Darwin's Ghosts

by Rebecca Stott

  In 1852 M. Naudin, a distinguished botanist, expressly stated, in an admirable paper on the Origin of Species (“Revue Horticole,” p. 102; since partly republished in the “Nouvelles Archives du Muséum,” tom. i, p. 171), 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. But he does not show how selection acts under nature. He believes, like Dean Herbert, that species, when nascent, were more plastic than at present. 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 remplier dans l’organisme général de la nature, fonction qui est pour lui sa raison d’être.”

  In 1853 a celebrated geologist, Count Keyserling (“Bulletin de la Soc. Géolog.,” 2nd 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.

  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.”

  A well-known French botanist, M. Lecoq, writes in 1854 (“Etudes sur Géograph. Bot.,” tom. i, p. 250), “On voit que nos recherches sur la fixité ou la variation de l’espèce, nous conduisent directement aux idées émises par deux hommes justement célèbres, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire et Goethe.” Some other passages scattered through M. Lecoq’s large work, make it a little doubtful how far he extends his views on the modification of species.

  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. 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.”

  The third volume of the “Journal of the Linnaean Society” contains papers, read July 1st, 1858, by Mr. Wallace and myself, in which, as stated in the introductory remarks to this volume, the theory of Natural Selection is promulgated by Mr. Wallace with admirable force and clearness.

  Von Baer, towards whom all zoologists feel so profound a respect, expressed about the year 1859 (see Prof. Rudolph Wagner, “Zoologisch-Anthropologische 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.

  I may add, that of the thirty-four authors named in this Historical Sketch, who believe in the modification of species, or at least disbelieve in separate acts of creation, twenty-seven have written on special branches of natural history or geology.

  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.”

  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.

  *I have taken the date of the first publication of Lamarck from Isid. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire’s (“Hist. Nat. Générale,” tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion on this subject. In this work a full account is given of Buffon’s conclusions on the same subject. It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his “Zoonomia” (vol. i, pp. 500–510), published in 1794. According to Isid. Geoffroy there is no doubt that Goethe was an extreme partisan of similar views, 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 instance, cattle got their horns, and not for what they are used. It is rather a singular instance of the manner in which similar views arise at about the same time, that Goethe in Germany, Dr. Darwin in England, and Geoffroy Saint Hilaire (as we shall immediately see) in France, came to the same conclusion on the origin of species, in the years 1794–95.

  *From references in Bronn’s “Untersuchungen über die Entwickelungs-Gesetze” it appears that the celebrated botanist and palaeontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and modification. D’Alton, likewise, in Pander and d’Alton’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 [sic].” 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.

  Acknowledgments

  In writing this book I have depended on the generosity of leading scholars in their fields who have shared their expertise, explained issues and controversies, steered me through my historical investigations, and read and corrected my chapters. I could not have written this book without them or without their trust in the integrity of my project. Curtis N. Johnson, professor of government at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, who wrote the definitive essay on Darwin’s struggle to write a list of his predecessors, read and corrected my attempt to understand Darwin’s frustrations and anxieties about them. Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, emeritus professor at the Needham Institute in Cambridge, historian, philosopher, polymath, and author of a clutch of marvelous books on Aristotle and Greek science including Early Greek Science, Greek Science After Aristotle, and Aristotelian Explorations, gave me the confidence to believe that it was possible—with caution—to reconstruct something of Aristotle’s life, zoological investigations, and cosmological frameworks. Professor James Montgomery, professor of classical Arabic at Cambridge University and the world’s leading authority on Jahiz, explained the complex theological and literary contexts of the ninth-century Abbasid Empire, enabling me to understand a world and time that until then had been entirely beyond my reach; he also generously sought out and translated or retranslated key passages of Jahiz’s Treatise of Living Beings and gave me access to the manuscript of his remarkable book-in-progress on Jahiz. Professor Michael Jeannert, now distinguished visi
ting professor at Johns Hopkins University, previously professor of French literature at the University of Geneva and author of a dazzling book on Renaissance mutability titled Perpetual Motion, read and corrected my chapter on Leonardo. Dr. Marc Ratcliff of the University of Geneva, author of several groundbreaking books on Enlightenment science and microscopes, read and corrected my work on Abraham Trembley. Dr. James Fowler, Diderot scholar at the School of European Culture and Languages at the University of Kent, generously assisted with my research on Diderot and Holbach; Dr. Patricia Fara and Professor Jim Secord of the peerless Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University read and corrected my work on Erasmus Darwin and Robert Chambers, respectively. Dorinda Outram, professor of history at the University of Rochester, New York, and author of the definitive book on George Cuvier as well as several groundbreaking books on Enlightenment science, and Professor Richard W. Burkhardt, professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois and author of an important book on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck as well as a book in progress on the daily life of the Jardin, read several versions of my chapter on the Jardin des Plantes. Dr. Peter Raby of Homerton College, Cambridge University, author of the fine biography Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life, read my chapter on Alfred Russel Wallace. I am also grateful for the help of Adrian Desmond, who assisted with my work on Robert Grant several years ago when I first began to investigate his life and work for my book on Darwin, Darwin and the Barnacle. While I have been blessed with the finest scholarly readers I could have asked for, any mistakes or misinterpretations that remain are my responsibility alone.

