by A. N. Wilson
4. Balzac, The Wild Ass’s Skin, p. 41.
5. By three independent researchers, Correns, Tschermak and de Vries. Correns accused de Vries of trying to pass off Mendel’s discoveries as his own, and it was partly the violence of their spat which alerted the scientific world to the truly revolutionary nature of Mendel’s discovery.
6. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 6.
7. Thomas Huxley, ‘The Darwin Memorial’ (1885), Collected Essays, vol. 2, p. 252.
8. New Statesman, 20 April 2011.
9. Owen, On the Nature of Limbs, p. 86.
10. Stephen Jay Gould, ‘Evolution’s Erratic Pace’, Natural History, 86(5): 14.
11. A ‘Bulldog’ is the nickname given to the University policemen at Oxford and Cambridge. Huxley did not mean it as a canine image, but a metaphor in which he saw himself as dragooning the young, and disciplining the heretics. He often so referred to himself in the 1870s. Leonard Huxley, vol. 1, p. 363.
Chapter 2: The Old Hat
1. Watson, pp. 32, 466, 477 and passim.
2. Hilton, p. 211.
3. Hall and Clutton-Brock, p. 77.
4. Ibid., p. 220.
5. Annan in Plumb, p. 244. A revised version of the essay appears in Annan, The Dons, pp. 304–41.
6. Lancaster, pp. 1–8.
7. Ibid., p. 8.
8. Many, probably most, British people are scarcely aware that these institutions, once so central to intellectual and political life, exist. A ‘club’ as generally understood, means a music venue, a place to dance and take recreational drugs. We are talking here about ‘clubland’.
9. Francis, Herbert Spencer, p. 22.
10. Erasmus Darwin, The Temple of Nature, vol. 2, pp. 41–6.
11. Francis, Herbert Spencer, p. 318.
12. Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden, vol. 2, pp. 303–4, 307–8.
13. King-Hele, p. 316.
14. Austen, Pride and Prejudice, p. 202.
15. William Hazlitt, ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets’, in The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, ed. P. P. Howe, after the edition of A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover, 21 vols, London: J. M. Dent, 1931–4 (first published in The Liberal, No. 3, 1823).
16. O’Brien, p. 34 and passim.
17. Thomson, p. 30.
18. Ibid., p. 27.
19. Ibid., p. 20.
20. LLD. 1. 28.
21. LLD. 1. 27.
22. Bowlby, p. 62.
23. Butler, Notebooks, p. 112.
24. Ibid., p. 127.
25. Ibid., p. 106.
26. LLD. 1. 29.
Chapter 3: What He Owed to Edinburgh
1. Autobiography, p. 24.
2. Mack, p. 229.
3. This was Isaac Williams – see Tyerman, p. 187.
4. Autobiography, p. 27.
5. Desmond et al., p. 16.
6. LLD. 1. 33.
7. LLD. 1. 35.
8. Wedgwood and Wedgwood, p. 183.
9. C. 1. 2.
10. C. 1. 4.
11. LLD. 1. 32.
12. Cosh, p. 513.
13. Ibid., p. 517.
14. LLD. 1. 27.
15. C. 1. 16.
16. C. 1. 18.
17. C. 1. 23.
18. C. 1. 26.
19. Thomson, p. 37.
20. LLD. 1. 37.
21. Thomson, p. 39.
22. LLD. 1. 42.
23. LLD. 1. 44.
24. Desmond et al., p. 19.
25. Austen, Jane Austen’s Letters, p. 280.
26. Ibid.
27. C. 1. 36.
28. C. 1. 39.
29. C. 1. 134, but the phrase is highlighted by Thomson, p. 43.
30. Eiseley, Darwin’s Century, p. 66.
31. Cross and Livingstone, p. 1419.
32. Hutton, quoted Eiseley, Darwin’s Century, p. 73.
33. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn, 1911, vol. 28, p. 523.
34. As Eiseley saw so eloquently, Darwin’s Century, passim.
35. Autobiography, p. 26.
36. Thomson, p. 53.
37. Grant, p. 433, quoted in Thomson, p. 52.
38. Eldredge, Eternal Ephemera, p. 22.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., p. 24.
41. Autobiography, p. 50.
42. Scott, p. 275.
43. Thomson, p. 83.
44. Autobiography, p. 49.
45. Thomson, p. 83.
46. Notebook preserved (DAR18) in Cambridge University Library, transcribed Thomson, p. 66.
47. See Denton, p. 103.
48. Eiseley, Darwin’s Century, p. 30.
49. Ibid., p. 34.
50. Boswell, vol. 2, p. 75.
51. Ibid., p. 260.
52. Boswell, vol. 5, p. 111.
53. Eiseley, Darwin’s Century, p. 44.
54. Boyle, p. 639.
55. Lewes, p. 295.
56. Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, vol. 1, p. 506, quoted King-Hele, p. 300.
