The Quotable Darwin

by Janet Browne

  Darwin to Dr. John Chapman,

  16 May [1865], DCP 4834

  Politics

  I never knew the newspapers so profoundly interesting [about the American Civil War, 1861–65]. N. America does not do England justice: I have not seen or heard of a soul who is not with the North. Some few, & I am one, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against Slavery. In the long run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity…. Great God how I shd like to see that greatest curse on Earth, Slavery, abolished.

  Darwin to Asa Gray,

  5 June [1861], DCP 3176

  It is surprising to me that you shd. have strength of mind to care for science, amidst the awful events daily occurring in your country. I daily look at the Times with almost as much interest as an American could do. When will peace come: it is dreadful to think of the desolation of large parts of your magnificent coun try; & all the speechless misery suffered by many.

  Darwin to Asa Gray,

  10–20 June [1862], DCP 3595

  Slavery draws me one day one way & another day another way. But certainly the Yankees are utterly detestable towards us.—What a new idea of Struggle for existence being necessary to try & purge a government! I daresay it is very true.

  Darwin to J. D. Hooker,

  24 December [1862], DCP 3875

  Our aristocracy is handsomer (more hideous according to a Chinese or Negro) than middle classes from pick of women; but oh what a scheme is primogeniture for destroying N. Selection.

  Darwin to A. R. Wallace,

  28 [May 1864], DCP 4510

  The great sin of Slavery has been almost universal, and slaves have often been treated in an infamous manner. As barbarians do not regard the opinion of their women, wives are commonly treated like slaves. Most savages are utterly indifferent to the sufferings of strangers, or even delight in witnessing them.

  Descent 1871, vol. 1, 94

  Science

  It appears to me, the doing what little one can to encrease the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.

  Darwin to E. C. Darwin,

  22 May–14 July 1833, CDP 206

  During these two years [1837–39] I took several short excursions as a relaxation, and one longer one to the parallel roads of Glen Roy [Scotland], an account of which was published in the Philosophical Transactions [of the Royal Society]. This paper was a great failure, and I am ashamed of it. Having been deeply impressed with what I had seen of the elevation of the land in S. America, I attributed the parallel lines to the action of the sea; but I had to give up this view when [Louis] Agassiz propounded his glacier-lake theory. Because no other explanation was possible under our then state of knowledge, I argued in favour of sea-action; and my error has been a good lesson to me never to trust in science to the principle of exclusion.

  Autobiography, 84

  I am a firm believer that without speculation there is no good & original observation.

  Darwin to A. R. Wallace,

  22 December 1857, DCP 2192

  How odd it is that every one should not see that all observation must be for or against some view, if it is to be of any service.

  Darwin to Henry Fawcett,

  18 September [1861], DCP 3257

  I am sometimes half tempted to give up Species & stick to experiments; they are much better fun.

  Darwin to J. D. Hooker,

  9 February [1862], DCP 3440

  I did not fully appreciate your insect-diving-case before your last note; nor had I any idea that the fact was new, though new to me. It is really very interesting. Of course you will publish an account of it. You will then say whether the insect can fly well through the air. My wife asked how did he find out that it stayed 4 hours under water without breathing; I answered at once “Mrs. Lubbock sat four hours watching”. I wonder whether I am right.

  Darwin to John Lubbock,

  5 September [1862], DCP 3713

  I am like a gambler, & love a wild experiment.

  Darwin to J. D. Hooker,

  26 [March 1863], DCP 4061

  Forgive me for suggesting one caution; as Demosthenes said, “action, action, action” was the soul of eloquence, so is caution almost the soul of science. Pray bear in mind that if a naturalist is once considered, though unjustly, as not quite trust worthy, it takes long years before he can recover his reputation for accuracy.

  Darwin to Anton Dohrn,

  4 January 1870, DCP 7070

  It has often and confidently been asserted, that man’s origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

  Descent 1871, vol. 1, 3

  False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often long endure; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, as every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.

  Descent 1871, vol. 2, 385

  I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things, & a most perplexing problem it is.—Many men who are very clever—much cleverer than discoverers—never originate anything. As far as I can conjecture, the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs. This implies sharp observation & requires as much knowledge as possible of the subject investigated.

  Darwin to Horace Darwin,

  [15 December 1871], DCP 8107

  We had grand fun one afternoon, for George [Darwin] hired a medium, who made the chairs, a flute, a bell & candlestick & fiery points jump about in my Brother’s dining room, in a manner that astounded everyone & took away all their breaths. It was in the dark, but George & Hensleigh [Wedgwood] held the medium’s hands & feet on both sides all the time. I found it so hot & tiring that I went away before all these astounding miracles or jugglery took place. How the man could possibly do what was done, passes my understanding. I came down stairs, & saw all the chairs, etc. etc. on the table which had been lifted over the heads of those sitting around it. The Lord have mercy on us all, if we have to believe in such rubbish. F. Galton was there and says it was a good séance.