  I have great pleasure in thanking the Faculty of Humanities at the University of East Anglia, who provided me with a year’s leave from teaching to complete the book, and to my colleagues who invariably had to shoulder some of the burdens of that leave. The entire book was written on a desk in the West Room of Cambridge University Library. Without this beautiful copyright library, its extraordinary and rare resources, helpful staff, and guarantee of quiet, this book would not exist. It is also my great pleasure to thank all the readers and editors who shaped the book as it neared completion—the geneticist Kate Downes, who helped me see my material through the eyes of a contemporary biologist; Anna Whitelock, historian and mentor; and the outstanding editorial team at Bloomsbury, particularly Michael Fishwick and Anna Simpson, who steered the book so masterfully and patiently into its final shape. And thanks to Bloomsbury’s copy editor, Peter James, and my American editor, Cindy Spiegel, and her team, particularly Hana Landes, for dauntless and skillful final edits, and copy editor Emily DeHuff. I particularly thank Michael Fishwick of Bloomsbury and Cindy Spiegel of Spiegel & Grau, who backed the ambition and audacity of the project from the start, as did my fine literary agent, Faith Evans, who always sees the connections between my books so astutely, and my U.S. agent, Emma Sweeney.

  Finally, I would like to thank my children, family, friends, and rowing crew for tolerating a degree of glassy-eyed distractedness at times when my mind has been absolutely elsewhere.

  Notes

  PREFACE

  1. Many of Darwin’s predecessors were called infidels: See Edward Royle, Victorian Infidels: The Origin of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1974), and Andrew Wheatcroft, Infidels: A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam (London: Penguin, 2004).

  2. “us transmutationists”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, April 18, 1847, Letter 1082, DCP. I will be citing from the online Darwin Correspondence Project (hereinafter referred to as DCP) throughout the book.

  1. DARWIN’S LIST

  1. The letters, he lamented to his wife: Darwin used the word “swarms” to describe the disapproving letters he received immediately after the publication of Origin in a letter he wrote to Alfred Russel Wallace on May 18, 1860: Letter 2807, DCP.

  2. “We shall soon be a good body of working men”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, December 14, 1859, Letter 2583, DCP.

  3. the Reverend Baden Powell: In 1855, Baden Powell had published a book called Essays on the Unity of Worlds in which he defended and tried to extend the ideas about species change argued by an anonymously published but highly controversial and bestselling book, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, published in 1844. For a study of Baden Powell, see Pietro Corsi, Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800–1860 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

  4. Of all the letters in that day’s pile: Powell’s letter to Darwin has not survived, but the editors of the DCP have established its contents through Darwin’s detailed reply to it written on January 8, 1860. I am indebted throughout this chapter to a long, detailed, and thoughtful article published by Curtis N. Johnson, “The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the ‘Historical Sketch,’ ” Journal of the History of Biology 40 (2007): 529–56.

  5. He should have included a short preface: Charles Lyell had included a “Historical Sketch” in his Principles of Geology (1830 and 1832).