57. Coleridge, vol. 1, p. 177.
58. Quoted Eiseley, Darwin’s Century, p. 48.
59. Ibid., p. 49.
60. See Hands, p. 263.
61. Ibid., p. 372.
62. See p. 15 supra.
63. Coleridge, vol. 4, pp. 574–5.
64. LLD. 1. 45.
65. C. 1. 48.
66. C. 1. 72.
67. C. 1. 325.
68. C. 1. 48.
Chapter 4: Cambridge: Charles Darwin, Gent
1. C. 1. 302.
2. Paul White, vol. 1, p. 5.
3. LLD. 1. 46.
4. C. 1. 58.
5. C. 1. 56.
6. Browne, Voyaging, p. 15.
7. LLD. 1. 45.
8. Barlow, Darwin and Henslow, p. 4 and passim.
9. DNB, vol. 9, p. 586.
10. LLD. 1. 52.
11. LLD. 1. 49.
12. C. 1. 70.
13. C. 1. 62.
14. C. 1. 66.
15. C. 1. 62.
16. C. 1. 68.
17. C. 1. 70.
18. C. 1. 73.
19. C. 1. 71.
20. Searby, p. 595.
21. C. 1. 101.
22. Agnes Mary Clerke, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13th edn, 1926, vol. 13, p. 874.
23. Norman Kemp Smith in Hume, Hume’s Dialogues, p. v.
24. Quoted Kemp Smith in ibid., p. 22.
25. Leslie Stephen, English Thought, vol. 1, p. 311, quoted Kemp Smith in ibid., p. 30.
26. Ibid., p. 216.
27. Ibid., p. 227.
28. Ibid., p. 211.
29. Paley, p. 132.
30. Ibid., p. 25.
31. LLD. 1. 307.
32. Quoted Hands, p. 264.
33. LLD. 1. 309.
34. Paley, p. 193.
35. Blake, p. 147.
36. Auden, p. 173.
37. LLD. 1. 309.
38. LLD. 1. 56.
39. Thomson, p. 128.
40. A. P. Martin, vol. 1, p. 19.
Chapter 5: The Voyage of the Beagle
1. Anderson, p. 385.
2. C. 1. 127.
3. C. 1. 128.
4. C. 1. 131.
5. C. 1. 134
6. James Taylor, pp. 36–7.
7. FitzRoy, pp. 13–17.
8. Voyage, p. 9.
9. Boswell, vol. 1, p. 348.
10. Voyage, pp. 426–32; Moorehead, p. 26.
11. C. 1. 136.
12. I owe the list of comparisons to Thomson, p. 139.
13. C. 1. 142
14. C. 1. 139
15. C. 1. 141
16. C. 1. 144
17. Greville, p. 130.
18. Ibid., p. 142.
19. C. 1. 151.
20. C. 1. 154.
21. C. 1. 155.
22. C. 1. 161.
23. C. 1. 163.
24. C. 1. 201. I have been unable to find of what Dr Darwin’s anti-nausea receipt of raisins consisted.
25. C. 1. 205 (all FitzRoy quotations above).
26. T
homson, p. 143.
27. C. 1. 226.
28. Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, p. 155.
