was able to assimilate quickly the key message about Isidore’s views. Despite the tight time frame, then, Darwin must have read Isidore’s Revue article of 1851 prior to February 8, 1860, but after January 28 of the same year. That conclusion is supported by additional evidence found in the Sketch itself. Darwin cited it by exact quotation and title, including date and page number—​ information he did not have on January 28. He also noted that Isidore “amplified analogous conclusions” in his 1859 book, which, as we have seen, he had already read. The statement that Isidore “amplified analogous conclusions” is correct. As to “analogous conclusions,” when we look at the 1859 volume we do find statements by Isidore that are very similar to those in his 1851 Revue essay. Actually, we find almost exact duplication.10 It seems evident that Isidore merely transcribed what he had delivered as a lecture in 1850 into his more widely circulated 1859 book. We also find “amplification”—​the addition of one important paragraph to the Revue essay in the 1859 book. Darwin could not have known about this unless he had seen both works. Thus, of the two possibilities for Darwin’s original source for Isidore’s views—​ the Revue essay or the Histoire naturelle generale, while both are possible, the former is more likely. There can be no question that Darwin had read the Histoire naturelle generale before February 8, 1860, because he cites it in two places in the Sketch, with accurate references to this and other works that he could not have found elsewhere.11 It is therefore possible that Darwin based his understanding of Isidore 1851 only on what Isidore himself reported in 1859 about his earlier views and not the original 1851 Revue article. But Darwin had learned about

248  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Isidore 1851 from Isidore himself in early 1860 in a now lost letter, and he asked Isidore for a copy of it on January 28, 1860. Darwin received a copy, presumably from Isidore, and presumably shortly after this date, because a lightly annotated copy is in the Darwin Pamphlet collection at CUL. The essay is short—​eight pages—​so it seems probable that Darwin read it in the first week of February, giving him enough time to include it in the first draft of the Sketch completed by February 8 and sent to Asa Gray. In short, the evidence for Darwin’s original source for information about Isidore’s views is ambiguous, but tends strongly to support the Revue essay over the Histoire naturelle generale. The relevant sections of the two works were nearly identical in language and substance. Also, the dates of Darwin’s encounters with the two works are close to the same: he could have learned about Isidore’s views from either work only in January 1860. He probably read the Histoire before the Revue essay, but that does not mean the latter was not the source he drew on for Isidore’s 1851 views that he put into the Sketch. Isidore brought Darwin’s attention to the 1851 Revue in early January 1860 in a letter, and apparently sent him a copy of this essay at the same time (not received) and another copy shortly after that, in late January or early February of the same year. Darwin did like to consult original sources as a rule and wanted to get relevant citation information correct in the Sketch. And most important, Darwin was averse to inaccuracy and misstatement. Since he claims the Revue as his original source, and since there is no compelling evidence to suggest otherwise, the Revue 1851 must have been his original source for Isidore. Why Darwin used the Revue essay as his source for Isidore’s original ideas about species transmutation is, nevertheless, a mystery. In truth, 1851 was not the first time Isidore weighed in on the transmutation question in print. He had several years earlier already staked his claim as a proponent of species change, in his work entitled Essais de zoologie generale published in 1841, which appeared in a series entitled Nouvelles Suites à Buffon.12 At least that is what Darwin seemed to think. Darwin’s extensive marginal annotations to this book suggest that Darwin viewed Isidore as a transmutationist when he made these entries, long before he became acquainted in 1860 with Isidore’s Revue article of 1851. But when did Darwin read and annotate Isidore’s 1841 volume? He certainly read it well before 1860, but it is not clear when. On one hand, Darwin made a note in his Reading Notebooks on April 6, 1841, next to the title of this book, that he had placed “references at end” (CCD, v. 4, Reading Notebooks, 119.10a). When we turn to the volume itself in Darwin’s library, we do find three pages of annotations at the end, strongly suggesting that Darwin read this book almost as soon as it appeared, by early April 1841. And in November 1844, Darwin wrote a letter to Hooker that indicated familiarity with Isidore’s “good essays” on transmutation:

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  249 Isidore G Saint Hilaire has written some good Essays, tending toward the mutability side, in the “Suites a Buffon”, entitled “[Essais de] Zoolog. Generale” [1841]. (CCD, [10–​11 November1844], to Hooker. Letter 789)

All of this evidence shows Darwin was familiar with Isidore’s 1841 Essais by 1844 at latest, and perhaps earlier. On the other hand, the annotations also give evidence that Darwin read Isidore’s work as late as 1856, or even a bit later. That inference is based on the fact that, in the annotations, Darwin wrote to himself to include “old Geoffroy’s [idea of] modificateurs ambiants” in the “Preface” (referring to Isidore’s father Etienne). And he reminded himself just after that entry to include materials to “Ch[apter] 2 in M.S.” about animals (reindeer and geese) not breeding in domestication. The words “Preface” and “Chapter 2 M.S.” may well have been a reference to Origin in manuscript form and the planned “Historical Sketch,” both of which he began to compose in 1856. We should note that Darwin did in fact include “old Geoffroy” (i.e., Etienne) in the Sketch, just along the lines he promised himself he would do in this annotation. (I find no mention of Geoffroy in “Chapter 2” of Origin, nor of reindeer and geese.) Thus, we have two annotations in the same place, the end pages of Isidore’s Essais that suggest Darwin read the book in or about 1856, not 1841.13 Perhaps Darwin read the book twice, once just after it appeared and once again as he was preparing his species book, when he made his annotations. But, whenever he read it, he seemed to believe by November 1844 that Isidore held transmutationist views. In a letter to Hooker on November 10–​11, 1844 he made this clear: In my most sanguine moments, all I expect, is that I shall be able to show even to sound Naturalists, that there are two sides to the question of the immutability of species;—​that facts can be viewed & grouped under the notion of allied species having descended from common stocks. With respect to Books on this subject, I  do not know of any systematical ones, except Lamarck’s, which is veritable rubbish; but there are plenty, as Lyell, Pritchard [sic], &c, on the view of the immutability. Agassiz lately has brought the strongest arguments in favour of immutability. Isidore G. St. Hilaire has written some good Essays, tending towards the mutability-​side, in the “Suites à Buffon”, entitled “Zoolog:  Generale.” (CCD, [10–​11 November  1844], to Hooker. Letter 789)14

If this was Darwin’s belief in 1844—​that Isidore was a transmutationist as early as 1841—​why did he not make Isidore’s 1841 Essais his first entry for Isidore in the “Historical Sketch”? We should ask this question because Darwin followed

250  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” a strict plan throughout the Sketch, to mention authors according to, and in the order of, their first contribution in print to the species question. The answer would seem to be in what Isidore actually said about this question in the 1841 Essais, and what Darwin took him to be saying. If we judge only by Darwin’s marginal comments (whenever they were composed) and his 1844 letter to Hooker (the only correspondence prior to the Sketch bearing on the Essais), it does seem likely that Darwin thought of Isidore as a believer in species change by the time he published his Essais. But that impression is misleading, as we see when we look at Isidore’s book itself, Darwin’s annotations to it, and his letter to Hooker. We begin with the annotations. Two passages from Isidore’s book especially caught Darwin’s attention regarding their possible relation to his own theory: one on page 167, another on page 247. Both passages are scored, marginal comments attached, and annotations given in a three-​page summary of Darwin’s views of the book at the end of his copy. In the first, the annotation to page 167 (a section on Goethe in Isidore’s “historical review” of contributions to scientific zoology), Darwin commented: p.  165:  Goethe believed in Balancement15  .  .  .  p.  167 Believed in change of species, as did old Geoffroy [i.e., Etienne]. “Modifacateurs ambiants” sur l’organisme.” Yes this is his belief [p.] 247 Introduce in Preface. (Marginalia, pp. 301–​2)

The page numbers, 165 and 247, are Darwin’s written references at the end of Isidore’s volumes to page numbers in the text, no doubt to remind himself where to find these important pieces of information when he got around to writing his own species book. “Introduce in Preface” must be a reminder to Darwin that this material needed to go into the Historical Sketch. What do these annotations mean? At first one could surmise that “believed in change of species” was in reference to the ideas of Isidore himself; after all this was Isidore’s book, and Darwin was annotating it. But when one reads the entire section pages 165 to 167, we see that Darwin was actually referring to Isidore’s representation of Goethe’s views, not Isidore’s. The confusion, if one looked only at the marginal notes, is caused by a gap between page 165 and 167. It looks, from Darwin’s comments, as if Isidore had shifted from Goethe’s views to his own, but that is not correct. Isidore is still talking about Goethe on page 167. “Believed in change of species” is what Isidore was saying about Goethe (in addition to his belief in “balancement”), so Darwin’s statement in full should read: “Goethe believed in balancement and change of species, as did old Geoffroy with respect to the latter idea.” The point is that in this section on Goethe in Isidore’s book, we

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  251 are learning only about Isidore’s representations of the ideas of Goethe and “old Geoffroy,” not of Isidore’s own beliefs. What about the other annotation Darwin made to Isidore’s book, the one to page 247. This one says only: “Yes this is his belief—​introduce in Preface.” When we go to page 247 in Isidore’s text, we again find Isidore referring to the views of Goethe, along with those of Buffon and Lamarck. In this section Isidore once again says his father Etienne from an early time had also maintained these same beliefs—​that species change. Darwin’s comment “Introduce in Preface” must be a reference to his planned Historical Sketch (he first title he gave to this historical introduction to Origin was “Preface”), and when we look at Darwin’s entries for Goethe and Etienne we find him crediting both authors as being early transmutationists. Plausible as these conjectures appear to be, they nevertheless present us with a difficulty. When we turn to Darwin’s Sketch, we do find Goethe and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire introduced as relatively early defenders of transmutation, at least in a limited way. But Darwin does not cite Isidore’s 1841 Essais as his source. For Goethe, if one reads the entry in context, it seems like Darwin’s source was actually Isidore’s Histoire Naturelle Generale, 1860, as it had been for the publication date of Lamarck’s first work on the subject. Darwin then augmented the Goethe entry, for the fourth edition of Origin (1866), by citing a passage from a book by Karl Meding that gave an account of Goethe’s views. As to Isidore’s own views on the species question, we can say little more than Darwin said. Isidore gives his view that characters are fixed when external circumstances are the same, but are modified if “les circonstances ambiante” change. Observation of wild animals shows limited variability of species. The same may be observed when animals are domesticated. The differences produced can be of “valeur generale.” Isidore, Darwin claims in the Sketch, “amplifies analogous conclusions” in “Hist. Nat. Gen.” vol. 2, p. 430 [actually p. 431 ff.; the “amplification” is in in paragraph XIV, p. 437, along with his definition of species]. Isidore’s main contribution to the controversies about species change are less about transmutation than about a proper definition of “species.” After reviewing the definition that had been proposed by several other naturalists, Isidore weighed in on the question in his own voice. In both the 1851 Revue essay and the 1859 Histoire, Isidore proposed that species should be understood as a “suite” of individuals characterized by an “ensemble” of distinctive traits whose transmission from generation to generation is “natural, regular, and indefinite [i.e., persistent through long ages of time] in the actual order of things” (Revue, p. 19, para. 16; Histoire, p.  437, para. XIV). Isidore chose these words carefully. We know this because he elaborated, qualified, and even changed them for his 1859 volume.

252  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Isidore retained his central definition, as seen, from the 1851 Revue essay to the 1859 Histoire, but with an important change to the latter. Perhaps to remove the impression that his earlier definition suggested a “fixist” view of species, Isidore added a footnote to the 1859 version that suggested he was, in fact, not a fixist. The footnote points out that his earlier definition applies only to “the actual [i.e., existing] order of things.” It does not apply to species through all of time, or “in general.” To get to the broader species notion, one that allows room for transmutation, one need only remove the last five words of the first definition, the five words just quoted. Although he does not spell out his revised conclusion, Isidore’s emendation of his first definition is strongly hinting that, given enough geological time, transmutation would confound the earlier “fixist” definition. Isidore is suggesting, in 1859, that he is a transmutationist, much more plainly than he did in 1851. Isidore also gives a reason for his new definition. The implication of “fixism” in the original definition leaves little room for Isidore’s (and his father’s) discoveries in teratology. Some species produce “anomalous” offspring, and these are usually incapable of reproducing. (Some “hybrid species” can reproduce fertile offspring, but how regular this outcome is remains unclear.) “Anomalies” disrupt the universality of the original definition because they do not show the “regularity” and “indefiniteness” that one looks for in species fixity. Isidore, to correct the misleading impression, resorts to words that Darwin did accept: “accidents” and “temporariness,” as descriptors of variations that departed from the usual pattern of nature. Darwin did not acknowledge Isidore’s important insight here, but he did include “accidental variation” as a fundamental building block in his own theory. There can be little doubt that Darwin came upon the idea of “accidental variation” on his own.16 Isidore, it thus seems, did little to promote the transmutationist case, or so Darwin believed. His specific statements bearing on the question, dating from 1841 to 1859 and beyond, said little more than Isidore’s father had said years before: changing “ambient conditions” might be shown to induce heritable variations, and so, over time, can produce species change. This was a radical idea in Etienne’s day, far less so when Isidore wrote. More important to Darwin were Isidore’s references to his (and Darwin’s) predecessors. If Isidore occupies an important place in the history of biological philosophy, that place would be in his preservation of the views of a large host of forerunners about the species question. His catalogue in the Histoire is extensive and well-​informed. In the Histoire, Isidore added one new paragraph (XIV) to what he had written in the 1851 Revue: a lengthy catalogue of definitions of “species” from at least a dozen previous naturalists who had tackled the problem. Isidore himself, though, had little to contribute in his own voice, other than what has been recorded here. Darwin took what he could for the Sketch, but seems

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  253 never to have gained much original information. Isidore got a space in the Sketch for bringing in other authorities who supported species transformation, not for his own original arguments and observations. In sum, Darwin’s debts to Isidore as a potential forerunner for his own theory of natural selection were modest. Isidore was an advocate for his father’s groundbreaking discoveries that lead to a theory of transmutation. Isidore promoted these ideas in his own publications, but did little to extend them. He agreed with his father, against Cuvier, that species are not “fixed” for eternity. He adopted his father’s idea that changes in environment could bring about change in organization in biological creatures: a colder climate, for example, might induce longer hair in animals who would then benefit. But Etienne’s theory, while having achieved a great deal of scientific credence in his day, did not have the evidential underpinning that Darwin required. Isidore did not supply the needed evidence either. Darwin could not take his appreciation for Isidore’s views any further that he could for Etienne’s. They were both proto-​transmutationists, but their views came down mainly to mere assertion, and even then, in both cases, they were ambiguous advocates. Darwin acknowledged both of them in the Sketch, but without extending a great deal of credit to how they may have advanced the species question. But we are missing the target here, when it comes to Isidore. Isidore was, without question, a thoughtful and original scientific investigator, especially concerning “monsters.” Darwin, as shown, studied this research with care, but rejected most of Isidore’s conclusions. But what Darwin did gain from Isidore was a wealth of information about other scholars and naturalists who were working on various aspects of the “species question.” Isidore no doubt was regarded by Darwin as the most informed source for information about these other authorities, at least for those who studied and published on the continent. He relied on Isidore’s information for several other authors he discussed in the Sketch. Whenever he stayed away from Isidore’s comments about the species question, whether those of his esteemed father or his own views, Darwin was nothing but fulsome in his praise for Isidore’s vast fund of information about the history of opinion in other authors. Isidore’s place in the Sketch is earned much more by this store of information about predecessors than by any original insights offered by either his father or himself.

Notes 1. Darwin knew of Isidore by name earlier than this, having already read some of his previous works. He was also fairly certain that Isidore would eventually wind up in the Historical Sketch—​meaning Darwin saw possible anticipation of his own

254  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” views—​as early as January 1860 and perhaps earlier, as he included Isidore’s name in a list of possible contributors to the species question in his letter of January 18, 1860, to Baden Powell. And, since it seems clear from that letter that Darwin had begun the Sketch much earlier—​probably in 1856—​he may have known, at that early date, that Isidore would need to be reckoned with in a future Sketch. 2. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1832–​1837, Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux. Paris. 3. Bory de Saint-​Vincent, Jean Baptiste Georges Marie, ed. 1822–​1831. Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle. 17 volumes. Paris. Isidore’s essay on “Mammiferes” appears in the 1826 volume. In his Reading Notebooks (119. 14v. p. 446) Darwin drew attention to Isidore’s ideas about “crossing”:  “facts on crossing must certainly be read.” Darwin apparently read this work in 1844, perhaps his earliest firsthand encounter with Isidore. Darwin’s other debts to Isidore’s writings are documented below. 4. Darwin cites “Lectures” of 1850 (a résumé is given in “Revue et Mag. de Zool.,” Jan. 1851). The full citation is:  “Cours de Zoologie series 2 volume 3, Mammiferes et Oiseaux: faits au Museum d’histoire naturalle, en 1850,” Revue et magasin de Zoologie pp. 12–​20, 1851 [= Hist. Nat. Gen. v. 2, 1859, 430 ff., an almost verbatim reproduction of the Revue essay.] For additional references see Histoire Naturelle Generale v. 2, 1859, p. 430 and notes; n. 2 on this page refers to v. 1 p. xv for a reference to his earlier views. 5. Darwin does not give the title of the article or the full title of the periodical in which it appeared, but he is referring to Revue et Magasin de Zoologie Pure et Appliquée, 1851, which includes (pp. 12–​20) “Résumé des lecons sur la question de l’espece.” In this article Isidore stated his belief that species are subject to limited variability (CCD, 14 January 1860, to Lyell, n. 12. Letter 2650). 6. The full cite to this work is Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1856–​1862, Histoire naturale generale des regnes organique, 3 volumes. Paris: Victor Masson. Darwin read volume 2 (1859) in early 1860 (CCD, Reading Notebooks, v. 4, p. 497). 7. Isidore’s Histoire naturelle generale appeared in three volumes, 1854–​1862. The second volume was published in 1859, but no month of publication is given inside the volume, making it difficult to know just when it would have been available to a reading public in England. Darwin records he read it in “1860,” (Reading Notebooks, 128.26), but no month is given. He read volume 1 in July 1855 (Reading Notebooks, 128.8) and did not like it: “Miserable book—​all words, words, words” (Marginalia, p. 316). Nevertheless, he scored and annotated several passages. His annotations are even more dense for volume 2—​the volume that was quoted in the Sketch. Volume 3 appeared in 2 parts, part one appearing in October 1860 (when Darwin read it) and part two in 1862, which Darwin did not draw from in Origin. 8. The editors of the CCD note: “CD [here] refers to Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire’s biography of his father (I. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire 1847) and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-​ Hilaire’s Principes de philosophie zoologique (E. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire 1830). CD

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire  255 recorded having read the biography in 1855 (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 14)” (CCD, 14 January 1860, to Lyell, note 11. Letter 2650). 9. In truth, Isidore may have defended transmutation earlier than this, in an 1841 book. We explore this possibility later in the chapter. 10. “Exact duplication” would be an exaggeration. Isidore mostly made small adjustments, changing, for example, where he began and ended paragraphs, and altering slightly the numbering of paragraphs, but without altering the wording. These changes are cosmetic, not “amplifications.” The only significant change is that Isidore added a final paragraph, a brief resume on the challenges in defining “species,” discussed later in the chapter. The addition of that paragraph could be called an “amplification.” 11. In a footnote to his entry on Lamarck in the Historical Sketch Darwin confessed that he drew information about Lamarck from Isidore 1859, as well as about Buffon and Goethe. Darwin did not go back to the original sources in these instances, as far as we can tell. He also passes over a number of other authors mentioned by Isidore in the Histoire naturelle generale, saying to himself in his marginal notes to this book: “[pp.] 383 to 438 History of Believers in modification. Say I shall notice only the m[ost] conspic[uous] writers [in my Historical Sketch]—​when I began I had no idea of rest of catalogue.” This entry is immediately followed by Darwin’s marginal note drawing attention to Isidore’s own contribution (Marginalia, p.  317a). He also would have learned about Isidore’s 1851 Revue essay from this same source and, in this case, as shown earlier in the chapter, he evidently did read that essay before he sent the Sketch to Gray. 12. The publication date of Isidore’s Essais is given as “1841” on the title page, but Isidore dated the Preface “September 1840,” meaning that the work probably appeared early in 1841, giving Darwin enough time to have acquired and read it prior to April 6, 1841, the date he made his entry on this book in his Reading Notebooks. For Darwin’s annotations, see DMP http://​biodiversity library.org/​page/​34093861. The full citation to this work is Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, 1841, Essais de zoologie generale. Paris: De Roret. The cover title Nouvelles Suites à Buffon appears only on the front cover of the volume. 13. Further evidence that Darwin’s annotations to Isidore’s 1841 Essais were integrated into his species book only after 1841, or even 1844, is that he included no mention of or reference to this book in his 1844 “Essay,” the foundational document for the eventual Origin. This “Essay” can be found in Evolution by Natural Selection, Gavin de Beer, ed., Cambridge, 1971. 14. CD’s copy of I. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire 1841 is annotated (Darwin Library–​CUL). 15. “Balancement” was another theory about the organization of biological life that had been promoted by Goethe in the late 18th century. This theory held that if one part of an organism expanded in size, one could always find a diminishment in the size of another part—​hence “balancement.” This particular theory was not of much interest to Darwin in the Origin. 16. C. Johnson (2014, passim).

256  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

References Darwin, Charles, 1971. Evolution by Natural Selection. Edited by Gavin de Beer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Di Gregorio, Mario, and N.W. Gill. 1990. Charles Darwin’s Marginalia. New  York and London: Garland Press. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1832–​1837. Histoire generale. et particuliere des anomalies. 3 volumes and atlas. Paris. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1841. Essais de zoologie generale. Nouvelles Suites a Buffon. Paris: De Roret. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1847. Vie, travaux et doctrine scientifique d’Étienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Paris: Bertrand. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1851. “Cours de Zoologie series 2, volume 3, Mammiferes et Oiseaux:  faits au Museum d’histoire naturalle, en 1850,” Revue et magasin de Zoologie  12–​20. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1859. Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques. Vol. 2. Paris: Librarie de Victor Masson.

11

Herbert Spencer and Charles Victor Naudin Herbert Spencer. 1820–​1903 Herbert Spencer appeared in every version of the Historical Sketch, from the first, published in the first authorized US edition of Origin in May 1860, until the last, published in 1872. Darwin made no changes to this entry from first to last. Spencer is also mentioned by Darwin in his even earlier letter to Baden Powell, sent January 18, 1860, one of 13 authors mentioned there as people to be included in a future “Preface” to Origin. Thus, Darwin knew of Spencer’s contribution to the species question as early as January 1860 in sufficient detail to include him as a forerunner in the Sketch, first completed for publication by February 8, 1860. As one might expect, an extensive literature has grown up surrounding the “Darwin-​Spencer” connection, given the scientific stature of both men in the mid to late 19th century.1 The two men were to some extent working on similar problems, they were both making an impact on British (and eventually European and American) science, they had theories about organic evolution that showed some important similarities, and they were in mutual correspondence from 1856 onward. The question that seems to have aroused the greatest interest among modern historians and evolutionary biologists is whether they influenced each other’s ideas, and if so whether the influence runs from Spencer to Darwin, Darwin to Spencer, or was reciprocal. Before we are able to address that question, we should first try to sort out the details of Darwin’s acquaintance with Spencer’s writings:  Which writings by Spencer was Darwin familiar with, when did he become acquainted with them, and from which sources? We also need to do the same exercise in reverse: When did Spencer become acquainted with Darwin’s ideas, from what sources, and what did he learn about Darwin’s theories as he considered their relevance for his own? To date, the scholarship has not fully addressed these questions. Of particular concern is the relative neglect in the literature of the Historical Sketch, the most prominent public source for learning about Darwin’s understanding of Spencer. From it, we learn which of Spencer’s works Darwin found most relevant for showing potential anticipations of his own theory, and in what ways. Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

258  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

Figure 11.1 Spencer

The immediate concern is the question of when Darwin first learned about Spencer’s views. Given the paucity of information Darwin provided in the Sketch, the answer is less than obvious. The passages from Spencer’s copious writings that Darwin cited in the Sketch come from two earlier works, an essay on “The Development Hypothesis” that first appeared in the British periodical The Leader in March 1852 and was reprinted in 1858 in a book of Essays; and a later book Principles of Psychology, published in 1855. When did Darwin learn about these contributions, and how did they come to his attention? Darwin did not find Spencer’s writings on his own, as is clear from his correspondence and other sources. They were first brought to Darwin’s attention by Spencer himself, who sent copies of his works to Darwin. Darwin’s debt to Spencer, whatever it turns out to be, was not inconsiderable. He famously used Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest” as a stand-​in for “natural selection” in later editions of Origin, and seems also to have taken from Spencer the expression “so-​called spontaneous variation” to replace “chance” and “accident” in Origin as a shorthand explanation for how variations occur in nature. These are

Spencer and Naudin  259 merely terminological issues, not substantive ones, but they have influenced how Darwin has been understood by later readers of Origin. Spencer received more attention in the Sketch than most other authors cited there. The full entry is: Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an Essay (originally published in “The Leader,” March, 1852, and republished in his “Essays” in 1858), has contrasted the theories of the Creation and the Development of organic beings with remarkable skill and force. He argues from the analogy of domestic productions, from the changes which the embryos of many species undergo, from the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, and from the principle of general gradation, that species have been modified; and he attributes the modification to the change of circumstance. The author (1855) has also treated Psychology on the principle of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. (Variorum, p. 67, lines 53–​5)

We learn from this entry that Darwin knew of Spencer’s ideas from at least three sources. The first was published in 1852, a date that assigns Spencer a place in the chronologically arranged Sketch just after Freke (in 1851) and just before Naudin (in 1852). The second was the 1855 Principles of Psychology, and the third was a reproduction of the 1852 The Leader essay reprinted along with several other articles in Spencer’s 1858 Essays, Scientific, Political and Speculative, volume 1. Knowing the dates of Spencer’s publications, as far as Darwin knew about them, does not settle our primary questions: When and how did Darwin first learn of these works? Nor do Darwin’s citations to Spencer’s writings, by date and journal name or short title, guide us infallibly to the precise works Darwin was referring to. For a reader uninformed about the particulars of Spencer’s publication record—​and that would include most people, including well-​informed naturalists—​it would require some dedicated leg-​work to identify, and then read, the works in question. If one wanted to track down Darwin’s debts to Spencer and were basing one’s search only on what Darwin wrote in the Sketch, one should expect to encounter some roadblocks, false leads, and overlapping or missing evidence. Nevertheless, Darwin’s citations in the Sketch are not inaccurate, even if surprisingly incomplete. The “Essay” of 1852 in The Leader is a reference to Spencer’s short paper called “The Development Hypothesis,” of March 20, 1852. The reference to his “Essays in 1858” clearly points to Spencer’s 1858 Essays, Scientific, Political and Speculative, volume 1.  This was a collection of essays written by Spencer in the 1850s, which ultimately came to three volumes, the latter two published in 1863 and 1874. To find out what Darwin found in these volumes, and when, one must consult the original editions. In subsequent editions Spencer

260  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” changed the essays he included in each and the pagination, but not the title of the overall series. The 1855 “Psychology” refers to Spencer’s Principles of Psychology, one of the several volumes Spencer wrote to develop an overarching theory of the “principles” of several of the leading branches of knowledge, including (in addition to psychology) “first principles,” biology, and sociology. At the time, these volumes thrust Spencer into the front ranks of innovative and original philosophical naturalists. Spencer has since lost his luster, but in the 1850s and 1860s he was a figure to be reckoned with. The first of these contributions, the March 1852 essay in The Leader, was not the first encounter Darwin had with Spencer. Indeed, it was a late arrival in Darwin’s schedule of readings. It is likely Darwin never read the essay as it appeared in The Leader, but based his comments on that essay as it appeared (in slightly altered form) in Spencer’s Essays.2 We find no evidence that Darwin ever came into personal contact with The Leader itself. Nor, by his own admission, did Darwin pay much attention to Spencer’s Principles of Psychology (1855), as he confessed to Spencer himself in a letter written in early February 1860 (CCD, 2 February 1860, from Darwin to Spencer. Letter 2680).3 The very first indication we have about how and when Darwin became acquainted with Spencer comes in a letter Darwin sent to Spencer on March 11, 1856: Darwin’s first letter to Spencer. In it he thanks him for a copy of the Principles of Psychology, 1855, sent to Darwin by Spencer just months earlier. Why Spencer sent Darwin a copy of this volume in 1855 is a mystery. Darwin was not yet known in the scientific community as an “evolutionist,” but he was by then famous as the author of Journals and Researches, his account of the Beagle voyage. Spencer was perhaps reaching out to eminent naturalists in general, and Darwin had to be included in that group. In any case, Darwin appreciated the gift. Dictating a letter to his wife Emma, Darwin wrote: Mr. Darwin presents his compliments to Mr. Herbert Spencer, & begs leave to thank him very sincerely for his extremely kind present of the Principles of Psychology.—​Mr. Darwin may remark, in order to show how acceptable Mr. Spencer’s present has been, that only about a fortnight since he wrote down in his list of books to be read, the name of Mr. Spencer’s work. (CCD, 11 March [1856], to Spencer. Letter 1841)4

As usual, Darwin showed gracious cordiality, even though he probably had never heard of Mr. Spencer before he received this “present.” To be noted is that this volume, Spencer’s 1855 Principles of Psychology, does not address specifically the “origin of species” question that most interested Darwin. It cannot be ascertained how carefully Darwin read this work—​Darwin’s copy contains light annotations, but nothing that would have convinced Darwin

Spencer and Naudin  261 that Spencer needed to be included in a “Historical Sketch.” Darwin may not even have been contemplating a “Preface” at this early date. But even if he had—​ he started composing it sometime in 1856—​he probably would not have made a connection from Spencer’s Psychology to his own theory. As we have seen, he may never have read the book with much care (see n. 3). The next we hear from either Darwin or Spencer in connection with their views about evolution comes three years later, in late November 1858, in another letter Darwin sent to Spencer. It is again a thank-​you note, this time for Spencer’s volume of Essays, published in that year, with several previously published essays, including the 1852 article on “Development” that had appeared in The Leader in 1852. Spencer had sent Darwin a copy of the Essays in November 18585 and Darwin wanted to acknowledge receipt, with apparent gratitude: I beg permission to thank you sincerely for your very kind present of your Essays.—​I have already read several of them with much interest. Your remarks on the general argument of the so-​called Development Theory seem to me admirable. I am at present preparing an abstract of a larger work on the changes of species; but I treat the subject simply as a naturalist & not from a general point of view; otherwise, in my opinion, your argument could not have been improved on & might have been quoted by me with great advantage. Your article on Music has also interested me much, for I had often thought on the subject & had come to nearly the same conclusion with you, though unable to support the notion in any detail. Furthermore by a curious coincidence Expression has been for years a favourite subject with me for loose speculation, & I most entirely agree with you that all expression has some biological meaning. (CCD, 25 November [1858], to Spencer. Letter 2373)

Darwin did not quote from Spencer’s “Development Theory” in the Sketch or elsewhere, although he did cite it in the Sketch by publication date, March 1852. Perhaps he did not see enough of value in it to warrant quoting it: speculations differ on this point. But at least from this letter we see he did read it, at least as early as November 1858. Where, that is, in what publication, Darwin read it is another question. From what we can gather, he probably did not read it in its original published form in The Leader 1852, but from its reproduction in Spencer’s Essays, volume 1, published in 1858. But we cannot be certain. Darwin claims in his 1858 letter to Spencer, just cited, that he has “already read” several of the essays in the 1858 collection. One of the essays he had “already read” is presumably the essay on “Development” We should assume the expression “already read” means “read in the collection of ‘Essays,’ ” not in its original published form in The Leader. What happened is that Darwin received the volume of Essays in the latter part of 1858,

262  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” quickly read several of the essays contained in it, and then composed his thank-​ you note to Spencer on November 25 of the same year. Darwin states explicitly in this letter that he finds the “so-​called Development theory” to be admirable. When one looks at the first edition of Spencer’s 1858 volume of “Essays,” the only chapter devoted explicitly to “development,” is the one that bears the title “The Development Hypothesis.”6 We have no indication yet that Darwin read the essay on “development” in The Leader, or even that he had seen a copy of it. He must have taken the publication outlet from Spencer’s mention of it in the 1858 Essays.7 Complicating the story is the fact that Spencer published another essay in the same year, 1852, on “population,” a 35-​page article that appeared in the Westminster Review—​the same year that the article on “development” appeared in The Leader.8 This article came to Darwin’s attention almost at the same time that he was asking Spencer for the “precise date of publication” of the essay “The Development Hypothesis” that appeared in The Leader (CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer. Letter 2680). The chronology here is important. Darwin wanted the date of The Leader essay from Spencer before February 8, 1860, when he sent the first version of the Sketch to Asa Gray, and he received a response before that date (letter from Spencer to Darwin on this point has not been found). But then, just two weeks later, Darwin wrote to Spencer again, this time praising another 1852 essay on “population.” You put the case of selection in your Pamphlet on population in a very striking and clear manner. You do not say whether I am to return it; I have not yet had time to read it, for my very small power of work of any kind is much overtaxed. If you require the pamphlet back, kindly send me one line, otherwise . . . I shall keep it. (CCD, 23 [February 1860], to Spencer. Letter 3126)

By this time, Darwin had already sent the first version of the Sketch to Asa Gray, so he would not have been able to include anything from Spencer’s essay on “population.” And he did not alter the Sketch in later editions to make room for this essay. It probably made little impact on Darwin’s opinions about Spencer. Or, if it did, it apparently had a negative impact, as we see later. From Darwin’s letter to Spencer of February 23, 1860 we must infer that Spencer had just sent Darwin a “Pamphlet” containing the population essay, as the editors of the CCD have observed (CCD, 23 [February 1860], to Spencer, n. 7. Letter 3126). What was this “Pamphlet”? It could be either the entire 500-​plus page issue of the 1852 Westminster Review (in which Spencer’s essay appears in volume 1, pp. 468–​501), or a separate copy of the “Population” essay as a stand-​ alone. The editors of CCD do not speculate about the type of pamphlet it was. Spencer did not publish the population essay separately (outside the confines

Spencer and Naudin  263 of the Westminster Review), but it is possible that he had a separate copy—​the basis of his submission to the Westminster Review—​and he sent that stand-​alone copy to Darwin along with his letter of February 22, 1860. The latter idea seems more likely since Darwin offered to send the copy back if Spencer wanted it back. Either way, whatever the “pamphlet” was, it was a lengthy document. Even as a stand-​alone it came to at least 30 pages, the number of pages it occupies in the Westminster Review. The final fate of this “pamphlet”—​whether Darwin sent it back to Spencer or not—​is unknown. Darwin was cordial in his response upon receipt of the “pamphlet on population,” as we have seen from his February 23, 1860, letter to Spencer. Even by itself, however, Darwin’s response to Spencer is confusing. He first claims the essay to be “very striking and clear,” yet then immediately adds that he has not yet been able to read it, for want of time and energy. In any case, Darwin gives the impression that he was struck by the force and clarity of Spencer’s argument. That impression changes when we look at a letter Darwin sent to Charles Lyell only three days later. By this time, he had come to a different opinion: I can easily believe in your criticisms on part of H.  Spencer’s work:  I have just read his Essay on population, in which he discusses life & publishes such dreadful hypothetical rubbish on the nature of reproduction. (CCD, 25 February [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2714)

What Lyell may have said to Darwin about Spencer’s works is not known, but it must have been less than fulsome praise.9 Darwin welcomed the opportunity to join the chorus of criticism that his old friend and mentor Lyell had initiated—​ but only in private to Lyell and other close friends. What a contrast we find between Darwin’s letter to Spencer on February 23, 1860, and what he wrote to Lyell on the 25th! To Spencer, the “population” essay was “striking and clear,” to Lyell, it was full of “rubbish.” To Spencer, Darwin admits to not having read the essay, to Lyell, that he has just finished reading it. These discrepancies ask for a resolution. Most likely, I surmise, is that when Darwin first wrote to Spencer on the February 23, he had only skimmed the population essay, and found it to be “striking.” By February 25, he had read it more carefully and decided it was seriously flawed. Darwin did not convey the latter impression to Spencer himself, or so we must assume. But from this time on, late February 1860, Darwin had come to hold negative ideas about Spencer, whatever he may have thought of his earlier works in The Leader (1852) or the Essays (1858). Darwin’s impressions of the quality and significance of Spencer’s opinions did not improve after February 1860, even though Spencer kept publishing—​ prolifically. He published his First Principles in 1860–​1862, then a more massive

264  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” set of volumes on the Principles of Biology (1864–​1867). These works came out serially, rather than all at once, and were sent as “issues” to subscribers. The manner in which the works appeared gave readers the opportunity to ingest them in parts, as those parts appeared in print. Both works attracted attention and praise, but Darwin was not impressed. In his correspondence with friends and colleagues Darwin expressed either lack of interest in Spencer, or disappointment. He sometimes explained to correspondents that he found Spencer incomprehensible, blaming himself (facetiously, I assume) for his own stupidity.10 Darwin’s friend Hooker shared much the same view. The opinions in the Darwin camp were generally unfavorable, with some exceptions. In any case, Darwin did not make a single change to any version of the Sketch (after its first iteration) in what he had to say about Spencer, despite the abundance of new material Spencer kept grinding out in the 1860s.11 None of these latter-​day reflections by Darwin of Spencer after early 1860 help us with assessing Spencer’s importance to Darwin for the Sketch. He acknowledged everything he ever would acknowledge in the first version of the Sketch, and, as we have seen, those debts were entirely to works published by Spencer between 1852 and 1855.12 What about Spencer’s opinions about Darwin? Darwin was already known to Spencer well before the publication of Origin in 1859, as he was to most naturalists, and even before the famous Darwin-​Wallace paper published in the Linnean in 1858. This familiarity was no doubt based on Darwin’s by then famous Journal of Researches (1839, republished in 1845), a work that brought Darwin immediate scientific prominence in Britain. Spencer was not, however, acquainted with Darwin’s evolutionary views until much later, only after he read Origin. It is not clear that he ever read or knew about the groundbreaking Linnean paper. Spencer’s first acknowledgment of Darwin’s contribution to evolutionary theory came only in late February 1860, weeks after Darwin had composed and sent to Asa Gray the first version of the Sketch. Given the fact that Darwin had already by then acknowledged Spencer in the in the first edition of Origin (although not by name) and in the Sketch, Spencer’s delay in acknowledging Darwin is something of a surprise. Spencer could have mentioned Darwin’s great work much earlier, in either his own publications or his correspondence, especially since it bore more than a family resemblance to his own views. But he only sent his congratulations to Darwin for his great achievement in late February 1860 (CCD, 22 February 1860, from Spencer. Letter 2706B). This is when he admitted to a “great modification” of his own views about evolution in light of Darwin’s book. Especially enlightening, was Darwin’s “explanation of the causes of variations” as being due to “so-​called spontaneous variation,” or, in Darwin’s

Spencer and Naudin  265 word, “chance.” Because Spencer was in many respects a “Lamarckian” in his evolutionary views, “spontaneous variation” came as an eye-​opener: Lamarck left no room for chance in his theory. Darwin’s revelation about “chance” in the Sketch did not fundamentally alter Spencer’s Lamarckian outlook, but it did force him to re-​evaluate his earlier position.13 Given the impact on Spencer’s thinking of Darwin’s Origin, and given Darwin’s desire to acknowledge Spencer in the Sketch—​an intention Darwin brought to Spencer’s attention on February 2, 1860, why did Spencer not contact Darwin about his debt prior to February 22, 1860? Darwin’s book first appeared in late November 1859 with a second edition appearing one month later. Darwin sent Spencer a presentation copy in November 1859. If Spencer had acquired and read Origin as soon as it appeared he may have responded more quickly. But that did not happen. Part of the reason for this neglect can be found in the correspondence. Darwin sent a presentation copy of Origin to Spencer as soon as it appeared in print—​ November 26, 1859. But something went wrong in the delivery, and Spencer did not receive it at that time. In a letter Darwin wrote to Spencer in early February 1860, asking for the “precise date” of publication of the article on development in The Leader, Darwin commented: From your letter [this letter seems to be missing] I infer that you have not received a copy of my Book, which I am very sorry for: I told Mr. Murray to send you one, amongst the first distributed, in November: it was addressed, I am almost sure, to care of Mess Longman. Will you enquire, if you think it worthwhile, & let me know if not there; & then I will write to Murray to see what has become of it. (CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer. Letter 2680)

The Spencer letter that Darwin refers to here seems to be missing, but it must have been sent in late January 1860 (see n. 9). What that letter said is hard to guess. At least we know that by this date, February 2, 1860, Spencer had heard about Origin but had not yet seen it. By February 10, Spencer had received a copy and had begun to read it. He had in fact digested enough to recognize the similarities to his own development theory. In a letter to a friend on that date he wrote: I am just reading Darwin’s book (a copy of which has been searching for me since November and has only just come to hand) and want to send him the “Population” [Spencer 1852] to show how thoroughly his argument harmonizes with that I have used at the close of that essay. (CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer, n., letter 2680, quoting from a letter from Spencer to “a friend,” published in Duncan 1908, p. 9814)

266  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin received a copy of “population” shortly after this date, praising Spencer for its “striking” argument and “clarity” of expression on February 23, and panning it privately to Lyell two days later, as documented earlier. It did not merit mention in any edition of the Sketch. To summarize this complicated exchange of correspondence between Darwin and Spencer from late January to late February 1860: Darwin had sent Spencer a copy of Origin in November 1859, as soon as it was published, and then learned in late January or very early February that Spencer had not received it; Darwin asked his publisher Murray what had happened to the presentation copy; either Murray tracked it down or Spencer found it at his own publishing house Longman’s, where Darwin had sent it; Spencer read it right away and saw the similarities to his own theory; he then sent Darwin a copy of his “Population” essay of 1852 so that Darwin could see for himself the similarities; Darwin read this essay no later than February 25, 1860, praising it to Spencer but confiding to Lyell that it was full of “rubbish.” This brief flurry of correspondence spelled the end to any admiration Darwin may have had for Spencer’s ideas. Little more traffic of letters between the two men happened after this period, and Darwin’s opinions about Spencer only deteriorated after that. Nevertheless, Darwin did not remove Spencer from the Sketch, even after he had become skeptical about the value of Spencer’s writings as showing real anticipation of his own theory. This discovery is in itself not too surprising: once an author had made it into the Sketch he was there forever, with the sole exception of Maillet.15 Darwin never removed anyone, he only added new names through the several editions. That Darwin’s opinions about Spencer declined after February 1860 does not mean, however, that Darwin found nothing important in Spencer’s earlier works. To determine why Darwin included Spencer in the Sketch at all, we should look more closely at Spencer’s arguments about evolution prior to 1860 and what Darwin gleaned from them. Darwin gives us several clues in the Sketch and in his private writings. We may begin by pointing out a general feature of Spencer’s thought. He was essentially a Lamarckian who wanted to show that he had improved upon, not altered Lamarck’s fundamental insight: organisms undergo species change over the course of ages, and these transmutations may be traced mainly to “the direct action of conditions of existence.” Lamarck pinpointed a mechanism—​the inheritance of acquired characters that have come into existence through the action of “use and disuse,” or “habit.” The canonical example is the giraffe: these creatures evolved from shorter-​necked ruminants through the increased use of their necks to “reach higher.” Over eons of time, this constant stretching, caused by changed external conditions (e.g., an extended drought), gave rise to longer necks. The longer necks are then passed down to offspring through the normal

Spencer and Naudin  267 course of propagation. Eventually a short-​necked leaf-​eater became a giraffe by gradual steps. Spencer always accepted the fundamentals of this account. Where he departed from Lamarck was in his argument that Lamarck did not give an account of species transmutation within a larger theory (or “hypothesis”) of why plants and animals undergo development at all. Spencer wanted to provide more than a “mechanism” (i.e., use and disuse, or in Spencer’s phrase, “functional adaptation”). He embedded the Lamarckian account within a larger philosophical system that depended on a notion of “opposing cosmic forces”—​development and degeneration—​that resulted in an overall “cosmic equilibrium.” This system, according to Spencer, accounted for every observable natural process from the beginning of time—​not just biological evolution. It explains, he believes, why we see order, stability, and minute gradations everywhere in nature, despite the fact that nature is a dynamic, ever-​changing set of conditions. Lamarck (and Darwin) had failed to see this larger picture. Spencer’s adjustments to Lamarckism in the ways just described did not put him in opposition to Lamarck. He was only refining and enlarging the earlier theory. But they did, implicitly, put him in opposition to Darwin. Spencer’s worldview was teleological: “nothing in nature is without meaning and purpose” (“A Theory of Population,” 1852, p. 488). Beyond this axiomatic starting point, nature holds together only because of a constant adjustment of opposing forces to an all-​governing “cosmic equilibrium,” infused by a cosmic “benevolence,” meaning all natural phenomena exhibit an overall pattern of goodness. Spencer does not say what theologically minded readers would have expected him to say, that “God” is the architect of this cosmic benevolence. But, in one way or another, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Spencer saw intelligence and design in nature, or at least he did in 1852. This outlook implied for Spencer an overall trajectory of biological life toward increasing perfection and ever higher levels of equilibrium. Spencer did allow room in his theory for some backward steps: sometimes degeneration prevails over “upward progress.” The overall direction, however, is what was then called “progressive.” The star witness is “man.” Humans are a relatively recent arrival in the earth’s biosphere, yet one sees without looking too hard that humans have surpassed all other creatures in mental capacity. They currently sit at a pinnacle of intellectual development. Spencer does not hold the theological opinion that “man” is the “goal” of nature or God; some even more superior form could come along. But the trajectory of nature is unmistakably upward and progressive. Darwin rejected teleology even in this Spencerian sense, one devoid of an explicit reference to “God” as planner and guide. He also, for the most part, rejected Spencer’s ideas of functional adaptation and cosmic equilibrium as of any use

268  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” in explaining the transmutation of species. For the latter, he had no sympathy whatever. For the former, he did retain Lamarck’s ideas of “use and disuse,” never adopting Spencer’s language of “functional adaptations,” even though the two expressions are closely alike in meaning. But Darwin downplayed the importance of Lamarck’s “use and disuse” as causal factors in evolution, and increasingly so as the years went by.16 For Darwin, variations are best explained in the majority of cases as coming about through “chance,” or “spontaneously.” And Darwin from an early time could not accept “progressive” or “upward” development. Nature is fortuitous in its productions. It is as likely that a new variant could be regarded as a backward step as a forward one. Yes, nature does show an equilibrium, “exquisite adaptations” in Darwin’s phrase, but in no sense is the attainment of this result a “deliberate goal” of nature. It just happens to occur. If it did not, we would have no “nature” to talk about. As soon as Spencer became acquainted with Darwin’s theory of “descent with modification by means of natural selection” in 1860, he seems to have been convinced that Darwin was a kindred spirit. Both men accepted “struggle in nature for survival,” and, in Spencer’s phrase, “survival of the fittest.” Both saw “exquisite adaptations” in nature between organisms and environment. Both believed “changing external conditions” played an explanatory role in these adaptations. And both accepted Lamarck’s “use-​inheritance” as a mechanism for bringing about organic transmutation. For Spencer, Darwin was on the same page as he was regarding evolution. This background helps us understand how Darwin addressed Spencer’s ideas when he composed his Sketch. Even before he had finished writing the first edition he had already included a reference to Spencer’s ideas in the first edition of Origin, although without mentioning Spencer by name. At the end of Origin Darwin wrote: In the distant future I  see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. (Variorum, p. 757, lines 255–​257f)

This passage, notoriously, is the only place in Origin in which Darwin made any reference to “man.” His debt here is once again to Herbert Spencer! Darwin, after consulting Spencer in person about whether this representation of his views (in his 1855 Psychology) was acceptable, retained the sentence in Origin, suggesting Spencer approved (no letter has been found). Darwin repeated the same idea, in nearly identical language, in the Sketch, beginning in the first published version, 1860, and retained it in every subsequent edition of

Spencer and Naudin  269 Origin (Variorum, p. 67, line 55). In the 1872 edition he finally got around to acknowledging Spencer as the source for his comment in Origin proper about psychology and “man” (Variorum, p. 757, line 257f; CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer. Letter 268017). When we turn to the full details of Darwin’s representations of Spencer’s ideas in the Sketch, we find that he credited Spencer with four insights about evolution, even apart from what he took from Spencer’s Psychology. Spencer’s argument in his 1852 article in The Leader is both a polemic against “special creation” and a brief in favor of “the developmental hypothesis.” The case Spencer makes against special creation is concise: And here we may perceive how much more defensible the new doctrine [evolution] is than the old one [special creation]. Even could the supporters of the Development Hypothesis merely show that the origination of species by the process of modification is conceivable, they would be in a better position than their opponents. But they can do much more than this. They can show that the process of modification has effected, and is effecting, decided changes in all organisms subject to modifying influences. (“The Development Hypothesis,” The Leader, 1852)

The gist of the polemic against special creation is that its supporters lack empirical evidence for their claims, whereas “developmentalists” have at their command a great deal of evidence for transmutation. Spencer’s positive case for the “development hypothesis” brings forward the arguments Darwin credited Spencer for in the Sketch. But Spencer began his defense with an important disclaimer: some causal factors in the process of transmutation are still unknown. As he put it: Though, from the impossibility of getting at a sufficiency of facts, they [i.e., developmentalists] are unable to trace the many phases through which any existing species has passed in arriving at its present form, or to identify the influences which caused the successive modifications; yet, they can show that any existing species -​animal or vegetable -​when placed under conditions different from its previous ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes fitting it for the new conditions.