  6. aware that he was a poor scholar of history: Darwin confessed to having poor historical skills when he wrote to Baden Powell in 1860: “The task [of writing a historical preface] would have been not a little difficult, and belongs rather to the Historian of Science than to me” (Charles Darwin to Baden Powell, January 18, [1860], Letter 2654, DCP); he repeated the idea in the second letter to Powell (Charles Darwin to Baden Powell, January 18, [1860], Letter 2655, DCP.

  7. He had even written to Hooker: Alfred Wallace to Joseph Hooker, October 6, 1858, Letter 2337, DCP.

  8. “utterly knocked up & cannot rally”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, [December] 21, [1859], Letter 2591, DCP.

  9. a heavy volume of a French scientific journal: Charles Victor Naudin, “Considérations philosophiques sur l’espèce et la variété,” Revue Horticole, 4th series, 1 (1852): 102–9.

  10. He read and reread Naudin’s paper: “I am a very poor French scholar, though I read it with fluency,” Charles Darwin to Edward Crecy, January 20, [1860], Letter 2657, DCP.

  11. “I cannot find one word like the Struggle for existence”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, [December] 23, [1859], Letter 2595, DCP.

  12. “I shall not write to Decaisne”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, [December] 25, [1859], Letter 2602, DCP.

  13. terrible storms lashed the country: Annual Register: A Record of World Events 102 (1860).

  14. “Lenny has got the Measles”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, January 3, [1860], Letter 2635, DCP.

  15. “my health was so poor, whilst I wrote the Book”: Charles Darwin to Baden Powell, January 18, [1860], Letter 2654, DCP.

  16. “The manner in which [the reviewer] drags in immortality”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, [November 22, 1859], Letter 2542, DCP.

  17. “It is like confessing a murder”: Charles Darwin to Hugh Falconer, November 11, [1859], Letter 2524, DCP.

  18. “The stones are beginning to fly”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, February 20, [1860], Letter 2705, DCP.

  19. “all these attacks will make me only more determinately fight”: Charles Darwin to Alfred Russel Wallace, May 18, [1860], Letter 2807, DCP.

  20. “I will buckle on my armour & fight my best”: Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, May 18, [1860], Letter 2808, DCP.

  21. “I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated”: Darwin letter in Gardeners’ Chronicle, April 21, 1860.

  22. “ill-written unintelligible rubbish”: Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, January 15, [1861], Letter 3047, DCP.

  23. Darwin had read Aristotle at school: On Darwin’s reading of Aristotle, see Allan Gotthelf, “Darwin on Aristotle,” Journal of the History of Biology 32, no. 1 (1999): 3–30.

  24. “You may recollect me”: James Grece to Charles Darwin, November 12, 1866, Letter 5276, DCP. Aristotle’s biological work underwent something of a European revival in the nineteenth century. In his Histoire des scien
ces naturelles of 1841, the French comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier described himself as having been “ravished with astonishment” when he read The History of Animals. There were new translations available in German (1811 and 1816), a French translation in 1783, and new English translations of The History of Animals in ten volumes in 1862 by Richard Cresswell and of Parts of Animals in 1882 by Charles Ogle. George Henry Lewes wrote a book about Aristotle in 1864. A year later, Grece wrote to Darwin again for the last time to claim another favor. He wanted to translate a Dutch grammar book into English for publication. Would Darwin be so kind as to put in a word for him with John Murray? Darwin did. The book was delivered and published in 1874.

  2. ARISTOTLE’S EYES

  1. A group of young men wearing finely woven tunics: See Liba Taub, Aetna and the Moon: Explaining Nature in Ancient Greece and Rome (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2008), 87.

  2. The fishermen know one of the philosophers: See T. E. Rihll, Greek Science, New Surveys in the Classics, no. 29 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 5.

  3. The older man in the group: Diogenes describes Aristotle as having long legs and small eyes, fashionable clothes, and rings on his fingers; he also tells us that he shaved. Diogenes, Lives of the Philosophers, V:1.

  4. From the sky, the island of Lesbos: Hugh J. Mason, “Romance in a Limestone Landscape,” Classical Philology 90, no. 3 (1995): 263–66.