29. Ibid., p. 25, footnote quoting his Autobiography.
30. Autobiography, p. 77, quoted C. 1. 239.
31. Ibid., p. 101.
32. Mrs Lyell, Life, vol. 1, p. 26.
33. Ibid., p. 271.
34. Ibid., p. 316
35. Browne, Voyaging, p. 190
36. C. 1. 205.
37. Browne, Voyaging, p. 203.
38. Diary, p. 36.
39. Ibid., p. 37.
40. Ibid.
41. C. 1. 238.
42. Diary, p. 43.
43. Ibid., p. 49.
44. C. 1. 218.
45. C. 1. 227.
46. C. 1. 235.
47. Diary, p. 52.
48. C. 1. 226.
49. Diary, p. 51.
50. Zweig, p. 166.
51. Hemming, Amazon Frontier, p. 572.
52. Diary, p. 62.
53. Ibid., p. 51.
54. See Kirsten Schultz, Tropical Versailles (2001).
55. Ibid., p. 83.
56. Freyre, p. 75.
57. Ibid., p. 71.
58. Diary, p. 66.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., p. 67.
61. Ibid., p. 70.
62. C. 1. 232.
63. C. 1. 237.
64. C. 1. 237.
65. C. 1. 232–9.
66. C. 1. 237.
67. C. 1. 236.
68. C. 1. 233.
69. C. 1. 247.
70. Diary, p. 79.
71. Voyage, p. 50.
72. Diary, p. 79.
73. Ibid., p. 80.
74. Hugh Thomas, p. 743.
75. Descent, p. 54.
76. Ibid., p. 128.
77. Ibid., p. 173.
78. Seibt, p. 248.
79. Diary, p. 81.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid., p. 85.
82. Ibid., p. 89.
83. Boswell, vol. 3, p. 200.
84. Ibid., p. 203.
85. Diary, p. 91.
86. Ibid., p. 97.
87. Ibid., p. 100.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid., p. 103.
90. Ibid., p. 104.
91. Ibid., p. 109.
92. Ibid.
93. Quoted ibid., p. 106.
94. Eldredge, Eternal Ephemera, pp. 92–3.
Chapter 6: ‘Blackbirds . . . gross-beaks . . . wren’
1. Diary, p. 133.
2. Cook, p. 26.
3. Diary, p. 122.
4. Ibid., p. 133.
5. Voyage, p. 190.
6. Diary, p. 122.
7. C. 1. 304.
8. Diary, p. 223.
9. Ibid., p. 145.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 146.
12. C. 1. 327.
13. C. 1. 363.
14. Moorehead, p. 110.
15. Diary, p. 166.
16. Ibid., p. 171.
17. Ibid., p. 190.
18. Ibid., p. 191.
19. Ibid., p. 198.
20. Cook, p. 49.
21. Milton, p. 228.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., p. 229.
24. Trevelyan, p. 37.
25. Diary, p. 226.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., p. 227.
28. Moorehead, p. 83.
29. Quoted ibid., p. 85.
30. Diary, p. 235.
31. Ibid., p. 237.
32. C. 1. 286.
33. C. 1. 166.
34. C. 1. 266.
35. Origin (1859), p. 490.
36. C. 1. 381.
37. Diary, p. 245.
38. Ibid., p. 249.
39. Ibid., p. 253.
40. Ibid., p. 250.
41. C. 1. 308.
42. C. 1. 357.
43. C. 1. 371.
44. C. 1. 533.
45. C. 1. 460.
46. Diary, p. 250.
47. Tennyson, vol. 2, p. 370, In Memoriam, l. iv.
48. See Livio, p. 83. ‘We know today that the age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years. This is about fifty times longer than Kelvin’s estimate.’
49. Voyage, p. 403.
50. Ibid., p. 401.
51. Diary, p. 261.
52. C. 1. 411.
53. Diary, p. 253.
54. Ibid., p. 255.
55. Ibid., p. 261.
56. Ibid., p. 257.
57. Ibid., p. 315.
58. Ibid.
59. Woodruff, pp. 745, 747.
60. Diary, p. 263.
61. C. 1. 418.
62. C. 1. 418.
63. Autobiography, p. 75.
64. Ibid.
65. Diary, p. 280.
66. C. 1. 363.
67. Diary, p. 295.
68. Ibid., p. 296.
69. Ibid., p. 297.
70. C. 1. 461.
71. Diary, p. 353.
72. Ibid., p. 359.
73. Ibid., p. 353.
74. Ibid., p. 359.
75. Quoted ibid., p. 360.
76. Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, p. 246.
77. Hands, p. 259.
78. Desmond and Moore, p. 220.
79. Hands, p. 259.
80. Ibid., p. 314.
81. Desmond and Moore, p. 172.
82. Diary, p. 347.
83. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, ed. Chancellor and Van Whye, pp. 415–16.
84. Ibid., p. 431.
85. Quoted Eiseley, Darwin and the Mysterious Mr X, p. 214.
86. Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, p. 247.
87. Ibid.
88. Origin (1859), p. 434.
89. Quoted Denton, p. 53.
90. Stove, p. 94.
91. C. 1. 472.
92. Diary, p. 367.
93. Ibid.
94. A friend who read this sentence said, ‘But Darwin went on to have ten children.’ I did not write ‘no libido’. Having ten children over a longish period could be achieved with infrequent coition.
95. Diary, p. 369.
96. Ibid., p. 379.
97. Ibid., p. 384.
98. Ibid., p. 393.
99. Ibid., p. 384.
100. Ibid.
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid., p. 396.