By 1852, Spencer was certain that modifications in species occur, but he cannot (yet) explain the “many phases” through which organisms pass in arriving at their “present forms,” and, more importantly, he cannot “identify the influences” that caused these changes. In short, Spencer still lacked a “mechanism.”

270  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” He did, however, identify several pieces of evidence that, he believed, supported the developmental view. Developmentalists can show: that in successive generations these changes [of species] continue; until, ultimately, the new conditions [of existence] become the natural ones. They can show that in cultivated plants, in domesticated animals, and in the several races of men, such alterations have taken place. They can show that the degrees of difference so produced are often, as in dogs, greater than those on which distinctions of species are in other cases founded. They can show that it is a matter of dispute whether some of these modified forms are varieties or separate species. They can show, too, that the changes daily taking place in ourselves -​the facility that attends long practice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice ceases—​the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the weakening of those habitually curbed—​the development of every faculty, bodily, moral, or intellectual, according to the use made of it—​are all explicable on this same principle. And thus they can show that throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind they assign as the cause of these specific differences, an influence which, though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked changes -​an influence which, to all appearance, would produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of condition which geological records imply, any amount of change. (“The Developmental Hypothesis,” The Leader, March 1852)

We find here ideas that Darwin accepted as important:  the analogy of natural productions to domestic ones, the difficulty in discriminating variations from species in many cases, and the principle of “gradualism.” Spencer added another observation in the following paragraph on embryology as it bears on development. Much of what Spencer argued, as Darwin no doubt believed, was old news. Modifications caused by “change of circumstance” was a common feature of virtually every transmutationist theory since such theories had begun to circulate a century earlier. Darwin, too, accepted the idea. But by itself the proposition does not say much, other than one may always see a connection or correlation between changing external conditions in geological history and the life forms changed conditions can support. That axiom is nearly a tautology, although the phrase “[Spencer] attributes the modification [of species] to the change of circumstances” does hint at a notion of causation. By itself, however, it does not approach the identification of a mechanism of change. It says only that biological species march step-​in-​step with external conditions to maintain a proper fit. Spencer’s other points also lacked originality. The “analogy of domestic productions” had been identified by many other naturalists prior to 1852, and

Spencer and Naudin  271 had been worked up independently by Darwin from early reflections in the 1830s to a full-​fledged foundational argument for evolution in Origin, Chapter I. Embryology, likewise, mentioned briefly by Spencer in a later paragraph of the same essay, was by this time (1852) a staple of transmutationist thinking, brought to naturalists’ attention by von Baer, Barry, Carpenter, Owen, and others in the 1840s (Spencer mentions Carpenter in particular on this point). The difficulties of distinguishing varieties from species had been posing problems for systematists for decades, if not centuries, and Darwin had by 1842 already begun to make significant headway in explaining the bearing of this issue on the question of species change. In short, not one of Spencer’s arguments that he presented with “remarkable skill and force” would have been seen by Darwin as either “original” or an “anticipation” of his theory. Why, then, is Spencer considered as contributing to the “progress of opinion” on the species question when Darwin first published the Sketch in 1860? One possibility is that Darwin was impressed by Spencer’s ideas, not because of any single idea by itself, but because of the cumulative effect that four different ideas put together in a single, comprehensive scheme may have had. This is plausible, because of the fact that Darwin’s own theory was composite, consisting of a number of different strands of argument, not just a single one. Spencer’s theory of development incorporated several of these strands. In addition, many of Darwin’s other sources in the Sketch could not claim the same degree of complexity as the ideas of Spencer, giving Spencer special claim. Or perhaps Darwin’s interest in the Sketch was not solely to identify predecessors, but to include anyone who had put some of the pieces of the species puzzle together prior to Origin, even without anticipation or originality. If Darwin could see reason for including Goethe, Rafinesque, or Freke in the Sketch, he could see even more reason for including Spencer, even if none of these authors had said much to justify a claim as “forerunner.” Or perhaps Darwin was mainly attracted to Spencer for his cutting arguments against “special creationism.” Spencer argued that supporters of this view oppose evolutionist arguments by relying on suppositions that are far more questionable than the arguments—​incomplete as they are—​that evolutionists can muster. As Spencer wrote, “Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution as not being adequately supported by facts, seem to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.” Spencer here anticipates arguments that have persisted into our own times: if one needs “proof ” for evolution as contrasted to “special, independent creation,” more “proof ” in the form of empirical evidence is available to the evolutionists than to the special creationists. Indeed, the latter are forced to fall back on mere assertion—​Creation must be the answer, supported by “no facts at all.” Darwin appreciated the critique.

272  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Notably lacking in Spencer’s argument, however, is an explanation for modification of species, at least not a complete one or one that got to the core of the matter. Darwin’s Origin brought about a major shift in Spencer’s thinking. Darwin did give an explanation, or actually two: natural selection and spontaneous variation. From his letter to Darwin on February 22, 1860, we infer Spencer discovered these two new (to him) ideas in Darwin’s Origin, and gave Darwin explicit credit for both. While claiming to have the “same general conceptions” as Darwin on a number of points, Spencer had not noticed or grasped either “natural selection” or “spontaneous variation”: You have wrought a considerable modificn in the views I held—​While having the same general conception of the relation of species, genera, orders &c as gradually arising by differentiation & divergence like the branches of a tree & while regarding these cumulative modifications as wholly due to the influence of surrounding circumss. I was under the erroneous impression that the sole cause was adaptation to changing conditions of existence brought about by habit, using the phrase conditions of existence in its widest sense as including climate, food, & contact with other organisms. But you have convinced me that throughout a great proportion of cases, direct adaptation does not explain the facts, but that they are explained only by adaptation through Natural Selection. [In addition] I  & every one overlooked the selection of “spontaneous” variations without which I think you have clearly shown that many of the phenomena are insoluble. (CCD, 22 [February  1860], from Spencer. Letter 2706B)

Spencer, in late February 1860, could not have been clearer. Darwin had awakened him (in Origin) to two seminal ideas supporting “development” that he claims not to have noticed before: natural selection and spontaneous variation. Yet, there is something odd about this acknowledgment. Spencer, in praising Darwin’s discoveries, may have been too modest. By 1852 Spencer seems to have already believed in some force in nature that corresponded with Darwin’s “natural selection:” Many (&c) must have been struck with the fact that among all races of organisms the tendency was for the best individs. only to survive & that so the goodness of the race was preserved (From Spencer to Darwin, 22 February 1860. Letter 2706B).

Spencer then added that he had made a similar discovery himself, at least as regards “mankind,” and had published his findings in his 1852 essay “On Population”:

Spencer and Naudin  273 I have in Essay on Population &c remarked this [viz., the tendency was for the best individs. only to survive] as a cause of improvement among mankind. (CCD, 22 February 1860, from Spencer. Letter 2706B)

On this date, February 22, 1860, Darwin had not yet read Spencer’s “Population” essay; apparently Spencer sent him a copy of it as an enclosure with this letter. Within three days Darwin had read it and, as seen earlier, thought it full of “rubbish.” But it is curious that, while Spencer thought he had anticipated “natural selection” (admittedly by a different name), he would have credited Darwin with discovering the idea. But apparently what Spencer found most striking and novel in Darwin’s version of the theory of development was his identifying “spontaneous variation” as the explanation for the first step in evolution—​the appearance of new variations in nature. This insight came as a revelation to Spencer, as he told Darwin in the same letter of February 22, 1860: But I & everyone overlooked the selection of “spontaneous” variations without which I think you have clearly shown that many of the phenomena are insoluble. Perhaps this falls short of a direct demonstration yet the indirect demonstration is to me conclusive. I take it to be incredible that so many different kinds of evidence shd. coincide in supporting a doctrine that was untrue. (CCD, 22 February 1860, from Spencer. Letter 2706B)

If Darwin had brought novelty into the old question of organic evolution, in Spencer’s view, it was Darwin’s discovery of “spontaneous variation,” even more than natural selection. Spencer gives the impression that he entirely accepts Darwin’s view about “spontaneous variation” and Darwin’s originality in discovering it. But when we look more closely we see that this impression is misleading. When Darwin used that expression in Origin starting in the fourth edition (1866), and perhaps influenced by Spencer’s use of it in his February 22, 1860 letter, he meant “cause unknown,” not “no cause.” For Darwin, all natural phenomena can be explained by reference to causes. Some of these, however, are at present unknown, perhaps even unknowable. Why do offspring vary in traits from their parents, and why do some variations appear and not others? Darwin said “by chance.” Spencer agreed that these questions posed difficulties, but Spencer, unlike Darwin, thought he had the answer, and it was not “by chance.” Variations come about to meet the needs organisms face in an ever-​changing natural environment, and they always come about to meet the requirements of “functional adaptation” and “cosmic equilibrium.” Where Spencer saw a cosmic logic, Darwin tended to see only fortuity.

274  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin appears to have noticed this key difference between his theory and Spencer’s, even if Spencer did not. The evidence for this conjecture is circumstantial: Darwin nowhere attempted to say what Spencer meant by the expression “spontaneous variation,” even while adopting it in Origin, starting in 1866, to replace his previous word “chance.” But Darwin notably did not include Spencer’s expression “spontaneous variation” in any edition of the Sketch in which he referred to Spencer. Spencer relied on the expression frequently in his Principles of Biology, again giving Darwin opportunity to give credit to Spencer in later editions of Origin, but that did not happen. Increasingly, Darwin distanced himself from Spencer’s ideas, through the 1860s, never altering his first comments about him in the Sketch that were based entirely on Spencer’s writings of 1852 and 1855, in which “spontaneous variation” was never mentioned. Darwin and Hooker, and no doubt Lyell too, always found Spencer’s thought process difficult to follow. Hooker once likened his writings to a “huge mill-​sluice of scientific diction and ideas” that keeps churning away without ever deepening the river into which it flows (CCD, 26[–​28] October 1864, from Hooker. Letter 4645). Darwin claimed that after reading anything written by Spencer he never felt he had learned anything new. As Darwin reported to Hooker in November 1864, “when I finish each number [of the Principles of Biology] I say to myself what an awfully clever fellow he is, but when I ask myself what I have learnt, it is just nothing” (CCD, 3 November [1864], to Hooker. Letter 4650). That sentiment sums up with fair accuracy what Darwin gained from Spencer in the 1860s: “just nothing.” Darwin’s difficulty in penetrating Spencer’s insights into the origin of species helps explain why his entries on Spencer in the Sketch were more stinting than one might expect. Darwin, in the Sketch, did not give Spencer credit for discovering natural selection, perhaps because Spencer himself was not clear until after Origin appeared that he had in fact put his finger on this mechanism of species change, or at least thought he had. Nor did Darwin acknowledge Spencer for the idea of “spontaneous variation,” even though he came to adopt the expression in Origin beginning in 1866. The reason again seems to be that Spencer was not claiming credit for the idea. And, to the extent that Spencer incorporated it in his later works of the 1860s, it is evident that the expression meant something different to him than it did to Darwin. To see this difference in meaning between Darwin and Spencer one needs only look at what Spencer had to say about Darwin’s theory of evolution in the first volume of his Principles of Biology, 1864. Spencer devoted 15 pages to Darwin’s theory in a section of the work entitled “Indirect Equilibrium” (Chapter XII, pp. 443–​57). Spencer begins by giving Darwin due acknowledgment for his discovery of “natural selection.” He finds it to be an important discovery. But he then almost immediately switches gears, claiming that this mechanism cannot possibly account for many observable phenomena in nature. Much more important,

Spencer and Naudin  275 in Spencer’s view, is the Lamarckian process of “functional adaptations,” or “use/​ disuse and habit” in Lamarck’s terminology. The main dispute with the Darwinian hypothesis is that it was predicated upon the supposition of “multiple changes simultaneously” in organisms that go on to survive (a critique repeated more than a decade later by St. George Mivart). Such simultaneous changes could never be supposed to happen “spontaneously.” They must be the result of organisms “adapting” to their physical conditions as needed for survival, one at a time. Spencer’s critique of Darwin in this part of his Principles of Biology is a stunning revelation about how Spencer and Darwin diverged in outlook, and about how Spencer really did not understand Darwin. Three conclusions stand out. The first is that Spencer accepted “natural selection” only to a small extent. It was a concept that had some explanatory value, but not nearly as much as Spencer’s (or rather Lamarck’s) “functional adaptation.” Spencer also essentially was rejecting chance, or “spontaneous variation,” as of much importance in understanding organic change, for the same reason that he diminished the importance of “natural selection.” Spontaneity required too many coincidences, simultaneous alterations in the change of organisms, to be plausible. Above all, Spencer’s theory of organic change continued to rely on a notion of “cosmic equilibrium,” an essentially intelligent or designed process that Darwin could never accept. In view of the evidence presented here, we may divide Darwin’s debts to Spencer into two episodes. The first covers Spencer’s scientific contributions to evolutionary theory and related ideas that he published between 1852 and 1855. Darwin acknowledged this work in the Sketch, citing dates of publications and short titles. The second includes everything Spencer wrote and published after 1860, a huge volume of work. Darwin read much, if not all, of this material, and he found nothing worthy of his notice in it. His opinion, expressed to Lyell in February 1860, would not change: Spencer’s views were mostly “rubbish.” His harsh criticism continued well in to the 1860s, mainly in correspondence with Hooker. Spencer may have believed he had discovered “natural selection” before Darwin, in his essay on “Population” published in 1852, but when Darwin read that work in 1860 he found no anticipation. Spencer may have given Darwin credit for discovering “spontaneous variation,” but again, in later works, Spencer seemed to be claiming priority for this idea as well. But, if that was his position, it did not stand up to scrutiny in Darwin’s eyes, and rightly so. Spencer continued to attempt to assimilate Darwin’s views to his own long-​held Lamarckian beliefs. In the end of the day, Darwin’s novelty was a nearly complete break with Lamarckism, and this break is something Spencer never quite understood. In terms of our original question, then, whether Darwin influenced Spencer, or the other way round, or whether neither man influenced the other, the verdict must fall with the latter option. The two men did read each other’s works, at least the ones that would matter in settling this question, and they read each

276  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” other at a time when the question of mutual influence would have played a role in shaping their respective views. But they moved along different tracks in their ideas. Spencer was from the beginning to end a Lamarckian, believing he only enlarged Lamarck’s views without altering them in any notable way. Darwin was a “Darwinian,” which entailed a rejection of most of what he found in Lamarck. Darwin came to understand this difference by early 1860, and Spencer never did. Darwin saw enough of value in Spencer’s early writings to give him a place in the Sketch, but after that his opinions of Spencer’s views, especially as Spencer expanded them in the 1860s, turned to nearly total rejection. Darwin had seen enough of Spencer by late February 1860 that he said nothing further about him in any published writing, or, for that matter, to Spencer himself. They parted ways cordially, but in a way that left Spencer entirely misguided in his belief that Darwinism was only Spencerism in different words.

Charles Victor Naudin. 1815–​1899 Charles Victor Naudin, French horticulturalist and botanist, is another one of those authors Darwin included in the Historical Sketch without discernable reason. If the idea of the Sketch was to identify precursors, Naudin had little claim to a place in it. Most of his writing was devoted to the results of crossing

Figure 11.2 Naudin

Spencer and Naudin  277 experiments he had conducted on various flowering fruit trees and on gourds. His theoretical contribution is limited to an observation of the power of breeders to effect change in varieties by careful selection, and from that observation he deduces that species are formed “in an analogous manner.” Naudin carried out his experiments on hybridism and reversion of hybrids to original types in the 1840s and 1850s, a subject of interest to Darwin. Darwin referred to Naudin’s works in every published version of the Sketch, slightly enlarging his entry in the fifth, 1869, but with no substantive alteration. Darwin knew of Naudin, at least by name, even earlier than when he first mentioned him in the Sketch, for he included Naudin as one of the 12 or 13 authors he intended for inclusion in his planned “Preface” to Origin in his January 18, 1860, letter to Baden Powell (CCD, 18 January [1860], to Powell. Letter 2654). Naudin also makes appearances in the main text of Origin starting with the fourth edition, 1866, and is frequently mentioned in Darwin’s 1868 Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication. From what Darwin wrote about Naudin we gather that he found some value in Naudin’s empirical findings on hybridism but not much of importance in his contributions to the theory of species change. Yet he included and retained Naudin in the Sketch through all editions, where theoretical contributions were of paramount concern. From the Sketch, we learn that Darwin knew of Naudin’s theoretical work from a single source, an essay in the French journal Revue Horticole, 1852,18 which Darwin cited in the Sketch: In 1852 (Revue Horticole, p. 102), M. Naudin, a distinguished botanist,* has expressly stated his belief that species are formed in an analogous manner as varieties are under cultivation; and the latter process he attributes to man’s power of selection.19 But he does not show how selection can act under nature. He believes, argues, like Dean Herbert, that species when nascent were more plastic. He lays weight on what he calls the principle of finality, “puissance mystérieuse, indéterminée; fatalité pour les uns; pour les autres, volonté providentielle, dont l’action incessante sur les êtres vivants détermine, à toutes les époques de l’existence du monde, la forme, le volume et la durée de chacun d’eux, en raison de sa destinée dans l’ordre de choses dont il fait partie. C’est cette puissance qui harmonise chaque membre à l’ensemble en l’appropriant à la fonction qu’il doit remplir dans l’organisme général de la nature, fonction qui est pour lui sa raison d’être.” (Variorum, pp. 67–​8, lines 56–​60)20

Naudin, Darwin suggests, had recognized “selection [of new varieties] under domestication” and even that, by analogy, something similar may be going on in nature. But he had not seen “natural selection” as the mechanism by which new varieties may gradually change, over time, into new species.

278  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Naudin’s 1852 essay is not the only work that Darwin found of value in Naudin’s writings that led to awarding him a spot in the Sketch, but it is the most important one. We are able to trace some details of Darwin’s encounter with this short essay. The CCD states only that “he had read it,” based on an entry in the Reading Notebooks (*128: 155 [incorrectly entered as *128: 115 in footnote 2 to Darwin’s 6 November 1855 letter to J.D. Hooker; the correct entry is *128: 155]), but the editors do not say when Darwin read it. Darwin’s letter to Hooker seems to suggest that Darwin may have read Naudin’s work in 1855 or earlier. But that assessment is unsafe. What Darwin actually wrote to Hooker on November 6, 1855, was only this: What a splendid thing it is that such a Botanist as Decaisne shd. take up all the fruit-​trees. His theory, or rather Naudin’s, of wild sub-​species descending from a single wild stock seems to me to add only to the existing confusion, without indeed it could be proved true; for I do not see how the mere statement will alter anyone’s views,—​those who believe in variation will believe in it, & those who do not, will call them “sous-​especes,” species. It is giving a new name for no object that I can see. (CCD, 6 November [1855], to Hooker. Letter 1773)

Darwin’s statement to Hooker does not establish that Darwin had read Naudin 1852 by November 1855. It only establishes that he had learned something about Naudin by this time, probably from another naturalist, Joseph Decaisne, whom he had read. Decaisne indeed had mentioned Naudin as the author of a theory about the descent of fruit trees, and Darwin was merely giving credit to Decaisne for bringing Naudin in as an authority on this subject. If Decaisne was Darwin’s source for learning about Naudin, we should look more closely at what Darwin learned from Decaisne. Darwin included Decaisne twice in the Reading Notebooks, and, while he did not record a date of these encounters, they appeared side by side (p. *128: 169), the first mentioning only the journal title and date of an 1855 review essay by Decaisne, but not the author; the second referring to “Great work on Fruit Trees,” (1858–​ 1875). We should not be misled by the publication date of the latter work as a guide to when Darwin read this work. It appeared in nine volumes over the span of 17 years, beginning in 1858. Darwin’s entry must have been to the first volume only, meaning he read it in 1858 or 1859. The juxtaposition of this work to Decaisne’s journal review places Darwin’s encounter with both works in late 1858 or sometime in 1859. The latter date is more likely because the next dated entries in the Reading Notebooks, a few pages later (*128: 153), are assigned to the year 1860. This evidence points to 1859 as the likely date of Darwin’s first encounter with Naudin’s journal article that he quoted from in the Sketch. When we return to

Spencer and Naudin  279 the Reading Notebooks” we find supporting evidence. They include two entries to Naudin’s 1852 essay (see n. 18). The first is a mere entry of author’s name and title, with no indication of when it was read or of its value to Darwin (CCD, v. 4, Reading Notebooks, 128: 167). The second repeats the information of author and title but adds a note that the essay has been “read.” The second entry also includes a citation Darwin found in Naudin’s essay to a work by Vilmorin, another naturalist working on legumes (see CCD, v. 4, p. 486 [Reading Notebooks *128: 155] and n. 110). In this note Darwin attributes a notion of “Natural Selection” to Naudin, and praises Vilormin’s work as a “grand illustrated work on Legumes.” No other details are given.21 In short, Decaisne had mentioned Naudin’s earlier works on fruit trees in his 1855 review essay on the same subject, and Darwin saw the reference, as we gather from what he wrote to Hooker in November 1855. Nevertheless, we cannot conclude that Darwin read Naudin 1852 as early as 1855, but only that he learned of Naudin’s name from Decaisne on or before that date. Indeed, Darwin apparently learned little more about Naudin from Decaisne’s 1855 review article than his name and that he had made some comments about wild separate species descending from a single stock. Darwin’s view about this “theory” of Naudin, as presented in Decaisne, only “adds to the confusion” about the true identity and genealogy of species. Nevertheless, Decaisne still must be included as an important source for Darwin’s learning about Naudin’s 1852 essay in the Revue Horticole. But it was not from anything that Decaisne had published. Rather, it was from correspondence between Decaisne and Hooker in 1859 that Hooker shared with Darwin, and less directly, from Charles Lyell, who had been communicating with Darwin about Hooker’s Flora of Australia. Most of this correspondence took place in late December 1859, just after Darwin had completed and published the first edition of Origin (in November 1859) and just before he completed the first published version of the Sketch, on February 8, 1860. Let’s begin with the Hooker/​Darwin exchange of letters in late 1859. Darwin wrote to Hooker on December 21 that “It is curious about Revue Horticole.” The editors of CCD interpret this short expression to mean that Hooker had recently mentioned to Darwin that Naudin had presented a theory, presumably in 1852, of descent with modification—​Darwin’s theory (CCD, 21 [December 1859], to Hooker, and n. 7, letter 2591; Hooker’s letter to Darwin has not been found). A day or two later Darwin received a copy of Naudin 1852 from Hooker: It was very good of you to send Naudin, for I was very curious to see it. I am surprised that Decaisne shd say it was same as mine. Naudin gives artificial selection as well as a score of English writers; & when he says species were formed in same manner I thought the paper would certainly prove exactly the same

280  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” as mine. But I cannot find one word like the Struggle for existence & Natural Selection. On the contrary he brings in his principle (p. 103) of Finality (which I do not understand) which he says with some authors is fatality, with others Providence, & which adapts the forms of every Being, & harmonises them all throughout nature.—​ He assumes (like old geologists assumed the forces of nature were formerly greater) that species were at first more plastic. His simile of tree & classification is like mine (& others), but he cannot, I think, have reflected much on subject, otherwise he would see that genealogy by itself does not give classification.—​ I declare I cannot see much closer approach to Wallace & me in Naudin than in Lamarck—​we all agree in modification & descent. (CCD, 23 [December 1859], to Hooker. Letter 2595)

From this important letter, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Hooker had sent a copy of Naudin’s 1852 essay to Darwin on December 22, 1859, or a day later. Confirmation comes in Darwin’s footnote to this same letter: If I  do not hear from you I  will return Revue [i.e., Naudin’s essay in Revue Horticole 1852] in a few days (with the cover).—​I daresay Lyell would be glad to see it.—​By the way I will retain the volume, till I hear whether I shall not send it to Lyell. I shd. rather like Lyell to see this note; though it is foolish work sticking up for independence or priority. (CCD, 23 [December 1859], to Hooker. Letter 2595)

In other words, Darwin had a copy of Naudin 1852 in front of him on December 23, 1853, and he implies that he got his copy from Hooker. But he had not seen Naudin’s paper on December 22, as we see from a letter he wrote to Lyell on that date: I have not seen Naudin’s paper & shall not be able till I hunt the Libraries; I am very curious to see it. Decaisne seems to think he gives my whole theory. I do not know when I shall have time & strength to grapple with Hooker. (CCD, 22 [December 1859], to Lyell. Letter 2593)22

From these two letters—​one to Lyell on December 22 1859, the second to Hooker the next day, we may pinpoint exactly when Darwin received his copy of Naudin 1852: either late on the December 22 or early on December 23, 1859. He did not need to “hunt the libraries.” Hooker sent him a copy at this precise moment, and Darwin read it immediately.23 Missing from this narrative is any indication of what, precisely, Decaisne had written to Hooker about Naudin’s priority. We may reconstruct an inference

Spencer and Naudin  281 from what Darwin wrote to Hooker on December 25, 1859, two days after he had read Naudin’s short 1852 essay: I shall not write to Decaisne. I have always had a strong feeling that no one had better defend his own priority: I cannot say that I am as indifferent to subject as I ought to be; but one can avoid doing anything in consequence. [The CCD editors add the following note 3]: “Joseph Decaisne had pointed out to Hooker the similarity between CD’s theory and work published by Charles Victor Naudin (Naudin 1852).” (See letters to J. D. Hooker, 21 [December 1859] and 23 [December 1859]. Letters 2591 and 2595. See also CCD 26 June 1862, from Naudin, notes 3 and 4. Letter 3621).

Why should Darwin have even considered writing to Decaisne about his own priority? The reason must be that Decaisne had claimed to Hooker that Naudin had preceded Darwin, and Hooker passed that information along to Darwin. This reconstruction helps explain what Darwin meant when he wrote to Hooker on December 21, “It is curious about Revue Horticole.” (CCD, 21 [December 1859], to Hooker, and n. 7, letter 2591). In any case, Darwin did see a copy of Naudin’s 1852 Revue essay in late December 1859, sent to him by Hooker. He asked Hooker if he should return it, and Hooker must have said “yes,” because on January 31, 1860, a month later, Darwin wrote to Hooker to say: I have resolved to publish a little sketch of the progress of opinion on the change of species. Will you or Mrs Hooker do me the favour to copy one sentence out of Naudins paper in Revue Horticole 1852 p. 103, namely that on his principle of Finalité. Can you let me have it soon, with those confounded dashes over the vowels put in carefully. Asa Gray, I believe, is going to get a 2d. Edit of my Book, & I want to send this little preface over to him soon. I did not think of necessity of having Naudins sentence on finality, otherwise I would have copied it. (CCD, 31 [January 1860], to Hooker. Letter 2671)

Hooker had retained the copy of Naudin 1852 after Darwin had perused it in December 1859 and promptly responded to Darwin’s request, sending the passage, transcribed (but not translated) by Hooker’s wife in the original French. Darwin sent his thanks:  “The extract from Naudin, which I  owe to Mrs Hooker’s kindness, was amply & more than amply sufficient” (CCD, 8 February [1860], to Hooker. Letter 2689). Darwin included the transcribed passage in the first version of the Sketch, in which it remained untranslated.

282  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin continued to defend his priority over Naudin in the ensuing years. To one of his frequent correspondents, French biologist and physician J.L.A. de Quatrefages de Breau, Darwin wrote in 1861: I have lately read Mr. Naudin’s paper; but it does not seem to anticipate me, as he does not shew how Selection could be applied under nature; but an obscure writer [Patrick Matthew] on Forest Trees, in 1830, in Scotland, most expressly and clearly anticipated my views—​though he put the case so briefly, that no single person ever noted the scattered passages in his book. (CCD, 25 April [1861], to Quatrefages de Breau. Letter 3127)

Darwin mentioned both men, Naudin and Matthew, in the Sketch, and retained both of them through every edition, but between the two only Matthew could claim any true priority. He had indeed anticipated the hypothesis of natural selection, in Darwin’s opinion. However, his views were published in an obscure work on forest trees that Darwin had not noticed until Matthew brought the work to his attention after Origin was first published. Even many years after Origin first appeared the controversy about Naudin’s priority continued to play itself out. Darwin and Naudin exchanged correspondence through the 1860s, much of which had to do with details regarding Naudin’s ongoing research on plant hybridization. Darwin always held Naudin’s findings to be flawed, mainly because of Naudin’s carelessness with seeds (see, for example, CCD, 24 December [1862], to Hooker, letter 3875, and notes). Darwin also noticed Naudin’s contribution to what Darwin later came to call “pangenesis,” his theory about the possible germinal origins of new variations (Marginalia, p. 638f). The dispute over priority about the theory set out in Origin, however, resurfaced in 1865. Oddly, it was not instigated by either Naudin or Darwin. Someone—​an anonymous author—​had attached an editorial note to a paper submitted by Naudin to the Natural History Review, October 1865, suggesting that Naudin believed he had “forestalled” Darwin. The note then argues that Naudin had failed to see Darwin’s most important insights, and that, therefore, Naudin was in error to claim priority. Naudin immediately responded in a letter to the Gardener’s Chronicle, November 18, 1865, that he had never made any claim to priority. Hooker then added to the dispute by sending a letter to the same journal defending Naudin’s claim, and also explained what Naudin could rightly claim priority for: not for discovering Darwin’s theory before Darwin, but for having found valuable supporting evidence. Darwin himself, apparently, did not enter into the dispute at this stage. He silently let the matter drop, but did keep Naudin in the Sketch.24

Spencer and Naudin  283 In view of this record of evidence—​Darwin’s worry that Naudin had preceded him, his subsequent encounter with Naudin’s original 1852 essay, the ensuing fuss about priority, and finally Darwin’s decision to include Naudin in the Sketch—​we may well wonder what Naudin’s view of Darwin’s theory actually was. He did concede priority to Darwin, as we have just seen. And he did remain in cordial written contact with Darwin through the 1860s about his ongoing work on plant hybridization. Nevertheless, he apparently did not have a high opinion of Origin, and neither did Decaisne, from what we can tell. Hooker had informed Darwin on January 24, 1863, that neither Naudin nor Decaisne appreciated Darwin’s Origin as much as they should, attributing their lack of interest to their poor grasp of the English language (CCD, 24 January 1863, from Hooker. Letter 3940). Hooker hoped this deficiency of understanding would be remedied by their getting hold of and reading the French translation. Darwin had a different take. He wrote to Hooker early in 1863: I am not surprised at all at Decaisne & Naudin thinking little of “Origin.” There has always appeared to me something antagonistic to a Frenchman in the way in which an Englishman writes. On other hand, I have just had another letter from A. Decandolle. He speaks of “us” as believing in mutability in glorious way, & reports that a Count Saperda, who is writing on Fossil plants goes the whole hog. (CCD, 30 January [1863], to Hooker. Letter 3953)

By this time Darwin had let go of his worries about priority over Naudin. He was now more interested in how Origin was being received in the scientific community. We surmise that Decaisne had conveyed to Hooker his own and Naudin’s lack of admiration for Origin. Darwin was not especially disturbed by this bit of (missing) information, but was cheered by the positive reports about the reception of Origin by de Candolle and Count Saperda. Darwin, however, did not dismiss Naudin entirely. In fact, as mentioned, he slightly enlarged his entry to Naudin in the fifth edition of Origin. The enlargement is nothing more than a reference to a later work by Naudin, but it does show Darwin’s continuing interest in Naudin’s work: ([Naudin’s earlier views have been] since partly republished in the Nouvelles Archives du Museum, tom. I, p. 171). (Variorum, p. 67, line 56e)25

This work by Naudin was published in 1865, explaining why Darwin waited until the fifth edition, 1869, to include reference to it in the Sketch. When did Darwin read this work by Naudin, and how did he learn of it? The evidence is ambiguous and somewhat puzzling. Part of the reason is that Naudin

284  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” published a number of journal essays between 1852 and 1865, and they often have similar titles and appeared in journals with similar titles. The CCD bibliography of Naudin includes 13 items written by him, and, without having direct access to actual copies, it is easy to confuse them as to date of publication, journal outlet, or even title of essay. Of these 13 items, only one makes an appearance in the Marginalia,26 and this entry is somewhat at odds with the entry in the Sketch. The Marginalia records the publication date of Darwin’s copy as 1862, but from other evidence we find that the 1862 publication date is taken from the copy of the essay that appeared in the 1865 volume of the Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle 1: 25–​176.27 Darwin did not indicate in his marginal annotations to this work when he read or annotated it, but the editors of the Marginalia assign its date of publication as 1862. Darwin’s entry of the work in the Sketch in 1869 suggests that he read it only later, 1865 or after. Indeed, one of Darwin’s annotations refers to “pangenesis” and another refers to the “title page” as “Nouvelles Archives du Museum.” The latter entry in particular suggests he read it in 1865 or later, because the full issue of that journal came out only in 1865. The date of 1862 entered by the editors of the Marginalia is presumably based on the “presentation” of the paper to the Academy of Sciences in 1862. No other works by Naudin are listed in the Marginalia, although there are two or three slight references to Naudin’s views as Darwin discovered them in works written by other authors. These references seem to have made no impact on what he wrote in the Sketch. But the Reading Notebooks are another matter. In these Darwin refers to two works by Naudin, the Revue Horticole essay upon which Darwin based his comments in the Sketch; and an 1856 article on “gourds” that appeared in the Annales de Sciences Naturelles (Botanique).28 Darwin made no reference to the latter work in the Sketch, but Naudin’s findings on the hybridization of gourds may have provided some of the information Darwin used about Naudin in other parts of Origin and in his later works Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication (1868) and Climbing Plants (1865).29 Why Darwin augmented his comment about Naudin in the Sketch in 1869 is somewhat unclear. In the new version of 1869 we find some subtle alterations to this first published version, and these are at odds with what he was saying privately to himself in his marginal notes and to his close friends Hooker and Lyell. From an early time, Darwin was raising doubts about the quality of Naudin’s crossing experiments. Darwin thought the methodology was flawed. By 1865 this concern only grew more severe. In his marginal comments to Naudin 1865 Darwin wrote: He admits the L.  vulgaris grew near [to the Cowslip] !! & yet advances the case as one of Reversion. He never counts seeds! Seeds were forgotten & other

Spencer and Naudin  285 negligences & never apparently protected from variation. Careless experiments in every way. (Marginalia, p. 639a–​b)

This remark and others do not show a high level of confidence in Naudin’s conclusions. Indeed, Darwin had for some time believed that Naudin’s proposed “general law” that all hybrids return to original types in a short number of generations was a serious overreach. Yet, Darwin actually enhanced Naudin’s importance in the 1869 version of the Sketch, in two ways: by mentioning a second work by Naudin on top of Naudin’s 1852 Revue Horticole essay; and by adding that Naudin’s 1852 essay was “an admirable paper,” words missing in previous editions. What did Darwin learn from Naudin’s 1865 essay, “Nouvelles recherches sur l’hybridité dans les végétaux,” that may have caused him to enlarge his entry on Naudin in the Sketch in 1869 and to become more generous in his assessment? When we look at Naudin’s 1865 essay, first presented in 1862, we find nothing that would have reinforced Darwin’s opinion that Naudin had preceded him in discovering his theory. The “Nouvelles recherches” is a lengthy essay, 150 pages, but very little of it has to do with “descent with modification,” or the origin of species. It is mostly a recounting of experiments Naudin had conducted on hybridization among certain vegetable species. It does, however, contain at the end a lengthy quotation from Naudin’s 1852 Revue Horticole article. But Naudin, surprisingly, did not quote from the passage that Darwin had quoted in the Sketch. Instead, he quoted directly from the passages that came just after. Darwin had seen these passages in 1859 but did not comment on them in the Sketch. We may thus guess that Naudin in 1862 wanted to draw Darwin’s attention more directly to passages he must have thought Darwin had overlooked. This speculation gains plausibility from the consideration that the last pages of Naudin’s 1862  “Nouvelles reserches” essay were aimed directly at Darwin. Naudin first noted his own 1852 essay, then referred to the seminal work on the same subject, published by Darwin in 1859, as confirming his own earlier opinions. He then exactly reproduced four pages of his 1852 Revue Horticole article, enclosing the passage in quotation marks in his 1862 essay. Notably, however, Naudin did not claim in 1862 that he had anticipated Darwin. Instead, he merely pointed out that naturalists were still divided on the question of the origin of species, and that, among contending camps, he belonged in the Darwinian one. In the 1862 essay he somewhat strengthened his opinion that nature operates to produce new biological forms in a manner analogous to how breeders are able to produce new varieties of plants and animals under domestication. In addition, he may have been attempting to signal that he had drawn back from his 1852 claims of a “principle of finality,” or “puissance

286  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” mysterieuse” in nature to produce “harmony” among all living beings, adapting each living form to its surrounding environment. This was the passage Darwin cited by direct quote in the Sketch, and which he pointed out quietly in a letter to Hooker that he could not understand. Naudin, by omitting this key passage from his 1862 work, may have given the impression that he no longer put much stock in the “puissance mysterieuse.” But even if that is the case, Darwin did not note the change of emphasis in Naudin’s 1862 essay. He stated only that Naudin “partly republished” his earlier views in the 1862 essay. This statement is correct, as far as it goes, but it fails to acknowledge what Naudin may have seen as a significant revision of his earlier views in a “Darwinian” direction in 1862, after he had read Origin. Darwin’s debt to Naudin, then, was a minor one at best. Naudin had argued for an analogy between domestic selection and processes that occur in nature. Darwin agreed, of course, but faulted Naudin for failing to grasp the mechanism of natural selection. Naudin did not even hint at the fundamental idea of a “struggle for existence” in nature, a dynamic that Darwin required for his theory to work. Naudin also falsely believed that organic beings had greater “plasticity” in earlier epochs of biological life than at present—​thus explaining why we do not see organic transmutation occurring at the present time. For Darwin, this signaled a departure from the all-​important Lyellian principle of uniformitarianism. We must assume, Darwin thought, that organic processes are fundamentally the same during all geological ages. Naudin had also argued that “genealogy gives classification,” a notion that suggested to Darwin that Naudin did not have a firm grasp of the subject of descent. And Naudin had brought into his theory what seemed to Darwin an unprovable and useless metaphysical concept, “finality,” or “puissance mysterieuse.”30 Taken together, these deficiencies disqualified Naudin as a forerunner of Darwin. Finally, Naudin had little to say in any of his writings about the causes of variation, the pivotal first step in the Darwinian theory of descent with modification. Natural selection needs the “raw materials” of biological variation before it has anything to “select from,” either by way of preservation of favorable variations or by way of elimination of unfavorable ones. In the 1860s, Naudin began to discuss how changes in germinal and seminal vesicles of adult organisms may have something to do with how variations come about. Darwin noticed similarities between Naudin’s ideas and his own evolving concept of “pangenesis” in his marginal notes to Naudin 1862, but they did not make enough of an impact on Darwin for him to include mention of them in the Sketch. With the exception of pointing out, in 1869, that Naudin had republished some of his earlier views in later years, Darwin made no alterations to what he first wrote about Naudin in the Sketch.

Spencer and Naudin  287

Notes 1. A useful review, with extensive citations, is Valerie A. Haines, 1991, “Spencer, Darwin, and the Question of Reciprocal Influence.” Journal of the History of Biology 24: 409–​31. 2. Spencer made small adjustments to “The Development Hypothesis” from the form in which it first appeared in The Leader (1852) to his republication of it in the Essays (1858), most significantly changing the name of his development theory from “Lamarckism” to “evolution” (cf. Joachim Dagg, Abteilung für Entomologie, Institut für Phytopathologie und Pflanzenschutz, Göttingen, cited in The Victorian Web, adapted by D.  Clifford, 1997 [2008]). Had Darwin read the original he may have disregarded Spencer completely! 3. As late as February 2, 1860, Darwin confessed to Spencer that he had not yet read the Principles of Psychology with much care: “I am sorry to say that I have never read your Psychology, having no strength to spare, but I have just looked at the latter part.—​ May I say in my Preface that you have treated Psychology on the principle “of the necessary acquirement of each mental power & capacity by gradation”? You will find that I use these words in inverted commas towards close of my volume (P. 489 of Reprint) & when I wrote them, I did not think of your work” (CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer. Letter 2680). Darwin’s reference to “Reprint” refers to the second edition of Origin; the inverted commas quote actually appeared in the first edition, but without inverted commas, on page 488. In the final edition, 1872, Darwin included Spencer’s name as the one responsible for advancing this new line of thought (Variorum, p. 757, lines 255–​57f). 4. Spencer, 1855, which had been published in September 1855 (Publishers’ Circular, September 1, 1855, p. 341). The presentation volume is in the Darwin Library–​CUL. It is lightly annotated, with notes by CD on the end-​papers. 1855 is not listed in the books to be read section in CD’s reading notebooks (Correspondence, v. 4, App. IV). 5. The editors of CCD assign the date of Spencer’s gift to Darwin of his Essays as November 1859 (CCD, 2 February [1860], to Spencer, note 7. Letter 2680). This date must be incorrect, because Darwin’s note of thanks was sent to Spencer on November 25, 1858 (CCD, 25 November [1858], to Spencer. Letter 2373). 6. H. Spencer, 1858, Essays, Scientific, Political and Speculative (1858–​1863). 2 volumes. The “Theory of Development” is in volume 1, pp. 389–​95. 7. This speculation receives additional support from the fact that Darwin needed to ask Spencer in early 1860 for the “precise date” of publication of The Leader essay. He would not have needed to do so if he possessed his own copy of that periodical. 8. H. Spencer, 1852, “A Theory of Population Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility.” Westminster Review, New Series 1: 468–​501. 9. No letter from Lyell to Darwin at this time, late February 1860, regarding Spencer’s “population” essay has been found. But the text has been transcribed from Charles Lyell’s scientific journals (printed in Wilson 1970, pp. 353–​4). The entry in Lyell’s journal is headed: “Herbert Spencer to C. Darwin, 22d Feby.1860.” Lyell’s comment is: “H. S.’s own doctrine of ‘evolution’ put on so satisfactory a basis.” Lyell must mean that Darwin provided the solid foundation in empirical science for Spencer’s more

288  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” speculative “evolutionism.” Lyell’s scientific journals contain no other reference to Spencer’s views. 10. To Hooker, Darwin’s most intimate correspondent, Darwin wrote in 1863: “You ask what I  think of Herbert Spencer’s great book [referring to First Principles, 1860–​ 1862]:  I never attempted to read any except last Part, & that greatly disappointed me—​all words & generalities, like Sir H. Holland’s writings, & I could grasp nothing clearly. But I suppose this is all my stupidity; as so many think so highly of this work” (CCD, 23 [June 1863], to Hooker. Letter 4218). The last parts of this “great book,” although in Darwin’s library, remained uncut (i.e., unread). 11. Darwin’s opinions about Spencer’s 1860–​1867 works are documented in Johnson 2014, pp. 120–​9. 12. Darwin did read and comment upon Spencer’s Principles of Biology (1864–​1867), again not favorably. Darwin raised two main issues with this two-​volume work in his marginal notes: 1) how successful are Spencer’s arguments supporting “direct action of conditions” in bringing about organic change? (not very much—​too many exceptions, better explained by “sudden spontaneous variation” and “natural selection”); and 2)  Spencer’s approach to what Darwin came to call “pangenesis:” Darwin says only “[the book] shows that he has not got idea [of pangenesis]” and that “he does not understand Pangenesis” (annotations to p. 255 of v. 1 and p. 428 of v. 2; Marginalia, p. 770). Darwin shared his disappointment with Lyell: “I have read most of H. Spencer’s Biology & agree with you. Some of his remarks are very clever & suggestive, but somehow I seldom feel any wiser after reading him, but often feel mistified. His style is detestable in my opinion; & no wonder as he dictates & never alters. Hooker agrees that his last nor is best he ever wrote.”—​faint praise in context (CCD, 25 March [1865], to Lyell. Letter 4794). Spencer’s volumes on biology were never mentioned or acknowledged in the Sketch. 13. Spencer’s encounter with and influence by Darwin on the point of “chance variation” is documented in Johnson (2014, pp. 120–​9). Darwin’s own “Lamarckism” is traced in Johnson (2014, ch. 8). 14. David Duncan, 1908, The Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer. London: Methuen & Co. 15. Maillet can hardly be regarded as an exception to this rule because: 1) he appeared only in the first US edition—​the first version of the Sketch ever to appear (May 1860) other than the German translation of April 1860; 2) in this edition Darwin would only “pass over” this author, making no other comment; and 3) what Darwin knew about Maillet’s ideas was minimal. See c­ hapter 2. 16. Spencer misinterpreted Darwin on this point. He was among a small group of Darwinian supporters who believed Darwin increased a role for “use/​inheritance” as Darwinism became better known in the scientific community and Darwin, in light of the onslaught of commentary on his work, changed his mode of expression in later editions of Origin and in other writings. The evidence supports the opposite conclusion: Darwin, while never altogether abandoning Lamarckian “use/​inheritance,” came increasingly to diminish the significance of this explanatory mechanism. See Johnson (2014, ch. 8) for a detailed defense of this interpretation of the development of Darwin’s theory.