  Darwin to J. D. Hooker,

  18 January [1874], DCP 9247

  Perhaps you saw in the papers that the Turin Soc. honoured me to an extraordinary degree by awarding me the Bressa prize. Now it occurred to me that if your Station [Stazione Zoologica di Napoli] wanted some piece of apparatus of about the value of 100 £ I shd. very much like to be allowed to pay for it.

  Darwin to Anton Dohrn,

  15 February 1880, quoted in Gröben 1982, 70

  From quotations which I had seen I had a high notion of Aristotle’s merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere school-boys to old Aristotle.

  Darwin to William Ogle,

  22 February 1882, quoted in Gotthelf 1999, 4

  I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free, so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it. Indeed I have had no choice but to act in this manner, for with the exception of the Coral Reefs, I cannot remember a single first-formed hypothesis which had not after a time to be given up or greatly modified. This has naturally led me to distrust greatly deductive reasoning in the mixed sciences.

  Autobiography, 141

  Writing

  I am just now beginning to discover the difficulty of expressing one’s ideas on paper. As long as it consists solely of description it is pretty easy; but where reasoning comes into play, to make a proper connection, a clearness & a mode
rate fluency, is to me, as I have said, a difficulty of which I had no idea.

  Darwin to C. S. Darwin,

  29 April 1836, DCP 301

  I find the style [of On the Origin of Species] incredibly bad, & most difficult to make clear & smooth.

  Darwin to John Murray,

  14 June [1859], DCP 2469

  To me, observing is much better sport than writing.

  Darwin to Henry Fawcett,

  18 September [1861], DCP 3257

  In writing, he sometimes showed the same tendency to strong expressions as he did in conversation. Thus in the Origin, p. 440, there is a description of a larval cirripede, “with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of magnificent compound eyes, and extremely complex antennæ.” We used to laugh at him for this sentence, which we compared to an advertisement. This tendency to give himself up to the enthusiastic turn of his thought, without fear of being ludicrous, appears elsewhere in his writings.

  F. Darwin in Life and Letters, vol. 1, 156

  Write the book carefully and then go over it again, crossing out every sentence that looks like particularly fine composition.

  Advice to H. W. Bates, quoted in

  Obituary of Henry Walter Bates, Proceedings of the

  Royal Geographical Society 14 (4): 251

  There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at first my statement and proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.

  Autobiography, 136–37

  I may mention that I keep from thirty to forty large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or memorandum. I have bought many books and at their ends I make an index of all the facts that concern my work; or, if the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract, and of such abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before beginning on any subject I look to all the short indexes and make a general and classified index, and by taking the one or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during my life ready for use.

  Autobiography, 137–38

  Please read the Ch. [proof sheets of Descent of Man] first right through without a pencil in your hand, that you may judge of general scheme; as, also, I particularly wish to know whether parts are extra tedious; but remember that M.S is always much more tedious than print…. I fear parts are too like a Sermon: who wd ever have thought that I shd. turn parson?

  Darwin to Henrietta Darwin,

  [8 February 1870], DCP 7124

  I have worked through (and it is hard work), half of the 2nd chapter on mind [proofs of Descent of Man], and your corrections and suggestions are excellent. I have adopted the greater number, and I am sure that they are very great improvements. Some of the transpositions are most just. You have done me real service; but, by Jove, how hard you must have worked, and how thoroughly you have mastered my MS. I am pleased with this chapter now that it comes fresh to me. Your affectionate, and admiring and obedient father, C. D.

  Darwin to Henrietta Darwin,

  [March] 1870, Emma Darwin, vol. 2, 230

  Dogs

  My father was always fond of dogs, and as a young man had the power of stealing away the affections of his sisters’ pets; at Cambridge, he won the love of his cousin W.D. Fox’s dog, and this may perhaps have been the little beast which used to creep down inside his bed and sleep at the foot every night. My father had a surly dog, who was devoted to him, but unfriendly to every one else, and when he came back from the Beagle voyage, the dog remembered him, but in a curious way, which my father was fond of telling. He went into the yard and shouted in his old manner; the dog rushed out and set off with him on his walk, showing no more emotion or excitement than if the same thing had happened the day before, instead of five years ago.

  F. Darwin, Life and Letters, vol. 1, 113

  The dog most closely associated with my father was … Polly, a rough, white foxterrier…. My father used to make her catch biscuits off her nose, and had an affectionate and mock-solemn way of explaining to her beforehand that she must “be a very good girl.” She had a mark on her back where she had been burnt, and where the hair had re-grown red instead of white, and my father used to commend her for this tuft of hair as being in accordance with his theory of pangenesis; her father had been a red bull-terrier, thus the red hair appearing after the burn showed the presence of latent red gemmules.