103. Browne, Voyaging, p. 9.
104. John Ritchie, p. 1.
105. Marshall, p. 12.
106. Diary, p. 396.
107. That is, William Kirby and William Spence, An Introduction to Entomology (1815–26).
108. Diary, p. 403.
109. Ibid., p. 413.
110. C. 1. 503.
111. Diary, p. 447.
Chapter 7: The Ladder by Which You Mounted
1. Autobiography, p. 41.
2. Desmond and Moore, p. 189.
3. C. 2. 14.
4. C. 2. 16.
5. C. 2. 58.
6. C. 2. 58.
7. C. 2. 58.
8. Quoted Eiseley, Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X, p. 83.
9. Ibid., p. 64.
10. Quoted ibid.
11. Eiseley, Darwin and the Mysterious Mr X, pp. 40–1.
12. LLD. 1. 229.
13. Mrs Lyell, vol. 1, p. 461.
14. Quoted Bailey, p. 119.
15. Sic in Mrs Lyell, vol. 1, p. 459. But at this date FitzRoy was still at sea and the court martial was not until May 1836, so the date must be wrong. See Sydney Herald, 19 May 1836, p. 4, ‘Naval Courts Martial’ (Trove Digitised Newspapers).
16. Bailey, p. 121.
17. Ibid., p. 122.
18. Charles Lyell, vol. 2, p. 36.
19. Ibid., p. 11.
20. Ibid., p. 12.
21. Ibid., p. 37.
22. Ibid., p. 44.
23. C. 2. 128.
24. C. 2. 155.
25. C. 2. 430.
26. C. 2. 431.
27. C. 2. 38
28. Notebooks,
p. 170.
29. Ibid., p. 171.
30. Ibid., p. 188.
31. Ibid., p. 189.
32. Notebook B dates from July 1837–January 1838, C from February–July 1838, D from July–October 1838, E from September 1838–July 1839.
33. Notebooks, pp. 196–7.
34. Ibid., p. 227.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., p. 167.
37. Litchfield, vol. 1, p. 244.
38. Martineau, Selected Letters, p. 41.
39. Autobiography, p. 120.
40. Cobbett, p. 46.
41. See Malthus, p. 24.
42. See Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (2007), pp. 29ff.
43. Quoting Malthus, p. 529.
44. Notebook E.3, Notebooks, p. 397.
45. Quarterly Review, October 1825, 32: 420–2.
46. Letter to Milnes, Martineau, Letters, p. 95.
47. Martineau, Life in the Sickroom, pp. 8–9.
48. Martineau, Letters, p. 90.
Chapter 8: Lost in the Vicinity of Bloomsbury
1. Notebooks, p. 574.
2. Ibid., p. 565.
3. Ibid., p. 567.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 574.
6. Ibid., p. 585.
7. Notebook N.97, Ibid., p. 591.
8. Notebooks, p. 577.
9. C. 2. 443.
10. C. 2. 445.
11. C. 2. 444.
12. C. 2. 115.
13. C. 2. 115.
14. C. 2. 114.
15. C. 2. 132.
16. C. 2. 136.
17. C. 2. 145.
18. C. 2. 163.
19. C. 2. 172.
20. C. 2. xix.
21. C. 2. 123.
22. C. 2. 172.
23. C. 2. 135.
24. C. 2. 165.
25. Colp, p. 17.
26. Notebooks, p. 175; Colp, p.17.
27. C. 2. 443.
28. C. 2. 129.
29. Ashton, p. 42.
30. Ibid., pp. 42–3.
31. C. 2. 147.
32. C. 2. 147.
33. C. 2. 153.
34. C. 2. 149.
35. C. 2. 195.
36. C. 2. 131. The form ‘Cuvington’ appears at C. 2. 135.
37. C. 2. 171.
38. C. 2. 169.
39. C. 2. 159, 236.
40. C. 2. 236.
41. C. 2. 197.
42. C. 2. 256.
43. C. 2. 254–5.
44. C. 2. 237.
45. Quarterly Review, October 1825, 32: 194.
46. Ibid., 201.
47. Athenaeum, June 1839, 607: 446.
48. C. 2. 199.
49. Agnes Mary Clerke, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13th edn, 1926, vol. 13, p. 875. See also Andrea Wulf’s superb The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science (2015).
50. C. 2. 221.
51. C. 2. 218.
52. Browne, Voyaging, p. 417.
53. C. 2. 249.
54. C. 2. 253.
55. C. 2. 255.
56. C. 2. 399.
57. C. 2. 262
58. Browne, Voyaging, p. 429, quoting Darwin mss., CUL, August 1840.
59. Litchfield, vol. 2, p. 249.
60. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edn, 1974, vol. 1, p. 142.
61. Browne, Voyaging, p. 433.