Spencer and Naudin  289 17. This letter is the same one in which Darwin asked Spencer for the “precise date of publication” of his essay “on development” in The Leader. Since Spencer must have responded almost immediately to Darwin’s request for the date of The Leader article (Darwin knew of the date within a week of his sending Spencer the letter, no later than February 8, 1860, but no letter from Spencer to Darwin on this point has been found), it is surprising and unexplainable why Darwin would have waited until 1872 to include Spencer’s name as his source for the phrase “Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history” in the main text of Origin. He may be excused for not including Spencer’s name in the first edition of Origin because, as he explained to Spencer in this same letter,” when I wrote [these words], I did not think of your work.” That bit of forgetfulness was remedied by February 23, 1860, in plenty of time for inclusion in the third edition. 18. The complete citation is:  Charles Victor Naudin, 1852, “Considérations philosophiques sur l’espèce et la variété.” Revue Horticole, Fourth Series 1: 102–​9. 19. The starred footnote reads: “* From references in Bronn’s ‘Untersuchungen über die Entwickelungs-​Gesetze’ it appears that the celebrated botanist and paleontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and modification. D’Alton, likewise, in Pander and Dalton’s work on Fossil Sloths, expressed, in 1821, a similar belief. Similar views have, as is well known, been maintained by Oken in his mystical ‘Natur-​Philosophie.’ From other references in Godron’s work ‘Sur l’Espèce,’ it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being produced.” This footnote appears to have migrated from one place to another in Darwin’s text of the Sketch as he altered it over time. In the first and last editions, it is placed at the end of the quoted paragraph, but in the third edition it appears after the word “botanist,” as represented above (Darwin On-​line, F380). Morse Peckham, the editor of Variorum, does not record this subtle shift in location of the starred footnote. Naudin shows it (i.e.,an idea that suggests natural selection) only at the end of the paragraph, where it appears in most editions. See discussion in the text. 20. Darwin’s passage on Naudin in the Sketch is one of the few entries in which he transcribed from the original French version. The passage in English translation is: “He lays weight on what he calls the principle of finality, [an] indeterminate, mysterious power; fate for some, for others, a providential will, of which the incessant action on living beings determines, in all the epochs of the existence of the world, the form, the size and the duration of each of them, providing for their destiny in the order of things of which they form a part. It is this power which harmonizes each member to the totality as appropriate to the function which it serves to fulfill in the general organization of nature, a function which is its reason for being.” [Author’s translation] 21. As noted earlier, Darwin emended his entry on Naudin in the fifth edition of Origin, but only by adding another title from this author:  “Nouvelles Researches sur le caracteres specifiques et les varieties des plantes du genre Cucurbita,” Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique), Fourth Series 6: 5–​73 [1856]. Recorded in Reading

290  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Notebooks, *128:157 (CCD, v. 4, p. 486]. Darwin marked this entry as “Read,” presumably in late 1859. 22. The CCD editors’ notes to this letter include the following information (nn. 6 and 7): “Hooker had also mentioned this work to CD (see preceding letter). CD entered the paper twice in his list of books to be read and, at some stage, noted that he had read it (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 167 and 155). CD was already familiar with Charles Victor Naudin’s work (see Correspondence vol. 5, letter to J. D. Hooker, 6 November [1855]). Lyell probably drew CD’s attention to the work after reading Hooker’s comments on it in Hooker 1859, p. xi n.* Hooker touched on the problem of the alleged fertility of hybrids and remarked: ‘A very able and careful experimenter, M. Naudin, performed a series of experiments at the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, in order to discover the duration of the progeny of fertile hybrids. He concludes that the fertile posterity of hybrids disappears, to give place to the pure typical form of one or other parent.’ The point about the acquisition of sterility was one that interested Lyell in relation to CD’s theory (see letters from Charles Lyell, 28 October 1859 and 21 November 1859). See also Wilson ed. 1970, p. 340. It is not clear whether CD had received the information about Joseph Decaisne from Lyell or from Hooker. CD had sent Decaisne a copy of Origin through Hooker (see letters to J. D. Hooker, 15 October [1859] and 23 [December 1859]). CD certainly thought that Naudin had, to some extent, anticipated him: he cited Naudin 1852 in the ‘Historical sketch’ which he added to the third and all subsequent editions of Origin” (CCD, 23 December 1859, from Darwin to Lyell, nn. 6, 7). 23. The editors of CCD surmise that “Lyell probably drew CD’s attention to [Naudin’s 1852] work after reading Hooker’s comments on it in Hooker 1859, p. xi n *.” This conjecture seems to be incorrect, at least if they mean Lyell was Darwin’s primary source for learning about Naudin’s ideas. While it is true that “Hooker [in his Flora of Australia] touched on the problem of the alleged fertility of hybrids and remarked: ‘A very able and careful experimenter, M. Naudin, performed a series of experiments at the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, in order to discover the duration of the progeny of fertile hybrids,’ ” the two letters quoted here show that Darwin got his copy of Naudin directly from Hooker on the 22nd or 23rd. (This fact was noted in CCD footnote 2 to a January 31, 1860 letter from Darwin to Hooker.) Lyell’s contribution to Darwin’s understanding was at best a secondary influence, and not the source he relied upon for including Naudin in the Sketch (see CCD, letters from Charles Lyell, 28 October 1859 [Letter 2512A]; and 21 November 1859 [Letter 2540A]; see also Wilson 1970, p. 340). 24. Details of this interesting part of the priority dispute may be found in CCD 22 December [1865], to Hooker, n. 9. Letter 4953. 25. Charles Victor Naudin, 1865, “Nouvelles recherches sur l’hybridité dans les végétaux. Mémoire présenté a l’Académie des Sciences par M. Ch. Naudin en décembre 1861 et couronné dans la séance du 29 décembre 1862.” Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle 1: 25–​176. 26. Charles Victor Naudin, 1862, Nouvelles researches sur l’hybridite dans les vegetaux. Paris.

Spencer and Naudin  291 27. This publication is available online through the Biodiversity Library, at https://​ biodiversitylibrary.org/​page/​33904634. 28. Charles Victor Naudin, 1856, Nouvelles recherches sur les caractères spécifiques et les variétés des plantes du genre Cucurbita. Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique), Fourth Series 6: 5–​73. Recorded in Reading Notebooks, *128:157 (CCD, v. 4, p. 486]. Darwin marked this entry as “Read,” presumably in late 1859. 29. C. Darwin, 1865, [Read 2 February] “On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants.” Journal of the Linnean Society of London (Botany) 9: 1–​118. 30. Darwin pointed out all of these deficiencies in his December 23, 1859, letter to Hooker, just after he had read Naudin 1852; the letter is quoted earlier in the text.

References Dagg, Joachim. “Abteilung für Entomologie, Institut für Phytopathologie und Pflanzenschutz,” Göttingen. Cited in The Victorian Web, adapted by D. Clifford, 1997 [2008]. Darwin, Charles. 1865. [Read 2 February] “On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants.” Journal of the Linnean Society of London (Botany) 9: 1–​118. Decaisne, Joseph. 1855. Le jardin fruitier du Muséum, ou monographie des arbres fruitiers cultivés dans cet établissement.–​Examen critique de la doctrine de Van Mons. Journal de la Société Impériale et Centrale d’Horticulture 1: 218–​40. Duncan, David. 1908. The Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer. London: Methuen & Co. Haines, Valerie A. 1991. “Spencer, Darwin, and the Question of Reciprocal Influence.” Journal of the History of Biology 24: 409–​31. Naudin, Charles Victor. 1852. “Considérations philosophiques sur l’espèce et la variété.” Revue Horticole. Fourth Series 1: 102–​9. Naudin, Charles Victor. 1856. Nouvelles recherches sur les caractères spécifiques et les variétés des plantes du genre Cucurbita. Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique). Fourth Series 6: 5–​73. Naudin, Charles Victor. 1862. Nouvelles researches sur l’hybridite dans les vegetaux. Paris. Naudin, Charles Victor. 1865. Nouvelles recherches sur l’hybridité dans les végétaux. Mémoire présenté a l’Académie des Sciences par M. Ch. Naudin en décembre 1861 et couronné dans la séance du 29 décembre 1862. Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle 1: 25–​176. Spencer, Herbert. 1852a. “The Development Hypothesis,” The Leader, March 20, 1852. Spencer, Herbert. 1852b. “A Theory of Population deduced from the general law of animal fertility.” Westminster Review, New Series 1: 468–​501. Spencer, Herbert. 1855. The Principles of Psychology. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. Spencer, Herbert. 1858. Essays, Scientific, Political and Speculative (1858–​1863). 3 volumes. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts; Williams & Norgate. Spencer, Herbert. 1864–​1867. The Principles of Biology. 2 volumes. London: Williams & Norgate. Spencer, Herbert. 1875. First Principles. 3rd edition. London: Williams and Norgate. Wilson, Leonard Gilchrist, ed. 1970. Sir Charles Lyell’s Scientific Journals on the Species Question. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.

12

Heinrich Bronn, Franz Unger, J.W.E. d’Alton, and Lorenz Oken Heinrich Bronn. 1800–​1862 Directly following Darwin’s entry into the Sketch on Naudin, and the footnote to Lecoq attached to that entry, he made an interesting change of direction. He began to list authors whose works he evidently never read. Rather, he drew from other sources, mainly but not only H.G. Bronn’s 1858 Untersuchung ueber die Entwicklung-​Gesetz, from which Darwin got the names of four other naturalists.1 Because of the extreme brevity of Bronn’s acknowledgment of these authors, Darwin, drawing only on Bronn, could not say much more about them than Bronn. As a consequence, Darwin packed the four authors mentioned by Bronn in a short footnote in the Sketch, giving almost no commentary on any of them (Variorum, p. 68, lines *60.  1–​4). Bronn was not the only author Darwin used as a source for other people included in the Sketch. He had also drawn, earlier in the Sketch, from Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire (1859) for his information about several other authors, and he would draw later from Godron. But in the case of his borrowing from Isidore, Darwin did make the effort to track down and read the originals to which Isidore had referred, at least as much as he could. In the case of his borrowings from Bronn, Darwin apparently made no such effort. Instead, he simply reported out what Bronn had said about these authors, and this was not very much. In brief, Bronn said only that he thought they supported “species development and modification” through time. Darwin seems not to have regarded Bronn himself as a forerunner. Thus, his entry by name into the Sketch should probably not be regarded as one of the “34” authorities Darwin claims to have included in his “history of opinion” about the species question. We shall examine the evidence for this conclusion later. But, to get to Darwin’s stated number of “34,” we do need to include the four authors Darwin took from Bronn: Franz Unger, Robert Grant (about whom Darwin had already made an entry, and thus omitted Grant’s name from the list of authors he learned of from Bronn2), Joseph Wilhelm Eduard D’Alton, and Lorenz Oken. Darwin mentioned all of them by surname only. Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  293

Figure 12.1 Bronn

As mentioned, Darwin did not include Bronn as a forerunner or even supporter of transmutation. He cited Bronn’s work only because it contained the names of other authors who did seem to be transmutationists, at least as far as Darwin could make out. But it seems likely that Bronn was more important to Darwin than his entry in the Sketch might suggest. It is true that Darwin derived very little from Bronn’s Untersuchung, no more than the names of a few other naturalists who supported transmutationist views. But, from all indications, Darwin did not read the entire work with any care, or even at all. Bronn’s references came on pages 76–​88, and these are the only pages, of several hundred, that bear any markings in Darwin’s copy. To be fair, Darwin openly confessed on many occasions that he was a poor student of the German language, and Bronn’s German could be difficult for a non-​native speaker. Had Darwin penetrated the work more deeply he may have found more in Bronn 1858 to support his theory than he allowed. More important, however, in terms of Bronn being a possible ally for Darwin’s theory on the continent, is the fact that Bronn was the first to translate Origin for a non-​English reading audience (German), which he did in 1860, in three separate parts that appeared between April and June 1860 (for publication details, see CCD, 5 October 1860, from Darwin to Bronn, n. 1. Letter 2940). Darwin

294  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” was pleased that Bronn would undertake this work. He wrote to Bronn that his good name among German naturalists would boost sales. Bronn’s translation has since been replaced as an authoritative German translation. But what is distinctive about Bronn’s translation is that, at Darwin’s prompting, Bronn added a final chapter to his translation of Origin that contained his own critiques of Darwin’s theory, both in support and in contestation. Darwin took Bronn’s comments seriously. He did not accede to Bronn’s criticisms, but he did address them at length in a four-​page hand-​written commentary, interleaved into his copy of Bronn’s translation. In addition, Darwin’s first rendition of the Historical Sketch, sent to Bronn on February 14, 1860, was the first published version of the Sketch and was translated by Bronn into German and published in April 1860. This was even before the first English-​ language version appeared in the first authorized US edition of Origin in May 1860. Bronn was thus instrumental in bringing Darwin’s theory, including his historical preface, before a large continental audience in 1860. What were Bronn’s criticisms of Darwin’s theory? Bronn did not fault Darwin for failing to acknowledge his predecessors in Origin, as did several other early critics. But did Bronn say anything that would force Darwin to conclude that Bronn was not a supporter of transmutation and thus in no way should be regarded as a forerunner? The evidence is ambiguous, but generally supports Darwin’s view that Bronn, while able to grasp the essential components of the new theory, was actually neutral about it, perhaps even opposed.3 He had several grounds for disagreeing with Darwin, most of which Darwin attributed to a lack of comprehension rather than outright disagreement. Darwin got the first indication of Bronn’s confusion when he read Bronn’s review of Origin (1860a), especially regarding the key phrase of Darwin’s theory, “descent by natural selection.” Bronn rendered this idea in his 1860 review by the expression “Wahl der Lebensweise” (Bronn 1860a).4 Janet Browne has pointed out that, as Darwin understood it, the expression more or less meant “choice of lifestyle,” a Lamarckian idea that Darwin had long rejected.5 Bronn took the hint, and changed the wording to “natuerliche Zuechtung” in his translation of Origin, also published in 1860.6 Darwin was pleased (see CCD, 5 October 1860, from Darwin to Bronn, letter 2940), even if “Zuechtung” does not quite render “selection,” it is closer to “breeding” than “selection.” Bronn was looking for something in nature that corresponded with what breeders do—​improve races through careful pairing. That idea is not entirely at odds with what Darwin was claiming about natural processes, but it misses the implication of Darwin’s main point, that nature “selects” by no deliberate design but by pruning fortuitous variations—​ “selecting” the more fit, eliminating the less fit. “Natural breeding,” a fair rendering into English of Bronn’s chosen expression “natuerliche Zuechtung,” misses a key component of Darwin’s idea of natural selection.7

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  295 That issue, however, important as it was to Darwin, was not his only concern with Bronn’s criticisms of Origin. As mentioned, Bronn translated Origin into German in early to mid 1860. At Darwin’s suggestion, Bronn added a postscript of sorts to his translation, a “Chapter 15” in which he gave extended commentary and criticism.8 Darwin addressed Bronn’s “Chapter 15” at length in his interleaved notes to Bronn’s comments and then expanded his objections—​and they were all objections—​in the third edition of Origin (cf. Hull 1973, pp. 122–​4). Central to Bronn’s critique of Origin is that Darwin had failed to give convincing reasons for why allied species differ among themselves. This is more an argument against spontaneous variations yielding new species over time than to the specific mechanism of natural selection. Darwin wrestled with this “deficiency” in his theory almost from the beginning of his theoretical work in the 1830s through the final edition of Origin, published in 1872. In truth, he never could give an explanation that would cover all cases, and so he was forced to fall back upon the unprovable hypothesis that variations often come about through random accidents in the procreative process—​what Darwin at first called “chance variations,” then in later editions “spontaneous variations.” This was to many of Darwin’s early readers nothing more than a confession that Darwin did not know the answer to this mystery. Darwin’s failure to say more than “we are ignorant in many cases of the causes of variation” brought frustration, even alarm, to many of his earliest readers, including Bronn (Hull 1973, p. 124). Darwin understood the difficulty, and had a ready response: What more do the proponents of “special creation,” the main opponents of Darwin’s theory, have to say about this question than Darwin could propose? His answer was that the opposing theory was equally deficient because it could only assert “the Creator chose that it be so.” For example, Bronn asked how Darwin’s theory could explain why one species of rat had longer tails and shorter ears than a related species. Darwin answered as follows: You put very well & very fairly that I can in no one instance explain the course of modification in any particular instance. I could make some sort of answer to your case of the two Rats; & might I not turn round, & ask him, who believes in the separate creation of each species, why one Rat has a longer tail or shorter ears than another? I presume that most people would say that these characters were of some use or stood in some connection with other parts; & if so, natural selection could act on them. But as you put the case, it tells well against me. (CCD, 5 October [1860], to Bronn. Letter 2940)9

Bronn’s implicit suggestion that new modifications were designed by the Creator was for Darwin no explanation at all, but mere assertion (Hull 1973, p. 122). Moreover, Darwin was sure his theory was superior because it was based on a

296  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” body of empirical evidence that could only be enlarged as the science became more exact and complete in light of continuing research. The special creationists had no such recourse in defending their view of creation by divine fiat. Bronn’s criticisms continued along in the same vein in the chapter he added to his translation of Origin. Darwin worked through the chapter—​slowly, as he says, due to his poor German—​and gave responses point by point.10 Darwin admitted some of the difficulties on his theory that Bronn had pointed out, again shrugging them off as difficulties for any theory. Darwin also identified some points where Bronn had simply misunderstood what he had written. But perhaps Darwin’s chief worry about Bronn was whether he could count Bronn as either a forerunner or, if not that, an ally who would support Darwin’s theory. The answer to that last question is, yes and no. Darwin certainly did not regard Bronn as a forerunner of the theory of descent by natural selection. At best Bronn only gave tacit support to it, first by writing an early critical review of Origin (Bronn 1860a), then by translating Origin into German, adding his only chapter of critical comments at the end (Bronn 1860b). Even that assessment may be too generous. The closest Bronn came to endorsing Darwin’s theory in 1860 was to list Darwin along with four other acknowledged transmutationists as a supporter of an important new theory. These five were juxtaposed, however, to anti-​transmutationists, especially Cuvier, so it is hard to hear a full-​throated endorsement of Darwin in what Bronn published about the opposing schools of thought. And it is hard to find Bronn anywhere writing that he was unequivocally supportive of either school. His usual mode of expression in 1860 was, in effect, “we lack the evidence, we cannot know” (Hull 1973, pp. 122–​5). Darwin’s decision, then, not to include Bronn in the Sketch (other than to draw on him for other authorities) might well be traced to Darwin’s accurate perception by 1860 that Bronn was agnostic on the species question at the heart of Darwin’s work. On the other hand, Darwin did hold out hope that Bronn’s critical review of Origin and translation of it into German, both published in 1860, would bring other young German naturalists into the “natural selection” camp. Bronn did not condemn Darwin’s theory. His publications could only have helped to give Darwin’s ideas currency and a degree of legitimacy on the continent. He prefaced his critical comments at the conclusion of his translation with high praise, calling Darwin “a genuine naturalist who regards in an ingenious and penetrating manner old facts that he has collected and considered for twenty years.” To remove doubt that Bronn was giving only faint praise, he went on to say: Deeply immersed in his objective, unshakably convinced of the truth of his results, he writes with such overpowering clarity, elucidates his material with so much spirit, defends it with such sharp logic, draws from it such important conclusions, that we ourselves, whatever our previous views may have been,

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  297 are just as little able to avoid the impression that they make on us as we are able to deny our appreciation of the sincerity with which he himself seeks out and acknowledges, according to their importance, all objections that can oppose him. (CCD, 14 July 1860, to Bronn, n. 3, letter 2867; the CCD supplies the translation, with the original German text just preceding it)

The comment is not exactly an endorsement of Darwin’s theory, but neither is it a dismissal. However we might characterize Bronn’s views, Darwin himself appreciated them. He actually enlarged the third edition of Origin (1861) by giving special attention over several pages to Bronn’s specific criticisms (Variorum, pp.  230–​3, lines 382.52:c–​382.65:c; see also CCD, 8 October [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2942). Indeed, as early as May 1860 Darwin had begun to entertain hope that Bronn had come around to accepting the Darwinian theory. He wrote to Wallace in that month: Pictet of Geneva is not a convert [to natural selection], but is evidently staggered (as I think is Bronn of Heidelberg). Bronn [who leans against argument from imperfection of geol. record] has written a perfectly fair review in the Bib. Universelle of Geneva.—​Old Bronn has translated my book, well-​done also, into German & his well-​known name will give it circulation. (CCD, 18 May 1860, to Wallace. Letter 2807)11

In view of the evidence assembled here, we may ask whether we should include Bronn as one of Darwin’s “34” authors he decided to recognize as contributors to the theory of natural selection before he published his theory? Despite Bronn’s prominence in the Sketch (and in later editions of Origin itself) the answer must be “no.” Bronn did publish his important work Untersuchung in 1858 (see n. 1) in which he showed awareness of the new theories of transmutation that appeared in the 1850s and earlier, but he had not heard of Darwin’s theory by that time. He wrote his review of Origin and produced his translation of it only in mid-​1860. Moreover, Darwin did not read Bronn 1858 until 1860, after he had completed the first version of the Sketch. When he did read it, he did not discover anticipation of his own ideas by Bronn himself. Bronn only alerted his readers to a few other early transmutationists. Darwin drew on this material for the Sketch, but the only credit he gave to Bronn himself was for drawing attention to these other authors. The most Darwin would ever admit about Bronn is that he may have become a “convert” to Darwin’s theory, but this would only be after the fact—​a late recognition rather than anything resembling an anticipation. Bronn, thus, cannot be one of Darwin’s “34” authorities in the Sketch who had contributed to

298  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” the “progress of opinion” on the species question prior to Origin. We can get to that number without Bronn.

Franz Unger. 1800–​1870 While Darwin did not recognize Bronn as a forerunner, or even supporter, of his theory of descent by modification, he did draw from Bronn’s 1858 work, with proper acknowledgement, the names of several other authorities whom Bronn had identified as advocates of some version or another of transmutation of species through time. Among the authors mentioned by Bronn in this brief survey was Franz Unger. Unger was an Austrian botanist who had studied both law and medicine at the University of Graz, then later returned there as a professor. He was not someone to overlook. By 1860 Unger had a considerable reputation in Germany and Austria for his botanical studies, dating to the early 1830s. Bronn noticed his work, and so did Darwin.12 Our question is, how did Darwin become acquainted with Unger? As noted, Unger was a well-​known botanist on the continent in the first half of the 19th century. He published many works on botany and biogeographical distribution

Figure 12.2 Unger

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  299 well before the appearance of Origin in 1859, and his views, while sometimes controversial, made an important contribution to the new ethos of wissenschaft on the continent, as well shown by Gliboff in his 1998 study (see n. 12). He also undeniably anticipated some of Darwin’s views, especially in his 1852 Versuch.13 But Darwin seems not to have known about these earlier works, at least not before 1860. He may have heard of Unger through reputation, but it seems unlikely Darwin ever had any direct encounter with Unger’s evolutionary views prior to 1860, and even then, only through secondary sources. Darwin’s entry to Unger in the Historical Sketch is brief, included in a compact footnote to Darwin’s entry on Naudin, along with three other naturalists: From references in Bronn’s ‘Untersuchung ueber die Entwicklungs-​Gesetze’ it appears that the celebrated botanist and paleontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and modification. (Variorum, p. 68, line 60.*1)14

The reference appears to suggest that Darwin became acquainted with Unger’s 1852 work only by virtue of Bronn’s reference to him in his 1858 Untersuchung, a volume Darwin did not read before 1860. That interpretation, however, seems to be incorrect. From Darwin’s Reading Notebooks we see that Darwin knew enough about Unger as early as 1852—​the year Unger published his important work on the plant kingdom—​to remind himself to “read” this work. As is sometimes true with Darwin’s entries into the Reading Notebooks, it can be hard to tell whether Darwin’s entry “read” means “to be read” or “already read.” The case of Unger is especially difficult. The placement of Unger 1852 in “Books to be Read,” one of the first volumes entered there, suggests Darwin did not read Unger in 1852 but only intended to read it (cf. Reading Notebooks *128: 182. Versuch einer geschichte des Pflanzenwelt [Vienna, 1852]). The entry is located near the beginning of the “to be read” section, suggesting Darwin had not actually read it, at that time. Yet Darwin’s entry of Unger in the Reading Notebooks makes a substantive comment about the volume: “(Much on Distribution of Plants and means of [in Unger’s Versuch])” (CCD, v. 4, p. 480, Reading Notebooks, *128. 182; no date given when read, but likely late 1852 from context). The entry could mean no more than that Darwin had skimmed Unger’s work, or, on the other hand, had read it with care. In either case, we must conclude Darwin knew something about Unger as early as 1852 and that he knew of him from direct encounter with his 1852 work on the history of the plant world, and so not only from Bronn in 1860. We must confront yet another possibility about how and when Darwin first came into contact with Unger. His volume Versuch 1852 was reviewed in an 1852 issue of the Gardener’s Chronicle, and Darwin’s note in his Reading Notebooks

300  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” gives a close citation to this review.15 It also includes the note “Read,” again meaning either “to be read” or “already read.” But Darwin marked his copy of the Gardener’s Chronicle 1852 (CCD v. 4, Reading Notebooks, *128: 182, n. 86). The review is short, and Darwin’s markings give no more information than that he read it at some time. Unless Darwin went back to Gardener’s Chronicle in 1860 to read an obscure review of Unger’s book, a book Darwin evidently never did read, he must have read and marked the review when it first came out, October 1852. It seems, then, an almost unavoidable conclusion that Darwin learned of Unger 1852 from the review of that book in the Gardener’s Chronicle in late 1852, not, in other words, by reading the book itself or (originally at least) from Bronn’s Untersuchung. That is the backstory to Darwin’s familiarity with Unger. But Darwin’s decision to include Unger in the Historical Sketch must have been due to Bronn’s citation of Unger, not Darwin’s perusal of Unger’s book in 1852 or his reading of the review of it that appeared in Gardener’s Chronicle, also in 1852. In other words, Darwin’s decision to include Unger was informed not by his own direct 1852 encounter with Unger’s Versuch but, much more obviously, by Bronn’s mention of Unger in his Unterrsuchung (1858), read by Darwin only in 1860, after he had completed his first version of the Sketch. Darwin says as much in the Sketch itself. From all we can tell, Darwin simply forgot about Unger until he rediscovered him in in Bronn’s 1858 Untersuchung, read by Darwin only in 1860. He may then have gone back to his notations in the review essay to round out what he wished to say. We have no evidence at all that Darwin ever read Unger’s book itself. Additional evidence for this conclusion comes from some of Darwin’s correspondence in early 1860. On May 13, 1860, Darwin sent a letter to a “Bookseller” (not otherwise identified). In it Darwin requested a French translation of Unger 1852, should one exist (no French translation was published). The Bookseller commented “no” in his copy of this letter. On May 18, Darwin made the same request to another bookseller, again receiving no response (CCD, 13 and 18 May [1860], from Darwin to “Bookseller.” Letters 2797 and 2810F). These letters give the strongest possible evidence that Darwin had not read Unger before May 1860 and, while he did acquire a copy of the German original, did not read it. He was hoping for a more accessible version—​one in French—​but that hope was disappointed. Unger remained on his shelf, unread. Even if these conjectures are correct, we are still faced with some puzzles. One is how Darwin would be able to affirm in the Sketch that Unger was a “celebrated biologist and paleontologist.” Another is how he would be able to claim knowledge that Unger had already committed in 1852 to be a believer “that species undergo development and modification” (Variorum, p. 68, line 60*.1). These important details could not have come from Darwin’s direct reading of Unger 1852 when Darwin first saw the work, or the review of it in Gardener’s Chronicle in

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  301 1852. When we go back to Darwin’s reference to Unger’s own Versuch, there is little hint in the section Darwin cited that he believed in “species modification and development,” or evidence that he was a “celebrated biologist and paleontologist.” The review of his book in 1852 makes no such claims either. Where did Darwin get these ideas? They must have come from Bronn’s 1858 Untersuchung.16 This is what Darwin himself says in the Sketch, despite the competing evidence just presented, that Darwin knew of Unger’s book, and something about its contents, in 1852. True, Darwin may have known of Unger mainly from his general reputation. Unger was famous, at least locally, for his botanical studies, well before Darwin published, so Darwin may have been able to say “celebrated” just on the basis of Unger’s reputation, even without having read anything he wrote. We could conclude that Darwin included Unger in the Sketch on the basis of what was generally known about him among British naturalists—​a famous botanist who had proposed developmentalist views. Yet, when we go back to Bronn’s volume, we find evidence for a different interpretation. The evidence shows that Bronn was responsible for giving Darwin the ideas that Unger was a “celebrated” scientist and that he believed in “species development and modification.” We hear from Bronn that Unger was a “celebrated botanist and paleontologist,” based on Bronn’s inclusion of Unger alongside another a group of distinguished naturalists, including Lorenz Oken, Robert Grant, Joseph d’Alton, and above all Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. Bronn added to his mention of Unger that he was the most recent voice in the Cuvier/​Geoffroy debate, that he was a supporter of Geoffroy over Cuvier, that he was a botanist and more particularly a paleontologist, and that his work was distinguished (verdiente).17 These are the very points Darwin drew attention to in his entry on Unger in the Sketch. Everything points to Bronn as the source of Darwin’s opinions and statements about Unger in the Sketch. For his part, Bronn’s representations of Unger’s opinions are a bit off target, suggesting Bronn did not read Unger’s 1852 work either, but drew from someone else (see n. 16). In the part of Unger’s work that Bronn referenced, Unger does not present a defense of transmutation. What he does argue for, just as Darwin noted in his Reading Notebooks, is that Unger offered some interesting speculations about the distribution of plants across the globe and about how transport and other natural processes might be a useful explanatory strategy (CCD, v.  4, Reading Notebooks, *128: 182). Darwin did not use Unger’s insights about biogeographical distribution in the Sketch, even though this was the main point he drew from Unger in 1852. Darwin’s failure to mention Unger’s views about plant distribution and associated questions about mechanism is further evidence that when Darwin made his entry on Unger in the Sketch, he was not drawing from his own notes on Unger in the Reading Notebooks, but rather from Bronn.

302  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin simply took Bronn’s word for it that Unger was a Geoffroyian who supported progressive development and transmutation. Two additional questions may be posed here: How did Bronn discover any information about Unger in the first place, and how did Darwin discover Bronn’s reference to Unger in Bronn’s fat 1858 Untersuchung? These are questions because, in both cases—​the question of how Bronn learned about Unger’s views and of how Darwin learned about Bronn’s representations of those views—​is hard to determine. Unger’s views on biogeographical distribution are buried near the end of a long book dealing mostly with other subjects; and Bronn’s reference to Unger is likewise buried in the middle of a dense text, also dealing mainly with other questions. Our concern here is with the latter question: How did Darwin discover Bronn’s reference to Unger? Bronn’s discovery of Unger is less surprising that Darwin’s discovery of Bronn’s brief reference to Unger in the Untersuchung. Unger wrote in German, and Bronn was a thorough student of the German scholarship of the time. Darwin was, by contrast, a poor student of German, by self-​admission. As we have already seen, it is highly unlikely that Darwin ever read anything written by Unger himself. Bronn, too, seems not to have read Unger’s 1852 book directly, but must have learned a little about it from another source, using that information for his own 1858 book. To top it off, Darwin evidently read very little of Bronn’s Untersuchung or his translation of Origin. All of this looks a lot like the blind leading the blind. And it shows in the Sketch. However Bronn learned of Unger, the important question for us is how Darwin stumbled across Bronn’s brief reference to Unger in his 1858 Untersuchung. As we have seen, Darwin did not read Bronn’s book prior to 1860. But even then, from every indication, he read only two or three pages of the large volume and, as it happens, just the pages that mentioned Unger and three or four other naturalists—​pages 78–​80. Darwin must have been guided to these pages from another source rather than discovered them on his own by reading Bronn. Bronn did not include an index to his book, and his bibliography, such as it is, includes references only to earlier works by Bronn himself:  no references are given to Unger, Oken, Grant, d’Alton, Geoffroy, in other words, nothing that could have guided Darwin to just the key pages that he used for his Sketch. Nor did Bronn cite these pages in his passages in later works that made reference to Darwin. And Darwin does not tell us. He gives the impression in the Sketch that Bronn’s citations to Unger and others in 1858 were his own original discovery from reading Bronn. But that seems improbable. Again, the inquiry takes us too far afield. One might well wonder, who cares where Darwin learned about Bronn’s reference to Unger? We ask the question only for thoroughness. My guess is that Darwin was guided to Bronn’s 1858 reference to Unger by a third source. It could have been a letter from Bronn to Darwin

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  303 in 1859 or 1860, but no letter matching that description has been found. Or, more likely, it came from another naturalist on the continent who was familiar with the German literature but wrote in French—​a language far more accessible to Darwin than German. Once again, I surmise Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire 1859 was Darwin’s source (see n. 16). Confirmation of this conjecture is hard to come by. But, if one wishes to know the genealogy of an idea—​and that is our object here—​one feels the fascination of the question. We should not leave Unger without looking more carefully into what he actually wrote in 1852. Bronn claimed that he was a Geoffroyian transmutationist. That much seems to be true.18 But, as noted, it is a mischaracterization if we rely only on the page reference to Unger in Bronn, page 324. In the cited passage Unger’s main concern was to give an account of how plant distribution across the globe could be accounted for. In this endeavor, he did invoke several “Darwinian” factors—​the long elapse of time during which current plant distribution took place, the role of transport of species from one place to another through various mechanisms, including the separation of land masses that were connected in earlier times,19 the “uniformitarian” action of non-​biological forces such as floods, droughts, and above all the action of humans on altering the natural environment, and others. These factors could be said to be important foundational premises for any theory of non-​divine transmutation. But they do not come close to an argument for “species modification,” much less for “natural selection.” To get close to those ideas one would need to read other passages from Unger’s writings, passages noted neither by Bronn nor Darwin.20 Thus, Darwin did not need to say much about Unger at all. In fact, he could just as well have ignored him, given what he knew about him. Why he decided to mention him in the Sketch is only speculation. I surmise that Darwin read Bronn 1858 in 1860, discovered names of several other naturalists there whom Bronn claimed were supporters of Geoffroy, including Unger, and decided, for the sake of thoroughness, to insert them in a later version of the Sketch. Darwin’s hands were so full by this time—​late 1860—​with other matters of more pressing concern than refining the Sketch, that he just did not take the time to go back to read the originals. On the basis of Bronn’s authority, Darwin hastily threw into the Sketch three other names—​Unger, d’Alton, and Oken—​without doing the legwork to see what they had actually written.

Joseph Wilhelm Eduard d’Alton. 1772–​1840 Darwin included another name in the Sketch, just after his mention of Unger, that of J.W.E d’Alton (referred to by Darwin as “’d’Alton”). Darwin cites his contributions to the species question in the Sketch based upon a book

304  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

Figure 12.3 d’Alton

co-​authored by d’Alton and Christian Pander, Vergleichende Osteologie, which was a series of monographs in the field of comparative osteology. Since Darwin did not register this work in his Reading Notebooks, and since he apparently did not have a copy of the book in his library, we must again wonder how Darwin discovered this author, and what he learned from him. D’Alton was a German engraver and naturalist who was a native of Aquelia (today part of Italy). During his travels, he gained an insight in the areas of natural and art history. At Wuertzberg he worked closely with embryologist C.H. Pander, and later he taught art history and architectural theory at the University of Bonn, where in 1827 he became a “full professor” of art history. From 1831 to 1840, d’Alton was a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. One of his famous students in Bonn was Karl Marx. Eduard d’Alton is largely remembered for his anatomical and zoological engravings and etchings. In Pander’s writings d’Alton created engraved plates that portrayed the skeletal framework of numerous species, including the extinct megatherium. For example, in Pander’s 1817 treatise Beiträge zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Hühnchens im Eye, d’Alton produced artistic images

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  305 of the embryonic development of a chicken. In the books in which they collaborated, Pander appears to be the theorist, d’Alton the illustrator. Yet, of the two, Darwin chose d’Alton as the one to mention as a possible predecessor in the Sketch. Darwin’s entry of d’Alton in the Sketch is again very brief, included in the same footnote as Unger, Oken, and Grant: D’Alton, likewise, in Pander and d’Alton’s work on Fossil Sloths, expressed in 1821, a similar belief [as that of Unger, that species undergo development and modification]. (Variorum, p. 68, line 60*. 2)21

Darwin’s brief note, uncharacteristically, gives no citation to the work itself. And why he chose to mention d’Alton and not Pander in his note is a mystery. Pander was the principal author of the book, d’Alton the illustrator. The mystery is cleared up when we go back to Bronn, Darwin’s source for d’Alton. As was true in the case of Unger, Darwin drew directly from Bronn’s Untersuchung, page 78. Bronn included the Pander and d’Alton book for specific mention, a large work on fossil sloths (see n. 21). But for some reason, not easily detected, Bronn decided to give the credit for transmutationist insights only to d’Alton. The mention of this author in the text of Untersuchung pairs him with Oken (“our ingenious natural philosopher”), Robert Grant (“the English anatomist”), and Unger (“the newest voice”). The context of the passage is the dispute between Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. The four naturalists mentioned in this short section of Bronn’s large work were supporters of Geoffroy against Cuvier. D’Alton is mentioned as the one who gave “descriptions” (Beschreibungen) of evidence for transformation of the giant sloth. Bronn cites pages 5–​6 of Pander and d’Alton (1821) as his source for d’Alton. The reason for this choice is that the first chapter of the Pander and d’Alton book was apparently written by d’Alton alone, a chapter entitled “Das Riesen-​Faultier,” or “Giant Sloth.” The gist of this chapter is that the modern-​day giant sloth must be a descendent of an earlier animal that has since gone extinct. D’Alton drew the conclusion that some kind of transmutation must have occurred over the ages. Hence Bronn’s decision to include D’Alton among the early transmutationists without mentioning Pander. I find no evidence that Darwin read the Pander and d’Alton book himself, or even the first chapter on the giant sloth, written by d’Alton. He included d’Alton in the Sketch only because Bronn mentioned him. It seems doubtful that Bronn knew much about d’Alton’s ideas firsthand either. The short passage he refers to in his Untersuchung, pages 5–​6 of Pander and d’Alton, does not give much of a glimpse at a theory of transmutation. As in the case of Unger, Bronn may have borrowed from someone else, without giving a reference. In any case, it is clear

306  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” from all the evidence we have that Darwin included d’Alton in the Sketch strictly on the basis of Bronn’s reference to him in the Untersuchung. He could not say much more than Bronn had said—​that d’Alton believed in the modification of species through time. We are left with a final question. As noted earlier, Darwin listed his predecessors in the chronological order in which their published writings first appeared in published form. D’Alton published his essay on the giant sloth in 1821, yet in the Sketch Darwin placed him out of chronological order, by a wide margin. Indeed, of the 34 authors Darwin claims to have included in the Sketch, at least 12 of them published after d’Alton. Were he in correct chronological order he should have been mentioned just after W.C. Wells, who published his work on racial differences in 1813. To understand the discrepancy, we need to look again at how Darwin came to learn of d’Alton. It was not through firsthand encounter with Pander and d’Alton 1821 but through his perusal of Bronn’s Untersuchung, a book published in 1858 and read (selectively) by Darwin in 1860 (as described earlier). Darwin thus included d’Alton in the Sketch only after he read of his contribution in Bronn’s 1858 book, in 1860. As a consequence, the mention of d’Alton came only in the 1861 edition of Origin, and was placed alongside the other authorities Darwin drew from Bronn. Moreover, the mention of d’Alton comes in a footnote that Darwin added to his entry on Naudin, not in the main body of the Sketch. For footnotes, Darwin was not as cautious about chronological priority as he was for those authors to whom he gave prominence in the main body of the Sketch itself. Yes, d’Alton is out of chronological order. But we now see why that is the case. D’Alton’s argument about species transmutation were of small importance to Darwin. Darwin was not directly familiar with the particulars, and Bronn, Darwin’s source, may not have read Pander and d’Alton 1821 either. In a nutshell, d’Alton claimed to see possible descendance of the giant sloth from the now-​extinct megatherium, based on comparative osteology. It is not so much a theory as an observation—​the sort of empirical discovery that would soon come to preoccupy paleontologists like Richard Owen and Louis Agassiz. Neither of these men were transmutationists—​indeed they were mostly opposed to it. Even if Darwin had read Pander and d’Alton firsthand, he would have come away with very little as showing anticipation of his own theory.

Lorenz Oken. 1779–​1851 Among the four authors Darwin took from Bronn’s Untersuchung is the German natur-​philosophe Lorenz Oken. Darwin does not give a reference to any work by Oken himself, but again refers to the passage in Bronn 1858 (Untersuchung—​see

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  307

Figure 12.4 Oken

n. 1) in which Bronn mentioned Oken along with Unger, Grant, and d’Alton, as early transmutationists (Untersuchung, pp. 78–​9). Bronn himself had very little to say about Oken—​only that “our ingenious Natural-​Philosopher (geistreicher Natur-​Philosoph) Oken” belongs in the group of early transmutationists who, along with the other three, may generally be classed among adherents of the “Geoffroyian” school of thought, against Cuvier’s “species fixity” idea. The only reference Bronn gives to Oken’s writings is the somewhat vague “In seiner Natur-​ Philosophie,” with no date or other bibliographic details given. Bronn does not include any quotes from Oken’s book. Bronn’s citation of Oken’s book raises the question: Which book was Bronn referring to? Oken published two books with “Naturphilosophie” in the title: Lehrbuch der Natur-​philosophie (1809; second edition 1831); and Abriss der Naturphilosophie (1805). An “Abriss” is an outline, a “Lehrbuch” is a “textbook” or “course book.” Bronn does not tell us which of these two he was referring to. Neither does Darwin. After his entries to Unger and d’Alton in the Sketch Darwin states only: Similar views [to those of Unger and d’Alton] have, as is well known, been maintained by Oken in his mystical “Natur-​Philosophie.” (Variorum, p. 68, line 60*. 3)

308  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” The context—​the inclusion of Oken along with Unger and d’Alton and explicit mention of Bronn’s Untersuchung as his source for these latter two authors—​ suggests that Bronn was also Darwin’s source for Oken, although Darwin does not directly say this. But the conclusion that he was is unavoidable. We have no evidence that Darwin could have drawn from Oken directly, or from any other source for that matter. This conclusion, however, does not settle our original question:  To what work was Darwin referring to when he cited Oken’s “Natur-​Philosophie” in the Sketch? We get no illumination by consulting Bronn. Bronn’s footnote to Oken in his Untersuchung says only “in seiner Natur-​Philosophie.” No date is given, or any other bibliographic details. Had Bronn only given a date of publication or any other information, such as publisher, city, or full title, we would know. The incompleteness of Bronn’s reference to Oken undoubtedly explains the incompleteness of Darwin’s entry. Darwin was drawing on Bronn and could give little more information in the Sketch than Bronn had given in the Untersuchung. Darwin does give a small hint in the Sketch that he knew more about Oken than he could glean from Bronn. When he referred to Oken’s “Natur-​ Philosophie,” presumably the title of some book written by Oken (because it is included in quotation marks), he added a statement about Oken that we do not find in Bronn. Darwin calls Oken’s book “mystical,” and adds that Oken’s views are “well-​known.” Bronn had said only that Oken is “our ingenious natural-​ philosopher.” How did Darwin come to learn that Oken’s views were “mystical,” or that his opinions are “well-​known”? That question is probably unanswerable in any definitive way.22 Yet, we may offer some conjectures. Oken’s name was well-​known in Britain well before Darwin wrote his Historical Sketch. Oken was known as a founder of the so-​ called “school of Natur-​Philosophie,” especially on the continent, where he was often associated with Goethe, Schelling, and other “metaphysical naturalists.” Darwin probably became acquainted with his name through the works of Richard Owen, who was influenced for a time by Oken.23 Owen, in fact, is the one who arranged a translation into English of Oken’s book Lehrbuch, under the title Elements of Physiophilosophy, in 1847.24 Darwin records in his Reading Notebooks that he acquired and read this volume on September 24, 1847, shortly after it appeared in print (Reading Notebooks 119: 20a, in CCD, v. 4, p.475). Darwin thus knew about Oken’s “mystical” theory long before he composed his Sketch, and so did not need Bronn to draw his attention to it. On the other hand, Darwin’s comment about the Oken work in his Reading Notebooks was, simply, “nothing.” Because of Darwin’s relatively early encounter with Oken, 1847, and because he found “nothing” of value in the work, we must conclude, again, that Bronn is the one who brought Oken back to Darwin’s memory in 1860. But the indication from the Reading Notebooks is

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  309 that Darwin had heard of Oken much earlier, had read some of his writing, and was perhaps reminded by Owen in the 1840s that Oken was someone to take seriously. Moreover, as we search for Darwin’s scant impressions of Oken, above all that his theory was “mystical,” we should dig deeper into the record of Darwin’s encounter with him. The correspondence reveals a little bit more. As early as June 1853 Darwin was already dismissive of Oken’s views regarding his proposed nomenclature for a certain species of Cirripedia (CCD, 18 June 1853, from Darwin to J.H.A de Bosquet. Letter 1520). To use Oken’s name, Darwin wrote, in view of his “entire ignorance” of the subject would be “mere pedantry.” In 1857 Huxley, in a letter to Darwin, only confirmed Darwin’s suspicions that Oken should not be taken too seriously. Huxley did serious damage to Oken in Darwin’s eyes by pairing him with Agassiz and their “servile follower” Owen, claiming all of these transcendental opinions were thoroughly “outdated” (CCD, [before 3 October] 1857, from Huxley to Darwin. Letter 2144).25 A new controversy regarding Oken’s work erupted in the 1860s, when Owen published the entry to Oken in the Encyclopedia Britannica, eighth edition (1853–​1860). The article is titled “Oken, Lorenz,” and is signed “R.O.,” pointing to Owen as the author. Owen managed to cast his entry on Oken into a contentious article about priority. The essay takes us beyond our present focus. In brief, Owen disputed the claim that Goethe had preceded Oken in discovering the vertebral origin of the skull and then went on to claim that he, Owen himself, actually deserved priority over Oken. Huxley then got involved in the dispute. Huxley apparently had no high opinion of Oken, calling him an “inspired idiot,” but he had even less regard for Owen. In published work, he showed that Owen’s claims to priority were undeserved and, as was sometimes the case with Owen in Huxley’s opinion, self-​serving and, in Darwin’s opinion, “base.”26 Both men were contemptuous of Owen and shared their mutual agreement on this matter in private correspondence. By this time Darwin’s relations with Owen—​personal and professional—​had deteriorated significantly (see c­ hapters 8 and 9), and this particular dispute about Oken’s originality did not influence what he wrote about Oken in the Sketch. But the fact that Huxley had weighed in so heavily against Owen’s misplaced claims to priority may have only strengthened Darwin’s resolve not to change anything he had earlier said in the Sketch about Oken. Besides, even by 1864, we have no evidence that Darwin knew anything more about Oken’s original publications than what he had already said in the Sketch in 1861. The particulars of Oken’s contributions to the origin of species question need not detain us here. As we have seen, Darwin knew virtually nothing about them from firsthand encounter. What little he did know came to him 14 years before he entered Oken into the Sketch from Tulk’s translation of Oken’s

310  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” “Natur-​Philosophie” (1847), about which Darwin commented “nothing,” and from Bronn’s very brief mention of him in the Untersuchung (1858), which Darwin read only in 1860. Darwin did know enough to call Oken’s ideas “mystical,” which should have been enough to disqualify Oken from a place in the Sketch. But Darwin was working quickly in 1860–​1861 to round out his list of possible predecessors. On the basis of Bronn’s mention of Oken as a transmutationist, even if a Lamarckian or Geoffroyian one, Darwin decided to give a footnote sentence to Oken. We can only imagine that this decision was guided more by Darwin’s wish to show he was aware of as many early transmutationists as possible than by any thought that Oken could really be counted as a predecessor. Darwin could not say anything more substantive about Oken’s opinions than what Bronn had said.