  F. Darwin, Life and Letters, vol. 1, 113–14

  I formerly possessed a large dog, who, like every other dog, was much pleased to go out walking. He showed his pleasure by trotting gravely before me with high steps, head much raised, moderately erected ears, and tail carried aloft but not stiffly. Not far from my house a path branches off to the right, leading to the hot-house, which I used often to visit for a few moments, to look at my experimental plants. This was always a great disappointment to the dog, as he did not know whether I should continue my walk; and the instantaneous and complete change of expression which came over him, as soon as my body swerved in the least towards the path (and I sometimes tried this as an experiment) was laughable. His look of dejection was known to every member of the family, and was called his hot-house face. This consisted in the head drooping much, the whole body sinking a little and remaining motionless; the ears and tail falling suddenly down, but the tail was by no means wagged. With the falling of the ears and of his great chaps, the eyes became much changed in appearance, and I fancied that they looked less bright. His aspect was that of piteous, hopeless dejection; and it was, as I have said, laughable, as the cause was so slight.

  Expression, 59–60

  A female terrier of mine lately had her puppies destroyed, and though at all times a very affectionate creature, I was much struck with the manner in which she then tried to satisfy her instinctive maternal love by expending it on me; and her desire to lick my hands rose to an insatiable passion.

  Expression, 120

  The love of a dog for his master is notorious; in the agony of death he has been known to caress his master, and every one has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life.

  Descent 1871, vol. 1, 40

  Anti-vivisection

  I would gladly punish severely any one who operated on an animal not rendered insensible, if the experiment made this possible; but here again I do not see that a magistrate or jury could possibly determine such a point. Therefore I conclude, if (as is likely) some experiments have been tried too often, or anæsthetics have not been used when they could have been, the cure must be in the improvement of humanitarian feelings.

  Darwin to Henrietta (Darwin)

  Litchfield, 4 January 1875,

  Life and Letters, vol. 3, 202

  I have all my life been a strong advocate for humanity to animals, and have done what I could in my writings to enforce this duty. Several years ago, when the agitation against physiologists commenced in England, it was asserted that inhumanity was here practised and useless suffering caused to animals; and I was led to think that it might be advisable to have an Act of Parliament on the subject. I then took an active part in trying to get a Bill passed, such as would have removed all just cause of complaint, and at the same time have left physiologists free to pursue their researches—a Bill very different from the Act which has since been passed.

  Darwin to Frithiof Holmgren,

  The Times, 18 April 1881, 10

  Physiology cannot possibly progress except by means of experiments on living animals, and I feel the deepest conviction that he who retards the progress of physiology commits a crime against mankind. Any one who rem
embers, as I can, the state of this science half a century ago must admit that it has made immense progress, and it is now progressing at an ever-increasing rate.

  Darwin to Frithiof Holmgren,

  The Times, 18 April 1881, 10

  Mr. Darwin eventually became the centre of an adoring clique of vivisectors who (as his Biography shows) plied him incessantly with encouragement to uphold their practice, till the deplorable spectacle was exhibited of a man who would not allow a fly to bite a pony’s neck, standing forth before all Europe (in his celebrated letter to Prof. [Frithiof] Holmgren of Sweden) as the advocate of Vivisection.

  Cobbe 1894, vol. 2, 128

  Nature

  I cannot tell you how I enjoyed some of these views [in the Cordilliera].—it is worth coming from England once to feel such intense delight. At an elevation from 10–12000 ft. there is a transparency in the air & a confusion of distances & a sort of stillness which gives the sensation of being in another world, & when to this is joined, the picture so plainly drawn of the great epochs of violence, it causes in the mind a most strange assemblage of ideas.

  Darwin to J. S. Henslow,

  18 April 1835, DCP 274

  While sailing in these latitudes on one very dark night, the sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful spectacle. There was a fresh breeze, and every part of the surface, which during the day is seen as foam, now glowed with a pale light. The vessel drove before her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus, and in her wake she was followed by a milky train. As far as the eye reached, the crest of every wave was bright, and the sky above the horizon, from the reflected glare of these livid flames, was not so utterly obscure, as over the rest of the heavens.

  Journal of Researches 1839, 190–91

  At first, from the waterfalls and number of dead trees [in Tierra del Fuego], I could hardly crawl along; but the bed of the stream soon became a little more open, from the floods having swept the sides. I continued slowly to advance for an hour along the broken and rocky banks; and was amply repaid by the grandeur of the scene. The gloomy depth of the ravine well accorded with the universal signs of violence. On every side were lying irregular masses of rock and up-torn trees; other trees, though still erect, were decayed to the heart and ready to fall. The entangled mass of the thriving and the fallen reminded me of the forests within the tropics;—yet there was a difference; for in these still solitudes, Death, instead of Life, seemed the predominant spirit.