Notes 1. The full citation is Heinrich Bronn, 1858, Untersuchung ueber die Entwicklung-​Gesetz der organischen Welt waehrend der Bildungs-​Zeit unserer Erd-​Oberflaesche. Stuttgart. 2. Darwin made clear in his marginal notes to Bronn 1858 that he would “use my copy [of Grant, 1835]” for his entry of this author in the Sketch (Marginalia, p. 91a). 3. Our best evidence that Bronn was neutral about Darwin’s theory comes in Bronn’s concluding remarks in Untersuchung about other naturalists who did support “progressive modification,” or “Geoffroyism.” After pointing out that several “distinguished” naturalists had supported Geoffroy (against Cuvier), Bronn states simply that the evidence for either side is inconclusive, and that he himself will not venture a decided opinion either way (Untersuchung, 1858, pp. 78–​9). This comment was made before Bronn read or translated Darwin’s Origin. But his “appendix” to his translation of the Origin (i.e., ch. 15) continues to maintain the ambivalence and neutrality. He praised Darwin and the work, but added a number of pointed criticisms that show him to be agnostic about, if not opposed, to Darwin’s theory. 4. See Hull (1973, pp. 118–​25) for a translation of and commentary on Bronn 1860a. 5. Darwin wrote to Bronn on 5 October 1860 that he had doubts that “Wahl der Lebens-​ Weise” is a good translation of “natural selection,” because “it leaves the impression on my mind of the Lamarckian doctrine (which I reject) of habits of life being all important.” See Janet Browne comments on Darwin’s concern in Charles Darwin: Power of Place, p. 142. 6. Charles Darwin, 1860, Ueber die Entstehung der Arten in Thier-​und Pflanzen-​Reich durch Natuerliche Zeuchtung, oder Erhaltung der vervollkomneten Rassen in Kampfe um’s Daseyn. Translated by H.G. Bronn. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart. 7. In the third edition of his translation of Origin, Bronn (or perhaps his co-​translator Victor Carus) changed again his translation of Darwin’s phrase “natural selection” to the more accurate “nateurlich Zuchtwahl” (Bronn 1867).

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  311 8. In a letter to Bronn on July 14, 1860b, Darwin urged him to provide his own critical comments to the translation:  “How interesting you could make the work by editing (I do not mean translating) the work & appending notes of refutation or confirmation (CCD, 14 July [1860b], to Bronn. Letter 2867). Bronn complied, adding a “Chapter 15” to his translation. Pleading ignorance, Darwin also asked Bronn in February 1860b to include a footnote to the Historical Sketch (not yet translated or published in German) to give names of other German authorities who may hold views similar to those of Darwin (CCD, 14 February [1860b], to Bronn. Letter 2698). Bronn did not comply with this request, but the editors of CCD (CCD, 14 February [1860b], to Bronn, n. 4. Letter 2698) note that Bronn did include a footnote to the discussion of Étienne Geoffroy St Hilaire’s views on species (Bronn 1860b, p. 2 n.): “It is well known that on several occasions in the academy he [E. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire] had violent clashes with Cuvier, who defended against him the view of the constancy of species.” Darwin later added the names of several other German authorities, some of whom he discovered in Bronn 1858. 9. The question of the rats that Bronn raised continued to bother Darwin for several more years. In 1863 Darwin wrote to his old friend George Bentham: “Nor can we explain why some species have changed & others have not. The latter case seems to me hardly more difficult to understand precisely & in detail than the former case of supposed change. Bronn may ask in vain the old creationist school & the new school why one mouse has longer ears than another mouse—​& one plant more pointed leaves than another plant.” The point remains unchanged: the special creationists do not have a better explanation than Darwin had, and in some ways their explanation is much worse for begging too many questions (CCD, 22 May 1863, to Bentham, letter 4176; see also CCD, 5 October [1860], to Bronn. Letter 2940). 10. Darwin’s responses to Bronn’s Chapter 15 were inserted into Darwin’s copy of Bronn’s translation, which is in CUL. Darwin apparently did not read much of the translation itself, limiting himself to digesting Bronn’s last chapter of criticisms. The CCD has preserved a copy of Darwin’s four-​page response to Bronn as footnote 9 to the letter from Darwin to Bronn of October 5, 1860. The editors also provide important context in notes 1–​9 to the same letter for the written exchange between Darwin and Bronn in 1860. 11. Bronn 1860a; 1860b. 12. [Unger], 1870, includes a short early biography of Unger, on pages 228–​32 (anonymous; see bibliography for citation). Ernst Mayr (1982, pp. 390–​1) argues for the importance of Unger as a forerunner of Darwinian evolution. He cites important pre-​ evolutionist ideas by Unger in “a special chapter [in his 1852 Versuch]” under the title of “The Origin of Plants: Their Multiplication and the Origin of Different Types.” The chapter does suggest that later forms developed from an original “Urtype,” a strongly Darwinian idea. But Darwin seems not to have noticed this chapter or the relevant passages. His reference to Unger 1852 was to page 324, whereas Unger’s chapter on “Origins” begins on page 340. Mayr does not attempt to show how, or even whether, Unger influenced what Darwin said about him in the Sketch. The definitive recent study of Unger is Sander Gliboff (1998, and citations to other studies).

312  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Gliboff traces Unger’s evolutionary views through his writings from the 1830s to the 1860s, and shows definitively that Unger was an early “developmentalist” of a non-​Lamarckian  kind. 13. Unger, according to Gliboff, showed enough early comprehension that new species develop, and have always developed from earlier species to be able to produce of “theory” of biological evolution. He rejected both Lamarckian “spontaneous generation” and “creative fiat” to account for the appearance of new species. Unger did, however, accept a notion of a “creative force” (Bildungstrieb, a term first used by J.F. Blumenbach, 1780) to account for the developmental process. Darwin rejected accounts of this kind as empirically vacuous. Gliboff must be consulted for a proper appreciation of Unger’s views. But, like Mayr, he does not attempt to show how Darwin learned about Unger or the extent to which Darwin may have been influenced by him. 14. See footnote 1 for a full citation to Bronn’s Untersuchung 1858. The work by Unger to which Darwin here refers is Franz Unger, Versuch einer geschichte des Pflanzenwelt [Vienna, 1852.], p. 324. Darwin’s reference to this work in his marginal comments to Bronn’s 1858 work gives the page reference as “p. 80?” That page is not a reference to Unger’s work but to the page on which Bronn registered his citation to Unger (the correct page is actually Bronn 1858, p. 79; cf. Marginalia, p. 91a). It appears Darwin did not read Unger’s original, but only copied from Bronn, who himself had little more to say than that Unger was a recent contributor to the Cuvier/​Geoffroy Saint-​ Hilaire debate, coming down on the side of Geoffroy’s transmutationism. 15. The citation to this review is imperfect because it does not include the full name of the author of the review or precise volume and page number of the Gardener’s Chronicle. Darwin’s note says only “Work on Hybridism reviewed in Gardener’s Chronicle in 1852, by Wagner?” The editors of the CCD identify the work as “Franz Unger 1852,” with a footnote to Darwin’s entry that says “Unger’s work on hybridism was reviewed in Gardener’s Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no, 32 (1852) p. 502. CD marked this article in his copy of the journal” (CCD, v. 4, Reading Notebooks, *128: 182 and n. 85). The CCD editors do not give the name of the author, as the review is unsigned. Where Darwin got the name “Wagner?” as the possible author is not known. The question mark suggests he was guessing. 16. We might compound the puzzle by asking how Bronn learned of Unger’s 1852 book. That question would take us too far afield, but worth noting is that Bronn showed little familiarity with what Unger actually said. It seems likely he drew his information about Unger—​somewhat misleading in itself as he presented it—​from another authority entirely. My suspicion, only a guess, is Bronn took his information about Unger from Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, who never missed a chance to mention his father’s transmutationist views and to give a list of authorities who supported him against Cuvier’s “fixationist” opinions. It should be noted that Isidore, in his Histoire naturelle generale (v. 2, 1859, p. 444), a book Darwin did consult, includes Bronn in his own list of authorities on the species question, and likened Bronn’s definition of species to Unger’s.

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  313 17. Bronn 1858, pp. 78–​9. 18. Gliboff 1998. 19. See [Unger] 1870, pp. 227–​32. 20. See n. 14. Unger was clearly an important progenitor of some important aspects of Darwinian evolutionary theory—​more than is usually acknowledged. I do not contest that view or the evidence supporting it. Our focus, instead, is whether Darwin knew of Unger’s prescient views on evolution, and if so, where he learned about them. The research shows Darwin did not know of Unger’s developmental views prior to 1860, and what little he did learn about them—​very little—​came from Bronn, not from Unger himself. 21. Christian Pander and Eduard Joseph d’Alton, 1821–​1828, Vergleichende Osteologie, 7 volumes. Bonn: Weber. The first chapter in this work was D’Alton’s “Das Riesen-​ Faultier,” or “Giant Sloth.” 22. Rupke (1994, pp. 175, 251–​2, 309–​10), through masterful research into this issue, concludes that the reference in Darwin to Oken must have been his Lehrbuch, not his Abriss. I see no reason to disagree. Based on considerable evidence given by Rupke, the Lehrbuch looks like the obvious original source. Rupke, however, does not dispute the claim that Bronn was Darwin’s source for Oken, nor does he comment on the question of whether Darwin read anything by Oken in the original text. 23. Darwin wrote to Hooker in 1863: “Many thanks for Athenæum, received this morning & to be returned tomorrow morning. Who would have ever thought of the old stupid Athenæum taking to Oken-​like transcendental philosophy written in Owenian style! It will be some time before we see ‘slime, snot or protolasm’ (what an elegant writer) generating a new animal.” The editors of CCD remark: “CD refers to the German naturalist and leading exponent of the romantic Naturphilosophie, Lorenz Oken, by whom Owen had been greatly influenced. In his review, Owen followed Oken in arguing that microscopic organisms like the Foraminifera were spontaneously generated on the beds of seas, lakes, and rivers, by the effect of a ‘general polarizing force’ on the ‘slime’ from dead and decaying organisms (Athenæum, 28 March 1863, p. 417; see also DSB, s.v. ‘Oken, Lorenz’, and Rupke 1994, pp. 175, 251–​2, 309–​10). Owen’s reference to Foraminifera as ‘Aggregates of slime, snot, or “protoplasm’ ” appeared on p. 418” (CCD, 29 March [1863], to Hooker, and n. 5. Letter 4794). 24. Rupke, 1994; cf. Oken, 1847. Tulk’s translation was of Oken’s Lehrbuch, not his Abriss. Since Darwin owned and had read Tulk’s translation rather than the original, the natural conclusion is that Darwin in the Sketch was referring to the Lehrbuch. 25. CCD, [before 3 October] 1857, from Huxley. Letter 2144. The editors of CCD note that “Huxley associated Richard Owen’s methodology with Lorenz Oken’s Naturphilosophie, and with the philosophical anatomy of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​ Hilaire.” (See A. Desmond 1982 and di Gregorio 1984.) 26. Details of the controversy are recapitulated in CCD, 11 April 1864, from Darwin to Huxley, and note 4. Huxley had defended the priority of Goethe’s unpublished hypothesis on the skull and accused Owen of simply recycling Oken’s ideas without proper acknowledgment.

314  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

References Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich.1780. “Über den Bildungstrieb (Nisus formativus) und seinen Einfluss auf die Generation und Reproduktion” [On the Formative Force and its Influence on Generation and Reproduction]. Göttingisches Magazin der Wissenschaften und Literatur 1: 247–​66. Bronn, Heinrich Georg. 1841–​1849. Handbuch einer Geschichte der Natur. 3 volumes. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart. Bronn, Heinrich Georg. 1858. Untersuchung ueber die Entwicklung-​Gesetz der organischen Welt waehrend der Bildungs-​Zeit unserer Erd-​Oberflaesche. Stuttgart. Bronn, Heinrich Georg. 1860a. “Review of Origin of Species.” Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie und Petrefakten-​Kunde 112–​16. [Translated in Hull 1973, pp. 120–​4.] [Bronn, Heinrich, 1860b]. Charles Darwin: Ueber die Entstehung der Arten in Thier-​und Pflanzen-​ Reich durch Natuerliche Zeuchtung, oder Erhaltung der vervollkomneten Rassen in Kampfe um’s Daseyn. (Origin of Species). Translated by H.G. Bronn. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart. Bronn, Heinrich Georg, and Carus, Julius Victor, trans. 1867. Über die Entstehung der Arten durch natürliche Zuchtwahl oder die Erhaltung der begünstigten Rassen im Kampfe um’s Dasein. 3rd edition. Translated by Heinrich Georg Bronn. Revised and corrected from the fourth English edition by Julius Victor Carus. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagshandlung und Druckerei. Browne, Janet. 2003. Charles Darwin: Power of Place. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Di Gregorio, Mario A. 1984. T. H. Huxley’s Place in Natural Science. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, Isidore. 1859. Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques. Vol. 2. Paris: Librarie de Victor Masson. Gliboff, Sander. 1998. “Evolution, Revolution, and Reform in Vienna:  Franz Unger’s Ideas on Descent and Their Post-​1848 Reception.” Journal of the History of Biology 31: 179–​209. Hull, David Lee. 1973. Darwin and His Critics:  The Reception of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Oken, Lorenz. 1805. Abriss der Naturphilosophie. Gottingen. Oken, Lorenz. 1809. Lehrbuch der Natur-​philosophie. Jena. [2nd edition, 1831]. Oken, Lorenz. 1847. Elements of Physiophilosophy. Translated by Alfred Tulk. London. Pander. 1817. Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Hühnchens im Eye, (Contributions to the embryology involving the chick egg. Wurzburg: [s.n.]). Pander, Christian, and Eduard d’Alton. 1821. Das Riesen-​Faultier Bradypus Giganteus. Bonn: Weber. Richards, Robert J.  2002. The Romantic Conception of Life. Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press. Richards, Robert J.  2017. “Did Goethe and Schelling Endorse Species Evolution?” In Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution, edited by Joshua Lambier and Joel Faflak. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Robert Grant. 1835. Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, London: Balliere.

Bronn, Unger, d’Alton, and Oken  315 Rupke, Nicolaas. 2009. Richard Owen: Biology Without Darwin. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Rupke, Nicolaas. 1994. Richard Owen:  Victorian Naturalist. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Unger, Franz. 1852. Versuch einer geschichte des Pflanzenwelt. Vienna. [Unger, Franz]. 1852. “Review” of Franz Unger. In Versuch einer geschichte des Pflanzenwelt. Vienna. Gardener’s Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (32) 502. [Unger, Franz]. 1870. “Dr. Franz Unger.” The Journal of Anthropology 1 (2): 227–​232.

13

D.A. Godron, J.B.G.N. Bory de Saint Vincent, K.F. Burdach, J.L.M. Poiret, and E.M. Fries Dominique Alexandre Godron. 1807–​1880 Isidore Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire and Bronn were not the only authors Darwin drew from for information about possible predecessors of his theory. Toward the end of the Sketch we discover a third:  D.A. Godron, in a work Darwin called “Sur l’Espece,” a shorthand (and inexact) citation to Godron’s 1859 De l’Espece et des races dans les etres organises et specialement de l’unite de l’espece humaine.1 Godron was a French physician and biologist who studied medicine at the University of Strasbourg and during his career distinguished himself by his original investigations in natural science as well as medicine. In 1854, he became dean and professor of natural history to the Faculty of Sciences at Nancy. Here he established a natural history museum and reorganized its botanical collections (now renamed the Jardin Dominique Alexandre Godron in his honor). Darwin owned a copy of Godron’s De l’Espece, and annotated it extensively (see Marginalia, pp. 331–​5; Darwin’s copy is in the Darwin Library-​CUL). He does not indicate when he read it, but, given its date of publication, it must have been late 1859 or early 1860. On the other hand, Darwin recorded Godron 1848–​ 1849 in his Reading Notebooks *128: 177 (CCD, v. 4, p. 482), making only the notation “Read,” presumably meaning he had already read it by the time of this entry. Darwin does not give a date in the Reading Notebooks as to when he read it, but from context it appears that he must have read it in 1855. Godron 1859 was a reprint, somewhat enlarged in two volumes, of his earlier 1848–​1849 work. The copy of the work in Darwin’s library is the 1859 edition , which he annotated. Yet, it is of some interest that Darwin was on the scent of Godron much earlier than 1859. In March 1855 he wrote to booksellers, Hooker, and Arthur Henfrey, asking them to try to find a copy of Godron 1848–​1849 because it was a work, by reputation, that Darwin wanted to see (CCD, [before 7 March] 1855, from Darwin to Hooker; 7 March [1855] to Hooker, letter 1643; Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  317

Figure 13.1 Godron

31 March [1855], to Arthur Henfrey. Letter 1658). Hooker promised Darwin he would do what he could to track it down (CCD, [before 7 March] 1855, from Hooker. Letter 1638). Yet even by August 1855 Hooker had not managed to locate a copy, and Darwin was still searching for one. He wrote to Hooker: Will you sometime look in your Library & see whether you have the Memoires of the Academy of Nancy 1848–​1849 for Godron. It is not in Linnean or Royal Socy. (CCD, 10 August [1855], to Hooker. Letter 1737)

This means that by August 1855 Darwin had not yet laid eyes on Godron’s work. Yet sometime later in the same year, date uncertain, Darwin did acquire a copy of Godron 1848–​1849 and read it almost immediately, as shown by his entry in the Reading Notebooks (as noted earlier)2. It is a pity that no copy of Godron 1848–​1849 is to be found in Darwin’s library, even though it is clear that he read it in late 1855. For the Sketch, however, it was Godron 1859, not the original 1848–​1849 essays, that Darwin drew upon for his information. As was true in the case of Bronn, Godron seems not to have been, in Darwin’s eyes, a forerunner of the theory of descent with modification. Darwin gave no such credit to Godron in the Sketch. Instead, he merely reported in a footnote in the Sketch that Godron

318  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” was his source for four other authorities: Bory St Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries. These are Darwin’s words in the Sketch: From other references in Godron’s work “Sur l’Espece,” it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being produced. (Variorum, p. 68, line 60*. 4)

This entry, apart from not crediting Godron himself for having developed a theory of transmutation, does show that Darwin was familiar with Godron’s references to other authorities by the time he composed the third edition of Origin, April 1861. Darwin must have read Godron 1859 sometime in early 1860. It is hard to tell how he acquired a copy of Godron’s book, but he did not think highly of it. He wrote to Lyell in May 1860: I have read some of Godron [1859]. He strikes me as rather common-​place, which surprises me as he wrote a capital paper on Means of Distribution of plants. He puts the old case well that mere physical conditions do very little in modifying organic forms. [The editors of CCD add:  “This book contains reprints of two of Godron’s papers on species (1848–​49) that CD had particularly wanted to read in 1855.” (CCD, 18 May 1860, and n.  10, to Lyell. Letter 2806)]

Thus, by May 1860 Darwin had read “some of Godron.” This statement is plainly a reference to Godron 1859, not the original essays of 1848–​1849. That discrepancy is of little moment here because what Godron had to say in 1848–​ 1849 was largely reproduced by him in his 1859 volume.3 And, in any case, Darwin did not rely upon Godron’s 1848–​1849 essays when he composed the Sketch. His source, rather, was Godron 1859. To confirm this case, we need only to turn to the Godron essays of 1848–​1849. These essays make significant contributions to one of Darwin’s chief areas of interest, biogeographical distribution. Darwin ignored those contributions in the Sketch. But the earlier papers did make a contribution to the question of species evolution. Godron in 1848 had outlined the contours of the running debate between species fixists and species tranformationists—​especially Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, respectively. In connection with this dispute Godron brought in the names of Poiret and Fries as supporters of the transmutationist viewpoint. This might tempt us into believing that Godron 1848 was Darwin’s source for the Sketch. The problem here is that Godron mentioned only Poiret and Fries as transmuationists in 1848. Darwin’s entry in the Sketch of authors he drew

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  319 from Godron included not only these two, but two others:  Bory St Vincent and Burdach. The only place Godron mentioned the latter two was in his 1859 volume. Yet again these details do not matter much for the present study. As we shall see, Darwin did not read any of the original texts by the four authors that Godron identified in 1859. He merely took their names from Godron’s text, adding only that they all have “admitted that new species are continually being produced.” How much of Godron 1859 Darwin read is not clear. He told Lyell in May 1860 that he had read “some of it.” His annotations suggest he read most of it, identifying in particular “pages 10, 19, 30 to 58 to 260” as bearing on the question of “History of Believers in Mutation” (Marginalia, p. 331a). The page numbers of Godron’s book that Darwin entered into his marginal notes seem incorrect, possibly a result of an ambiguity in the editing process by which Godron was recorded in the Marginalia. The only page numbers that correspond with the statement “History of Believers in Mutation” are pages 9–​10. These are the only pages where Godron mentioned the four names Darwin used in the Sketch: Poiret, Burdach, Bory de Saint Vincent, and Fries. The reference to other pages recorded in the Marginalia (pp. 19, 30 to 58 to 260), apart from being confusing, does not point to any specific reference to “believers in mutation,” much less to specific authors. The only passages Darwin took from Godron for the Sketch were pages  9–​10. We should pause to look at what Godron actually wrote about the four authors in question. He situates them with a larger framework, bounded on one side by well-​known champions of species immutability, especially Linnaeus and Cuvier (and, Buffon, with a question mark) and on the other by transmutationists. The latter group included the four authors Darwin took from Godron for the Sketch, plus two others: Bonnet (1779); and above all Lamarck (1809). Darwin had already given a good deal of attention to Lamarck earlier in the Sketch, so he did not see a need to include him again here. Somewhat surprisingly, he did not notice Bonnet, even though Godron gave him credit for being one of the first species transformationists. As to their theories of species change, all four authors, like Bonnet and Lamarck, argued only that “change in external conditions” may, over time, yield new species. The inference is that species respond to local environmental conditions in adaptive ways. The cause of species change, then, is the direct action of physical conditions on structures or, as in the case of Lamarck, on habits and behaviors which, in turn, produce new structures through “use and disuse” of organs. Darwin could have learned at least this much from Godron if he read the entire section in which Godron situated his four authors. If so, Darwin would have seen little need to say much about any of them—​and he did not.4 None of these earlier

320  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” views touched on either of the two pivotal points in Darwin’s theory: random variations, acted upon by natural selection. For that matter, none of them even invoked the Malthusian “struggle for existence.” These theories for Darwin must have been seen, at best, as dim foreshadowings of a complete evolutionary theory, or at worst, recycled versions of environmental adaptation theories that, in his eyes, had long been discredited. Godron himself, like Bronn, did not make a specific commitment to either side. He confined himself to outlining the contours of the debate, and then, after citing his authorities, moved on to other matters. It is interesting, though, that Godron did not supply full citations to the four authors Darwin included in the Sketch. This fact helps to explain why Darwin did not include citations in the Sketch. He was, again, drawing from Godron, not from original sources. In the case of three of Godron’s authorities we get only the last name, a brief title of the relevant work, with date of publication, and a page number. The Bory de Saint Vincent entry is even less satisfying: Bory was drawing from another work, by Quatrefages, the mention of which in Godron is also incomplete. This lack of more complete bibliographic information may suggest that Godron had not read these sources himself, but rather drew from another authority. So, we are left with a question. How much did Darwin owe to the four authors cited by Godron as potential predecessors of his own theory? He did, of course, include all four in a footnote in the Sketch, so almost by definition he thought he owed something to them. But the paucity of evidence he supplies for all of them suggests he owed very little to them, if anything at all. Several points are clear. Darwin did not read any of these four authors in their original publications, even though their dates of publication would have placed them earlier than even Godron 1859. Bory de Saint Vincent was taken by Godron from an essay published by Quatrefages in 1856.5 Burdach’s volume appeared in 1858. Fries and Poiret published much earlier than this. Darwin, who was usually meticulous in assigning previous authorities in their proper chronological order in the Sketch, completely ignored chronology in the case of these four authors. Instead he lumped them together in a footnote in the Sketch that said only that he got his information about them from Godron, whose volume appeared only in 1859. On the other hand, Darwin did read Godron 1859 with care, heavily annotating the volume. But when we turn to Godron’s text, we discover very little information about the four authorities he mentions as early transmutationists. He does not even give complete bibliographic information. These omissions in Godron raise the suspicion that he also had not read these four sources in their original published form. This surmise is strengthened by the consideration that Godron had almost nothing to say substantively about any of them—​only that they supported some form of ongoing species transmutation.

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  321

Figure 13.2  Bory de Saint Vincent

Darwin perhaps gave Godron 1859 too short shrift. Godron does devote several chapters in part I (of his two-​part volume) to considerations of animals and vegetables in their “primitive conditions,” compared to how they appear “today.” He does the same exercise with plants and animals under domestication. All of this detail provides interesting inferential evidence that Godron was aware of currents of thought in the 1850s and before that could be marshalled in favor of transformationist views. It even suggests Godron himself was lending support to the transmutationist position, even if in a Lamarckian cast. Darwin, though, seems to have paid little heed. Even if he read these chapters with care, he only cites the first few pages of Godron in the Sketch, drawing from him the names of four other naturalists, but with little more to say than their names.

Jean Baptiste Georges Marie Bory de St. Vincent. 1778–​1846 Bory de Saint Vincent, or “Bory,” as he usually goes by in the scientific literature, was a French naturalist, who preceded Darwin in time by 30 years. He did not live long enough to know Darwin through any source other than Darwin’s work in the 1840s on barnacles. He did note Darwin’s work in his later publications,

322  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” but did not say much about it. He came to Darwin’s notice through a brief mention of him in Godron 1859. In turn, Godron learned of Bory’s transmutationist leanings through another work, written by Quatrefages in 1856. That work appeared in an essay published in an obscure periodical, Revue de cours publics, 1856, p. 25.6 It is unlikely that Darwin ever read it. Darwin was thus two steps away from direct acquaintance with Bory’s works: Godron’s mention of him in 1859, citing, with little detail, an 1856 article by Quatrefages that referred to Bory. We have so little additional information about the Quatrefages article that it is hard to establish what exactly Quatrefages said about Bory, or what Godron drew from Quatrefages. But we may make an attempt. Fortunately, Quatrefages and Darwin engaged in quite a bit of correspondence in 1859–​1860 in which they exchanged opinions about natural history subjects.7 Quatrefages was mainly an anthropologist, using recent scientific findings in geology and botany to extend his speculations to “the species question” and to human races. He was appointed professor of the natural history of man at the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in 1855 and delivered his first course of lectures on anthropological subjects in 1856.8 Most of his publications appeared in the 1850s, although his works continued to come out well into the 1860s. Darwin knew a little about these works, as he records in his correspondence. Likewise, Quatrefages knew something about Darwin’s work even prior to the publication of Origin. Darwin sent him a copy of Journal of Researches, second edition, on 4 January 1858 (CCD, 4 January? 1858, to Quatrefages, and n. 4. Letter 2036). From the correspondence between the two men, it appears that Darwin regarded Quatrefages as a possible convert to Darwinian transmutation. This opinion was formed in late 1859, a time when Darwin was trying hard to establish a list of respected naturalists whom he could count on as allies. Quatrefages, Darwin suggested in a letter to him, might be recruited. We see almost desperation in Darwin’s appeal to Quatrefages in a letter sent in December 1859: Had I not been much engaged lately, I should have thanked you earlier for your very kind letter of the 19th Novr. I am quite delighted that we agree to some extent in our conclusions with respect to the mutability of species.9 I shall anxiously read your Cours, if published. Pray permit me to be boastful about my book, but for a reason which you will presently see. Sir C. Lyell, who has been our chief maintainer of the immutability of species, has become an entire convert; as is Hooker, our best & most philosophical Botanist; as is Carpenter, an excellent physiologist, & as is Huxley; & I could name several other names. These naturalists intend proclaiming their full acceptance of my views. The whole of the 1st. Edit (1250 copies) was sold on first day; & my publisher is now printing 3000 more copies. (CCD, 5 December 1859, to Quatrefages. Letter 2571)

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  323 Darwin appears to be asking Quatrefages for an endorsement, without quite saying so explicitly. He did not get what he had hoped for: Quatrefages could never go the whole distance with Darwin’s theory. What Darwin learned from Quatrefages about Bory de Saint Vincent is harder to establish. The answer is, probably, nothing at all. Bory does not come up in Darwin’s correspondence with Quatrefages, and as we have already seen, Quatrefages does not mention Bory in his widely circulated essays in the Revue de Duex Mondes. Darwin apparently took Bory’s name from Godron, who in turn took it from Quatrefages 1856 (see n. 6). I find no reason to believe that Darwin had come to an independent conclusion that Bory was a possible believer in transmutation from reading anything by either Quatrefages or Bory himself. His idea that Bory may have been a predecessor for a theory of species transformation was derived from his glance at what Godron briefly claimed in 1859. Quatrefages, then, was never an important concern to Darwin about priority or anticipation. He comes into our discussion only because Godron had cited Quatrefages as his source for information about Bory. Nothing needs to be added about Quatrefages because Darwin had nothing to say about him in published writings, including in the Historical Sketch.

Figure 13.3 Burdach

324  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Bory, for his part, was mentioned by Darwin in the Sketch, but again there is little left to be said about what Darwin took from his writings. We have no evidence that Darwin read anything written by Bory. Evidently, all his information about Bory—​scant as it is—​came from Godron’s brief mention of him in his 1859 work, cited earlier. As we have seen, Godron has nothing more to say about Bory than that he, along with three other naturalists mentioned by name (Poiret, Burdach, and Fries), was somewhat inclined to accept species transformation. No other details are given in Godron 1859 other than an incomplete reference to Quatrefages 1856. From Godron’s extremely brief mention of Bory, Darwin could have gleaned nothing about the extent or nature of Bory’s commitment to transmutation from Godron’s entry. Nor did Darwin go back to any original source for Bory, or even, for that matter, to anything published by Quatrefages. If someone had asked Darwin in 1860 what he knew about Bory’s published writings, he would have had to confess, “nothing at all.” The only thing Darwin could go on for including Bory in the Sketch was the single unilluminating statement by Godron that Quatrefages had claimed Bory to be a transmutationist in an obscure article published in 1856, an article Darwin never did read.

Karl Friedrich Burdach. 1776–​1847 Godron 1859 was Darwin’s source for three other naturalists he decided to include in the Historical Sketch:  Burdach, Poiret, and Fries. Of these three Burdach, a German physiologist, was perhaps the most well-​published. He produced several multi-​volume works between 1808 and 1840, collectively running into thousands of pages of text. His best-​known work was Die Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft (1826–​1840, in 6 volumes).10 This was an ambitious undertaking that attempted to show how the evolving field of physiology could best be understood as an empirical or experiential science. Despite Burdach’s best efforts, he did not succeed in making a lasting impression on current discussions in the science of physiology. Darwin certainly did not notice him until Godron 1859, and it seems unlikely that Godron read anything by Burdach firsthand either. Burdach was a German physiologist. He studied medicine in Leipzig in the first years of the 19th century, became professor of physiology at the University of Dorpat in 1811, and four years later took a similar position at the University of Konigsberg. He is mainly remembered today for having discovered and provided the name of the arculate fasciculus, the dorsal finiculus of the spinal cord. He also introduced, in 1800, the word “biology,” in the modern sense of the term, into the scientific vernacular.

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  325 Despite Burdach’s prolific publication record in the mid-​19th century, Darwin seems to have known nothing about him, certainly regarding his possible transmutationist views, prior to 1859, when he ran across his name in Godron’s 1859 volume. What he found in Godron cannot give us much confidence that Darwin understood Burdach’s transmutationist leanings, or even that Godron did. Here is what Darwin had to say about Burdach in the Sketch: From other references in Godron’s work “Sur l’Espece,” it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being produced. (Variorum, p. 68, line 60*. 4)

That is it. No commentary is added, or even an attempt to separate and distinguish Burdach’s views from those of Bory, Poiret, or Fries. Darwin just lumped them together in a short footnote as supporters of the idea that “new species are continually being produced.” And Darwin is not even sure this conclusion is correct. He admits that it only “seems” these authors supported the idea of species transformation, not that they actually did support it. As noted, Darwin drew this thin reed of evidence from the passing mention he found in Godron of Burdach’s work. What, then, did Burdach actually have to say about transmutation in 1826 or later?11 Wrestling with the problem of how to explain the great diversity of living beings that we see on the earth today, Burdach identifies two “extreme” theories: that all living beings descended from a single primordial form and were gradually modified by “changing circumstances”;12 or every existing species was spontaneously generated from inorganic matter, what would come to be called “spontaneous generation,” a theory accepted by Lamarck. “Both views seem equally improbable,” says Burdach. He finds the truth to lie somewhere between these two extremes. Burdach thus proposes what might be called a hybrid theory. From time to time the earth gives up new forms through spontaneous generation. These diverse forms, if possessing sufficient affinities, may unite with one another, producing intermediate forms. All of this “changement” is sped along by constant changes in external forces. To answer the question of why we do not see constant organic change today, Burdach proposes that global forces that previously worked to effect organic change no longer operate. This fact explains, for Burdach, why we do not see species transformation occurring in our own times. This opinion was a departure from Lamarck, who accepted Lyellian “uniformitarianism,” that geological and biological forces working today are the same as those that have always operated. Also unlike Lamarck, Burdach does not draw

326  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” attention to the key Lamarckian ideas of “use/​disuse” and “inheritance of acquired characters.” His theory was, in this sense, sui generis. When we turn to Godron’s citation of Burdach in his 1859 volume, we find again only a faint trace of information that directs us to any work by Burdach, even less what Burdach had actually claimed. Godron says only that Burdach “accepted this doctrine,” along with Bory (p. 9). The “doctrine” in question is actually that of a French biologist whom Darwin did not include in the Sketch, Charles Bonnet. But Godron gave Bonnet’s views several lines of text when he reported on him in 1859 and only four or five words to Burdach. It is, then, a mystery why Darwin did not include Bonnet, along with Burdach, in the Sketch. The work by Bonnet to which Godron referred was volume 5 of an eight-​ volume work.13 The precise citation, with exact quotation by Godron of the relevant passage of this massive work by Bonnet suggests that Godron had Bonnet’s text in front of him when he composed his own work on “species.” Moreover, he gave Bonnet the lion’s share of credit for being the first true transmutationist on the continent. Buffon and Linnaeus, also mentioned by Godron, were too tentative, and eventually backed away from transmutation, or so Godron thought. Lamarck came later, as a true champion of the cause. This observation places Bonnet near the beginning of the trend toward evolutionary thinking (1779), and in a leading role, with Burdach (1826) and the others he mentioned coming later. Godron follows up his historical sketch of previous transmutationists with a paean to Lamarck (1809). But Bonnet is the one, Godron thought, who got the transmutationist ball rolling. It is, therefore, worth taking a look at what Bonnet actually said. The passage to which Godron referred (and that he quoted directly) comes in volume 5, chapter CXXXIX, entitled “That the Number of Species May Be Increased by Fortuitous Conjunctions.” The passage that Godron quoted comes at the beginning of the chapter, and states, in effect, that, whereas the species that existed at the beginning of the world were not “less numerous” than those existing today, various “conjunctions” of diverse forms, along with changes in external conditions, have given rise to new species and to intermediate individuals. These variant individuals, in their turn, unite among themselves, giving rise to new, slightly different forms, or species (Oeuvres, v. 5, p. 240). This is the “doctrine” that, on Godron’s telling, was adopted by Burdach and others. It is strange, then, that Darwin would mention Burdach in the Sketch as a possible predecessor but would omit mention of Bonnet, the original source of the “doctrine” in question. One cannot say that Bonnet was a less significant figure in the evolution of the transmutation debate than Burdach. In hindsight, that case would be hard to sustain. Neither writer became a dominant figure in 18th and 19th century debates on the question, although Burdach’s writings

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  327 may have had greater scientific respectability in his day. But Godron obviously thought Bonnet deserved more attention than Burdach. In any case, Darwin, having read nothing written by either man, was not in a position to form a sound judgment. Indeed, given that Darwin was drawing his information from Godron, not from original sources, adding Bonnet to his list of possible predecessors would have been merely plucking low-​hanging fruit. For reasons unknown, Darwin passed up the chance to do so. I add one final point about Bonnet as compared with Burdach. It is evident that “this doctrine,” that is, the one articulated by Bonnet and just described, does not mention anything like “natural selection.” Nor does it hint at a Malthusian “struggle of existence” in nature. Nor does it draw an analogy between domestic breeding (controlled production of variations) and variations produced “naturally,” without human oversight or intervention. If these are obvious deficiencies in Bonnet’s “doctrine,” they must be obvious deficiencies in Burdach’s “doctrine,” which, according to Godron, is the same as Bonnet’s. Darwin, like Godron, passes over these deficiencies in silence. But without having read the originals, Darwin could hardly have known about them. One point does stand out in Bonnet’s doctrine that aligns him somewhat more closely with the mature Darwinian theory:  the notion of “fortuitous conjunctions.” Godron does not mention this aspect of Bonnet’s doctrine, even as he quotes from Bonnet’s text directly. Burdach, also, does not seem to notice or mention this dimension of a transmutationist theory. And yet, “fortuitous variation” was a cornerstone of Darwin’s theory. Again, Darwin can hardly be accused of burying information that would show he had been preceded in a key respect—​he had not read Bonnet’s original. But from Bonnet’s acknowledgment that variations (not his word) may arise “fortuitously,” we must conclude that, between Burdach and Bonnet, the latter deserves greater prominence in the Sketch than Burdach. Yet, Burdach shows up in the Sketch, and Bonnet does not.14

Jean Louis Marie Poiret. 1755–​1834 Yet another author Darwin learned about from Godron and included in the Sketch was Jean Louis Marie Poiret, a French botanist, clergyman, naturalist, and traveler who taught natural history at the Ecole Centrale de l’Aisne. He lived in Paris after 1806, publishing chiefly botanical works. In science, he prided himself mainly as being a careful observer of unusual plant species he discovered while on his global travels, including the Barbury Coast and Algeria. Some genera have acquired his name, 30 taxa in all, especially in the legume family Fabaceae. He wrote several works on the classification and description of plants, the most

328  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch”

Figure 13.4 Poiret

important of which was Leçons de flore: Cours complet de botanique 3 volumes, 1819–​1820.15 It seems Poiret’s main claim to a place in 19th century science is that he had seen that the development from monocotyledons to dicotyledons gives “new proofs” for a gradual development of species over historical time (Lecons, pp. 152–​3). But his real interest is in “development” from seed to full flowering plants, that is, in the “unfolding” of seeds into fully mature forms (Lecons, p. 251). His expression is, admittedly, somewhat ambiguous, as he speaks of the “successive appearance of different parts of plants” (p. 252). This could point toward transmutation of species, but in context it looks like it does not. But whether it does or does not is immaterial in the present context. Darwin read nothing by Poiret, even after he learned about him from Godron. The only words Darwin wrote anywhere about Poiret are in the Sketch, and, with the exception of the name, they are the same words he had already written about Bory and Burdach: From other references in Godron’s work “Sur l’Espece,” it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being produced. (Variorum, p. 68, line 60*. 4)

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  329 Basing this opinion on Godron alone, Darwin could not have said more. Godron, too, limits himself to a single statement about Poiret, but it is not the same statement that he made about Bory and Burdach. That is, Godron does not say about Poiret that “he accepted [Bonnet’s] doctrine,” although reading in context, that appears to be what he meant. But for Poiret, as for Fries, Godron says this: Poiret and Fries, finally, positively admit that at all times new vegetable species are being produced, not only through hybridization, but also through the influence of [changed] external circumstances which, according to them [Poiret and Fries], tend without cessation to modify ancient species. (Godron, de L’Espece, p. 10)16

It is another question, however, whether Poiret should have even been mentioned as holding this view. The passage cited by Godron from Poiret’s Lecons 1819–​1820 is, as we have seen, ambiguous. The first point Poiret makes is: The most agreeable thing for anyone who loves to observe [nature] is to observe the development [developement] of plants from the moment they first come out of [sortir] the earth to the time when they achieve their ripened fruits [achevent murir leurs fruits]. (Lecons, p. 251)

This is apparently the sentence Godron drew upon when he claimed Poiret to be one of those who “positively affirmed” a belief in species modification. Individual modification through the life span of some plants, yes; species modification, not so obviously clear. “Development” here, along with “first appearance” and “achieve” a new form, while possibly suggesting a transmutationist perspective, need not do so, and in fact should not. Poiret, for one thing, was attempting no philosophical or doctrinal claim. He was reporting the observations of a naturalist whose main interest was in the “development” of plants from seed to germination to fruition within the lifespans of individuals. As we read further through his text we see that it is in this sense that he was talking about “development.” Indeed, by comparing the regular cycles of birth, growth, and maturation of plants to the regular course of the sun through the heavens, Poiret does more to affirm fixity in nature than species transmutation (Lecons, pp. 251–​2). In fact, Poiret almost deliberately avoids getting into the transmutationist debates. This is not surprising. He was not a theorist, showed no interest in theoretical questions, and did most of his research and writing before the debate over Geoffroy and Lamarck’s transmutationist views had preoccupied naturalists in the 19th century. He was also a member of the French clergy, and if we may infer from what we know about other 19th century French clergymen, he would have been philosophically opposed to transmutation in principle. My guess, however, is that he

330  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” just did not know much about the disputes over the question that were just then starting to engage serious philosophical attention on the continent. We cannot say, however, that Poiret was unfamiliar with Lamarck’s views. He labored for many years with Lamarck on the Encyclopédie Méthodique. Botanique.17 He mentions Lamarck in favorable terms on several occasions in his Lecons (although he barely noticed Geoffroy and made no mention of Cuvier, but then again Cuvier was a zoologist, not a botanist). His high praise of Lamarck in Lecons should give the impression that he was a Lamarckian “serial transmutationist,” even a “progressionist,” as Lamarck was. That impression, however, is quickly dispelled when we read what Poiret actually said about Lamarck. Lamarck is mentioned eight times in the Lecons, but never in connection with, let alone in support of, Lamarck’s controversial opinions about transmutation through use/​disuse and the inheritance of “acquired” characteristics (habits and structures that change over time and are inherited by progeny). Instead, Poiret praises Lamarck for his advanced understanding of proper scientific method. Interestingly, in this regard Poiret coupled Lamarck with Linnaeus, of all people. Indeed, Linnaeus is singled out for even greater praise than Lamarck. Poiret believed a proper approach to the study of nature was a Linnaean method: identify “characteristics of importance” (eight, in the case of Linnaeus), then place taxa, from highest to lowest, in terms of where they “fit” into an “ordered” sequence according to how these characteristics are displayed in the plant kingdom. The whole method almost requires a presupposition of species fixity. In any case, Poiret did not venture theoretical speculations about how a Linnaean system of classification might or might not bear on the question of species transmutation. On that question, he was mostly silent. Why, then, did Godron include Poiret among those naturalists who affirmed a doctrine of species change? One may only guess that he did not read Poiret with much care or understanding. He probably did read Poiret’s Lecons in the original, but quickly. He ran across the idea of “development” and made the false inference that he must have been talking about transmutation. But Poiret was doing no such thing. As we have seen, his interest was in the “development” of individual plants over the course of their lives—​and how such “development” might help inform a proper classification. Beyond that interest Poiret was not willing to go. None of this really matters, though, because Darwin did not read Poiret’s Lecons firsthand. It is even doubtful that Darwin had heard of Poiret before he ran across his name in Godron. From that brief mention Darwin could not have learned much and, from what we have seen, what he did learn was misleading at best. Unlike his customary habit, Darwin dispensed with even a brief citation to Poiret’s work. In his marginal notations in Godron’s work, the only

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  331 one of the four authors Godron mentioned that Darwin specifically noticed was Fries (Marginalia, p. 331f). From all the evidence we have, Darwin knew nothing more about Poiret than that he accepted the idea that new species are being continually produced. It is a stretch to find even that much in Poiret. Darwin simply took Godron’s word for it, and Godron did not have much of a leg to stand on for his assertion about Poiret.

Elias Magnus Fries. 1794–​1878. Of the four authors Darwin drew from Godron (Bory, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries), Fries was without question the most renowned. He was a Swedish botanist who came in second in importance in scientific circles there only to the “immortal Linnaeus” (Fries’s words). His area of expertise was fungi, and his original contributions to the study of this phylum (or kingdom) brought him immediate fame not only in Sweden but across Europe. If one counts doctoral

Figure 13.5 Fries

332  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” dissertations—​often written by himself for his students—​the number of papers and books he authored exceeds 200. He was mainly a taxonomist who produced identifications and nomenclature for hundreds of taxa, most of which remain in place today. He mentored an entire generation of Swedish botanists who kept his reputation alive in their own work, drawing on his original observations and descriptions. His books sold widely and became standards for the study of fungi. Fries also ventured theoretical speculations about species transformation, his most important work in this vein being perhaps his Novitiae florae suecicae (1828).18 The work, as the title suggests, was written in Latin, as were many of his other works. He assumed, correctly, that most readers would not be familiar with the Swedish language and, in any case, Latin was the lingua franca for educated audiences in the 19th century. The language is not just a matter of academic interest. Darwin had very little Latin, as did Godron, judging from his writings. Yet both Godron and Darwin mentioned Fries as one who adopted the idea of species transmutation well before Darwin. Godron’s comment about Fries’ contribution was just the same as what he said about Poiret: Fries, finally, positively admits that at all times new vegetable species are being produced, not only through hybridization, but also through the influence of [changed] external circumstances which, according to him [Fries], tends without cessation to modify ancient species. (Godron, De L’Espece, p. 10; citing Fries, Novitiae florae suecicae mantissa, 3, p. 67)

Fries, according to Godron, was a species transmutationist, though how he came to this conclusion is not clear. Fries’s book Novitiae florae suecicae is mainly a systematic catalogue of Swedish plants, arranged by class, order, and family, with the various divisions into genera and species enumerated under each appropriate heading. Most of the commentary is purely descriptive, naming the identifying characteristics of each form. Once in a while Fries ventures into “analysis,” by which he means to explain how he has arrived at his classifications.19 Such is the case with the genus Rumex. Here Fries explains that, contrary to Linnaeus, whom he seems to regard as authoritative on almost all botanical matters, there are times when species seem not to be “eternally fixed” in form, or always confined to the same regions of the globe over geological time (p. 94). He does, indeed, hint at species transmutation, at least in some cases, as in this passage. He does not elaborate. It is hard to find a theory of species change, just an observation that some species are not always “eternally fixed.”20 This idea is close enough in conception to qualify Fries as one who “anticipated” Darwin. His book was published in 1828. But we are left with some questions about Darwin’s decision to include Fries in the Sketch. Darwin, as

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  333 we have seen, drew his information, scant as it is, from Godron. How, then, did Godron come to learn about Fries’s transmutationist leanings? I cannot tell. Fries wrote in Latin, a language Godron possibly did not know well. But from Godron’s citation it is not clear he even read the relevant passage in Novitiae. He refers to Fries’s “Novitiae florae suecicae mantissa, 3, p. 67” as his source (De L’Espece p. 10, n. 2), but Fries’s opinions about Rumex appear only on page 94 of Novitiae. It is hard to account for the discrepancy. Perhaps Godron had another work in mind: not Novitiae florae suecicae but rather, as he puts it in his footnote to Fries, Novitiae florae suecicae mantissa, 3, p. 67.21 Unfortunately, Godron does not give us any other bibliographic information, even date of publication, so it is hard to know what work he was drawing from. Fries did divide his Novitiae into large sections, not numbered, and smaller sections, also not numbered, but these sections are arranged by phyla, not volume, chapter, or section numbers. So, where Godron got “Novitiae Florae suecicae mantissa, 3, p. 67” is hard to determine. In our context, the answer does not really matter. We are interested in Darwin’s source for Fries, not Godron’s. And Darwin’s source was Godron, without question. It is enough to show that Fries did hold a transmutationist position, as just described, even against his countryman Linnaeus, and that Godron acknowledged that fact. Darwin certainly did not read Fries’s Novitiae himself, at least not before he included him in the Sketch. As is true of Bory, Burdach, and Poiret, Darwin simply accepted Godron’s verdict that Fries was an early transmutationist. That appears to be the only reason Darwin included Fries in the Sketch. None of this is to say, however, that Darwin was completely unacquainted with Fries when he included him in the Sketch in 1861. He records in his Reading Notebooks, under “Books Read,” a compendium written by Fries in 1825 (Systema orbis vegetabilis, R.N. 119: 5v). Darwin’s entry does not make it clear when he read this work—​he did not enter a date for this entry, and he made no comments in the Reading Notebooks or elsewhere that might help us determine the date. From context, however, it appears that he attempted to read it in 1839–​ 1840, judging from the dates of other works he recorded at about the same time. In any case, it seems evident that Darwin knew something about Fries well before he composed the Sketch. Whether he was able to work his way through the Systema, also written in Latin, may be doubted. In addition, Darwin displayed interest in some of Fries’s writings in his correspondence in the mid-​to late-​1850s. Here Darwin’s interest was not in Fries’s transmutationist leanings, such as they were, but in his important discovery that large genera are more likely to produce “many close species,” that is, species separated by small differences in form, than are “poor genera,” that is, genera that exhibit few species members. The latter produce fewer species and these are further apart in form than the “close species” of larger genera.

334  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” This subject interested Darwin in the mid-​1850s. He owned and annotated copies of an abridgment of Fries’s work (1814) that made this case explicitly (DAR 78: 118–​9).22 Darwin quoted two passages, almost verbatim, from Fries 1850 [1814] in his annotations (see n. 22 for full citations): Fries upholds Linnean axiom. “The species gives the character , not th character th species” . “The characters are by no means th criteria of th species, but only th aids t their distinction.” “No character is found constant thrugout all nature; & it is necessary t inquire in every genus what parts are constant and what variable.” Henfrey disputes vry truly th above axiom. (p. 187) “In genera containing many species, th individual species stand much closer together than in poor genera ; hence it is well in th former case t collect them around certain types or principal species, about which, as around a Back a centre , th others arrange themselves, as satellites.” This vry important, it shows that extinction has not been at work in th large genera.—​But some of th small growing genera ought t have close species. (p. 188)

The quotes dispense with precise transcription, but they are close enough to the originals in Botannical Gazette 1850, pages 187–​8 that Darwin leaves no doubt that this is his source when he was annotating the volume. How Darwin came across the synopsis of Fries in Botannical Gazette is hard to determine. What we may affirm with certainty is that Darwin took his quotes of Fries from a synopsis, written in English, in the Botannical Gazette, 1850. In other words, he had no direct contact with Fries’s original Latin text Novitiae flora Suecicae. The quoted passages are thus someone else’s (unknown) rendition into English of Fries’s original Latin text. That observation, however, does not get us very far. Darwin leaves no written trace, apart from his annotations to the Botanical Gazette, as to how he discovered this particular piece of information. The Botannical Gazette was filled with hundreds of articles of this kind, so Darwin must have been guided to Fries by some else. That someone else appears, from the correspondence, to be H.C. Watson. Watson had informed Darwin in June 1855 that Fries had published another important botanical work in 1846, the Summa Vegetabilium,23 and while Watson on this occasion did not draw attention to Fries’s views about large and small genera, his mention of it added to Darwin’s understanding that Fries was a high authority in botanical classification (CCD, 2 June 1855, to Hooker. Letter 1692). Just a few months later Watson wrote to Darwin again, this time drawing attention to Fries’s views on close species. Watson gave Fries high praise:

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  335 In the question of close species, I should prefer the testimony of Fries before that of Hooker & Bentham united. And apart from personal authority, I incline to think, without worked-​out conviction, that the fact is what Fries intimates. (CCD, 23 August 1855, from Watson, letter 1747; n. 2 adds: “CD had evidently told Watson of his interest in Elias Magnus Fries’s remarks on close species in Fries 1850, p. 188”)

Darwin was apparently excited by the information, for he included mention of Fries’ views on close species, without naming him, in Natural Selection. Darwin, drawing directly from his annotations to Fries 1850, observed: I was strengthened in my experience of finding more varieties in the larger genera containing many species, the individual species stand much closer together than in poor genera: hence it is well in the former case to collect them around certain types or principal species, about which, as around a center, the others arrange themselves as satellites. (Natural Selection, 1975, pp. 147–​8)

Darwin underscored the importance of Fries’s discovery in the very next lines of his annotations: This vry important, it shows that extinction has not been at work in th large genera.—​But some of th small growing genera ought t have close species [sic].24

Darwin did not put this statement in Natural Selection or elsewhere, but he left no doubt in his annotations that he regarded Fries’s discovery as of high value for his own researches. Darwin continued his praise of Fries’ work to other naturalist friends in the 1850s, although not to Watson himself—​unless a letter from Darwin to Watson has been lost. On the other hand, it appears likely that Darwin had written to Watson before Watson wrote to him on August 23.25 But the day after Watson wrote to Darwin on this subject, Darwin wrote to Asa Gray: And now I really hardly know how to thank you enough for the very great trouble which the list of “close species” must have caused you. What knowledge & labour & judgment is condensed in that little sheet of note-​paper! I fear that you will think the object not at all worth the labour; but I can only say that if I could have done it myself, I would have done it, had it caused me ten times the labour which it must have caused you. I had met with a remark by Fries [1850] that the species of large genera are more closely related to each other, than are the species of small genera. (CCD, 24 August [1855], to Asa Gray. Letter 1749)

336  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” The issue of “close species” was much on Darwin’s mind in the closing months of 1855. And so it remained for several more years. In early 1858 Darwin wrote on the same subject to J.D. Hooker. We may recall here that Watson had, in 1855, placed Fries’s opinions about species classification above those even of Hooker, the most distinguished British botanist of his time. Darwin wrote: I was led to this remark [an objection about a certain plant] not so fatal in my opinion if a local flora. I was led to all this work by a remark of Fries, that the species in large genera, were more closely related to each other than in small genera; & I thought if this were so, seeing that varieties & species are so hardly distinguishable, I concluded that I shd. find more varieties in the larger genera than in the small: but at first, seeing the many causes of doubt, I certainly did not expect to find more than three-​fourths of the Floras, yielding the result, which they have. (CCD, 11 March [1858], to Hooker. Letter 2239)

Darwin by this time had apparently come around to accepting Fries’s judgment on the question of close species, even though, by self-​admission, he entered the debate with doubt and came around only through his own independent investigations. None of this correspondence does much to show that Darwin, even by 1858, regarded Fries as an early transmutationist. At best, the issue of close species may be a piece of supporting evidence for Darwin’s theory as he had worked it out by that time. But it does show that Fries was on Darwin’s radar by 1855 or earlier, that he was a significant figure in European botany, and that his views commanded respect. Thus, when Darwin ran across Fries’s name in Godron’s brief mention of him in De l’Espece Darwin would already have been favorably disposed toward Fries. If Godron claimed Fries was a species transmutationist, Darwin needed little prompting to accept Godron’s word, and so included Fries in the Sketch. This decision was made despite the fact that Darwin had not read, and probably never did read, Fries’ Novitiae 1828 in the original.

Notes 1. The complete citation is D.A. Godron, 1859, De l’Espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés et spécialement de l’unité de l’espèce humaine. 2 volumes. Paris: J. B. Baillière. Darwin’s reference is to volume 2 of this work. An earlier edition of this work was published under the title “De l’Espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés du monde actuel,” in Memoires de la Societe Royales des Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Nancy (1848–​ 1849): 182–​288; 381–​420. The 1859 edition of the work was an “expanded” version of his 1848–​1849 articles (CCD, 31 March 1855, to Arthur Henfrey, and n. 3. Letter 1658).

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  337 2. The editors of CCD maintain, to the contrary, that Darwin was unsuccessful in acquiring a copy of Godron 1848–​1849, based on repeated requests he made to “Booksellers,” Hooker, and Henfrey in 1855, in which he was searching for a copy (*128: 177; CCD, v. 4, p. 482; and CCD, 18 May 1860, from Darwin to Lyell. Letter 2806, n. 10). It is true that no copy of the 1848–​1849 work shows up in Darwin’s library, and his repeated requests for a copy in early 1855 went unanswered. Yet, the Reading Notebooks show Darwin had “read” this work no later than late 1855. I surmise that Hooker tracked down a copy for Darwin after August 1855, loaned it to Darwin, and then Darwin returned it to Hooker after he read it. Hooker claims in March 1855 to have read Godron’s work, but found it “uncommonly little to the purpose” [of Darwin’s argument]. But he had not yet been able to track down the volume itself. 3. D.A. Godron, 1848, “De l’Espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés du monde actuel.” Mémoires de la Société royale des sciences et belles-​lettres de Nancy, pp. 182–​9. Godron did name Poiret and Fries as two botanists who had upheld species change among plants in earlier works, in contrast with those naturalists like Cuvier and Linnaeus who maintained species fixity. Godron does not include Bory St Vincent or Burdach, suggesting these two names were later additions, namely to his 1859 volume, the one Darwin drew from. 4. Darwin wrote to Lyell in June 1860, shortly after he read Godron 1859, about his disagreement with those naturalists who attributed species change to the direct effect of external conditions. Godron gets a pass: “Godron puts well the little effect of climate which always becomes stronger & stronger conviction on my mind. I do not say confidently food. I see in Murray & many others, one incessant fallacy when alluding to slight differences of physical conditions as being very important; namely oblivion of fact that all species, except very local ones, range over a considerable area, & though exposed to what they would call considerable diversities, yet keep constant” (CCD, 6 June [1860], to Lyell, and n. 13. Letter 2822). 5. Godron’s reference is to an 1856 essay by Armand de Quatrefages that, he claimed, appeared in the French journal Revue de cours publics, 1856, p. 25. Godron does not give a title of this essay and neither did Armand de Quatrefages. The cite appears incorrect. See n. 6. 6. I  have been unable to track down a copy of this periodical, even with the assistance of a staff of research librarians at Lewis & Clark College, who in turn sought the help of librarians at other universities. The citation to Armand de Quatrefages in Godron 1859 may in fact be incorrect. More likely is another work published by Quatrefages in 1855, followed by another essay in 1856: “Physiologie comparée. Les métamorphoses.” Revue des deux Mondes 10 (1855): 90–​116, 275–​314; 3 (1856): 496–​ 519, 859–​83; 4 (1856): 55–​82. These two works were read by Darwin at about the same time as their publication dates. He paid notice to them in letter to several correspondents in 1857 (CCD, 16 December [1857], to Huxley, letter 2185; 2 June [1857], to Hooker. Letter 2099). 7. Darwin’s correspondence with Quatrefages in 1860 is recorded in CCD (21 January [1860], to Quatrefages, letter 2659; and 30 March [1860], to Quatrefages, and n. 5. Letter 2736). The letters mainly concerned Darwin’s interest in securing a French

338  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” translation of Origin (see CCD, 5 December [1859], to Quatrefages, n.  5, letter 2571, for details). The first French translation was eventually prepared by Clémence Auguste Royer and published in 1862 (Freeman 1977, p. 102). This was after CD’s negotiations with Pierre Theodore Alfred Talandier, master of French at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, broke down after Talandier failed to secure a publisher. See also CCD, 15 January [1860] and 20 January [1860], to Edward Cresy; and, 23 [January 1860], to John Murray. 8. The course of lectures in which Quatrefages discussed the species question was published as, 1868, “La théorie de l’espèce en géologie et en botanique avec ses applications à l’espèce et aux races humaines,” Revue des cours scientifiques de la France et de l’étranger 5. 9. Darwin perhaps exaggerated how far Quatrefages went along with his views. The editors of CCD provide a useful note about Quatrefages’ “transformist” leanings: “Quatrefages de Bréau, a disciple of Henri Milne-​Edwards, held a view of transformism based on the developmental processes of organisms (see Appel 1987, pp. 234 and 236). Nevertheless, he found it impossible to accept CD’s views. Copies of some of Quatrefages de Bréau’s books, including those in which he developed his ideas of the distinctness of man from the animal world and the single origin of the human races (Quatrefages de Bréau 1861 and 1862), are in the Darwin Library—​ CUL.” (CCD, 5 December [1859], to Quatrefages, n. 2. Letter 2571). 10. This work was translated into French, 1837, Traite de physiologie consideree comme science d’observation. Paris. The translation was republished in 1858, and this is the edition that Darwin drew upon, indirectly from Godron 1859, especially v. 1, pp. 403–​4. (Cited in Godron 1859, p. 9 fn. 3). Darwin nowhere indicates that he had read this book either in the original German or in French translation. 11. I base my interpretation of Burdach’s views on the French translation, as did Godron. The passage Godron cited from Burdach does not appear in the original German edition of 1826. See n. 12. 12. Burdach attributes this view mainly to Lamarck, Zoologique Philosophique, 1830. The date of Lamarck’s work cited by Burdach (i.e., 1830) means that Godron read the work only after Burdach’s French translation was published, in 1837. Godron cites the 1858 republication of the French edition. The first German edition of Burdach’s work, 1826–​1840, does not mention the transmutationist views to which Godron referred. The first edition of Lamarck’s Zoologique philosophique was 1809. 13. Charles Bonnet, 1779, Oeuvres d’histoire naturelle et de philosophie, vol. 5. Neuchatel, p. 230. 14. Darwin did eventually get around to reading some of Bonnet’s Oeuvres (see n. 13 for citation) sometime in 1865 at the prompting of T.H. Huxley (CCD, 12 July [1865], to Huxley. Letter 2870). But by now Darwin’s attention had shifted to his new doctrine of pangenesis, and that was his sole interest in Bonnet. The editors of CCD, note 4 of this letter, note: “In Variation 2: 375 n. 29, CD contrasted his view of the nature of the germ or gemmule with that of Bonnet (Bonnet 1779–​83, 5: 334). Unlike Bonnet, CD did not believe gemmules were pre-​formed but held that they were continually produced throughout an organism’s lifespan with some passed on from earlier

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  339 generations. For more on the theories of Buffon and Bonnet, see Roe 1981, pp. 15–​18, 42–​3, and passim.” 15. The complete citation is: J.L.M. Poiret, 1819–​1820, Leçons de flore: Cours complet de botanique, 3 volumes. Paris. Volume 2 consists entirely of colored illustrations drawn by J.F. Turpin, an illustrator who accompanied Poiret on some of his travels. Godron’s citation is incomplete, but it refers to this work, volume 1, 1819, p. 251[–​252]. 16. Godron cites Poiret, Lecons de Flora, p. 251, for this opinion. 17. Lamarck, J.B., and J.L.M. Poiret, 1783–​1808, Encyclopédie Méthodique. Botanique. Paris, Liège: Panckoucke, Plomteux. 18. E.M. Fries, 1828, Novitiae Flora Suecicae. Edit. Altera. Londini Gothorum, “ex officina Berlingiana.” Godron enters a slightly different title in his footnote to Fries in his 1859 volume (p. 10, n. 2): Novitiae Florae suecicae mantissa, 3, p. 67. I have been unable to locate any work by Fries with this exact title. The 1828 edition of Novitiae was the published version of Fries’ doctoral dissertation (1814) which bore the same title, though followed by the words “Part I.” Fries, against tradition, wrote his own doctoral dissertation. Often dissertations were written by the supervising professor. See Petersen and Knudsen (2015) and n. 5 for details. 19. The expression “purely descriptive” is, of course, misleading. Any systematist, including Fries, adopts a “theoretical” perspective in doing the work of classification. Order in the natural world, as far as human understanding is concerned, requires an implicit theoretical frame of reference to get off the ground. Fries’s debts, in this regard, are mainly to Linnaeus, and bear a family resemblance to the “quinarian system” of MacClay. Fries also was influenced by Oken and the German Naturalphilophe tradition, giving his early speculations an almost “spiritual” flavor, according to some of his biographers. Our concern, however, is not with Fries’s overarching theoretical presuppositions but with the narrow question of whether he was a transmutationist. 20. Fries’s views on evolution have recently been summarized in a biographical encyclopedia essay: “Since the 1820s Fries had been convinced that evolutionary processes had taken place within the organic world and that through the ages the organisms had passed from more primitive to more perfect stages. But for a long while he could not accept any theory of descent. Thus, according to him, all species had existed from the beginning, rude and primitive but definitely different from each other. Through the ages they had separately and gradually reached their present forms. Later, Fries had to concede that not all species had an evolutionary history separate from all other species. He began to believe that all forms within a genus had only one common ancestor and that the different species now existing within it were temporis filiae, daughters of time. He considered that the driving force behind this evolution was mainly a tendency within the organisms to strive toward the perfect state of the respective types or ideas, a reflection of his basically romantic vision. When, in old age, Fries had read Darwin’s Origin of Species, he could agree with the general theory of evolution, but he hesitated before the idea of the descent of nearly all organisms from one or a few original forms. And he absolutely could not accept the mechanism of “struggle for existence” and natural selection as the main force acting in evolution

340  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” (Gunnar Eriksson, 2018, “Fries, Elias Magnus.” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography: Encyclopedia.com). 21. I  have been unable to trace this source in Fries’s bibliography. Fries mentions “mantissam” on page x in the Introduction of Novitiae florae suecicae (1828), but with no comment about its transmutationist implications. No other mention of mantissa is to be found in the Novitiae. 22. E.M. Fries, 1850, Botanical Gazette 2: 185–​189. This entry is an unsigned review of Fries’s (1814) Novitiae flora Suecicae (A Beginner’s Flora of Sweden). This was Fries’s unpublished doctoral dissertation, later published as “another edition” in 1828. The page numbers refer to Part II of the review (Part I appeared in the same issue on pp. 87–​92. Part II is the basis of the citation in Botannical Gazette 1850, p. 187–​8, which gives only the citation “Fries, Flora,” with no other bibliographic information. This is the passage Darwin annotated, and to which he drew attention in his correspondence with H.C. Watson and J.D. Hooker in the 1850s. Darwin did not annotate or refer to Part I. His interest was in what Fries said in Part II about large and small genera (DAR 78: 118–​19). 23. E.M. Fries, 1845–​1849. Summa vegetabilium Scandinaviae. Vols. 1–​2. Upsaliae. 24. DAR 178:  118–​ 19. Annotations to Fries, 1850, ‘Botanical Gazette’ 2:  185–​ 88. Additional details may be found at CD Online, van Wyhe, ed., F1583 [Fries, 1850 “A Monograph on Hieracia,” quotations in Darwin’s Natural Selection, 1975, edited by Stauffer]. 25. The editors of CCD note: “CD had evidently told Watson [23 Aug. 1855, letter from Watson, note 2] of his interest in Fries’ remarks on close species in Fries 1850, p. 188.” Darwin’s letter to Watson, if he did write one, has not been found.

References Burdach, Karl Friedrich. 1858. Traite de physiologie consideree comme science d’observation. Volume 1. Paris., pp. 403–​4. [Cited in Godron, 1859, p. 9 fn. 3]. [This is a translation of Die Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft Leipzig, 1826–​1840 (volumes 1–​9)]. Bonnet, Charles. 1779–​ 1783. Œuvres d’histoire naturelle et de philosophie. 8  vols. Neuchatel: l’imprimerie de Samuel Fauche, Libraire du Roi. Bory de Saint-​Vincent. 1856. Cited in A. de Quatrefages, 1856. Revue de cours publics, p. 25. in Godron 1859, p. 9 n. 3. Darwin, Charles. 1975. Natural Selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection: Being the Second Part of His Big Species Book Written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fries, Elias Magnus. 1814. Novitiae florae sucicae, Part I.  Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Upsala, Sweden. Fries, Elias Magnus. 1828. Novitiae florae sucicae. Edit. Altera. Londini Gothorum, “ex officina Berlingiana.” Fries, E.M. 1845–​1849. Summa vegetabilium Scandinaviae. Vols. 1–​2. Upsaliae. Fries, E.M. 1850. “A Monograph of the Hieracia; Being an Abstract of Prof. Fries’s ‘Symbolae ad Historiam Hieraciorum.’ ” Translated and abridged from the ‘Flora’. Botanical. Gazette 2.

Godron, Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries  341 Fries, E.M. Novitiae florae sucicae mantissa 3, p.  67. [cited as such in Godron, 1859, page 10, note 2]. Gunnar Eriksson. 2018. “Fries, Elias Magnus.” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com Godron, D.A. 1859. De l’Espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés et spécialement de l’unité de l’espèce humaine. 2 volumes. Paris: J. B. Baillière. Godron, D.A. 1848. “De l’Espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés du monde actuel.” Memoires de la Societe Royales des Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Nancy 182–​288. Godron, D.A. 1849. “De l’Espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés, appurtenant aux periodes geologiques qui ont prteceded celle on nous vivons.” Memoires de la Societe des Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Nancy 381–​420. Lamarck, J.B., and J.L.M. Poiret. 1783–​1808. Encyclopédie Méthodique. Botanique. Paris, Liège: Panckoucke, Plomteux. Petersen, Ronald H., and Henning Knudsen. 2015. “The Mycological Legacy of Elias Magnus Fries.” IMA Fungus 6 (1): 99–​114. Poiret. J.L.M. Lecons de Flore. [cited as such in Gordron, 1859, p. 10, n. 1]. Poiret. J.L.M. With Jean Baptist Lamarck. Encyclopédie méthodique:  Botanique. See Lamarck. Quatrefages de Bréau, Jean Louis Armand de. 1855–​1856. Physiologie comparée. Les métamorphoses. Revue des deux Mondes 10 (1855): 90–​116, 275–​314; 3 (1856): 496–​ 519, 859–​83; 4 (1856): 55–​82. Roe, Shirley A. 1981. Matter, life, and generation. Eighteenth-​century embryology and the Haller–​Wolff debate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

14

Alexander Keyserling, Hermann Schaaffhausen, and Henri Lecoq Count Alexander Keyserling. 1815–​1891 Darwin initially did not receive much support from one group of scientists in particular, the geologists. Charles Lyell, perhaps his closest friend and mentor in the 1830s and one of the great early names in geology, was opposed at first, although he urged Darwin to publish. So was the famous paleontologist Richard Owen, who wrote an extremely negative review of Origin in the Edinburgh Review. Adam Sedgwick, a friend and mentor during Darwin’s years at Cambridge University, was overtly hostile, writing another slashing review; he also wrote to Darwin in person, more or less admonishing his former student for venturing into such wild speculations. R.I. Murchinson, who had done extensive geological exploration in Siberia with Keyserling in the 1840s, also could not accept Darwin’s theory. William Whewell, a polymath whose interests included geology, was so opposed to Darwin’s Origin that, as a college administrator at Trinity College, Cambridge, he prohibited a copy of it from being placed in the college library.1 Several others could be named. Yet, Darwin valued the opinions of this group of scientists, even over the views of zoologists and botanists, not to mention other naturalists. He wrote to R.I. Murchison in 1860, after the second edition of Origin had come out, first to thank him for his note that suggested that Keyserling goes some way with him, and then to show appreciation for Keyserling’s support: I look at any good geologist & paleontologist [referring specifically to Keyserling] going one inch with me as more important than a naturalist going two or three inches. (CCD, 1 May 1860, to R.I. Murchinson, and n. 2. Letter 2779)

At least Darwin could find one geologist of note who mainly agreed with him. He was sufficiently impressed by Keyserling’s work that he asked Huxley in October 1859, just after completing the manuscript of Origin to ask for Keyserling’s address so that he could send him a presentation copy: Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  343

Figure 14.1 Keyserling

I am here hydropathising & coming to life again after having finished my accursed book, which would have been easy work to anyone else, but half killed me.—​I have thought you could give me one bit of information, & I knew not to whom else to apply, the addresses of . . . any good & speculative foreigners to whom it would be worth while to send copies of my Book “on origin of species” [including] . . . Keyserling. (I daresay Sir Roderick would know latter). (CCD, 15 October [1859], to Huxley. Letter 2505)

Darwin followed up immediately, sending Keyserling an early presentation copy, as he had indicated to Huxley he would do [(CCD, 1 May [1860], to R.I Murchison, letter 2779)]; see also v. 8, App. III, “Presentation Copies of Origin” p. 564). Darwin may have held geologists in such high esteem because geology was the first field of study in which he took serious scientific interest, even before the Beagle voyage; while at Cambridge, Sedgwick had first introduced him to the wonders of land and rock formations through an expedition to north Wales in 1831 (Browne, 1995, p. 136). In addition, the great geologist Charles Lyell, Darwin’s second true mentor in the discipline after Sedgwick, made a huge

344  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” impact on Darwin’s thinking. Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1831–​1833) was among the first geological works, or indeed serious scientific works of any kind, that Darwin read closely. Darwin did not attend Sedgwick’s lectures on geology at Trinity College, but he read Lyell’s three volumes on geology right after they came out. Darwin may simply have harbored a prejudice favoring geology over other branches of natural science formed at an early time of his adult life.2 But that is not the reason Darwin gave when he reflected on his own about his appreciation for the works of the geologists over those of others. These are the works that got him started down the road that eventually would culminate in Origin. They demonstrated beyond any doubt that the earth was vastly older than the 6,000 years that had been assumed by the clergy and scientifically oriented thinkers for centuries, based on the biblical book of Genesis. That was the first step. Then, too, the geological record showed that the earth had undergone profound changes, separated into stages, by deduction from geological formations that one could see even without digging under the surface to find what lay below. Paleontological findings also strongly suggested some sort of “progression” from earlier to later epochs. And so forth. And besides, the geologists were “better reasoners” than all the other naturalists.3 Keyserling belonged to this distinguished group. Keyserling was a Count from an area then in the Russian Empire now in Estonia. A wealthy member of the nobility, he had access to time and resources that eluded many other geologists, especially fellow amateurs. Geology was at this time coming into its own as a discrete discipline and attracted a great deal of interest from professionals and laypersons alike. Hiking tours to study rock formations were a favorite pastime of this group. Keyserling’s interest in geology awakened at an early age. He spent a great deal of time touring the Urals in 1841, in Russia, and South and North Wales, all with R.I. Murchison. He was appointed the official in charge of handling special missions in the Mining Department of the Russian government, 1841–​1850. Thereafter, he traveled very little until 1860 when he made several journeys to the Pyrenees with French paleontologist Edouard de Verneuil. He wrote several books and articles on geographical observations and reflections through this entire period. He was no amateur, but a full-​fledged, full-​time geologist. Darwin could have done worse than to have Keyserling in his camp. Even before Origin, Darwin found much of interest in the writings of Keyserling. He certainly deserved a place in the Sketch, at least in Darwin’s opinion, which is what matters (Dictionary of Scientific Biography [DSB], W.A. Sarjeant 1980).4 To be sure, Keyserling was not the only geologist who supported Darwin’s theory. In a letter to Wallace in May, 1860, Darwin wrote:

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  345 I received this morning your letter from Amboyna dated Feb. 16, containing some remarks and your too high approbation of my book. Your letter has pleased me very much, and I  most completely agree with you on the parts which are strongest and which are weakest. The imperfection of Geological Record is, as you say, the weakest of all; but yet I am pleased to find that there are almost more Geological converts than of pursuers of other branches of Natural Science. I may mention Lyell [doubtful that he was a complete “convert” by then], Ramsay, Jukes, Rogers, Keyserling, all good men and true—​ Pictet of Geneva is not a convert, but is evidently staggered (as I think is Bronn of Heidelberg) and he has written a perfectly fair review in the Bib. Universelle of Geneva—​Old Bronn has translated my book, well-​done also, into German. (CD Online A36, taken from a periodical, Darwin Centenary Number. Christ’s College Magazine. Vol. XXIII, Easter Term, 1909, which reprinted a letter to Wallace, 18 May 1860)

Darwin’s entry on Keyserling in the Sketch is somewhat brief, but is clear in acknowledging that Darwin did indeed regard Keyserling as an important forerunner. His statement is entirely positive, without the qualifications that often accompanied other entries and reads: In 1853, a celebrated geologist, Count Keyserling (Bulletin de la Soc. Geolog., 2d ser., tom. x., p. 357) suggested that as new diseases, supposed to have been caused by some miasma, have arisen and spread over the world, so at certain periods the germs of existing species may have been chemically affected by circumambient molecules of a particular nature, and thus have given rise to new forms.”5 (Variorum, p. 68, line 61)

Darwin was no doubt delighted to be able to include in the Sketch such a distinguished geologist among the names of so many other naturalists who were mostly zoologists and botanists. Yet, just as he was expressing his praise for Keyserling in published form, he was already expressing private reservations. On January 4, 1860, he wrote to his geologist friend and mentor Charles Lyell: I have had a brief note from Keyserling, but not worth sending you. He believes in change of species, grants that natural selection explains well adaptation of form, but thinks species change too regularly, as if by some chemical law, for natural selection to be the sole cause of change. I can hardly understand his brief note, but this is I think the upshot. (CCD, 4 May [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2782. Also cited in Darwin Online F1452.2)

346  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Darwin notes both that, whatever else Keyserling may have anticipated regarding Darwin’s theory, he did not understand or agree with Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection, and also that Darwin could not quite understand what Keyserling was driving at. This was not the only negative thing Darwin wrote about Keyserling. As early as 1843 Darwin was already expressing doubts about the quality of Murchison and Keyserling’s geological observations in the Urals. He directed his criticism specifically at Murchison, but one assumes the blame spreads to Keyserling too, because Keyserling was Murchison’s companion and fellow geologist on their journey. Darwin explained all of this to his friend W.D. Fox: When I sent off the glacier paper, I was just going out & had no time to write—​ I hope your friend will enjoy (& I wish you were going there with him) his tour, as much as I did—​it was a kind of geological novel, but your friend must have patience for he will not get a good glacial eye for a few days. Murchison & Count Keyserling rushed through North Wales the same autumn & could see nothing except the effects of rain trickling over the rocks! I cross-​examined Murchison a little & evidently saw he had looked carefully at nothing. I feel certain about the glacier-​effects in N. Wales. (CCD, 4 September 1843, to W.D. Fox. Letter 692.)

Although Darwin appreciated Keyserling’s insights on species change, the respect was tempered by several reservations. Despite his appreciation of Keyserling’s work, Darwin and Keyserling communicated very little directly with each other. About the only evidence we have of any direct communication between the two men comes in brief notes Darwin wrote to C. Lyell, A. Murray, A.R. Wallace, and R.I. Murchison, and none of these are definitive proof of direct communication. In addition, no direct letters between Darwin and Keyserling in either direction have been found. The two men who seem to show that a personal communication occurred are A. Murray and Charles Lyell. The note Darwin sent to Murchison acknowledges only that Darwin received a letter written by Keyserling that was sent to Murchison, who then sent it on to Darwin. Its addressee was probably Murchison, but it may have contained a request that it be sent on to Darwin, on the supposition it was written for Darwin, not Murchison. The letter to Wallace is even less decisive in showing Keyserling ever wrote to Darwin. We also know that Darwin sent Keyserling a presentation copy of Origin shortly after it appeared, a courtesy he paid only to friends and scientists of repute. If we count the sending of a presentation copy a form of personal correspondence, that gesture would count as a third piece of near-​proof of unmediated correspondence. But, however you count, the number of direct encounters is small, and the only one of these three that is proof positive is the presentation copy Darwin sent to Keyserling in 1859.

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  347 The clearest evidence that Darwin received a letter from Keyserling comes in a letter Darwin wrote to Andrew Murray in 1860: “Since last writing I have heard from capital Geologist Count Keyserling & he makes no difficulty about imperfection of Geological Record” (CCD, 5 May [1860], to A.R. Murray, letter 2784. In n. 5 the editors of CCD note that Murray “referred to the imperfection of the fossil record as a great difficulty for CD’s theory in his review of Origin,” but the editors of CCD make no attempt to explain how Darwin learned of Keyserling’s opinion about this subject. [Murray 1860, pp. 281–​4; Darwin refers to Keyserling]). Darwin would confess to Wallace a few days later that he agreed the geological record was probably the weakest link in the chain of hard evidence for his theory. Keyserling’s letter must have gone some distance to bolster his confidence in the accuracy of his inferences in this regard. Darwin’s letter to Lyell seems equally conclusive that Keyserling had written to him. It was sent, in fact, one day before the letter Murray just quoted from, but emphasizes a different point: I have had brief note from Keyserling but not worth sending you. [He] grants that natural selection explains well adaptation of forms, but thinks species change too regularly, as if by some chemical law, for natural selection to be sole cause of change. I can hardly understand his brief note, but this is, I think, the upshot. (CCD, 4 May [1860], and n. 6, to Lyell. Letter 2782. In n. 6 the editors of CCD inform us that the letter from Keyserling has not been found; the entry also is cited in Darwin Online F1452.2, which traces the letter’s provenance further).6

Here Darwin emphasizes how Keyserling’s view of natural selection differs from his own, while also acknowledging the presence of some version of it. In view of the proximity in date of the letters Darwin sent to Lyell and Murray, May 4 and 5, 1860, respectively, one assumes Darwin was referring to the same letter, or “note,” in both cases. It is possible, however, that even the letter Darwin referred to in the two letters quoted above was not addressed to or intended for him, but was rather intended for, and sent to, R.I Murchison. On May 1, 1860, Darwin sent Murchison the following brief note: I am much obliged for your kind note & for forwarding to me Count Keyserling’s note. I am pleased by it, for I look at any good geologist & palæontologist going one inch with me as more important than a naturalist going two or three inches. (CCD, 1 May 1860, to R.I. Murchison. Letter 2779)7

This letter may be the same note Darwin referred to in his letters to Lyell and Murray. At least that is a plausible assumption, given that Keyserling sent it to

348  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Murchison on May 1, 1860, just a few days before Darwin wrote to Lyell and Murray. In other words, Darwin may well have been referring to one and the same letter in all three cases. Even more doubtful as showing direct contact between Keyserling and Darwin is the fourth letter, the one to Wallace, also in May 1860, in which Darwin mentioned Keyserling as one who supported his theory. The date again suggests the same letter that Murchison sent him from Keyserling, on May 1. In this letter Darwin says only what we have noted earlier, that Keyserling was a good geologist (along with others), and appeared to show agreement with Darwin’s theory:I am pleased to find that there are almost more Geological converts than of pursuers of other branches of Natural Science. I may mention Lyell [doubtful that he was a complete “convert” by then], Ramsay, Jukes, Rogers, Keyserling, all good men and true. (CD Online A36, taken from a periodical, Darwin Centenary Number. Christ’s College Magazine. Vol. XXIII, Easter Term, 1909, which reprinted a letter from Darwin to Wallace, 18 May 1860; CCD, letter 2807) The letter, while mentioning Keyserling, among other geologists, does not say or even suggest that Darwin had read anything by Keyserling himself—​by letter or by reading any of his publications. The editors of CCD do not say how Darwin learned about Keyserling in the first place. We may rule out direct encounter with anything Keyserling ever wrote himself as there is simply no evidence of that. We may also rule out a Keyserling review of Origin after it came out: Keyserling produced no review of that book, even though he received a presentation copy in 1859. This omission from Keyserling’s quite modest bibliography contrasts with, for example, that of Andrew Murray, who did write a review in January 1860 (that Darwin read) and drew Darwin’s attention to Keyserling in May 1860, as shown here, but does not even mention Keyserling, let alone quote any passages from him, in his review. Darwin nowhere mentioned Keyserling in the main text of Origin; he shows up only in the Historical Sketch. All the evidence we have examined to this point suggests Darwin’s first and only encounter with Keyserling’s writings was in April 1860, and consisted in a single note that Murchison received from Keyserling and sent on to Darwin. This conclusion, however, cannot be entirely correct. Darwin knew Keyserling’s name—​but only his name—​as early as 1843, as he demonstrates in a letter he sent to W.D. Fox that year (CCD, [4 September 1843], to Fox. Letter 692). But the letter shows only that Darwin knew that Murchison and Keyserling had made a hasty geological expedition through North Wales about that time. He also would have learned of Keyserling as a noted geologist from R.I. Murchison, because in 1846 Murchison informed Darwin, at Darwin’s request, about the phenomenon of “parallel [roads in the valley of the River Nairn] that he, along with Keyserling and Verneuil had written up in their 1845 volume Géologie de

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  349 la Russie d’Europe et des montagnes de l’Oural (CCD, [1846?], and n. 1, from R.I. Murchison. Letter 13830). Darwin may even have read the book, although we, again, have no evidence for that. Finally, we know Darwin ran across Keyserling’s name in William Thompson’s The Natural History of Ireland (1489–​1851, London: Reeve, Bentham, and Reeve; see Marginalia, p. 804g). Darwin records having read this book on March 5, 1849 (CCD, [1 March  1849], to William Thompson, and n.3, Letter 1232; an annotated copy is in DAR 119, App. IV). What we have presented to this point is the sum total of evidence we have about any familiarity Darwin might have had Keyserling’s work, or of contact between Darwin and Keyserling for that matter. Keyserling may have heard of Darwin before 1860, but appears to have read nothing written by him until he received a presentation copy of Origin in 1859. What all of this evidence boils down to is that the only thing Darwin knew about Keyserling’s views, and in particular any views that bore on the Darwinian theory, comes from a short note that Keyserling sent to his friend and companion R.I. Murchison, sent probably in late April 1860, and forwarded to Darwin on May 1, 1860—​nothing else. That short note is a thin reed of evidence upon which to base a sentence or two on Keyserling in the Historical Sketch. This is a pity, for if Darwin had gone back to read for himself what Keyserling actually wrote in his short (four pages) 1853, “Note sur la succession des etres organises” in the Bulletin geologique de la societe geologique de France, he would have found a more interesting and complicated theory than he represented in his letters or the Sketch. To summarize Keyserling’s entire theory, perhaps its most interesting feature is that he contrasts species transmutation over time with the prevailing theory of species fixity and states that there can be “no doubt” about the accuracy of his own preferred theory, that species do transmutate. He acknowledges that the theory has not yet been “proved,” but he expresses confidence that it soon will be. He was right: Darwin “proved” most of it to be true, just six years later, just as Keyserling had predicted even though he then knew nothing about Darwin’s work. The reason most naturalists do not accept the idea of transmutation, Keyserling wrote, is that it challenges and overturns their “preconceived ideas,” a point Darwin also made. Both theories, Keyserling acknowledges, are “equally arbitrary,” but his theory “merits preference,” hence is more likely to be true, because it is in far better accord “with all known facts” than the fixity argument. Keyserling’s “facts” are drawn primarily from the geological and paleontological records available at the time, which is hardly surprising, given his area of expertise. He does not provide specific examples of this body of evidence. But he does acknowledge that geology proves the extremely long period of time required for accounting for the configurations of geographical strata found across the globe. Nor does he hesitate to extrapolate his findings, especially from old fossils, to the evolution and transmutation of plants and animals. Like the

350  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” physical earth, the biosphere reveals a pattern:  a gradual transition of these organisms over the course of a vast expanse of time, layered one upon another. Little wonder that Darwin found an ally in Keyserling. Everything Keyserling has said to this point was right up Darwin’s alley. It does not stop there. Keyserling identified, more or less, a mechanism for change. He even suggests “natural selection” (not by that name) as a mechanism, as Darwin acknowledged, but for Keyserling this played a minor role at best; Darwin did not need to worry about that as an anticipation. But it did involve “chemical elements,” by which Keyserling meant the fundamental building blocks of organic forms, being reshuffled or recombined by some unknown “miasma” that acts on the “germinal elements.” Darwin would make this point too, only substituting the phrase “action on the reproductive system” for “germinal elements,” and discarding the obscure idea of “miasma.” But, for all I can tell, the expressions “germinal elements” and “reproductive system” mean the same thing. Both men agreed, moreover, that the process itself is mysterious. Keyserling said as much, whereas Darwin attributed the cause of variation in most cases to “chance” or “accident.” But, despite difference in terminology, both meant that the “process by which variations arise is unknown.” Keyserling no doubt agreed with Darwin that it was only a matter of time before the process would be fully understood. Keyserling’s article, when it appeared in 1853, received mixed reviews. No one fully embraced it, as far as I know. Fortunately for Keyserling, Darwin learned enough about his theory, even without having read his article, to essentially promote it in the Historical Sketch. His only misgiving, pointed out earlier, is Keyserling’s reliance on the idea of the recombination of “chemical elements” acted on by a mysterious “miasma,” an idea that Darwin confessed he could not really understand. Other than that single feature, Keyserling got a clean pass from Darwin. Were it not for Darwin, Keyserling may have been completely forgotten in the history of science.8

Hermann Schaaffhausen. 1816–​1893 Hermann Schaaffhausen made his first appearance in Darwin’s published writings in the Historical Sketch, starting with the third English edition of Origin, published in April 1861. Darwin implies in this entry that he had read a particular work written by Schaaffhausen, published in 1853, sometime before January 1860. This inference is based on the fact that Darwin indicated to Baden Powell, in a letter to Powell on January 18, 1860, that he intended to include “some Germans” (without naming them) in his Historical Sketch, which, it turns out, he had already partially composed (CCD, 18 January 1860, to

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  351

Figure 14.2 Schaaffhausen

Powell. Letter 2654).9 Other evidence shows that one of these Germans likely was Schaaffhausen, as will be detailed here. Yet, probing more deeply, we find that Darwin did not read Schaaffhausen before mid-​May 1860. We are thus faced with a dilemma about how to resolve the discrepancy: How could Darwin have known of Schaaffhausen’s work in January 1860 without having seen a copy of it, or even presumably heard about it, until almost five months later? Among the 12 or 13 authors Darwin told Powell he intended to include in the Preface was an open-​ended entry that said simply “some Germans.” The letter mentioned no Germans by name, unless one counts Alexander von Keyserling, who was actually from Estonia (then part of Russia), but because Keyserling published in German, Darwin may have had him in mind as one of these “Germans.” But Keyserling, even if we count him, could not have been the only German Darwin intended include, since he says “some Germans.” Besides, he had already mentioned Keyserling in the letter to Powell. He must have had in mind some other German authors. When we look at the final version of the Sketch, published in 1872, we find, in fact, the names of eight Germans, not including Keyserling, one of which was

352  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Hermann Schaaffhausen. Schaaffhausen may then have been one of the “some Germans” Darwin had mentioned to Powell. We arrive at this inference by a process of elimination. Of these eight included in the final version of the Sketch, two did not make an appearance until the fourth English edition, published in 1866: von Buch and von Baer. The relatively late date of their inclusion suggests that they were not on Darwin’s radar until after he had composed the third, 1861, version of the Sketch; otherwise, presumably, he would have added them before 1866. That assumption, if correct, leaves us with six other German names, one of whom is Schaaffhausen—​the other five are Goethe, Franz Unger, Heinrich Bronn, Lorenz Oken, and C.F. Burdach. It is an open question whether we should include either Goethe or Bronn in the list of five. Darwin’s first entry on Goethe says only that he had run across his name in a work he read in 1860 by Isidore Geoffroy Saint Hilaire. He gives no other details about Goethe until the fourth version, 1866, when, after reading another work (by Karl Meding on Goethe) after 1861, he spells out more fully what Goethe’s contribution was. As to Bronn, Darwin nowhere indicates he belongs in the Sketch as a predecessor. Bronn is mentioned only because Darwin discovered in one of Bronn’s large works the names of four other naturalists who, in contrast to Bronn, could be considered as having anticipated Darwin in some small ways. Two of these were Germans: Franz Unger and Lorenz Oken. But Bronn, along with these two men, were included only in a footnote in the Sketch, and Darwin had almost nothing to say about either of them except to note that Bronn had written that they were species transmutationists of one sort or another. In view of this information (spelled out fully in earlier chapters), I surmise that Darwin did not have them in mind when he wrote to Powell. If the conclusions reached to this point are accurate, Darwin’s expression to Powell in January 1860 about “some Germans” leaves us with only C.F. Burdach and Hermann Schaaffhausen as the Germans he had in mind in the Powell letter. In any case, the surmise fits the evidence well, and I believe any other conclusion would raise more difficulties than it would solve. By this route, we come to an important question: When, how, and what did Darwin learn about Burdach and Schaaffhausen? We shall take up Burdach at length in a later chapter; we are left to examine here how the case stands with Schaaffhausen. Hermann Schaaffhausen was a Professor of Anatomy at the University of Bonn who, in the 1850s, became involved in research in physical anthropology and the study of prehistoric humans in Europe. He is best known for his study of the Neanderthal fossils (together with J.C. Fuhlrott) and continued publishing on physical anthropology into the late 1860s. Schaaffhausen discussed the idea of species evolving in an article titled “Ueber Beständigkeit und Umwandlung der Arten (On the Constancy and Transformation of Species)” published in the

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  353 Verhandlungen des Naturhistorischen Vereins der preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens in 1853, in which he declared that “the immutability of species . . . is not proven.” Some of his works appeared in the Anthropology Review in Britain in the 1860s despite the tendency of that journal ardently to oppose Darwinism,10 and Schaaffhausen is usually regarded as a supporter, even a forerunner, of Darwin, as Darwin himself acknowledged. 11 When Darwin added Schaaffhausen to the Sketch in April 1861, he seems to have known about Schaaffhausen’s transmutationist leaning; his entry, although quite brief, gives a strong impression that he had read the article by Schaaffhausen just mentioned: In this same year, 1853, Dr.  Schaaffhausen published an excellent pamphlet (“Verhand. des Naturhist. Vereins der Preuss. Rheinlands,” &c.), in which he maintains the progressive development of organic forms on the earth. He infers that many species have kept true for long periods, whereas a few have become modified. The distinction of species he explains by the destruction of intermediate graduated forms. “Thus living plants and animals are not separated from the extinct by new creations, but are to be regarded as their descendants through continued reproduction.” (Variorum, p. 68, lines 62–​65).12

Schaaffhausen’s insight, quoted directly in Darwin’s text, does imply species transmutation, without quite saying so. He seems to be rejecting special divine creation for each species in favor of some conception of modification through descent from one generation to the next. Intermediate forms connecting allied species have simply been destroyed. Schaaffhausen’s 1853 work from which Darwin quotes in the Sketch appears to be the only work published by Schaaffhausen before Darwin first drafted the Sketch. He did return to later works by Schaaffhausen several years after Origin, but they need not concern us here.13 As to the 1853 article, we may trace with some precision how Darwin learned about it, from whom, and when. We may also pinpoint just when Darwin read it, and to some extent what he took away from it as an anticipation of his theory. The evidence is not extensive, consisting mainly of a handful of letters between Darwin and his favorite correspondents: J.D. Hooker, Charles Lyell, and A.R. Wallace. But it is clear and unequivocal in meaning and import. We need not worry that Darwin did not read Schaaffhausen before he composed the first edition of Origin in 1859. The correspondence makes clear he knew nothing of Schaaffhausen’s article until May 1860, as we shall see. Darwin was not averse to including authors in the Sketch who may have anticipated his theory, or parts of it, only after he had worked out the details on his own. This is true even of the author who most plainly anticipated Darwin’s entire theory in its

354  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” essentials, A.R. Wallace, not to mention many others. Darwin received Wallace’s famous letter outlining Darwin’s theory in 1858, but its only impact on Darwin was to put a fire under him to get his own theory out in press as soon as was humanly possible, about two years, and also to cause him misgivings that he would be seen in the scientific community as forestalled by Wallace. In the event, Darwin found consolation in knowing that his 1844  “Essay,” giving the main outlines of his theory, had been written and read (by Hooker in 1847) well before Wallace’s letter. Darwin also had written a letter to Asa Gray in 1857 that summarized his theory in some detail. Darwin really did not need to worry about Wallace’s “priority,” but Wallace’s letter did prompt him to abandon the “big species book” in favor of the much compressed “abstract” (Darwin’s preferred word for the book) that became the Origin of Species. Schaaffhausen is a little different from Wallace in at least one regard. Darwin knew about the latter’s contribution in 1858, but learned of Schaaffhausen 1853 only in May 1860. The date explains why Darwin did not include Schaaffhausen in the first published form of the Sketch, in the first authorized edition of Origin prepared prior to February 8, the date when Darwin sent a copy of it to Asa Gray. But the main point here is that neither author influenced what Darwin wrote in Origin. Their only claim to a place in the Sketch was that they had developed theories that bore similarities to Darwin’s—​Wallace’s much more completely than Schaaffhausen’s—​but that played no role in how Darwin came upon his own theory of descent with modification by means of natural selection. Darwin included several authors in the Sketch that fit this mold, so his treatment of Schaaffhausen in the Sketch is nothing unusual. We know that Darwin learned about, acquired a copy of, and read Schaaffhausen in 1860, in mid-​May to be more precise. On May 18, 1860, Darwin wrote to Wallace that he had just “yesterday” received a note from Lyell in which Lyell informed Darwin that Schaaffhausen had written an article in 1853 that was reminiscent of Darwin’s theory: Yesterday I heard from Lyell that a German Dr Schaffhausen has sent him a pamphlet published some years ago, in which same View [as mine] is nearly anticipated but I have not yet seen this pamphlet. (CCD, 18 May 1860, to A.R. Wallace. Letter 2807).14

Reading between the lines, Darwin was again concerned about his priority. The mention here of Schaaffhausen comes directly after his “confession” to Wallace that he had been “completely forestalled” [in discovering his theory] by the Scottish arboriculturalist Patrick Matthew, in his work on naval timber published in 1830. It is, Darwin lamented, “a most complete case of anticipation.” Would Schaaffhausen prove to be another?

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  355 This letter to Wallace confirms that Darwin first heard about Schaaffhausen 1853 from Lyell on May 18, but had not seen the article itself. He only learned at this time that the article appeared to Lyell to present “the same” view” as Darwin’s, or nearly so. Darwin was obviously interested in getting his hands on Schaaffhausen’s article. He wrote to Lyell the same day: “Some time when you have done with it I shd much like to see Schaaffhausen pamphlet on natural selection” (CCD, 18 May, 1860, to Lyell. Letter 2806).15 Lyell apparently did not send the pamphlet along to Darwin for at least three weeks, maybe longer. Darwin was at this time working non-​stop on a new version of the Sketch that he wanted to include in the third English edition of Origin that would enlarge upon and improve the hastily crafted version he sent to Asa Gray on February 8, 1860, for the first US edition. It would be in this new edition that Darwin finally filled in the names and contributions of the “some Germans” he had indicated to Powell in January 1860 he intended to include in the Sketch. Schaaffhausen was among this group of authors. Darwin seems not to have received a copy of Schaaffhausen 1853 from Lyell even by June 6, 1860, for on that date he wrote to Lyell again, gently asking to borrow Lyell’s copy of it. His request is somewhat misleading. The letter in which he made the request is almost entirely given over to Darwin’s impressions of reviews of Origin that had recently appeared in print. Darwin betrayed some sensitivity to the negative reviews—​of which there were quite a few. But he had become by this time “case hardened,” claiming that he had already braced for the onslaught. He admitted that there were some reviews he had not yet seen, including what sounds like a review by Schaaffhausen. I give Darwin’s words in context: If my M.S.  spreads out, I  think I  shall publish one volume exclusively on “Variation of animals & plants under domestication”. I want to show that I have not been quite so rash as many suppose . . . Though weary of Reviews, I shd. like to see Lowell sometime, & likewise (if you can spare) Binney on Coal & Schaaffhausen or some such name on natural selection.—​I suppose Lowell’s difficulty about instinct is same as Bowens; but it seems to me wholly to rest on assumption that instincts cannot graduate as finely as structure. I have stated in my volume, that it is hardly possible to know which i.e. whether instinct or structure changes first by insensible steps.—​Probably sometimes instinct, sometimes structure.” (CCD, 6 June 1860, to Lyell. Letter 2822)

The context seems to suggest that Darwin thought Schaaffhausen had written a “review” of Origin. This is misleading. Schaaffhausen did not write a review of Origin, as far as I can tell. When Darwin asked to borrow Lyell’s copy of Schaaffhausen, he must have been referring to the article Schaaffhausen published in 1853.16

356  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Whatever work by Schaaffhausen Darwin was referring to in his June 6 letter to Lyell, there can be no doubt that by June 14 he had received Lyell’s copy of the article he had been looking for since May 18: Schaaffhausen 1853. He wrote to Lyell on that date that he had begun reading the article but had not yet finished it. He adds a few brief comments about what he had found thus far: I have not finished Schaaffhausen, as I read German so badly: I have ordered copy for self & shd. like to keep yours till my own arrives; but will return it to you instantly if wanted.—​He admits statements rather rashly, as I  daresay I do.—​I see only one sentence as yet at all approaching nat. selection. (CCD, 14[ June 1860], to Lyell. Letter 2831.)

“Only one sentence approaching nat. selection.” What does this intriguing sentence refer to? The documents upon which Darwin drew are, as yet, not available online at DAR-​CUL, where the original copies are housed. But the editors of CCD provide important clarification. “CD marked on the translation (see note 12 above) the following passage: ‘Many species may have kept true during a long period, only a few individuals, with a gradually changing formation, may have separated from them, and thus new varieties or species may have been formed beside the original species. Species are independent, without connecting links, (gradual transitions) because these have not been preserved’. CD quoted this statement in the revised historical sketch he added to the third edition of Origin (1861).” (CCD, 14 [June 1860], to Lyell. Letter 2832).17 Darwin immediately followed this statement about Schaaffhausen’s work with a direct quote from it, translated into English (not reproduced in the previous note 16 from Letter 2832): Thus living plants and animals are not separated from the extinct by new creations, but are to be regarded as their descendants through continued reproduction. (Variorum, p. 68, line 65)

Not “new creations” but rather “descent with modification” is nature’s way of bringing new species into existence, or so Schaaffhausen appears to be arguing. When we look at Schaaffhausen’s original 1853 essay, we need to confront another issue bearing on Darwin’s discovery of it. We know that Darwin received a copy from Lyell before June 14, 1860, for that is the day Darwin wrote to Lyell acknowledging that he had begun to read it. It is another question how Lyell discovered this essay, which is buried in a massive volume of short essays that appeared in a somewhat obscure German journal. Lyell may have spotted the essay on his own as he perused the particular volume in which Schaaffhausen published. Its title gives it away as of potential interest to a Darwinian: in English

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  357 translation, it is “On the Constancy and Transformation of Species.” In any case, Lyell alerted Darwin in May 1860 to Schaaffhausen and his essay as showing a transmutationist perspective. Lyell must also have told Darwin which pages of the 30-​page article were most worth looking at, pages 423–​4. With such detailed information, Darwin was spared the need to read the entire essay. As he often said, reading German was to him a slow haul. What appears to have happened is that, when he received a copy from Lyell with specific page numbers identified, he asked someone—​perhaps his children’s governess Camilla Ludwig—​to translate just the indicated passage. He may have read more, or perhaps even the entire essay, in the original German, as he told Lyell on June 14, 1860, he had begun to do so. Whether he did or not, however, the only part he included in the Sketch was drawn from the two pages 423–​4. On these pages Schaaffhausen did affirm his belief that new species descend from progenitors rather than being separately created.18 Darwin could have drawn more from Schaaffhausen than would have served his purposes in the Sketch. Schaaffhausen’s essay begins with a brief review of the two opposing camps in the then-​current debate about species origins: the camp of Cuvier, Linnaeus, and Buffon (and some others) who could be called “species fixists”; and the opposing camp of those who, like Lamarck, von Baer, and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire, had argued for species modification, even “progression,” through adaptation to local environmental conditions over time. Schaaffhausen cites Unger that “the entire plant kingdom may be a “development” (Entwicklung) from a single “Urtype” (pp.  421–​2). Such modifications may have been brought about through changes in heat, light, and other external factors. Many examples of such modifications are given, drawn from the works of Unger and other naturalists. Schaaffhausen concludes this section by announcing firmly, “the opinion that species do not change is thus false” (p. 425). The second part of the essay assembles more factual data to support its conclusions, paying special attention to the enormous lapse of time required to allow for species transmutation. This factor, Schaaffhausen explains, is the reason that Cuvier’s alleged “proofs” of immutability from his examination of “ancient” mummified remains from Egyptian tombs prove no such thing. This example, like many others, invoke time frames that are far too compressed to allow for species change. Studies like those of Unger are superior to those of many fixists in allowing sufficient eons to elapse if species transformation is to occur. Schaaffhausen, it is true, does not appear to provide independent evidence of his own to bolster a transmutationist argument. He relies mainly on the work of other naturalists. Darwin could also believe Schaaffhausen was not an original thinker. Transmutationism was, by 1853, old news:  many naturalists had adopted this position before Schaaffhausen. Even Schaaffhausen’s “mechanism” of change, the influence of local environmental conditions, was a well-​established position. Schaaffhausen’s view was closer to Geoffroy’s than to Lamarck’s, but it

358  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” was not a novel discovery. And the importance of an extended time frame had also already been insisted upon by others. No doubt these considerations help to explain why Darwin wrote to Lyell in June 1860 that he could find only “one sentence” that comes close to being an anticipation of natural selection. No doubt it is the sentence that he paraphrased from Schaaffhausen’s article in the Sketch (see Mayr’s translation in n. 17). Yet Darwin could have said more—​or he could have said nothing at all. His decision to include Schaaffhausen may well have been due more to Lyell’s prompting than to anything Darwin himself found especially significant.

Henri Lecoq. 1802–​1871 As we saw in c­ hapter 11, Henri Lecoq first entered the Sketch as a footnote to the entry on Naudin. We should take a closer look at this. When it first appeared, in the first US edition in May 1860, the footnote marker (a *) was placed just after

Figure 14.3 Lecoq

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  359 the words “a distinguished botanist,” which referred to Naudin. At this point the footnote was limited to the mention of only one other French authority, a M. Lecoq. The entire footnote entry in this early edition reads: M. Lecoq, another French botanist, entertains, I believe, analogous views [as those of Naudin] on the modification and descent of species. (CCD, v. 8, App. IV, p. 575, a transcription of the first US version of the Sketch)

No indication is given here about the potential importance to Darwin of Lecoq’s views, or indeed of how or when Darwin learned about Lecoq, or even the title(s) of the works Darwin drew from. Darwin repaired these deficiencies in later editions. In particular, Darwin made two important changes to the Sketch at just this point in the text, beginning with the 1866 edition. The first was to remove Lecoq from the starred footnote on Naudin and replace the footnote with a different, much enlarged one. The second change was to promote Lecoq into the main body of the text of the Historical Sketch, in effect giving Lecoq equal billing with Naudin as a significant contributor to the species question. The new footnote packs in quite a bit of information regarding other sources Darwin drew upon for the Sketch. It reads, in full: From references in Bronn’s “Untersuchungen über die Entwickelungs-​Gesetze” it appears that the celebrated botanist and palæontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and modification. D’Alton, likewise, in Pander and Dalton’s work on Fossil Sloths, expressed, in 1821, a similar belief. Similar views have, as is well known, been maintained by Oken in his mystical “Natur-​Philosophie.” From other references in Godron’s work “Sur l’Espèce,” it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being produced. (Variorum, p. 68, lines 60*.  1–​4)

Naudin, Darwin suggests in the footnote, is not the only French authority who may have preceded him. No fewer than seven other authors are named in this compact statement. Lecoq is no longer listed among them; as noted, he had been moved by Darwin from the footnote into the main body of the Sketch in the fourth edition of Origin, with new material added. The new footnote, however, raises questions of proper interpretation. As noted earlier, it changed position in Darwin’s text from its first appearance to later renditions. Its content also changed over the years. When he wrote the first version of the footnote, in early 1860, Darwin had not yet read Bronn’s translation

360  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” or commentary on Origin. But it is not clear from the earlier footnote, referring only to Lecoq, that Darwin had much if any direct familiarity with him either. Some dramatic transformation in Darwin’s views occurred between February 1860 and early 1861 about his potential predecessors. One transformative factor, quite evidently, was Darwin’s reading of Bronn’s “Untersuchung,” in which he found reference to several other authors. Another was a better acquaintance with the writings of Lecoq himself. How, when, and what did Darwin learn about Lecoq? The current biographical literature offers little detail about Lecoq’s life, not much more than his dates of birth and death, the name of his home town in France, and an acknowledgment that he wrote an important nine-​volume treatise on plant hybridization. The French edition of Wikipedia says this about him: [Lecoq was] Director of the botanical garden and of the Museum of Natural History in Clermont-​Ferrand, and was Dean of the Faculty of Sciences in that city. He was also Vice President of the Société centrale d’agriculture of Puy-​de-​ Dome, where he was also a professor of natural history. He helped popularize the classification of plants, studied the descriptive organs of and useful vegetation for animal nourishment, as well as geological formations of l’Auvergne and the formation of glaciers. He was elected on July 14 1837 to the Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and Arts of Savoie, with the title of Academic Correspondent. A public garden and museum bears his name at Clermont-​Ferrand.19

In his time and place he was a figure of local reputation, but his name has been mostly forgotten in the current scientific literature on evolution. Forgotten, that is, with the exception of Darwin’s entry about him in the Historical Sketch, which has preserved for Lecoq a place in history. Since he does not appear in Darwin’s January 18, 1860, letter to Baden Powell (the first to list names intended for inclusion in the Sketch), we might surmise that Darwin learned about Lecoq sometime between January 18, 1860, and February 8, 1860, when Darwin sent the first completed version of the Sketch to Asa Gray for inclusion in the first authorized US edition of Origin, and the first appearance of Lecoq in Darwin’s published writings. In fact, Darwin knew something about Lecoq earlier than this entry suggests. The Reading Notebooks contain three entries to works by Lecoq: the nine-​volume Etudes sur le geographie botanique de l’Europe,” (1854–​1858); an 1845 work titled De la fecundation naturalle et artificielle des vegetaux et de l’hybridisation; and an 1853 publication “Researches sur les varieties et les hybrids des Mirabilis Jalapa.20 The entries in the Reading Notebooks and the annotations to these works in the Marginalia help us to pinpoint when Darwin read them and what he took from them as he composed the Sketch.

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  361 Chronologically, the first work by Lecoq that Darwin noted in the Reading Notebooks was an essay on “hybrids.” His entry says only “Lecoq sur les hybrids,” giving no date or title of the entry. But he dates precisely when he read it: April 22, 1855. The editors of CCD surmise he must have been referring to Lecoq’s 1845 essay, but they signal their uncertainty by placing a question mark before the citation. The question mark comes in because Lecoq published another essay in 1853, also on hybrids, so Darwin’s reference is ambiguous. He could have been referring either to Lecoq 1845 or Lecoq 1853. He may even have been referring to the first volume of Lecoq’s massive nine-​volume work that appeared in 1854, much of which was devoted to hybridization in the vegetable kingdom. Nevertheless, most of our evidence points to Lecoq 1845 as the work Darwin read and referred to in the Reading Notebooks as “Lecoq sur les hybrids,” just as the editors of CCD suggest. This conclusion is based on the fact that Darwin indicated in other places in the Reading Notebooks and the correspondence that he read Lecoq 1853 only after 1855, and that he read Lecoq 1854–​1858 only in 1861. We shall examine that evidence later. For now, it is sufficient to note that, whatever work by Lecoq that Darwin was referring to in 1855, he had discovered and read enough of Lecoq to be able to claim familiarity with him to Hooker well before he composed his first entry for the Sketch. Further evidence of Darwin’s familiarity with Lecoq prior to 1860 is found in the correspondence. Darwin wrote to Asa Gray in late November 1857 that he had read, and had doubts about, Lecoq’s theory of the inability of the genus Fumaria to cross by natural means. Darwin wrote, contesting Lecoq, “I suspect its structure is formed in direct relation to favour crossing!!.” (CCD, 29 November [1857], to Gray, letter 2176, referring to Lecoq 1845, p. 61). Darwin’s short comment here, in his 1857 letter to Asa Gray, does not hint at what Darwin would later say about Lecoq in the Sketch. The comment shows only that Darwin was somewhat familiar with some of Lecoq’s views in 1857, not that he believed at this time that he needed to worry about Lecoq as a predecessor. More important to Darwin is what he learned about Lecoq after 1857 but before 1861. All nine volumes of Lecoq’s large work published 1854–​1858 are in Darwin’s library,21 heavily scored and annotated. We must surmise that Darwin read them in 1858 or 1859. In the Reading Notebooks, Lecoq comes just before the entries on Decaisne, and, as we have seen, Darwin’s encounter with that author was undoubtedly in late 1859. Darwin’s marginal annotations to Lecoq 1854–​1858 do not give a clear indication of when he read this work. One entry states “Feb. 7 1877 I have copied all I want for quotation” (Marginalia, p. 489a). The editors of the Marginalia note that the transcription is “uncertain,” suggesting it might contain errors due to illegibility. The date given in the transcription seems almost certainly to be incorrect, especially with regard to the year “1877.” By this time Darwin had long

362  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” since moved on from the Sketch to other concerns, regarding which Lecoq’s work played no discernable role. On the other hand, the “February 7” date is plausible, even likely, if the year turned out to be 1861 rather than “1877.” The 1861 date is just when Darwin was adding “quotations” to his entry on Lecoq in the Sketch. Our evidence suggests Darwin read Lecoq’s nine-​volume work sometime in 1861 and drew from his encounter what he decided to quote from Lecoq in the Sketch. This surmise brings us to another important point about Darwin’s reference to Lecoq in the Sketch. Starting with the fourth edition of Origin, 1866, Darwin removed the short note about Lecoq in the starred footnote (quoted earlier), replacing his name with several others (as noted earlier) and simultaneously giving Lecoq his own separate paragraph in the main body of the text of the Sketch. The latter entry considerably expanded upon what Darwin had originally said about Lecoq in the first starred footnote. The new entry reads: A well-​ known French botanist, M.  Lecoq, writes in 1854 (“Etudes sur Geograph. Bot.,” tom I, p. 250), “On voit que nos researches sur la fixite ou la variation de l’espece nous conduisent directement aux idees emises par deux hommes justement celebres, Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire et Goethe.” Some other passages scattered through Lecoq’s large work, make it a little doubtful how far he extends his views on the modification of species. (Variorum, pp. 68-​9, lines 65 1:d–​65.2:d)22

The expanded treatment of Lecoq, beginning with the fourth edition of Origin, points again to 1861, if not later, as the time when Darwin actually got around to reading Lecoq’s nine-​volume work. Here, however, we encounter a wrinkle in the story. Darwin evidently read volumes one through three of Lecoq’s nine-​volume work, 1854–​1858, no later than 1859. These volumes were published in 1854. We know that Darwin had a copy from another entry in the Reading Notebooks, which is not precisely dated but from the context must be after 1858 and before 1860 (CCD, v. 4, p. 484, Reading Notebooks, *128: 169). The entry, in addition to Lecoq’s name and the title of his work, states “Read.” Because of ambiguity in the English language, the entry could mean either “already read” or “to be read in the future.” We shall see that the “already read” interpretation conflicts with other testimony documented later. Moreover, Darwin divided this section of his Notebooks into two categories, “Books to Be Read” and “Books Read.” Lecoq’s 1854–​1858 work appears in the “To Be Read” section. Darwin, thus, knew about Lecoq 1854–​1858 no later than mid-​1859, but had not yet read it. In fact, he had not yet seen a copy of it, but acquired a copy only in 1861, at which point he almost immediately undertook the task of reading it.

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  363 Thus, we may affirm a chronology of Darwin’s direct familiarity with Lecoq’s writings prior to his decision to include him in the expanded entry in the Sketch of 1866. He read and commented on Lecoq 1845, as he noted in the Reading Notebooks in 1855. He then, in November 1857, wrote to Asa Gray that he was sufficiently familiar with Lecoq 1845 to be able to question his findings about Fumaria. Finally, the Notebooks show that Darwin knew about, but had not read, any of the volumes of Lecoq’s nine-​volume work by 1859. Despite some prior acquaintance with Lecoq’s views, Darwin did not include extensive comments about him until the 1866 version of the Sketch. Why? We must assume that Darwin had come to appreciate Lecoq’s contribution to the species question after 1861 more than he had allowed in 1860. The likely chronology here is that Darwin learned about Lecoq’s nine-​volume (1854–​1858) work in 1859–​1860, perhaps from Hooker, and decided he needed a footnote entry in the first version of the Sketch23. But he did not get around to reading and annotating the work until late 1861 through early 1862. In 1860, Darwin’s understanding of Lecoq was cursory. But after he had more time to read and reflect, and possibly under the prompting of other naturalists, he decided that he had given Lecoq short shrift in the first version of the Sketch. In fact, by the fourth edition of Origin, Lecoq came to occupy more space than many other sources Darwin cited. Darwin’s correspondence with Hooker shows that Darwin did not see a copy of Lecoq 1854–​1858 until late 1861. He was surprised at its length: Here is a good joke. I saw an extract from Lecoq Geogr. Bot. & ordered it & hoped it was a good sized pamphlet & my God nine thick volumes have arrived. (CCD, 25 November [1861], to Hooker. Letter 3329)

The correspondence also gives us a better idea of what precisely Darwin thought of Lecoq’s contribution to the species question. In early December 1861 Darwin wrote again to Hooker about Lecoq: When Lecoq came [i.e., the nine-​volume work that Darwin had recently purchased] I was so disgusted at size (and not so much at price, 3 L, that I put the nine volumes on highest shelf; but I have this evening taken down 1st and 9th vol & have cut pages & will have to look & see what it is. If it does not suit me, & does suit you, you may have it for 2 L. It seems full of details on range of individual species.” (CCD, 1 December [1861], to Hooker. Letter 3337)

At this point, December 1861, Darwin owned a copy of Lecoq’s nine-​volume work but had not yet begun to read it. He had little optimism that it would be

364  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” helpful to him and expected to be able to send his copy on to Hooker in short order, for the bargain price of 2 L. Less than two weeks later, Darwin had read enough of the work to form a more exact opinion. It was not flattering: Lecoq is a miserable book-​-​,dreadfully spun out, with maudlin speculations & a great dearth of precise facts:  I do not believe it would be worth your having & as here & there, miles apart, I find a reference or fact worth keeping, I  will keep the monstrous work. (CCD, [9 December  1861], to Hooker. Letter 3341)

A week later Darwin wrote again to Hooker: “I have picked a little out of Lecoq; but it is awful tedious hunting” (CCD, 18 [December 1861], to Hooker. Letter 3346). To another botanist C.C. Babington, who had also brought Lecoq to Darwin’s notice in January 1861, Darwin wrote on February 1 that he had already “looked through” the work and found it to be “gigantic and tedious” (CCD, 1 February [1862], to Babington. Letter 3432). After all this “tedious hunting,” what did Darwin find in Lecoq in terms of a contribution to the origin of species question that would have earned him a paragraph in the Sketch? Judging from what little information we have, we should conclude “not much.” Darwin’s main source at the time he was revising his entry on Lecoq for the Sketch was the nine-​volume work (1854–​1858) mentioned earlier, and he made plain to Hooker his dislike of it. When we get to Darwin’s annotations of this work—​and they are extensive—​ we discover that he found some isolated observations, spread about here and there in the sprawling oeuvre, interesting but not original (Darwin’s annotations are recorded in Marginalia, pp. 488–​9). Darwin was willing to consider Lecoq a defender of “transmutation,” but that by itself did not separate Lecoq from the pack of other believers in species evolution. Indeed, Darwin seems to have seen Lecoq as just another Naudin—​a believer in species change but only in a Lamarckian sense. For example, he noted to himself in his marginal notes to Lecoq’s 1854–​1858 work, “increase of branchiae from use and of Lungs from disuse in Proteus submerged” (quoting from v. 1, p. 182). Shortly after that entry Darwin allowed that “Lecoq . . . believes in mutation of species” (v. 1, pp. 207, 250). The latter entry is just the one that Darwin chose for inclusion about Lecoq in the Sketch. But Darwin was hesitant to ascribe to Lecoq a more expansive acknowledgment of debt. He had already said enough. To underscore his uncertainty Darwin added, both in his marginal notes to Lecoq and in the Sketch itself, “from certain other passages, it is here difficult to know how far he extends his belief in the

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  365 modification of organic beings” (Marginalia, p. 493a). The Sketch simply copied from this marginal note, with slight revision in wording: Some other passages scattered through Lecoq’s large work, make it a little doubtful how far he extends his views on the modification of species. (Variorum, pp. 68–​9, lines 65 1:d–​65.2:d)

These entries by Darwin to Lecoq’s works suggest that not only did Darwin not see much of a challenge to his own originality in Lecoq, but that Lecoq had not extended his meagre Lamarckian opinions to the broad field of organic change in general. When it came to an explanation of how species may have been modified over the course of ages, Lecoq could only repeat the Lamarckian formula “use and disuse” of organs, adding in his ninth volume that such modifications were due to the “conditions of life” (Etudes, 1858, pp. 393, 431; cited in Marginalia, 492f). For Darwin, by 1861, these statements were mere platitudes that had already been embraced by a host of other naturalists. They did nothing to advance a coherent and verifiable theory of organic change. Indeed, when Darwin read and annotated Lecoq’s 1854–​ 1858 nine-​ volume work in 1861–​1862, he was not even sure that Lecoq would extend his speculations about domestic variations, produced by human skill, to natural variations and their causes, or even whether his views could be extended from “domestic variations” to “the modification of species [under nature]” (Variorum, pp. 68–​9, lines 65 1:d–​65 2:d). Darwin can scarcely be faulted for not giving Lecoq more space in the Sketch. His Etudes is a long work—​“gigantic and tedious” as Darwin had it—​and most of it has little to do with the theory of transmutation. Nevertheless, Lecoq did give more credit to transmutationist views than Darwin acknowledged. His entry into the controversy of the origin of species—​an active topic among naturalists well before Darwin wrote Origin—​is situated within a larger discussion of competing viewpoints, in particular whether species are “immutable” through time or subject to transformation. Lecoq is not ambiguous on the point:  between “fixists” and “transmutationists,” he sides with the latter group, among whom he includes Goethe and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire. In 1854, when Lecoq committed to this view in writing, his stance was controversial, to say the least. French naturalists were not as encumbered by “natural theology” as British writers were at this time, but the Cuvier-​Geoffroy debates were still alive and well. By showing his Geoffroyian colors, Lecoq was going out on a potentially dangerous limb. But affirming Geoffroyian transmutationism against Cuvier’s fixity of species was not all Lecoq had to say. He defended his position by a very Darwinian argument: Who knows how much species transformation can occur, given enough

366  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” time? Here he relies on the uniformitarian idea, brought into the mainstream of scientific thought in the 1830s by Lyell, that geological (and thus biological) processes must be assumed to be operative today as in the past. Since we see gradual change in the ancient geological record, we should be willing to see change at present: slowly acting, to be sure, but inexorable and constant. Species transmutation, Lecoq appears to say, is not a mere fanciful hypothesis but a scientific certainty (Etudes, v. 1, pp. 248–​50). We find little in what Darwin wrote about Lecoq that demonstrated his appreciation for these important and interesting insights. It is true that Lecoq did not occupy unique intellectual ground in 1854: other naturalists had already accepted transmutation, gradualism, and uniformitarianism. Nor did he put his finger on “natural selection” or even “struggle for existence” in nature. But he gave a fair and balanced view of competing interpretations of biological processes as understood in 1854, and he did come down squarely on the side of organic transmutation. Perhaps that was all Darwin thought he needed to acknowledge. And, we must always remember that Darwin’s chief concern in the Sketch was to identify potential predecessors, not to explain what the rival theories were in detail. In any case, Darwin said little more in the Sketch than that Lecoq was a believer in transmutation. By 1863, however, his opinion had shifted. He now wanted to claim Lecoq as an ally in the contest over the proper interpretation of transmutation. To George Bentham, Darwin wrote: I agree with all your remarks on the Reviewers. By the way, Lecoq is a believer in the change of species, I, for one, can conscientiously declare that I never feel surprised at anyone sticking to the belief of immutability; though I am often not a little surprised at the arguments advanced on this side. I remember too well my endless oscillations of doubt & difficulty. It is to me really laughable, when I think of the years which elapsed before I saw what I believe to be the explanation of some parts of the case: I believe it was 15 years after I begun before I saw the meaning & cause of the divergence of the descendants of any one pair. (CCD, 19 June [1863], to George Bentham. Letter 4217)

Apparently, by this time, Darwin was less worried about possible predecessors and more concerned to claim adherents to his new theory. Lecoq was one of them. Our sources show nothing that Darwin may have learned between 1861 and 1863, the date of his letter to Bentham, that would have caused a change of view. But, in truth, Darwin’s acknowledgment of Lecoq in 1863 as a “believer in change of species” was faint praise. By this time, many naturalists were believers. That affirmation alone, however, does not secure a claim to priority for Lecoq. Too many other elements were missing from Lecoq’s version of transmutation to

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  367 enable Darwin to give him much credit in the Sketch. Lecoq had not discussed or shown awareness of “struggle for existence” in nature. He did not identify “natural selection” as the mechanism of change. And he did not even begin to speculate on “causes of variation,” the important first step in species transmutation. All in all, the most Darwin could say about Lecoq is that he was, in some vague sense, a supporter of Darwin’s theory, not that he had forestalled Darwin in any important way. Darwin’s entry on Lecoq into the Historical Sketch, then, is of a piece with many of his other entries. Lecoq’s views were not especially important to Darwin, and by 1866 had fallen out of the ranks of possible predecessors of his own theory. Why Darwin retained and enlarged his entry on Lecoq in 1866 is only a matter of speculation. Darwin almost never removed a name from the Sketch after his original decision to include it. But he was looking for support of his own theory in the naturalist community, especially for the Sketch. Lecoq was a transmutationist. That was good enough for Darwin. Lecoq remained in the Sketch through every edition, and in the end, was credited only with the modest assertion that he supported transmutation to a limited extent, but certainly could not stake a claim as a forerunner.

Notes 1. Dr. Whewell wrote to Darwin on January 2, 1860: “I cannot, yet at least, become a convert. But there is so much of thought and of fact in what you have written that it is not to be contradicted without careful selection of the ground and manner of the dissent” (Francis Darwin, ed. 1887, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter. Vol. 2. p. 261. London: John Murray. The citation in the 1959 edition of Life and Letters, Basic Book, is. p. 55 n. *). 2. It is ironic that while Lyell, who actively promoted Darwin’s theory, even while disagreeing with its “progressionism” (Lyell was a uniformitarian, believing that no significant developmental changes in the geological record through the ages were to be found), Sedgwick did accept progressive change while vehemently disagreeing with almost everything else in Darwin’s theory (see Browne, pp. 136–​140). 3. “I think geologists are more converted [to Darwin’s theory] than simple naturalists because more accustomed to reasoning” (CCD, 18 May 1860 to A.  R. Wallace. Letter 2807). 4. Additional biographical and bibliographical information on Keyserling may be found at: Michael T. Ghiselin, 2009, Darwin: A Reader’s Guide. Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences no.  155 [Charles Darwin Online A622]; http://​www.lindahall.org/​alexander-​von-​keyserling; https://​catalogue.haithitrust. org/​Record))006128938 (containing a comprehensive bibliography); https://​www. biodiversitylibrary.org/​page/​33068774#page/​558/​mode/​1up.

368  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 5. Darwin is paraphrasing Keyserling here. Presumably the passage he was referring to in the original French reads: “L’hypothese que nous proposons n’exige de plus, c’est-​a-​ dire elle presume: que des molecules d’une constitution particuliere, capables de alterer les elements de germination, se sont repandus de temps a autre autour de notre planete.” (Bulletin geologique de la societe geologique de France, series 2, v. 10, 1853, p. 357, original emphasis; reproduced from the Bioheritage Library website). The essay in which the argument appears is quite short—​a few pages—​and is short on empirical evidence or examples, but expands upon this quote. 6. Darwin also noted in his annotations (CUL DAR 75.13): [ref inc] ‘Bull Soc Geol Fr’ 1st[eries] [volume] 14 1842–​1843, annotation 9, p. 357: “Keyserlings also. Tom XIII. p 60 2d series; but not important. idea of new species created like new diseases.” To set a context, from the annotation immediately preceding this one, this annotation is apparently referring to the 1844 work on the high Alps by Pierre Jean Édouard Desor, “On Plants Living Under High Temperature in Hot Spring Is there Cyperus bears on certain genera being fitted for certain sites Flamingo (CUL DAR annotation 8, p. 441). 7. The editors of CCD appear to suggest that this “note” to Murchison, acknowledging appreciation for the note from Keyserling that he had sent to Murchison, was in response to Keyserling’s receipt and reading of Origin (CCD, to R.I. Murchison, 1 May 1860, n. 2. Letter 2779). But, as noted, it may have been intended for Darwin. Darwin sent a presentation copy to Keyserling between August and October 1859, before he received Keyserling’s note to Murchison in May. Details to be found at CCD volume 8, Appendix III. Pp. 554–​570. Keyserling’s name appears on p. 555. 8. Editor’s note immediately following: “Barrand says the theory has not been proved, but given what it explains, he cannot object to it. M. Boubee totally objects because the elementary chemicals in all organisms are exactly the same.” 9. Details about the genesis and evolution of the Historical Sketch may be found in Johnson (2007). 10. The editors of CCD give the following information about the Anthropological Review and Schaaffhausen’s appearance in it in note 9 to a letter Darwin sent to Hooker in July 1868: “The July [1868] issue of the Anthropological Review contained a favourable review of the first two volumes of Richard Owen’s Anatomy of vertebrates (Richard Owen 1866–​8); the reviewer referred to CD’s and his supporters’ views as ‘the prevailing hallucinations respecting species’, and compared them to the cattle-​plague (Anthropological Review 6 (1868): 305). The issue also contained a short paper by Hermann Schaaffhausen on Darwinism and anthropology criticising the view that CD’s theory implied the unity of the human species (ibid., pp. 412 ff.); it was followed by a report of the following discussion, which was in parts hostile to Darwinism (ibid., pp. cxi–​cxvii). CD’s lightly annotated copy of the issue is in the collection of unbound journals in the Darwin Archive–​CUL (the review of Richard Owen 1866–​8 is not annotated)” (CCD To J. D. Hooker 28 July [1868]. Letter 6292). 11. Sources include Ghiselin, 2009; Dictionnaire biographique européen [DBE, Tort 1996]; Wikipedia; and CCD, various entries under “Schaaffhausen.” 12. Wallace, in an index to his Letters and Reminiscences, (date of the index is not indicated) notes, next to Schaaffhausen’s name, that “Schaffhausen, Dr., almost

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  369 anticipates Natural Selection, i. 142.” The note appears to have been taken directly by Wallace from a letter Darwin sent to him on May 18, 1860: “Yesterday I heard from Lyell that a German Dr Schaffhausen has sent him a pamphlet published some years ago, in which same View is nearly anticipated but I have not yet seen this pamphlet” (CCD, 18 May 1860, to A. R. Wallace, n. 19. Letter 2807). The note was in reference to Schaaffhausen 1853. See James Marchant, ed. 1916. Alfred Russel Wallace Letters and Reminiscences. London: Cassell. Volume 2, p. 283 [Index]. Cited in Charles Darwin Online, F1592.2. 13. Darwin’s notice of Schaaffhausen’s later works was not to bolster anything he had written regarding Schaaffhausen’s transmutationist ideas, but rather to provide sources for his book Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)—​ Schaaffhausen’s later works were concerned primarily with primitive human skulls and prehistoric humans. Titles and Darwin’s light annotations may be found in the Cambridge University Library Darwin pamphlet collection, available on-​line at the “Darwin Manuscript Project” housed at the American Museum of Natural History, under the editorship of David Kohn and James Secord. 14. The editors of CCD state that Lyell’s note to Darwin was sent on May 15 and received by Darwin on May 17. This letter has not been found, but its content may be assumed from Darwin’s reply to it on May 18, 1860 (CCD, to C. Lyell, 18 May [1860], and n. 4. Letter 2806). The letter, however, includes no other information about Schaaffhausen. However, Darwin appears to have associated Schaaffhausen with someone who had “forestalled him,” even without having read anything by him at this time. He immediately adds to the quoted passage: “My Brother, who is very sagacious man, always said ‘You will find that some one will have been before you.’ I am at work at my larger work which I shall publish in separate volume. But for ill-​health and swarms of letters I get on very slowly.” 15. The editors of CCD in note 4 to this letter state: “There is an annotated copy in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–​CUL. Bound with the pamphlet is a manuscript translation of the section discussing the development of organic life (Schaaffhausen 1853, pp. 423–​4), possibly prepared for CD by Darwin’s governess, Camilla Ludwig.” I have been unable to locate either document in DPC-​CUL (CCD, to Lyell, 18 May 1860, n. 4. Letter 2806). 16. The editors of CCD, to Lyell, 6 June 1860, n. 9, draw the same inference. 17. It should be observed that this “quotation” from the Historical Sketch is in fact not an exact transcription, but rather a close paraphrase, but close enough in meaning, as may be seen from looking at the language in the Sketch. 18. Ernst Mayr (1982) translates the passage in question as follows: “The immutability of species which most scientists regard as a natural law is not proved, for there are no definite and unchangeable characteristics of the species, and the borderline between species and subspecies is wavering and uncertain. The entire creation appears to be a continuous series of organisms affected by generation and development” (p. 390, but without a page citation to Schaaffhausen’s work). 19. Author’s translation. The original French version is: [Lecoq was] Directeur du jardin botanique et du muséum d’histoire naturelle de Clermont-​Ferrand et doyen de la

370  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” faculté des sciences de la ville, il fut également vice-​président de la Société centrale d’agriculture du Puy-​de-​Dôme, professeur d’histoire naturelle. Contribue à populariser la classification des plantes, étudie les organes descriptifs et les végétauxutilisés pour le fourrage des animaux. Il étudie également la formation géologique de l’Auvergne et la formation des glaciers. Il est élu le 14 juillet 1837 à l’Académie des sciences, belles-​lettres et arts de Savoie, avec pour titre académique Correspondant.. Un jardin public et un muséum portent son nom à Clermont-​Ferrand. 20. Complete citations to Lecoq’s writings are:  1) Etudes sur la geographie botanique de l’Europe et en particuliere sur la vegetation du plateau centrale de la France, 9 volumes, Paris: J.B. Balliere, (1854–​1858); 2) De la fecundation naturalle et artificielle des vegetaux et de l’hybridisation, consideree dans ses rapports avec l’horticulture, l’agriculture, et la sylviculture (Paris, 1845); and 3) “Researches sur les varieties et les hybrids des Mirabilis Jalapa et M. Longifora, Revue Horticole, 4th series 2: 163–​171, 183–​5, 207–​15 (1853). 21. See n. 14; and Marginalia, pp. 488–​497. Ghiselin (2009) claims that Darwin finished reading this large work only in January 1862 (Charles Darwin Online, van Wyhe, A622, p. 61). 22. The passage Darwin quoted in French may be translated as: “One sees that our research on the fixity or variation of species leads us directly to ideas expressed by two justly celebrated men, Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire and Goethe.” 23. Darwin wrote to Hooker in November 1861 that he had seen an abstract of Lecoq’s magnum opus some time earlier, and that encounter is what prompted Darwin to order the entire nine-​volume set in 1861. Perhaps the abstract, rather than the work itself, is what led Darwin to include Lecoq in the first version of the Sketch, even before he had a chance to see the whole work.

References Ghiselin, Michael T. 2009. Darwin: A Reader’s Guide. Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences, no.155. Keyserling, Alexander Graf von, and J.H. Blasius. 1840. Die wirbelthiere Europa’s. Braunschweig. Brunswick: F. Vieweg und sohn. Keyserling, Alexander Graf von, and J.H. Blasius. 1846. Wissenschaftliche Beobachtungen auf einer Reise in das Petschora-​Land im Jahre 1843. St Petersburg. [Cited in: CD Online A4. Rutherford, H. W., 1908. Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin Now in the Botany School, Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] Keyserling, Alexander Graf von, J.H. Blasius, and P.  von Krusenstern. 1846. 1. Geognostisch-​Geographische Uebersicht des Petschora Landes. 1846. 2. Karte der Flüsse Petschora, &c. [Publisher not located]. [Cited in: CD Online A4. Rutherford, H. W., 1908. Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin now in the Botany School, Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] Lecoq, Henri.1845. De la fecundation naturalle et artificielle des vegetaux et de l’hybridisation, consideree dans ses rapports avec l’horticulture, l’agriculture, et la silviculture. Paris.

Keyserling, Schaafhausen, and Lecoq  371 Lecoq, Henri. 1853. “Note sur la succession des etres organises.” Bulletin geologique de la societe geologique de France. Series 2 , p10. Lecoq, Henri. 1853. “Researches sur les varieties et les hybrids des Mirabilis Jalapa et M. Longifora, Revue Horticole, Fourth Series 2: 163–​71, 183–​85, 207–​15. Lecoq, Henri. 1854–​1858. Etudes sur la geographie botanique de l’Europe et en particuliere sur la vegetation du plateau centrale de la France. 9 volumes. Paris: J.B. Balliere. Marchant, James, ed. 1916. Alfred Russel Wallace Letters and Reminiscences. London: Cassell. Vol. 2, p. 283 [Index]. [Cited in Charles Darwin Online, F1592.2.] Murchison, Roderick Impey Edouard de Verneuil, and Count Alexander von Keyserling. 1845. Géologie de la Russie d’Europe et des montagnes de l’Oural. 2 volumes: illustrations (some folded, some color), folded maps. London: J. Murray, Paris: P. Bertrand. Murray, Andrew. 1857–​1862. “On Mr Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species.” [Read 20 February 1860.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 4: 274–​91. Patrick Tort (ed). 1996. Dictionnaire du Darwinisme et de l' evolution. Paris:  Presses Universitaires. Schaaffhausen, Hermann. 1853. “Über beständigkeit und Umwandlung der Arten.” Verhandlungen des Naturhistorischen Vereines der preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens 10: 420–​51. Schaaffhausen, Hermann. 1868.” On the Primitive Form of the Human Skull.” The Anthropological Review 6 (23): 412–​31 van Whye, John. Charles Darwin Online F1452.2.

15

Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer. 1792–​1876 Among the original observations and “classes of facts” that Darwin wanted to explain in Origin, none, in his opinion, brought him “more satisfaction” than his insights on embryology. Many years after Origin first appeared in print Darwin recalled in his autobiography (1876): Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work, as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of the embryos of the same class. (Autobiography, p. 125)

How, in hindsight, did Darwin come to place such emphasis on a discovery that really was not his own? And, why embryology? The claim in the Autobiography is strange because it does not fit Darwin’s customary generosity in acknowledging predecessors when he looked back on the influences that contributed to the development of his own ideas. The recollection in the Autobiography appears to suggest that Darwin came upon his insights about embryology on his own. But that cannot be correct. He had been preceded by others, and made good on his debts on other topics in the Historical Sketch, mainly in the third English edition of Origin, in 1861. Of the many authorities he could have cited as influential for his important insights, he chose to mention in the Sketch only one embryologist, Karl Ernst von Baer. Von Baer, toward whom all zoologists feel so profound a respect, expressed about the year 1859 (see Prof. Rudolph Wagner, “Zoologisch.-​Anthropolologische Untersuchungen,” 1861, s. 51) his conviction, chiefly grounded on the laws of geographical distribution, that forms now perfectly distinct have descended from a single parent-​form. (Variorum, p. 69, line 68. 1:d)

The publication date of Wagner’s 1861 work helps explain why Darwin did not include von Baer in the Sketch prior to the fourth edition, in 1866: he had not read this source until after the third edition had already come out, in 1861. But Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Von Baer  373

Figure 15.1  von Baer

from his marginal notes we do not learn precisely when Darwin read it. It could have been as early as mid-​1861 or as late as 1865. On the other hand, von Baer was already by 1861 a well-​known figure among embryologists and other naturalists both on the continent and in England. Perhaps the best-​known of a new generation of naturalists who studied “development” (embryology) in the 1830s, he was professor of anatomy at the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He was an explorer of European Russia and Scandinavia, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a co-​founder of the Russian Geographical Society, and the first president of the Russian Entomological Society, all of which established him early on as a distinguished Baltic German scientist. We thus cannot say von Baer was an obscure figure in the science of his day. Darwin should have noticed him well before 1861, as apparently, he did. Darwin’s marginal notes to other authors make frequent reference to von Baer’s earliest works, although we find no entry in Darwin’s list of books he owned or read to anything written by von Baer himself (cf. Marginalia, pp. 625a–​b; 427f; 713h; 428c; 298b; 157a–​b; 831a; 11b, 176b, 620f, 654d, 753c; 357e; 831a–​b). Darwin’s friend and early supporter T.H. Huxley figures prominently in Darwin’s acquaintance with von Baer’s writings. Huxley was an early, vocal

374  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” champion—​believing von Baer had shown the way to an entirely new way of understanding the relation among species. He had been studying and translating von Baer’s works into English as early as 1853, and he let Darwin know in writing of his high admiration as early as 1858: I for one believe that a Scientific & logical Zoology & Botany are not at present possible—​for they must be based on sound Morphology—​a Science which has as yet to be created out of the old Comparative Anatomy—​& the new study of Development. When the mode of thought & speculation of Oken & Geoffroy S. Hilaire & their servile follower Owen,1 have been replaced by the principle so long ago inculcated by Caspar Wolff & Von Baer & Rathke2 —​& so completely ignored in this country & in France up to the last ten years—​we shall have in the course of a generation a science of Morphology & then a Scientific Zoology & Botany will flow from it as Corollaries. (CCD, [before 3 October 1857], from Huxley, and n. 4. Letter 2144)

Huxley’s admiration for von Baer’s works extended even further, as he shows in a letter he sent to Darwin on November 22, 1859, only days after he finished reading Origin, which had just come out. The letter was actually intended to convey to Darwin Huxley’s admiration for Darwin’s book, but he sets his praise for Origin in juxtaposition to the works of von Baer. We thus find in this letter Huxley’s impressions of the work of both men, and also Huxley’s new-​found determination to defend Darwin against what he predicted would be a negative and nasty reception of Origin among most other naturalists. He wanted to let Darwin know he had a strong ally in Huxley, if not in von Baer also. My Dear Darwin, I finished your book yesterday, a lucky examination having furnished me with a few hours of continuous leisure. Since I read Von Bär’s* essays, nine years ago, no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression upon me, and I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me. Nothing, I think, can be better than the tone of the book, it impresses those who know nothing about the subject. As for your doctrine, I am prepared to go to the stake, if requisite, in support of Chapter IX., and most parts of Chapters X., XI., XII., and Chapter XIII. [Chapter XIII on embryology] contains much that is most admirable, but on one or two points I enter a caveat until I can see further into all sides of the question.3 As to the first four chapters, I agree thoroughly and fully with all the principles laid down in them. I think you have demonstrated a true cause for the

Von Baer  375 production of species, and have thrown the onus probandi, that species did not arise in the way you suppose, on your adversaries. But I feel that I have not yet by any means fully realized the bearings of those most remarkable and original Chapters III., IV. and V., and I will write no more about them just now. (letter from Huxley, November 23 1859, reproduced in F. Darwin 1887, v. 2, pp. 231–​2)4

Huxley places von Baer at the forefront of all naturalists, not just embryologists, second only to Darwin in importance for advancing the cause of natural science. That must be considered the highest of praise, especially as it comes from the acute understanding of Huxley of the issues in question. Darwin was quick to show his gratitude to Huxley. He wrote back almost immediately: My Dear Huxley,—​Your letter has been forwarded to me from Down. Like a good Catholic who has received extreme unction, I  can now sing “nunc dimittis.” I should have been more than contented with one quarter of what you have said. Exactly fifteen months ago, when I put pen to paper for this volume, I had awful misgivings; and thought perhaps I had deluded myself, like so many have done, and I then fixed in my mind three judges, on whose decision I determined mentally to abide. The judges were Lyell, Hooker, and yourself. It was this which made me so excessively anxious for your verdict. I am now contented, and can sing my “nunc dimittis.” What a joke it would be if I pat you on the back when you attack some immovable creationists! My dear Huxley, I thank you cordially for your letter. Yours very sincerely, C.  Darwin. (letter to Huxley, November 25 1859, reproduced in F. Darwin 1887, v. 2, p. 233)

Huxley was not the only naturalist who was impressed with von Baer. He had already made a splash in England well before Huxley started to translate his works into English, in 1853. Several other British comparative zoologists had started paying attention to von Baer as early as the 1830s. The occasion of interest in his works seems to have been the famous Geoffroy-​Cuvier debates of the late 1820s. Several British zoologists were invested in this dispute and came to regard von Baer’s science work as either supporting or refuting their preferred position. The cast of characters in this controversy is impressive: Whewell, Barry, Carpenter, Chambers, and Owen, to mention only the most prominent. His reputation extended even to the United States, where Agassiz and Asa Gray had both taken stock of his writings in the early 1860s. Von Baer had visited Huxley during a trip to England late in the summer of 1859 prior to the publication of Origin. Huxley, who had learned of “the value

376  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” of development as the criterion of morphological views” from Baer’s writings, had translated into English several of Baer’s most important embryological texts, especially in his well-​known book Ueber Entwickelungsgsgeschichte der Thiere (On the Developmental History of Animals), of 1828, and other scientific contributions (see Huxley 1853). In short, Von Baer was a figure to reckon with by the early 1830s and was being noticed with admiration by other naturalists long before Darwin included him in the Sketch. In view of this background, and especially of von Baer’s reputation as a leading embryologist just as the discipline was opening new avenues of inquiry, it is somewhat surprising that Darwin paid him such slight notice. In Chapter XIII of Origin, Darwin devoted an entire section to “Embryology,” as he had already done in his 1844 “Essay.” By Darwin’s own admission, the findings of embryology bore significantly on his own theory. Yet, Darwin made no mention of von Baer by name in the first edition of Origin itself. Von Baer’s appearance came only later, in the 1866 edition of the Sketch.5 Darwin might be forgiven for neglecting von Baer in 1844 in his reflections on his theory of natural selection, the details of which were still being worked out in his thinking at that time. Even though von Baer had been publishing groundbreaking discoveries in embryology as early as 1828, his works were mainly known only to specialists in embryology until Huxley, who was deeply impressed by von Baer’s writings, started translating some of his scientific papers into English in 1853. Even then, however, it is not clear that Darwin connected von Baer to the important component of his theory about embryology. He was not oblivious to embryology; he seems only to have been oblivious to von Baer as a leading pioneer in this area of study. But by 1860 Darwin had come to a more complete appreciation of von Baer. By this time von Baer was being discussed by naturalists in printed sources in England and in Darwin’s correspondence. As early as 1858 Huxley noted to Darwin that von Baer, 1835 had made important findings on the function and development of the fish bladder: whether it was a flotation device or a breathing mechanism; or perhaps one was followed by the other (Letter 2381). The discovery did point in the direction of transmutation, but the discussion does not make the case explicit. The fish bladder issue, it must be said, was not Darwin’s main concern with von Baer either in 1858 or later. The larger issue for Darwin was where, in the first months after Origin appeared, he could find support among naturalists for his theory. He knew Agassiz was not a friend, but he was not quite sure about von Baer. By some unexplained lapse in his reading, he temporarily confused another naturalist, von Siebold, with von Baer, inserting the former name in a passage he soon came to realize should have referenced von Baer instead. He made a similar lapse of memory some months later by putting Agassiz’s name in a place in his

Von Baer  377 text he intended for von Baer. The episode shows that by late 1860 Darwin was still not entirely familiar with von Baer’s works. The confusion was cleared up in August when Lyell drew Darwin’s attention to the lapses. That confusion, in hindsight, was a small matter. Darwin’s question in late 1860 was still not about von Baer’s embryology, but about his support of Darwin’s theory. Darwin was becoming obsessed with this question. In the latter part of 1860, we find an explosion of interest in von Baer’s works in Darwin’s correspondence. Von Baer had, almost overnight, become for Darwin a champion of Darwin’s theory. Darwin confided to Lyell in August 1860 that von Baer is a “truly great” authority on the species question, outweighing in importance Agassiz and Owen combined (CCD, 7 August [1860], to Lyell, letter 2895; cf. CCD, to Hooker, 7 August [1860]. Letter 2892). Darwin pleaded with Hooker and Lyell to persuade von Baer to publish something—​anything—​that would show his support for Darwin’s theory.6 Darwin’s running theme about von Baer’s support for Origin between August and November 1860 continued with other friends. To Huxley, Darwin wrote in November: “Did I ever tell you that the great Von Baer goes a long way with us on Species? He has read my Book with great attention.” But even by then he had forgotten von Baer’s name: was it von Siebold, Agassiz, or maybe von Baer himself? Darwin confessed to forgetting who it was he claimed “would counterweigh Owen+Agassiz. I cannot imagine what [the] name was [because] I have become dotty [in my later years],” he confessed to Huxley (CCD, 22 November [1860], to Huxley, letter 2994; see also CCD, 16 November [1860], to Huxley. Letter 2986). From our dates of Darwin’s letters, it is hard to establish a high level of confidence that Darwin knew who von Baer was, let alone what he believed about transmutation, even as late as November 1860. During this pivotal moment in Darwin’s search for allies he had come under the impression that von Baer “goes a long way with us” (CCD, 11 August [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2895). Darwin’s source for this impression was Huxley, who had recently informed Darwin about von Baer’s interest in Origin, to the point that Huxley believed von Baer was thinking about publishing something favorable on the book for a German audience (CCD, 11 August [1860], to Lyell. Letter 2895). Just as he was writing to Lyell about his hopes for von Baer’s endorsement of Origin, Darwin was also writing to Gray with the same idea in mind, that von Baer might prove to be a useful ally, especially, Darwin thought, in his simmering disputes with Agassiz: Agassiz’s name, no doubt, is a heavy weight against us; but yesterday I heard that a man, whom I believe to be greater than Agassiz, viz Von Baer goes a long way (how far I know not) with me, & has spoken out publickly & will probably publish. R. Wagner has published, also, in Germany an abstract of Agassiz’s

378  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Essay on Classification,7 & says he believes the truth lies between us two; & this will make A[gassiz]. very savage, I shd. think.8 (CCD, 11 August [1860], to Gray. Letter 2896)

Darwin’s worries about the reception of his theory are here on full display. In August1860 he was trying to round up as much support as he could find. Von Baer was a leading contender in the pro-​Darwinian camp, especially among German naturalists, as far as Darwin could discern. This was a group whose support Darwin badly wanted, but, due to his admittedly poor skills in the language, he could never be sure about the level or extent of any support. Huxley was helpful here. He knew of von Baer’s writings firsthand and was competent in the language. No one brought Darwin closer to von Baer and his ideas than Huxley. Huxley, in fact, was perhaps more responsible for making British naturalists aware of von Baer than anyone else. Other naturalists had started to notice von Baer before Huxley started translating his books into English, but Huxley was the one who gave von Baer full-​throated approval and made sure Darwin learned what he needed to know. Darwin was quick to express his gratitude: Your note contained magnificent news & thank you heartily for sending it me.—​Von Baer weighs down with a vengeance all the virulence of Owen & weak arguments of Agassiz. If you write to Von Baer for Heaven sake tell him that we should think one nod of approbation on our side of the greatest value; & if he does write anything beg him to send us a copy; for I would try & get it translated & published in the Athenæum & in Silliman to touch up Agassiz.—​ By Jove how it would rile Owen! I am getting very spiteful towards that grand Seigneur. The other day he sent me a copy of one of his Reports!!! (CCD, 8 August 1[860], to Huxley. Letter 2893)

Agassiz’s opposition continued to grate on Darwin—​for reasons that would require a different study. But by August 1860 Darwin believed he had found an ally in von Baer who could out-​gun both Owen and Agassiz combined. In view of Darwin’s sudden interest in von Baer in August 1860, it is surprising that the two men did not correspond directly: almost all of the communication between them was mediated by Huxley. Huxley was no doubt Darwin’s source for the reference to Rudolph Wagner, 1861, from which Darwin took his information about von Baer for the Sketch. From Huxley, Darwin saw enough in von Baer’s writings to carve out a place for him in the Historical Sketch. The entry comes near the end of the Sketch, followed only by Darwin’s two final authors T.H. Huxley and J.D. Hooker who were included for reasons, examined later, that had nothing to do with embryology. Von Baer, by contrast, filled in a gap in

Von Baer  379 Darwin’s citations to previous writings. He apparently saw a need to include at least one embryologist, and von Baer filled the bill. That von Baer found a place in the Sketch is not much of a surprise. As early as 1844 Darwin was adding pieces of evidence to support his theory, and embryology always came toward the end of his musings. The decision of placement may have been guided by Darwin’s sense of the internal logic of his work. Or it may have been nothing more than a reflection on his part that he came upon von Baer late in his composition of the Sketch, adding him as something of an afterthought. This latter conjecture, however, only makes sense if Darwin had learned of von Baer’s embryological studies only after he published Origin in 1859.9 Where Darwin placed von Baer chronologically in the Sketch poses more of a question than why he included him. His custom was to place authors in the Sketch in the order of their first published works on species change, as far as Darwin could make out. If Darwin was following this protocol for von Baer, he apparently got his position wrong in the Sketch. He comes just before the last two authors, Huxley (1859) and Hooker (1859). Darwin’s date for von Baer is also 1859. It is true that 1859 is also the date of the Memoirs that made brief reference to von Baer. But the reference itself is to a work published by von Baer in 1837 (Memoirs, v. IX, 1859, p. 589). The problem here is that, while von Baer did continue publishing works on embryology and other scientific works into the 1860s, the work that interested Darwin most was apparently published much earlier. Huxley at least thought so, because he began translating von Baer into English in 1853. The details, then, are confusing. What is clear, though, is that Darwin, despite knowing of von Baer by name as early as the mid-​1840s, did not read anything written by him directly. His information, as noted, came from Wagner, whose book was published only in 1861, and from Huxley. Darwin’s annotations to Wagner’s work, as noted, are perplexing. Darwin cites a “[volume] X,” with page numbers, but we find no volume X or any pages that correspond to Darwin’s notation. Perhaps Darwin misread Wagner, or perhaps Wagner himself was not meticulous in his citations. We thus have two possibilities for how Darwin became acquainted with von Baer that were sufficient for Darwin to include him in the Sketch where he did—​ 1859. The first, and most likely, is that Darwin just borrowed information from Wagner, who published in 1861. Wagner may have given inaccurate information in his references to von Baer in his 1861 volume, in which case Darwin would have duplicated the error in the Sketch. The second—​very unlikely but open to possibility—​is that Darwin, after reading Wagner, went back on his own to the Memoirs of the St. Petersburg Academy, where he discovered a brief comment on von Baer in volume IX, which he then incorrectly copied as volume X.

380  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” Such details are of little interest, other than for historical accuracy. Yet, we still need to ask how Darwin discovered Wagner 1861 shortly after its publication. This work, recall, is Darwin’s only source for any mention of von Baer in any published work prior to his 1866 mention of von Baer in the Sketch, and Darwin is clear that Wagner was his source. Darwin does not give us any hint where he discovered this source. One again suspects Huxley, but no evidence for that exists. Moreover, Wagner’s 1861 Untersuchungen was really only a literature review, not a full-​blown analysis. His own position on the question Darwin had brought to the forefront of scientific discoveries was agnostic. He gave Darwin a few lines in his review, but did not see this contribution, even in 1861, as worthy of special attention or mention. Darwin is droned out in an honor roll of other naturalists who have mostly been forgotten. Although we cannot tell from our sources how Darwin came upon Wagner 1861, we may affirm that he did read it, at least some of it. A lightly annotated copy of the volume is in Cambridge University Library (CUL) (Marginalia, p. 831a). Darwin’s gloss includes a reminder to himself to “Quote Baer as believer in change” (in parentheses). This notation is followed by a reference, somewhat obscure, to an issue of the “St. Petersburg Memoirs,” presumably a reference to the 1859 issue of the Memoirs of the Academy of Science of St. Petersburg, volume IX. Darwin prefaces this brief entry with a reminder to himself about where in the volume the citation is to be found: “NB 51.” This signifies that Darwin made his page notation on the back cover of the volume to which he was referring, Wagner 1861. Darwin’s notations only raise questions about his source(s) for Wagner. The “NB 51” must refer to that page number in Wagner’s book, because that is the page number to which Darwin referred when he composed the Historical Sketch. The reference to the Memoirs of the Academy of Science of St. Petersburg must have been drawn from Wagner, although I cannot find a citation in Wagner that corresponds to Darwin’s marginal note on the Memoirs. In any case, Darwin’s note does not refer to anything he may have read firsthand published by von Baer in the journal Memoirs. All his information about von Baer for the Sketch must have come from Wagner. It is true that von Baer did publish in this journal (i.e., the Memoirs) in 1859—​ the date that concerns us. But there is no volume “X,” only volumes I–​IX. Volume IX is dated 1859 and contains Von Baer’s contributions. But they have nothing to say about Darwin’s interest in transmutation. Darwin displayed his uncertainty about von Baer’s insights in his marginal comments to Wagner in 1861: “I believe,” “I think,” and so forth. Darwin was just not certain about the date or title of von Baer. Every indication is that Darwin was taking his opinions about von Baer directly from Wagner and simply did not understand where Wagner got his information about von Baer. It is possible Wagner’s references to von Baer were inaccurate, or perhaps illegible, hence Darwin’s uncertainty.

Von Baer  381 Not much of this historical detail really matters for our key point of interest: How did Darwin learn about Wagner in 1861, to the point that he decided von Baer needed to be put into the Historical Sketch? Darwin leaves no trail of evidence. One point is clear, however: when Darwin decided to include von Baer in the Sketch, he took his information directly from his marginal notes to Wagner 1861. We know this because what Darwin wrote in these notes—​brief as they are—​is precisely, almost word for word, what he wrote in the Sketch: [Von Baer], to whom all zoologists feel so profound a respect in M. about year 1859 expresses his conviction, wholly grounded on the facts of geogh distribution, that forms, now perfectly distinct, have proceeded from a single parent form. (Marginalia, p. 831 a–​b; the quote from the Sketch is recorded above, p. 2 of this chapter)10

The marginal notes to Wagner 1861, recorded sometime by Darwin after his volume appeared and before Darwin wrote up his entry for von Baer for the Sketch for the fourth edition of Origin (1866 or before), leave no doubt about Darwin’s source for von Baer:  Wagner 1861, specifically page  51, as Darwin learned of it from Huxley. Huxley, however, was not the first person from whom Darwin learned about von Baer. A number of British zoologists had already caught the scent of this important new contributor as early as the 1840s: Barry, Vogt, Carpenter, Owen, and maybe others.11 Darwin’s main source prior to Huxley’s intervention was Carpenter. Darwin wrote to him in January 1860 thanking him for his information about von Baer. The CCD editors give the important details. “Carpenter was one of the leading figures in comparative anatomy and physiology. He discussed in great detail the embryological doctrines of v.B. in the fourth edition of his Principles of comparative physiology I (1854).” Darwin read it carefully in 1855.12 If we need an original source for Darwin’s familiarity with von Baer’s ideas, it is Carpenter 1855, not Huxley 1858. Despite the conclusive evidence for Darwin’s sources for von Baer, some puzzles remain. The first is how Darwin learned about Wagner 1861 in the first place. Darwin left no clues, but one should not rule out Huxley, always one to keep Darwin apprised of new developments in zoology on the continent. The second is whether Darwin actually read Wagner 1861 himself, or instead borrowed someone else’s translation of the relevant page. It is hard to tell from Darwin’s marginal notes:  they are extremely brief, and they show no indication that Darwin read anything other than page 51. We may only guess what happened: Someone (perhaps Huxley) alerted Darwin to a passage in Wagner 1861, referring specifically to a passage on page 51. Darwin opened the book to that page (he did own a copy), and took what he could discern about von Baer

382  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” directly from Wagner. No other page is annotated. It is almost surprising that Darwin did not annotate the book more heavily. Wagner had reviewed much of the recent literature, giving short interpretations of his own, including a gloss on none other than a new, important work on the “origin of species” by one Charles Darwin! However Darwin came to learn about von Baer’s embryology, what seems to have concerned him more than an accurate transcription from a primary source—​such as von Baer himself—​was that his earliest readers and critics did not give him sufficient credit for noticing the importance of embryology for supporting his theory. Hindsight is not perfect, but it is a suitable starting point. In 1876, when Darwin composed his Autobiography, giving his by now large audience of readers and critics some idea of how he recalled his beliefs as they took shape, he made a revealing comment about how his ideas about embryology in particular were conceived and received. He felt his insights were not fully appreciated by his readers: No notice of this point [about the resemblance of embryos] was taken, as far as I remember, in the early reviews of the Origin, and I recollect expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa Gray. I had materials for a whole chapter on the subject, and I ought to have made the discussion longer; for it is clear that I failed to impress my readers; and he who succeeds in doing so deserves, in my opinion, all the credit. (Autobiography, 1958, p. 125)

Darwin must have been referring to a letter he wrote to Gray in 1860, 16 years before Darwin’s recollection in his Autobiography of what he had written so many years earlier: Embryology is to me by far the strongest single class of facts in favor of a change of form, & not one, I think, of my reviewers has alluded to this. Variation not coming on at very early age, & being inherited at not very early corresponding period, explains, as it seems to me, the grandest of all facts in Nat. History, or rather in Zoology, viz., the resemblance of Embryos. (CCD, 10 September [1860], to Gray. Letter 2910)

What may have prompted Darwin to recall in 1860 von Baer’s discoveries in embryology two decades earlier? The answer is probably a letter Huxley sent to Darwin on August 8, 1860, that included a note from von Baer to Huxley that was perhaps intended to be sent on to Darwin. Whether that is the case or not, Darwin did receive von Baer’s note, written in French. The editors of CCD provide a translation (the original note, in French, may be found at CCD, 8 August 1860, from Huxley, n. 2. Letter 2891):

Von Baer  383 And besides, I find that you [i.e. Huxley] are still writing reviews. You have written a critique of Mr. Darwin’s work of which I have found only fragments in a German journal.13 I have forgotten the terrible name of the English journal in which your review appeared. In any case I cannot find the journal here. As I am much interested in Mr. Darwin’s ideas, on which I have spoken publicly and on which I shall perhaps publish something, you would oblige me infinitely if you would send me what you have written on these ideas. I have expressed the same ideas on the transformation of types or origin of species as Mr. Darwin. But it is only on zoological geography that I rely. You will find in the last chapter of the treatise “Ueber Papuas und Alfuren” that I speak of this very positively without knowing that Mr. Darwin was concerning himself with this subject. (CCD, 6 August 1860, from Huxley, and nn. 5 and 6. Letter 2891)

Huxley was not able to find the original article from von Baer, “Ueber Papuas und Alfuren.” He promised Darwin he would try to track it down, apparently without success. In a letter written to an unidentified correspondent on 2 August [1866] (Calendar no. 5170), Darwin stated that he had only seen an extract of this work, presumably referring to the “Ueber Papuas” article.14 It is not clear what Darwin meant here by “an extract,” or anything he found of value in it. The date of the letter (1866) suggests a fairly late encounter by Darwin with this extract. 15 The important conclusion to be drawn from the von Baer/​Huxley correspondence in August 1860 is that von Baer, now more familiar with Darwin’s works after reading Origin, was asserting a claim to have discovered Darwin’s theory years before Darwin did. In a subsequent letter to Huxley (Huxley papers MS 10.188, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives) von Baer repeated his intention to publish something on Darwin’s theory, but no review ever materialized. (See also CCD letter to T. H. Huxley, 2 December [1860]. Letter 3003.) Von Baer did not publish a full account of his views on Origin until much later (1871), and it was a negative opinion. Darwin, believing he had found a strong supporter in von Baer in 1860, came to see after the publication of Descent in 1871, that von Baer was in opposition.16 Presumably, by then, it was too late to remove von Baer from the Sketch. But in 1859–​1860, Darwin should be forgiven in thinking von Baer would be an important ally in support of his theory. Von Baer did in fact write an ethnographic work in 1859 in which he seemed to come out in favor of a transmutationist hypothesis. The editors of CCD frame his argument in the following terms: In this ethnographic work, Baer addressed the species question, stating that the geographical distribution of certain species seemed to indicate a relationship of ancestry. He wrote that “it seems apparent from the distribution of animals that also many such species that are now separated and reproduce were not

384  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” originally separate, that therefore from varieties they have become, systematically speaking, specifically different species.” (Translated from von Baer 1859, p. 343; CCD, 6 August 1860, from Huxley, n. 6. Letter 2891)17

This statement, drawing from von Baer 1859, does suggest a decidedly evolutionist viewpoint. Darwin would not be leaping to conclusions if he found von Baer in the early days following publication of Origin to be a friend and ally. However, the timing of von Baer’s 1859 contribution to the species question is odd. It establishes (or attempts to establish) his priority over Darwin and claims at the same time he had no idea Darwin was working on a similar project. Darwin overlooked von Baer’s claim to priority—​it is doubtful Darwin ever read or even knew of von Baer’s 1859 work until much later—​but instead was hoping von Baer would support his own theory in writing. Darwin was sufficiently convinced that von Baer would see Darwin’s originality that he felt nearly assured von Baer would write a public statement supporting Darwinian natural selection. Darwin, although not certain about von Baer’s opinions about the theory spelled out in Origin in 1859, received strong encouragement from Huxley that von Baer’s works were at the forefront of a new science of zoology and that were in essential agreement with Darwin. This news came even before Huxley read Origin. As early as 1857, Huxley was effusive in praise of von Baer in his promotion of this new name in the growing field of embryology. As seen earlier, Huxley predicted in 1857 that von Baer’s embryological studies would open up an entirely new scientific field of morphology, that would be followed in short order by a new, more rigorously scientific botany and zoology (CCD, [before 3 October 1857], from Huxley. Letter 2144).18 Darwin was gratified by this news, the more so since Huxley became increasingly vocal in his endorsement of Darwin’s views as he learned more. By 1863 Huxley had decided that Darwin’s gift to natural science not only rivalled but surpassed von Baer’s, not to mention most other naturalists. As the editors of CCD note: In the last lecture of the series [given in 1863],19 Huxley examined CD’s method of inquiry in Origin, and concluded (T. H. Huxley 1863, pp. 156–​7) by comparing CD’s work to that of Georges Cuvier (Cuvier1817) and Karl Ernst von Baer (Baer 1828–​37): “Mr. Darwin’s work is the greatest contribution which has been made to biological science since the publication of the ‘Regne Animal’ of Cuvier, and since that of the ‘History of Development,’ of Von Baer. I believe that if you strip it of its theoretical part it still remains one of the greatest encyclopædias of biological doctrine that any one man ever brought forth; . . . it is destined to be the guide of biological and psychological speculation for the next three or four generations.” (CCD, 10 [January, 1863], to Huxley, and n. 4. Letter 3852)

Von Baer  385 Why Huxley delayed publishing this ringing endorsement of Darwin’s theory until 1863 cannot be known. He had already displayed his Darwinian colors much earlier, as Darwin knew.20 By the latter part of August 1860 Darwin was writing to his friends about von Baer’s support, drawing mainly from what he had learned from Huxley: I have just had note from Huxley that Von Baer goes a great way with me. It seems that he has just written on subject, from Geograph. Distribution grounds, before having read my Book. Von Baer counterweighs Owen + Agassiz. The latter has attacked me fiercely but not well. (CCD, 7 August [1860], to J.D. Hooker. Letter 2892)

No hint here that Darwin doubted von Baer’s support. But all the encouragement came from Huxley, not from von Baer himself. A mere two days later, after the letter just quoted, Darwin was now convinced more than ever that von Baer was on his side. Not only was he going to support him, but would do so in public. He wrote to Huxley on August 8, 1860, in a letter reproduced above, p. 11, urging Huxley to write to von Baer, asking for a letter of approbation of Darwin’s theory. An arcane point, no doubt, but Darwin’s wish for von Baer to publish in the Athenaeum and Silliman’s Journal was an arrow pointed directly at Agassiz. These were two journals in which Agassiz made his name, the first a British magazine, the second published in the United States. A counter-​assault in those two journals would count as a bigger score for Darwin than anything published on the continent. And, by association, Owen would be brought down to size at the same blow. Despite the private wars going on here, Darwin still thought something in writing from von Baer would do a great deal to help his cause in promoting his theory. And he continued to attach von Baer’s potential support to an implicit attack on Agassiz. Darwin expressed some of his feelings to Gray, again in mid-​August  1860: Agassiz’s name, no doubt, is a heavy weight against us; but yesterday I heard that a man, whom I believe to be greater than Agassiz, viz., von Baer goes a long way (how far I know not) with me, & has spoken out publicly and will probably publish. R. Wagner has published, also, Germany an abstract of Agassiz’s Essay on Classification, & says he believes the truth lies between us two; & this will make Ag. very savage, I shd. think. (CCD, 11 August [1860], to Gray. Letter 2896)21

Agassiz seems always to have been a particular thorn in Darwin’s side, as we have seen several times before. Recruiting von Baer for the Darwinian cause, Darwin

386  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” believed, would therefore be a particular triumph. But the hoped-​for support never really did materialize. Quite to the contrary, von Baer became a particularly determined critic of Darwinism, as we have seen. It remains only to ask what, in particular, Darwin found of value in von Baer’s theorizing about species. In attempting this assessment, we need to bear in mind that, by the time he completed writing Origin, Darwin had evidently read nothing written by von Baer himself. It is even doubtful that he had read anything written by von Baer before including him in the Historical Sketch, in the fourth (1866) edition of Origin. He drew his information about von Baer from two main sources: Huxley’s correspondence and the synopsis of the writings of previous naturalists written by Rudolph Wagner.22 Darwin’s lack of direct familiarity with the works of von Baer seems to have only one exception: a note written by von Baer to Huxley on August 6, 1860, written in French, that Huxley sent along to Darwin shortly afterward (quoted earlier). This letter, it is true, contains valuable information about von Baer’s views, but it is relatively brief (one page), and cannot be taken as a complete exposition, as, for example, a journal essay or book might have been. Darwin learned perhaps even less about von Baer from Wagner 1861. In this short essay (52 pages) Wagner discussed the views of a number of earlier naturalists (including a paragraph on Darwin’s Origin), but he devotes no more than a page to von Baer’s ideas. Darwin did read and annotate this book, but only the short section on von Baer, on page 51. This is Darwin’s source for what he included in the Sketch, and what he has to say is extremely brief, as shown earlier. The brevity of Darwin’s entry reflects the brevity of Wagner’s account, but is even more compressed than what Wagner had to say. In short, Darwin’s familiarity with von Baer was almost entirely second-​hand, and confined to a few sentences here and there in letters from Huxley and the paragraph at the end of Wagner’s book. Nevertheless, we may piece together what Darwin learned from his sources, in particular what he found of value in von Baer’s earlier writings and thus why Darwin decided to put him in the Sketch. The key question for Darwin was whether embryology would shed any light on, or provide any support for, his theory of descent with modification by natural selection. To Darwin, von Baer seemed to be arguing that it did both, at least in a limited way. Von Baer’s basic argument was that embryology showed “development,” which to him meant that while many embryos are indistinguishable in the earliest stages of life, as they progress they begin to diverge from one another. The inference was clear: embryonic development suggests a common origin of many species, leading to the conclusion that species that are distinct in the adult form have descended from a common ancestor—​the one discovered in the earliest embryonic phase of development. As development progresses, this common ancestor begins to branch into the multiplicity of species that we observe in the

Von Baer  387 adult forms. Darwin expressed the idea in Origin in the following terms in his Chapter XIII, on morphology and embryology: It has already been casually remarked that certain organs in the individual, which when mature become widely different and serve for different purposes, are in the embryo exactly alike. The embryos, also, of distinct animals within the same class are often strikingly similar: a better proof of this cannot be given, than a statement made by Von Baer, namely, that “the embryos of mammalia, of birds, lizards, and snakes, probably also of chelonia, are in their earliest states exceedingly like one another, both as a whole and in the mode of development of their parts; so much so, in fact, that we can often distinguish the embryos only by their size. In my possession are two little embryos in spirit, whose names I have omitted to attach, and at present I am quite unable to say to what class they belong. (Variorum, p. 685, lines 234:c-​234.1–​4:c)

This statement does not suggest that von Baer had anticipated anything like “natural selection” as a mechanism of species transformation, but it could well be taken to suggest transmutation by means of a different mechanism:  the branching of adult species forms from embryonic ancestors that in all essential respects were identical. For von Baer, the causal factor that could explain this divergence was the Lamarckian factor of “external conditions,” although we find no hint in von Baer’s writings that he was influenced in his ideas by Lamarck’s writings. Von Baer expressed his belief in transmutation in a letter he sent to Huxley shortly before August 6, 1860, reproduced earlier, p. 19. Huxley sent the original letter to Darwin on August 6, and Darwin promptly inserted sentences in Origin Chapter XIII in the third, 1861 edition of his book, with explicit attribution to von Baer, as documented earlier. But Darwin had much earlier, in 1857, made notations—​perhaps based on Huxley’s translation of von Baer’s early embryological studies (see Huxley 1853)—​that he presumably kept for later use in Origin. Von Baer is again mentioned by name, and again Darwin associated embryological development with species transmutation. He again is somewhat vague on von Baer’s precise mechanism—​environmental conditions acting on embryos—​but he is clearer than in Origin that, even if embryological development might be regarded as a cause of species transformation (and Darwin seems to suggest it might very well be), this would be a rare occurrence even on the most optimistic assumptions. Here is his notation in full: Suppose that those slight modifications (never mind at what period caused) «by which ‹one› they make final great difference») first appeared «according»

388  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” to some such law, that 1/​100,00 ‹could be seen› first appeared in «fully» mature animals & 1/​100,000 cd just be detected at some very early period of embryonic life—​all the vast remainder «gradually increasing in number from these two extremes & preserved» ‹appearing first› in «some»intermediate periods, ‹are more or less condensed into some one «intermediate» part›. Then after ‹100›,000 «‹99›100» changes to embryo before supposed period wd not be «‹at all› only just» affected —​at subsequent periods very little affected, but at same period young growing animal considerably affected, & mature animal alone receiving full complement of change.—​But often ten times 100,000 changes, to embryo at same very early period would have been slightly affected at this very early period.—​Whence it follows, that if comparing Dog & Pig, there has been a greater number of modification from the common analogous form of common species, whence they started, than there has been Pig & Sheep, then the embryos of these latter will have been modified at less early period.—​I do not suppose that the law is as I have put it-​-​the modification of some part very likely effects embryo more than others.—​On this scheme we need not consider period of branching off, which will I believe go with time, as selection & extinction must take time.—​v. von Baer in Scientific memoirs—​The above explains period of Branching off of fish & Mammals &c.—​But can it be applied to organs in same animal. Brullé says so —​Huxley has [one word illegible] as false.—​ [one word illegible] may be in later part of change. (CUL-​DAR Cambridge University Library DAR 205.6: 68r-​v. NS II Embryology, 55 Note: Oct 18-​1857)

From these brief fragments, we may piece together the main elements of what is sometimes referred to as “von Baer’s law of embryology.” It may be parsed into several related propositions. First, it is a systematic refutation of what is often referred to as the “Serres-​Meckel” law, or the “law of recapitulation.” According to this “law,” which was widely accepted at the time von Baer wrote, the embryo of a higher animal form resembles the adult of another, “lower” animal form, such as one less evolved. Von Baer denied this was so. Instead, for von Baer, the resemblance is limited only to the earliest embryos of the various forms. These are indeed often identical, or at least indistinguishable from one another, but with development, divergence in form quickly becomes apparent. In addition, von Baer argued that general structural relations are formed before the most specific appear. When more specific characters begin to emerge in embryonic development, the form of any given embryo does not converge upon other definite forms, but separates itself from them. Finally, it is the more specific differences among developing embryos that accounts for the species diversity we observe among adult forms.23 We thus see that from his studies of comparative embryology, Baer had believed in the transmutation of species, but in a limited way. He was not arguing

Von Baer  389 that higher forms “evolved” from lower forms, but only that one can account for the divergence of forms by referring to the increasing specialization of parts as embryos develop. This specialization of parts, in turn, could be accounted for by reference to the diverse “needs” of organisms in diverse environmental settings. In effect, von Baer was proposing a teleological theory of change:  embryos adjusting themselves through increased specialization of parts to enable them to survive in a wide array of distinct environmental conditions. This is not a Darwinian theory of evolution, much less a theory of natural selection, but a theory of purposeful (if not conscious) adaptation on the part of organisms to meet survival needs posed by their local environmental conditions. Indeed, later in his career von Baer flatly rejected the theory of natural selection proposed by Charles Darwin, on a variety of grounds. He believed the empirical evidence for Darwin’s theory was entirely deficient. He was troubled by the “materialistic,” even atheistic implications of Darwin’s theory. And he was distressed that Darwin’s theory left no room for purposeful adaptations by developing embryos to local conditions. These reservations were not spelled out by von Baer until long after Origin was first published, but as time moved along von Baer became increasingly vocal and insistent that Darwin got the main contours of the natural history of organisms entirely wrong. It is surprising that even in 1872, when Darwin understood von Baer’s position on transmutation more clearly, he continued to reserve a spot in Origin proper and the Historical Sketch for von Baer at all.

Notes 1. Huxley associated Richard Owen’s methodology with Lorenz Oken’s Naturphilosophie and with the philosophical anatomy of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-​ Hilaire (see Desmond 1982 and di Gregorio 1984). 2. The study of the developmental history of organisms (Entwicklungsgeschichte) that had begun to flourish in Germany owed its origin to the work in embryology of Caspar Friedrich Wolff, Karl Ernst von Baer, and Martin Heinrich Rathke. 3. The * that immediately follows the name of von Baer points to a footnote inserted by Francis Darwin, the editor of the volume containing this and other letters: “Karl Ernst von Baer, b. 1792, d. at Dorpat 1876—​one of the most distinguished biologists of the century. He practically founded the modern science of embryology” (Darwin 1887, v. 2, p. 232). 4. Huxley goes on to add an affirmation of his readiness to defend Darwin against all predictable opposition: “I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse and misrepresentation which, unless I greatly mistake, is in store for you. Depend upon it you have earned the lasting gratitude of all thoughtful men. And as to the curs which will bark and yelp, you must recollect

390  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” that some of your friends, at any rate, are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often and justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead. I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness” (Darwin 1887, v. 2, p. 232). 5. Darwin did add passages to Chapter XIII of the third (1861) and later editions of Origin on the advancement of organization and structure by natural selection. This was several years before he included von Baer in the Sketch, 1866. He cited Karl Ernst von Baer’s as the best standard of showing advancement or “highness”: according to von Baer, advancement or “highness” was related to the amount of differentiation of different parts of an adult organism and to their degree of specialization with regard to function (see, for example, Variorum, p. 221, line 382.8:c; pp. 685–​86, lines 234:c-​ 234.1–​4:c; cf. CCD, 1 November 1867, from Charles Kingsley, and n. 3. Letter 5664). 6. Darwin’s conviction that he had a strong ally in von Baer was misguided. In the years following publication of Origin von Baer became increasingly vocal in his opposition to Darwin’s theory, on a variety of grounds, despite some quasi-​Darwinian leanings. From his vigorous and lengthy assaults on Darwin’s theory, one might even conclude that he was the leader of the anti-​Darwinian “movement” among naturalists in the late 1860s to mid-​1870s. Valuable details may be found in Vucinich (1988, pp. 191–​8). 7. In the article, Rudolph Wagner discussed points relating to the species question brought forward by Agassiz in the first volume of Agassiz 1857–​1862, reprinted separately as Agassiz 1859. Wagner received a letter from Darwin in response to his pamphlet, a passage from which Wagner later published (Wagner 1862, p. 167): “Although You are far from agreeing with me I thank You by heart for the liberal and most kind way in which You allude to it. All that I can hope and expect is, that my views should be fairly considered.” 8. Darwin repeated the sentiment, “Agassiz [will be] savage,” in his 11 August letter to Lyell (CCD, letter 2895), in reference to the favorable reviews of Origin that were starting to appear in journals in England, the United States, and on the continent. Darwin points out (again) to Lyell that von Baer “goes a long way with us” and hopes to see something in writing “soon” from him about Origin. That review, to Darwin’s regret, failed to materialize. 9. Darwin must have had some familiarity with von Baer’s name as early as 1845. That is the date of Wagner’s Elements of the Comparative Anatomy of Invertebrate Animals, translated by A. Tulk, as recorded by Darwin in his Reading Notebooks (CCD, v. 4, 119:17a). Darwin’s entry is given as April 10, 1846, with only the comment “half-​way through.” On the other hand, Wagner’s volume is sparse on information about von Baer—​not much more than citations to his works from the 1820s. 10. Darwin’s marginal note to Wagner 1861 reads in full:  [Notes on Wagner Z-​A U 1861 [CUL, S, I]. “NB 51 (Quote Baer as believer in change) I believe in X Vol of St Petersburgh Memoirs see p. 44 apparently 1859 Memoirs of the Acad of Sci in St Petersburg 51 V[on] B[aer] to whom all zoologists feel so profound a respect in M[emoirs?] about yr. 1859 expresses his conviction, wholly grounded on the facts of geoph distribution, that forms, now perfectly distinct, have proceeded from a single parent form” (Marginalia, p. 831a-​b). It is notable that Darwin did not include anything in the Sketch about the Memoirs of the St. Petersburg Academy as a source.

Von Baer  391 11. CCD, volume 4, Appendix II. Darwin had learned of von Baer’s embryology in the late 1830s-​early 1840s. The editors’ note: “[Darwin] adopted embryology as a methodological tool for revealing homologies (along with Robert Brown, Milne-​Edwards, Owen, and Martin Barry), through whose works embryological development began to enter discussions of biological classification” (Ospovat 1976; Richards 1987; Appel 1987). “[Darwin] was most influenced by Milne Edwards, 1844, [his volume] heavily annotated in 1846 by Darwin” (CCD, pp. 389–​94). 12. “[Carpenter] was one of the leading figures in comparative anatomy and physiology. He discussed in great detail the embryological doctrines of Karl Ernst von Baer in the fourth edition of his Principles of Comparative Physiology (Carpenter 1854). CD owned a copy of this work (Darwin Library–​CUL) and studied it carefully in 1855” (CCD, 6 January 1860, to Carpenter, and n. 5, letter 2641; see also CCD, vol. 4, App. IV, 128: 12; and CCD, 14 December 1859, to Hooker. Letter 2583). 13. The editors of CCD suggest that Baer may be referring to a notice of Origin that appeared in the Archiv für Naturgeschichte (Wagner 1860)  in a report on recent works in general zoology and the natural history of man prepared by Rudolph Wagner. Von Baer’s reference to Huxley’s review could not have been to his long review that appeared in the February 1860 volume of Westminster Review because von Baer is explicit that the review appeared in a “German journal.” In addition to Darwin’s book, Wagner also discussed Louis Agassiz’s 1859 Essay on Classification and von Baer’s essay ‘Über Papuas und Alfuren’ (von Baer 1859), noting that each work dealt with the question of the origin of species (Wagner 1860a, pp. 2–​7). 14. Von Baer perhaps refers to Huxley’s (1860a) review of Origin published in the Westminster Review. 15. The best clue to understanding what Darwin meant by the “extract” comes in a letter he sent in 1866 to an unknown recipient: “Although you tell me not to write I must have the pleasure of thanking you for your never failing kindness in remembering what interests me. I have not seen Bäers paper, but I read long extracts in one of Wagner’s papers after publishing my historical sketch: (CCD, 2 August [1866], to? and n. 3. Letter 5170). The CCD editors suggest that Darwin refers to “Über Papuas und Alfuren” by Karl Ernst von Baer (Von Baer 1859). Extracts of the paper appeared in Zoologisch-​Anthropologische Untersuchungen, I  by Rudolph Wagner (Wagner 1861, pp. 50–​2). The letter does not shed much additional light on what we have already seen, except for the date. If 1866 is the correct year of this letter, the inference should be that Darwin did not read Wagner 1861 before 1865 or 1866—​well after Wagner had published it. 16. Von Baer, who conceived of nature in teleological terms, eventually became an outspoken opponent of Darwin’s theory. See Oppenheimer 1959; Ospovat 1981; and Vucinich 1989. 17. Karl Ernst von Baer, 1859, “Über Papuas und Alfuren. Ein Commentar zu den beiden ersten Abschnitten der Abhandlung ‘Crania Selecta ex Thesauris Anthropologicus Academiae Imperialis Petropolitanae.’ ” Mémoires de l’Académie Impériale des Sciences naturelles de Saint-​Pétersbourg, Sixth Series 8: 269–​346.

392  Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” 18. For Huxley’s indebtedness to von Baer’s embryological interpretation of the type concept, see L. Huxley (1900, vol.1: p. 163) and di Gregorio (1984, pp. 26–​34). 19. Between November 10 and December 15, 1862, Huxley delivered six lectures at the Museum of Practical Geology in London, which were transcribed by the shorthand writer J. Aldous Mays and published in six parts by Robert Hardwicke in 1862; they were subsequently bound together and sold as a separate volume (T.H. Huxley 1863a; see Huxley 1860c). Huxley sent the first three parts with his letter to Darwin of December 2, 1862 (CCD, letter 3841); for Darwin’s comments, see letters to Huxley CCD, 7 December [1862], letter 3848; 18 December [1862], letter 3866; and 28 December [1862], letter 3878. Darwin’s annotated copies of the six parts of Huxley 1863a are in the Darwin Library–​CUL (see Marginalia, 1: 425; and CCD, 10 January 1863, n. 2. Letter 3852). 20. Huxley had translated von Baer 1828 in 1853, claiming to Darwin, in reference to Origin, “no work has made so great an impression on me [since von Baer] and I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me.” In 1853, Huxley published an English translation of selections from two of von Baer’s works, including Scholion V of his Ueber die Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere (1828) (translated by Huxley in 1853). For Huxley’s indebtedness to von Baer’s embryological interpretation of the type concept, see L. Huxley (1900, vol 1: p. 163); and di Gregorio (1984, pp.  26–​34) (CCD, 23 November 1859, from Huxley, and n.  1. Letter 2544). 21. Gray thought Darwin should use von Baer instead of Agassiz in Origin and Historical Sketch. Darwin agreed: “I shamefully blundered—​v.B is a better authority.” Darwin removed Agassiz in the third edition and put von Baer in his place (Variorum, pp. 685–​6, lines 234–​234.y:f). This passage had to do with the proper identification of a certain vertebrate embryo: Was it that of a mammal, reptile or bird? (The anecdote is related in Huxley’s 1853 translation of von Baer 1823, pp. 186–​7; cf. CCD, [8 or 9 Feb. 1860], to Gray, n. 5. Letter 2701). 22. Ospovat 1976, pp. 12–​3 and n. 33 argues that Darwin also learned something of von Baer’s embryology from William B. Carpenter’s Principles of Comparative Physiology, published in 1854 and read by Darwin in 1855.The only reference to von Baer in Darwin’s marginal notes to Carpenter that I can find is a brief comment, “I have misunderstood von Baer” (Marginalia, p. 157 a–​b), but that is sufficient to establish some indebtedness to Carpenter in Darwin’s understanding. 23. A thorough and lucid discussion of von Baer’s embryology, contrasting it with the recapitulation theory, is found in Ospovat (1976, pp. 1–​28).

References Carpenter, William Benjamin. 1854. Principles of Comparative Physiology. 4th edition. London: John Churchill. Darwin, Francis, ed. 1887. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. (Available at CD Online, van Wyhe, ed., F1452.2).

Von Baer  393 Di Gregorio, Mario A. 1984. T.H. Huxley’s Place in Natural Science. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Huxley, Leonard. 1900. Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. New York: D. Appleton and Co. Huxley, T.H. 1853. “Fragments Relating to Philosophical Zoology. Selected from the Works of K.E. von Baer.” In Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of Science, and Foreign Journals: Natural History, edited by Arthur Henfrey and T.H. Huxley, pp.176–​238. London: Taylor and Francis. [Huxley, T.H.], 1860a. “Darwin on the ‘Origin of Species,’ ” Westminster Review. New Series 17: 541–​70. Huxley, T.H. 1860b. [Read 14 May 1860.] On the Study of Zoology. In Lectures Addressed to Teachers on Preparation for Obtaining Science Certificates and the Method of Teaching a Science Class. Second Series [Reprinted in T. H. Huxley 1870.] Huxley, T.H. 1863a. Professor Huxley’s lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons. The lectures on the vertebrate skull. Medical Times and Gazette n.s. 26:  607–​10, 633–​ 5; 27:  1–​6, 57–​8, 107–​10, 189–​92, 371–​4, 425–​9, 475–​8, 529–​31, 579–​80, 607–​9, 633–​6,  663–​8. Louis Agassiz. 1857–​1862. Contributions to the natural history of the United States. Oppenheimer, Jane. 1959. “An Embryological Enigma in the Origin of Species.” In Forerunners of Darwin: 1745–​1859, Chapter 11, edited by Bentley Glass et al, pp. 292-​ 322, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ospovat, Dov. 1976. “The Influence of Karl Ernst von Baer’s Embryology, 1828–​1859: A Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen’s and William B. Carpenter’s ‘Palaeontological Application of ‘Von Baer’s Law.’ ” Journal of the History of Biology 9: 1–​28. Von Baer, Karl Ernst. 1828. Ueber Entwickelungsgsgeschichte der Thiere. Koenigsberg: Borntraeger. Von Baer, Karl Ernst. 1835. Untersuchungen über die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Fische nebst einem Anhange über die Schwimmblase. Koenigsberg: Bortraeger. Von Baer, Karl Ernst. 1859. “Über Papuas und Alfuren. Ein Commentar zu den beiden ersten Abschnitten der Abhandlung “Crania Selecta ex Thesauris Anthropologicus Academiae Imperialis Petropolitanae.” Mémoires de l’Académie Impériale des Sciences naturelles de Saint-​Pétersbourg, Sixth Series 8: 269–​346. Von Baer, Karl Ernst. 1864–​1873. Reden gehalten in wissenschaftlichen Versammlungen und kleinere Aufsätze vermischten Inhalts. St. Petersburg. [Vol. 1, 1864; vol. 2, 1871; vol. 3, 1873.] Von Baer, Karl Ernst. 1876. Studien aus der eschichte der Naturwissenschaften. St. Petersburg: Schmitzdorf. Vucinich, Alexander. 1988. Darwin in Russian Thought. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, pp. 92–​99. Wagner, Rudolph. 1860. “Bericht über die Arbeiten in der allgemeinen Zoologie und der Naturgeschichte des Menschen im Jahre 1859.” Archiv für Naturgeschichte 26 (part 2): 1–​18. Wagner, Rudolph. 1861. Zoologisch-​anthropologische Untersuchungen, I.  Göttingen: Dieterichschen Buchhandlung.

Epilogue T.H. Huxley and J.D. Hooker

Darwin concluded the Historical Sketch with a brief mention of two authors to whom he owed an especially large intellectual and emotional debt: Thomas Henry Huxley and Joseph Dalton Hooker. I shall largely “pass over” Darwin’s debts and acknowledgments to both of them, except to notice and comment on what he said about both in the Sketch. The decision to relegate the two authors to an epilogue is in no way to suggest that they were unimportant to Darwin or to the evolution of his ideas about the origin of species. On the contrary, they are too important, to put it that way. To do full justice to either man would require a larger study than can be encompassed in a book of this kind. Even a full chapter for each would still require leaving too much out. To get a sense of the scope of what a full treatment would require, one need only consider the correspondence, not to mention the many other sources one would need to consult. J.D. Hooker was, in terms of sheer quantity of correspondence, Darwin’s primary interlocutor by far. The CCD lists nearly 3,000 items related to the correspondence between the two men, the large majority of which are letters that passed between them over the course of several decades (1837–​ 1882). Huxley, whose communications in writing with Darwin started later and were more limited in scope of concerns, still boasts almost 800 items listed in the CCD. The only other correspondents who come close to these numbers are Charles Lyell, Asa Gray, and the co-​discoverer of the theory of natural selection A.R. Wallace. Even combined, they still fall short of how much correspondence passed between Darwin and Hooker. Lyell and Gray did not make it into the Sketch, and what needs to be said about Wallace, in terms of the Sketch, has been treated in ­chapter 1. Hooker and Huxley are almost in a class unto themselves in terms of their impact on Darwin. Hooker and Huxley also occupy a unique position in the life and work of Darwin in another sense. To summarize, they both belong to a very small privileged circle of Darwin’s closest friends. To Darwin they were not only founts of vital information about the evolution of species, they were his most discerning critics and his earliest and most loyal supporters. They gave Darwin reliable and constant encouragement, especially in the early days of Origin, and even before. Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” An Examination of the ‘Preface’ to the Origin of Species. Curtis N. Johnson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190882938.001.0001

Epilogue  395 This support was vitally important to Darwin to “keep him going,” even in the darkest days of the gestation of his theory. He once mentioned to Huxley that he had great doubts and uncertainties about whether his theory had hit the mark, that he often thought of giving up the whole business, and that he would let go of the theory altogether unless he could gain the assent of just three men—​Hooker, Huxley, and Lyell. If they accepted it, or at least enough of it, he would be satisfied that he had done enough. If they rejected it, he would reject it too, as just so much rubbish. Moreover, of Darwin’s vast network of acquaintances and correspondents, he knew that in all three men he had genuine friends. For any working scientist, having even a small number of genuine friends was a great consolation. Yes, they more than any others “kept him going.” A final reason for omitting a fuller discussion of both Huxley and Hooker is that several fine book-​length treatments, not to mention countless journal articles, already exist.1 This is not to say that nothing could be added to this extensive literature, but the gains of trying to do so would be of marginal value, considering the scope and limited aims of the present volume. In truth, the importance of both Hooker and Huxley for Darwin’s ambitions in the Sketch is relatively minor. Indeed, both men, despite their acknowledged success as independent contributors to their areas of expertise—​botany and embryology/​anatomy respectively—​and great renown in their time, do not figure prominently in studies of the history of evolutionary thought. Their contributions lay elsewhere. Neither man was considered by Darwin to be a precursor of or direct influence on the development of his theory. Both did support the theory, to be sure, but the support came only after Darwin had worked out the main details himself. Hooker, in fact, was skeptical of the theory from an early time (he read Darwin’s 1844  “Essay” in 1847, but expressed reservations until much later). Huxley did not know the details of it until after Darwin had already published, and while he was effusive in praise, he could only offer criticisms of an idea that had already been hatched and had matured. Both men offered support of the theory after Darwin had worked it out, but neither can be said to have influenced the main lineaments of the theory or even how Darwin chose to present it in Origin. Darwin seems almost to have included them in the Sketch more as a courtesy to old and loyal friends than as an acknowledgment of authors who had “preceded” or “anticipated” him, in contrast to the case with the other authors mentioned in it. Nevertheless, we should not entirely overlook what Darwin had to say in the Sketch about both men. Darwin followed his usual scheme by placing them in the order of their chronological priority, based upon what he took to be their first published works bearing on the species question—​1859 in both cases. The

396 Epilogue reason Huxley is placed before Hooker is that Huxley’s work, a lecture published just after it was read before the Royal Society, was delivered on June 3, 1859,2 whereas Hooker’s contribution, an introduction to his “Australian Flora” (in Darwin’s words) appeared only after Origin first appeared in November 1859. Nevertheless, both gave their opinions only after the contribution of Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer (also in 1859), the author who immediately precedes them. Darwin was, admittedly, a little uncertain about the precise date of von Baer’s earliest published work on the question, as he admits in the Sketch (see previous chapter for details). But he had no doubts about when Huxley and Hooker published their contributions: mid to late 1859 in both cases. Huxley and Hooker are the final two authors Darwin discussed in the Sketch, obviously because November 1859 was the publication date of the Origin. Since Darwin’s avowed aim was to discuss predecessors in the Sketch, anyone who published after 1859 would not be relevant to his enterprise.

Thomas Henry Huxley. 1825–​1895 In the years of controversy immediately surrounding the publication of Origin, Huxley was, if not more important than Hooker in promoting and defending the new theory, certainly more notorious. He was not only an outspoken proponent of the new ideas in the book, more so than Hooker, he was also a skilled debater who had a wealth of knowledge about the issues involved and a sharp wit, one that he usefully deployed with an even sharper pen. He called himself “Darwin’s bulldog,” a moniker that took hold in the public perception and remains attached to his reputation even today. He promised Darwin that he would “sharpen his teeth and claws” to protect Darwin from predictable assaults, making good on his promise in public meetings and writings, most memorably in a notorious showdown with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce at a scientific meeting at Oxford University on June 30, 1860. Darwin appreciated his vigor, determination, and intellectual acuity—​not to mention his steadfast support. Huxley was slow to accept some of Darwin’s ideas, such as gradualism, and was undecided about natural selection, but despite this he was wholehearted in his public support of Darwin. Instrumental in developing scientific education in Britain, he fought against the more extreme versions of religious tradition. Originally coining the term in 1869, Huxley elaborated on “agnosticism” in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not. Huxley states: Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle . . . the fundamental axiom of

Epilogue  397 modern science . . . In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration . . . In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

Use of the term has continued to the present day. Much of Huxley’s agnosticism is influenced by Kantian views on human perception and the ability to rely on rational evidence rather than belief systems. Huxley had little formal schooling and was virtually self-​taught. He became perhaps the finest comparative anatomist of the later 19th century, working on invertebrates and clarifying relationships between groups previously little understood. Later, he worked on vertebrates, especially on the relationship between apes and humans. After comparing Archaeopteryx with Compsognathus, he concluded that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs, a theory widely accepted today. The tendency has been for this fine anatomical work to be overshadowed by his energetic and controversial activity in favor of evolution and by his extensive public work on scientific education, both of which had significant effects on society in Britain and elsewhere.

T. H. Huxley

398 Epilogue Darwin acknowledged Huxley in the Sketch as an important voice in defense of Darwinian transmutation in these words: In June, 1859, Professor Huxley gave a lecture before the Royal Institution on the “Persistent Types of Animal Life.” Referring to such cases, he remarks, “It is difficult to comprehend the meaning of such facts as these, if we suppose that each species of animal and plant, or each great type of organisation, was formed and placed upon the surface of the globe at long intervals by a distinct act of creative power; and it is well to recollect that such an assumption is as unsupported by tradition or revelation as it is opposed to the general analogy of nature. If, on the other hand, we view “Persistent Types” in relation to that hypothesis which supposes the species living at any time to be the result of the gradual modification of pre-​existing species—​a hypothesis which, though unproven, and sadly damaged by some of its supporters, is yet the only one to which physiology lends any countenance; their existence would seem to show that the amount of modification which living beings have undergone during geological time is but very small in relation to the whole series of changes which they have suffered. (Variorum, p. 69, lines 69–​71).

Huxley’s reference to the “hypothesis of the gradual modification of pre-​existing species” must be an allusion to Darwin’s theory—​despite the fact that Origin had not yet appeared in print by the time of this lecture. Huxley had other sources to draw on for his understanding:  personal contacts with Darwin, Hooker, and Lyell, not to mention the Darwin-​Wallace paper published in the Linnean Society journal in July 1858 (see CCD. Letter 2469A). How Darwin learned about this “lecture” cannot be much of a mystery. The Royal Society published its “Lectures” shortly after they were given in its Notices of the Proceedings, and Darwin no doubt noticed published lectures in this publication if they had a bearing on his work. But how much of Darwin’s theory Huxley grasped in this lecture is another matter. From the section Darwin quoted in the Sketch, the evidence is ambiguous. Huxley was clear that he rejected, along with other transmutationists, that special, separate creations by a “distinct act of creative power” explained the origin of species, and that special, separate creation accounts could not be supported by “tradition or revelation.” Gradual transmutation had all the evidence, from empirical observation, on its side. As Huxley wrote in another place about Darwin’s theory: “How extremely stupid [of me] not to have thought of that!”3 However, he did not at first conclusively make up his mind about whether natural selection was the main method for evolution, though he did admit it was a hypothesis which was a good working basis. Huxley was thus more cautious in affirming the truth of Darwin’s theory over all other such theories in the quoted passage. The most he could say was that

Epilogue  399 some theory of gradual transmutation must be the correct account, that some of the transmutationist theories were not on a foundation any firmer than the disputed theory of special creation, but that a theory of “gradual transmutation” in some form must be the correct account. He did not single out Darwin’s theory in the quoted passage as the account that definitively solved the riddle. And indeed, Huxley held reservations even about Darwin’s theory years after he implicitly endorsed it in his Royal Society lecture. Nevertheless, Darwin did take Huxley’s statement as an endorsement of his own theory, as he signifies by including it in the Sketch. Darwin knew that Huxley would not have been referring to the theories of Lamarck, Geoffroy, or Robert Chambers, because Huxley had already gone into print denouncing all three. Huxley’s reasons for rejecting them was essentially that they lacked the empirical evidence that would be needed to sustain them as valid, or even credible, theories. Huxley knew that Darwin’s theory would be assailed on similar grounds, as in fact it was. But for Huxley, Darwin brought forward several strands of evidence that lent credence to Darwinian natural selection and, more importantly perhaps, Darwin established criteria for verification that could in time yield the necessary proof, whereas the other theories, like that of “creative power,” could not be proven even in principle. They relied on notions that were, by definition, beyond the scope of empirical observation. They all required a leap of faith, so to speak, that Huxley was dispositionally incapable of taking. Darwin could well have had additional reasons for thinking Huxley’s lecture before the Royal Society was an endorsement of his theory of natural selection—​ too many to enumerate in detail. Huxley had been engaged in private correspondence with Darwin for some years prior to his Royal Society lecture and had made clear to Darwin his admiration and general agreement with the ideas that would later blossom into the full-​fledged treatment in Origin. Huxley had also already published several journal articles that showed his Darwinian leanings, even before the Royal Society lecture. And Huxley had conveyed his sympathies to other friends of Darwin who no doubt passed along Huxley’s general approbation to Darwin himself. The question is not why Darwin found in Huxley a supporter of Darwin’s theory but only why he chose the short lecture, published in the Royal Society’s 1859 Notices, rather than some other source, as his point of reference: another article, a letter of correspondence, or direct personal communication. One can only guess, because other sources written or conveyed by Huxley may have made a stronger impression of Huxley’s fervent support than his short 1859 lecture. In any case, we have only what Darwin says in the Sketch to draw on. In many ways, the entry in the Sketch on Huxley follows Darwin’s general pattern throughout the Sketch:  acknowledging writers who have contributed to the “progress of opinion” on species change, but without giving any author (other

400 Epilogue than Owen) much more than cursory notice. Huxley departs from this pattern in only one respect: he “contributed” only in the sense of giving post facto support to Darwin’s theory. Virtually all the other authors mentioned had written on the subject before Darwin and could be seen by Darwin, retrospectively, as having anticipated his theory in one way or another. Many of these authors, however, were unknown to Darwin prior to the appearance of the first edition of Origin, which is not the case with Huxley. And many were further off the mark of what Darwin was arguing than Huxley was. Adding the evidence together, it appears that Darwin found in Huxley not someone who anticipated him in any way, but one who understood the theory better than most others and who went to the mat to support it. Huxley’s inclusion seems to be more a gesture of appreciation to a trusted friend and ally than a statement about Darwin’s belief that Huxley could be seen as genuine forerunner. In his day, Huxley was perhaps better known for his original contributions to anatomy and physiology than as a forerunner of Darwin. He brought continental breakthroughs in embryology to Great Britain through commentaries and translations before many other naturalists even knew about this new field of study. He often contested accepted ideas about anatomy and physiology against then-​current tides of scientific opinion, even challenging the ideas of the leading lights in these fields:  Richard Owen in England, Louis Agassiz in the United States, and such luminaries as Lamarck and Cuvier in France. He was often merciless in his criticisms and attacks, and backed up his criticisms with original findings of his own and skillful delivery. He was fearless in standing up against his many critics. He was instrumental in shaping a new conception of the scientific enterprise itself. Huxley is no longer studied for his original ideas and observations—​science has moved forward. But he has gained a lasting reputation as one of the few naturalists in mid-​19th century British science who immediately understood the significance of Darwin’s contribution and who did as much as any other single person to promote it in the teeth of often strong and even violent headwinds. Darwin, and Darwinism, owes a great debt to this man for helping to ensure a proper reception of Darwin’s ideas and for facing down with unique skill and ability Darwin’s most determined detractors and enemies.

Joseph Dalton Hooker. 1817–​1911 J.D. Hooker was, by all accounts, Darwin’s greatest friend and confidant, at least outside his immediate family, so much so that in 1858 Darwin could write that Hooker was “the one living soul from whom I have constantly received sympathy.”4 Their personal friendship began shortly after Hooker returned from

Epilogue  401

J. D. Hooker

his own botanical voyage around the globe, on the Erebus, mirroring Darwin’s aboard the Beagle. Hooker had discovered and admired Darwin’s fine touch as a naturalist from his reading of Darwin’s Journal of Researches in 1844.5 He helped Darwin in classifying plants, as Owen had done for Darwin’s zoological specimens and Gould had done for his avian findings. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was a British botanist and explorer and a founder of geographical botany, whose studies furnished Darwin with important botanical information as he developed his own theory. For twenty years Hooker served as director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeding his father, William Jackson Hooker, who had himself helped put Kew Gardens on the map of major scientific institutions in 19th century Britain. Apart from his personal friendship with Darwin, J.D. Hooker is best remembered for his wide-​ranging experience as a global botanist, contributing to the study of the flora of Australia, the Himalayas, and India, all of which he visited on his travels. He is responsible for observing, drawing, and collecting hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hitherto unidentified flora, many specimens of which he brought back to Kew Gardens in London, thus establishing that botanical institution as one of the premier botanical gardens in all of Europe. He was draped with all of the highest scientific honors Britain could bestow on any naturalist.

402 Epilogue The relationship between Hooker and Darwin quickly became more cordial and intimate after 1844 than anything that developed between Darwin and other naturalists or scientific acquaintances. He was, for example, the first, and perhaps only naturalist to whom Darwin showed a copy of his 1844 “Essay,” and Hooker was the only one who read and commented on it (in 1847) prior to 1858. Darwin instructed his wife Emma to have Hooker shepherd the “Essay” through to publication should he suddenly die. Hooker was also, along with Charles Lyell, the one who was mainly responsible for getting Darwin to abandon the “big species book” in favor of the shorter “abstract” that become Origin after learning of Wallace’s possible priority in 1858. Lyell and Hooker were the two men who made sure that Darwin’s theory, in abbreviated form, was presented and published along with Wallace’s paper by the Linnean Society in July 1858. We can say that Hooker was Darwin’s best friend—​again, excepting his immediate family. As far as Hooker’s contribution to the development of Darwin’s ideas about the theory of descent with modification, the story is more complicated. To trace the story in its detail would take us too far afield. Hundreds upon hundreds of letters passed between the two men in the two decades leading up to the publication of Origin, many of which were devoted to discussing questions pertinent to Darwin’s large project. Hooker was always supportive of Darwin, but not always in complete agreement. His criticisms and doubts, however, were always delivered in a cordial and encouraging spirit. Darwin’s book would no doubt look quite different were it not for Hooker’s influence. Hooker was Darwin’s go-​to scientist whenever he ran into roadblocks or had uncertainties of his own. Origin is Darwin’s own, but how much it owes in its final form to Hooker’s comments and suggestions is impossible to calculate. To judge only from what Darwin wrote about Hooker in the Sketch, we might get a different impression. The entry to Hooker is one of the shortest of the included authors: only two short sentences, which do not tell us very much about Darwin’s debt: In December, 1859, Dr. Hooker published his “Introduction to the Australian Flora.” In the first part of this great work he admits the truth of the descent and modification of species, and supports this doctrine by many original observations. (Variorum, pp. 69–​70, lines 72–​73).

The entry does not show anticipation or precedence—​note the date of publication of Hooker’s “great work”:6 December 1859. Origin made its first appearance on November 24, 1859—​before Hooker had even published on the subject in his own “Australian Flora.” The virtue of Hooker’s book, in Darwin’s eyes, was not its anticipation of natural selection, but rather its support for it. Indeed, Hooker appears to be the first

Epilogue  403 reputable man of science to lend his support to Darwin’s theory in published form. The quote in the Sketch cites only the short title, “Introduction to the Australian Flora,” with no other bibliographic information, except date of publication, December 1859. This was the introduction to the final part of the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage. It was in this essay that Hooker first announced publicly his support for the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin may have first learned about the essay from Charles Lyell, who brought it to Darwin’s attention shortly after it appeared. But it would not have come as a surprise to Darwin. He knew Hooker well enough through personal contact to understand that Hooker, although perhaps at first skeptical, had become a full-​fledged Darwinian even before Origin appeared in print. One need not read very far into the Hooker’s Flora of Australia (1859, pp. ii–​ iii) to see his endorsement of Darwin’s theory. He is, in fact, quite explicit that Darwin had “converted” him from being agnostic on the species question to an avowed supporter of Darwinism. As he wrote: In the Introductory Essay to the New Zealand Flora, I advanced certain general propositions as to the origin of species, which I refrained from endorsing as articles of my own creed: amongst others was the still prevalent doctrine that these are, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, created as such and are immutable. In the present Essay I shall advance the opposite hypothesis, that species are derivative and mutable; and this chiefly because, whatever opinions a naturalist may have adopted with regard to the origin and variation of species, every candid mind must admit that the facts and arguments upon which he has grounded his convictions require revision since the recent publication by the Linnean Society of the ingenious and original reasonings and theories of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace. On such theoretical questions as the origin and ultimate permanence of species, [my opinions] have been greatly influenced by the views and arguments of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace above alluded to, which inclines me to regard more favourably the hypothesis that it is to the variation that we must look as the means which Nature has adopted for peopling the globe with those existing forms which, when they tend to transmit their characters unchanged through many generations, are called species.

Not Origin, but rather the Linnean Society paper, changed Hooker from an agnostic to a proponent of the Darwinian idea of modification of species through continuous and accumulating variations. Hooker, in larger context, was confronted by two puzzles for which the Darwin/​Wallace paper seemed to provide solutions:  the lack of consensus among even very skilled observers about how to discriminate among species, or

404 Epilogue even what criteria to use to make such discriminations; and how to account for such a large number of closely allied species in adjacent areas without invoking the improbable thesis that they all had been independently and separately created. The great variability among such localized species lent credence to Darwin’s view that variations—​always common and ever present everywhere in nature—​ were often simply “incipient new species.” Hooker did not stumble on a viable theory of transmutation on his own, but Darwin’s theory gave him the framework that could explain these puzzling phenomena in a scientifically respectable and persuasive way. Darwin did not enter into these details in the Sketch. Nor did he claim that Hooker had anticipated his theory or should in any sense be regarded as one who preceded him. As was the case with Huxley, Darwin found Hooker to be important mainly for supporting his theory after it had already been worked out in his own mind, and perhaps for providing important supporting evidence after the fact. But, given the brevity of the entry on Hooker, we may safely conclude that Darwin included Hooker in the Sketch mainly to acknowledge in a prominent place his indebtedness to Hooker for being an ally and supporter rather than as one who should be seen as an original contributor to the “progress of opinion” on the species question. It was more a statement of deference and fealty to a loyal friend than an acknowledgment of a forerunner of the theory of natural selection

Notes 1. A useful starting point for exploring this literature is the “Bibliography” entries for both authors in the CCD. 2. Thomas Henry Huxley, 1859, [Read 3 June 1859.] On the Persistent Types of Animal Life. Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 3 (1858–​62): 151–​3. 3. Leonard Huxley, 1900, The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. 2 volumes. London: Macmillan, v. 1, p. 189. 4. Richard Broke Freeman, 1978, Charles Darwin, A Companion. W. Dawson; and CCD, 20 October 1858, to Hooker. Letter 2345. 5. Charles Darwin, 1839, Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by HMS Beagle, under the Command of Captain FitzRoy, RN, from 1832 to 1836. London: Henry Colburn. 6. Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1859, On the Flora of Australia, Its Origin, Affinities, and Distribution; being an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania. London: Lovell Reeve.

Epilogue  405

References Darwin, Charles. 1839. Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by HMS Beagle, under the Command of Captain FitzRoy, RN, from 1832 to 1836. London: Henry Colburn. Freeman, Richard Broke. 1978. Charles Darwin, a Companion. London: W. Dawson. Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1859. On the Flora of Australia, Its Origin, Affinities, and Distribution; being an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania. London: Lovell Reeve. Huxley, Leonard. 1900. The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. 2 volumes. London: Macmillan. Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1859. [Read 3 June 1859.] “On the Persistent Types of Animal Life.” Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 3 (1858–​62): 151–​3.

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408 Bibliography Brooke, John Hedley. 1977a. “Richard Owen, William Whewell, and the Vestiges.” The British Journal for the History of Science 10, 132-​145. Brooke, John Hedley. 1977b. “The Natural Theology of the Geologists: Some Theological Strata.” British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 10, 132-​45. Browne, Janet. 1995. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2003. Charles Darwin: Power of Place. New York: A. Knopf. Buch, Leopold von. 1813. Travels Through Norway and Lapland during the Yeas 1806, 1807, and 1808. London, Henry Colburn. Translated by J. Black. ———. 1825. Physische Beschreibung der Canarischen Inseln, Berlin. ———. 1836, Description Physique des Iles Canaries, suivie d’une indication des principaux volcans du globe (Paris: F.G. Levraut). Buffon, Georges Louis. 1749-​1804. Histoire naturelle, general et particuliere. 44 volumes. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, puis Plassan. Burdach, Karl Friedrich. 1858. Traite de physiologie consideree comme science d’observation. French translation, Paris. Volume 1. Pp. 403-​4. [Cited in Godron, 1859, p. 9 fn. 3]. [This is a translation of Die Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft Leipzig, 1826-​1840 (volumes 1 –​ 9)]. Burkhardt, F.H.  et  al. (eds.). 1985-​present. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carozzi, Albert Victor, trans. and ed. 1968. Telliamed or conversations between an Indian philosopher and a French missionary on the diminution of the sea. By Benoît de Maillet. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Carpenter, William Benjamin. 1854. Principles of comparative physiology. 4th edition. London: John Churchill [Chambers, Robert]. 1844. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. London: J. Churchill. (6th edition 1847; 10th edition 1853) [———]. 1845. Explanations; a Sequel to “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” London: Churchill. Chant, C. and J. Fauvel, eds. 1980. Darwin to Einstein: Historical Studies on Science and Belief. Harlow and New York. Corsi, Pietro. 1978. “The Importance of French Transformist Ideas for the Second Volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology.” British Journal for the History of Science 11: 221-​244. ———. 1988. The Age of Lamarck: Evolutionary Theories in France, 1790-​1830. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1988. Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800-​1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. D. T. A. 1860. “Palaeontology.” Dublin University Magazine 55 (June): 712-​722. Dagg, Joachim. 1997. “Abteilung für Entomologie, Institut für Phytopathologie und Pflanzenschutz,” Göttingen. Cited in The Victorian Web, adaptation by D.  Clifford, [2008]. Darwin, Charles. 1839 (second edition 1845). Voyage of the Beagle:  Charles Darwin’s Journal of Researches. Janet Browne and Michael Neve, eds., 1989. London: Penguin. ———. [1842-​1844]. “1842 Sketch and 1844 Essay.” CDOnline, “Foundations of the Origin of Species”. (See also Gavin de Beer, 1958,Evolution by Natural Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ———. 1856-​1858 [1975]. Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Index Note to the Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Darwin’s “Historical Sketch” is arranged by author—​each entry appearing in the chronological order of their first published work bearing on the species question as far as Darwin could discern it. I adhere to the same plan in the text, with only minor departures, for reasons explained in the text. The index, by contrast, is arranged by author, not in their chronological order as represented by Darwin, but alphabetically. The first entry, accordingly, is Aristotle, the last is W.C. Wells. Dates of their contributions to the species question are supplied in the entries for each author. For readers interested in following the development of ideas, subheadings are included for each author. The chief concepts referred to are “priority” (Darwin’s main focus), “transmutation ideas,” “natural selection,” “publications,” and authors cross-​ referenced by other authors, including Darwin. For example, T.H. Huxley was responsible for bringing Demaillet (an author Darwin included in the Sketch) to the attention of the British scientific community in the 1850s. Under “Huxley,” therefore, one will find relevant references to Demaillet, and under “Demaillet,” one will find references to T.H. Huxley. Darwin claimed to have included 34 authors in the final version of the Sketch (1872). He included more authors than 34. Whatever the exact number is, every author that appears in the Sketch as a contributor to the species question is given a place in the index, in bold type, with associated information included under each name, arranged alphabetically. A few authors who do not appear in the Sketch are included in the index because of their significance for understanding the development of Darwin’s ideas. They are entered in regular type, with accompanying details and references included with their entries. Huxley, Hooker, and Lyell appear too frequently in the text to give a separate page number for each mention (mostly these are letters to or from Darwin). The chief mentions of them are included under their names in the index. Alton, J.W.E. See d’Alton Aristotle, 47–​50 and Clair Grece, 48–​49 and Empedocles, 49 and priority, xv, 1–​2, 31, 32–​33, 47–​50 Bates, Walter, 17–​18, 19–​20, 24 Blyth, Edward, 14, 15, 80 Bory de St. Vincent, 321–​24 and Godron as Darwin’s source for, 322–​24 and Quatrefages de Breau, 321–​23 Bronn, H.G., 292–​98 xxx and criticisms of Darwin’s theory, 293–​97 and Darwin’s source for d’Alton, Unger, and Oken, 292, 297 and German translation of Origin (1860), xxx, 293–​94, 295, 297

and priority, 292–​93, 296 and “review” of Origin (1860), 294 and Unger, D’Alton, Oken, Bory de St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, Fries, Lecoq (see individual authors) and Untersuchung (1858), 292, 297, 321–​22 Buch, L.v. See von Buch Buffon, Comte de, 31–​38 and fluctuating opinions of, 33–​37 and Histoire Naturelle Generale,  33–​34 and “priority,” 34–​35, 37–​38 and Smellie’s translation of Histoire Naturelle Generale,  34–​35 and theory of degeneration, 34, 37 Burdach, K.F., 324–​27 and C. Bonnet, 326–​27 and Godron as Darwin’s source for, 324–​25,  327

422 Index Burdach, K.F. (cont.) and Lamarck, 326 and Physiologie (1826–​1840), 324 and transmutationist views, 325, 327 Carpenter, W.B., xxx, 10, 270–​71, 322, 375, 381 Chambers, Robert, 153–​60 and Adam Sedgwick, 156 and Asa Gray, 159–​60 and comparison with Darwin’s theory,  156–​59 and Darwin’s knowledge of his works, xxvi–​ xvi, 8, 17–​18 and Darwin’s opinion of Vestige, 155–​57,  158–​59 and Explanations, 157 and Huxley, 159 and priority, 156–​58, 159–​60 and Samuel Haldeman (see Haldeman) and theory of transmutation, 154–​55, 157–​60 and Vestiges, first through 10th editions [1844–​1853]),  153–​55 d’Alton, J.W.E., 303–​6 and Bronn’s Untersuchung (1858), 305–​6 and “Das Riesen-​Faultier” (1821), 305 and C.H. Pander, 304–​5 and transmutationist views, 305–​6 and Vergleichende Osteologie (1821–​1838),  303–​4 Darwin, Erasmus, 61–​65 xxix and R.E. Grant, 63–​64 and Richard Owen, 63–​64 and Zoonomia,  61–​63 de Maillet, Benoit, 38–​47 xxiv and Lyell’s Principles of Geology,  41–​42 and priority, 40 and R. Owen, 45–​46 and Telliamed,  39–​40 and T.H. Huxley, 42–​44 d’Omalius d’Halloy, 160–​69 xxiv and Bulletins de l’Academie Royale (1846), 161–​62,  166 and Charles Lyell, 162–​63 and Darwin’s acquaintance with, 160–​66, 168 and Elements de Geologie (1831), 160–​62, 166,  168–​69 and Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 163–​64 and priority, 167–​69 and transmutation theory, 162–​66, 168–​69

Freke, Henry, 169–​78 and Appeal to Physiologists (1862), 176–​77 and Dublin Medical Press (1851), 170 and Origin of Species by Means of Natural Affinity (1861), 170–​71, 176 and priority, 170–​72, 175–​77 and Review of Darwin’s Origin (1860),  171–​74 and transmutation theory, 170–​72, 174, 175–​76,  177–​78 Fries, Elias Magnus, 331–​36 and Godron as Darwin’s source for, 331, 333, 336 and Novitiae florae suecicae (1828), 332 and other publications, 333–​34 and priority, 332–​33 and transmutation theory, 332, 333–​36 and H.C. Watson, 334–​35, 336 Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Etienne, 70–​74 xxv​–xxvi and Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s works (Histoire naturelle general, Vie, Essais) as Darwin’s sources for Etienne, 72–​74 and priority, 70, 73, 74 and Principes des philosophie zoologique (1830),  72–​73 and transmutationist ideas (changement, milieu ambiant, ambiant circonstances, “direct adaptation”), 71–​74 Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Isidore, 240–​53 xxv–​xxvi and Buffon, 35–​247 and definition of “species,” 251–​52 and Essais de zoologie generale (1841), 66–​67 (in reference to Goethe) and Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 240, 250–​51 and Goethe, 65–​68, 250–​51 and Histoire Naturelle Generale vol. 2 (1859), 36–​37, 240, 242–​43, 244, 246–​48, 251,  252–​53 and history of previous transmutationists, 240, 248–​51,  252–​53 and Lamarck, 243, 251 and Maillet, 39, 303–​5 and d’Omalius d’GHalloy (see d’Omalius) and priority, 240, 246 and publications, 241, 242–​44 and Revue essay (1851), 244–​48, 251 and role of reproduction in species change,  242–​43 and transmutation of species theory, 240–​42, 243–​44, 245–​46,  248–​53

Index  423 Godron, D.A., 316–​21 and biogeographical distribution, 318 and C. Bonnet, 319–​20 and Darwin’s source for Bory de Saint Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and Freis, 318–​19,  320 and De l’Espece (1859), 316–​19 and “De l’Espece” (1848), 316–​18 and priority, 317–​18 and transmutationist theory, 318–​19, 320–​21 Goethe, J.W.v., 65–​70 and I. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 65–​68 and Goethe’s theoretical ideas (loi de balancement, unity of type and “change of species”), 67, 69–​70 and Introduction Generale a L’anatomie Compare (1837, C. Martins trans.), 66 and Karl Meding, Goethe als Naturforscher (1861),  68–​69 and Oeuvres d’histoire naturelle, 67 and “priority,” 69–​70 Grant, R.E., 102–​10 and “chance variation” in the Swiney Lectures (1853–​1857),  108–​9 and competition with Darwin (Flustra, 1827), 106–​7, 110 and Darwin’s recollections of, 102–​4 and Darwin’s respect for Grant, 107 and Erasmus Darwin, 63–​64 and Lamarck, 57, 102 and Spongilla (1826), 104, 106 and Tabular View (1861), 105–​6 and transmutation theory, 103–​4, 107–​10 Gray, Asa, xv–​xvi, xix​, 16–​17, 31, 34, 80, 84, 89, 93–​94, 135, 136–​39, 159–​60, 162, 203, 214, 216, 240, 244–​45, 247–​48, 262, 281, 335, 354–​55, 361, 363, 375, 382, 394. See also Chambers; Herbert; Owen; Rafinesque Haldeman, Samuel, 140–​48 and Baden Powell, 141 and Boston Journal of Natural History (1844), 141, 142, 143–​44 and Charles Lyell, 142, 147–​48 and Darwin’s knowledge of, xxvi–​xxvii, 141–​42 and priority, 140–​41, 142–​43 and Robert Chambers’s Explanations,  144–​46 and the “species” concept, 144–​46 and transmutation theory, 140–​41, 142, 145–​48 Herbert, William, 82–​97 and Amaryllidaceae (1837), 84–​85, 162–​64, 169, 172, 173

and Asa Gray, 94 and C. Lyell, 87–​88 and Gärtner and Kölreuter, 82–​83, 89, 92–​93 and Herbert’s “law,” 88 and Horticultural Transactions (1822), 84, 85–​86,  92–​93 and hybridization, 82–​84, 89–​92 and J.S. Henslow, 86–​87, 90, 92 and natural selection, 95–​96 and priority, 88–​91, 92, 93, 94–​95, 96–​97 and species transformation, 88–​89, 92 and “struggle for existence,” 89–​90 and varieties/​variation, 90–​91,  95–​96 Hooker, J.D., 394–​95, 400–​3 and Australian Flora (1859), 401–​2 and Darwin’s Linnean Society Journal article (1858), 400–​1, 402 and influence on Darwin’s theory, 401 and personal friendship with Darwin,  400–​1 and priority, xvi–​xvii, xviii–​xix, xx, 16–​17 and support for Darwin’s theory, 401–​3 Huxley, T.H., 394–​400 xxiv and Maillet (Telliamed), 39 and Richard Owen (see Owen) and Robert Chambers (see Chambers) and Royal Society “Lecture” (1859), 397–​99 and support for Darwin’s theory, 396–​98,  399 and von Baer (see von Baer) Keyserling, Alexander, 342–​50 xxiv–xxv and correspondence between Darwin and Keyserling,  346–​48 and Darwin’s opinions of, 345–​46 and early support for Darwin, 345 and R.I. Murchison, 346–​49 and transmutation theory, 345–​46, 347,  349–​50 Lamarck, J.B., 53–​60 and Histoire Naturelle, 54–​55, 56 Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire as Darwin’s source for, 54 and Philosophie Zoologique,  54–​56 and priority, 54, 55, 57–​58, 59 and theory of transmutation (soft inheritance, inheritance of acquired characteristics, use/​disuse theory), 54–​55,  59–​60 See Lyell; Grant

424 Index Lecoq, Henri, 358–​67 xxiv and Bronn, 359–​60 and Darwin’s familiarity with, 360–​64 and Etudes (1854–​1858), 360, 362, 365, 366 and Naudin, 359 and transmutationist theory, 362–​67 and works on hybrids, 360–​61 Lyell, Charles, xvi and Antiquity of Man,  58–​59 and A.R. Wallace, 129–​30 and Demaillet, 41–​42 and Lamarck, 57–​59 and Owen (see Owen) and Principles of Geology,  xiv–​xv and priority, xvi, 15–​16, 243, 244–​45 and S. Haldeman (see Haldeman) and Schaaffhausen (see Schaaffhausen) and von Buch, 127–​29 and W. Herbert (see Herbert) Maillet, B. de. See Demaillet Malthus, T.R., x, 21–​22, 63, 89, 231 Matthew, Patrick, 110–​24 and Darwin’s reaction to Matthew’s claims of priority, 113–​14,  117–​22 and Gardener’s Chronicle (1860), exchange between Matthew and Darwin, 94, 113–​15,  117 and intelligent design, 122–​24 and Matthew’s claims to priority, 110–​12, 115–​17,  118 and natural selection, 111–​13, 116–​18, 122 and Naval Timber (1831), 111–​12, 114 and views about the progress of civilization by natural selection, 121–​22 Naudin, Charles Victor, 276–​86 xxvi–​xxvii and hybridism experiments, 276–​77, 282–​83,  284–​85 and Joseph Decaisne, 278–​81, 283 and other publications, 283–​84 and priority, 278–​81, 282–​83, 285 and Revue Horticole article (1852), 277–​82,  284 and theory of descent, 278–​83, 285–​86 and H. Lecoq (see Lecoq) Oken, Lorenz, 306–​10 and Abriss der Naturphilosophie (1805), 307, 308 and Bronn’s Untersuchung (1858), 306–​7, 308

and Lehrbuch der Natur-​philosophie (1809, second ed. 1831), 307, 308 and priority, 309–​10 and Richard Owen, 308–​9 and theoretical views, 309–​10 Omalius d’Halloy. See d’Omalius Owen, Richard (Part I: Owen Before Origin and his 1860 Review), 182–​206 and Asa Gray, 203 and changing views about Darwin’s theory, 185–​90 and Charles Lyell, 188–​89, 190 and Darwin/​Wallace in Linnean Journal (1858), 182 and Demaillet, 45–​46 and divine creative power, 187, 200 and natural selection, 186, 201 and opinions about Darwin, 183–​86, 190, 196–​98, 199, 200, 206 and opposition to a theory of transmutation, 184–​85, 187–​88, 190–​92, 197–​98,  200–​4 and Owen in Origin,  196–​97 and Owen’s publications pre-​Origin, 187–​88, 190–​92,  205–​6 and priority, chapter 8 passim and review of Darwin’s Origin in Edinburgh Review (1860), 183–​84, 190, 198, 199 and views of other transmutationists (Lamarck, Vestiges), 185–​86, 195, 196–​97, 199–​200 Owen, Richard (Part II: Owen After Origin),  214–​33 and Asa Gray, 216 and Malthus, 231–​33 and natural selection, 227–​33 and Owen’s publications, pre-​and post-​ Origin, 216–​17, 218–​19, 221–​24, 226–​31 (Transactions, 1850), 230–​31 (Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. 3, 1868) and priority, 228–​31 and relations with Darwin, chapter 9 passim and review of Darwin’s Origin in the Edinburgh review (1860), 214–​15, 216,  223–​25 and theoretical opinions, 218–​19 and T.H. Huxley, 220–​21, 223–​24 Poiret, J.L.M, 327–​31 and Godron as Darwin’s source for, 327–​29,  330–​31 and Lamarck, 330 and Lecons de flore (1819–​1820),  327–​28 and Linnaeus, 330 and transmutationist ideas, 328–​30

Index  425 Powell, Baden, 2–​11 and correspondence with Darwin, xiv–​xv, 18–​19,  128–​29 and priority, 2–​3, 7, 8–​9, 10–​11 and Samuel Haldeman (see Haldeman) and Schaaffhausen, 350–​51 and Unity of Worlds (1855), 4, 5, 8, 9 and Unity of Worlds (1856), 8, 10–​11 Quatrefages de Breau, J.L.A. de, 119–​20, 282, 320,  321–​24 Bory de St. Vincent (see Bory de St. Vincent) Quinary system, 155, 156. See Chambers Rafinesque, C.S., 134–​39 and definition of “species,” 139 and evolutionary theory, 135, 137–​39 and Flora Telluriana (1836), 137 and J.D. Hooker, 136–​37 and “New Flora of North America,” 135, 136,  137–​38 Schaaffhausen, Hermann, 350–​58 xxvii–​xxviii and Baden Powell (see Powell) and Charles Lyell, 353–​55, 356–​57 and Franz Unger, 357–​58 and other publications, 352–​53 and priority, 353–​54 and transmutationist ideas, 353, 356–​57 and “Ueber Bestandigkeit” (1853), 352–​53,  355–​56 Sedgwick, Adam, 5, 156, 190, 198, 342, 343–​44. See Chambers Spencer, Herbert, 257–​76 and “The Developmental Hypothesis” in The Leader (1852), 258, 259–​60, 269–​70 and Essays (1858), 258, 259–​60, 261–​62 and “Essay on Population” in Westminster Review (1852), 261–​63, 266, 267, 273 and evolutionary theory, 266–​68, 269–​73 and influence on Darwin, 257, 271–​76 and Lamarck, 267–​68 and Principles of Biology (1864–​1867),  274–​75 and Principles of Psychology (1855), 258,  259–​60 and priority, xx–​xxi, xxvi, 257, 270–​74 and “spontaneous variation,” 258–​59,  272–​74 and “survival of the fittest,” 24, 258–​59, 268

Unger, Franz, 292–​303 and evolutionary views, 300–​2, 303 and H. Bronn, 292, 297 (see Bronn; and references to Untersuchung) and H. Bronn as Darwin’s source for Unger,  300–​1 and H. Schaaffhausen (see Schaaffhausen) and “Review” of Versuch in Gardener’s Chronicle (1852), 299–​300 and Versuch (1852), 298–​301 Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. See Chambers von Baer, Karl Ernst, 372–​89 xxvii and Asa Gray, 382, 385 and Charles Lyell, 376–​78 and embryology, 342, 376–​77, 382, 387–​89 and L. Agassiz, 385–​86 and priority, 376–​78, 383–​84, 386–​87 and Rudolph Wagner (1861), 372–​73, 378–​81 and T.H. Huxley, 373–​75, 376, 377–​79, 381, 382–​83,  384–​85 and transmutationist views, 372, 383–​84,  386–​89 and Ueber die Entwickelungsgeschichte (1828), 375–​76,  383 and W.B. Carpenter, 381–​82 von Buch, L., 126–​34 and A.R. Wallace, 129–​30, 131–​32 and Charles Lyell, 126, 127, 128–​29 and Darwin’s familiarity with, 128, 130 and “Description Physique des Iles Canaries” (1825 [1836]), 126–​27, 129–​30, 131–​33 and priority, 131–​33 and transmutation theory, 128, 131–​32,  133–​34 and Travels Through Norway (1813), 130 Wallace, A.R., 12–​24 and Annals essay (1855), 14–​15, 17 and natural selection, 24 and priority, 2, 3, 12–​13, 15–​16, 17–​19, 20 and similarities to Darwin’s theory, 20–​24 and von Buch (see von Buch) Wells, W.C., 78–​82 and Charles Loring Brace as Darwin’s source for Wells, 80–​81 and “first to grasp natural selection,” 79–​80, 81, 82 and priority, 78–​80, 81 and Two Essays (1818), 78, 81–​82 and variation, 81, 82