Чарльз Дарвин
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
I have read Lyell's book. ['The Antiquity of Man.'] the whole certainty struck me as a compilation, but of the highest class, for when possible the facts have been verified on the spot, making it almost an original work. The Glacial chapters seem to me best, and in parts magnificent. I could hardly judge about Man, as all the gloss of novelty was completely worn off. But certainly the aggregation of the evidence produced a very striking effect on my mind. The chapter comparing language and changes of species, seems most ingenious and interesting. He has shown great skill in picking out salient points in the argument for change of species; but I am deeply disappointed (I do not mean personally) to find that his timidity prevents him giving any judgment... From all my communications with him I must ever think that he has really entirely lost faith in the immutability of species; and yet one of his strongest sentences is nearly as follows: "If it should EVER (The italics are not Lyell's.) be rendered highly probable that species change by variation and natural selection," etc., etc. I had hoped he would have guided the public as far as his own belief went... One thing does please me on this subject, that he seems to appreciate your work. No doubt the public or a part may be induced to think that as he gives to us a larger space than to Lamarck, he must think there is something in our views. When reading the brain chapter, it struck me forcibly that if he had said openly that he believed in change of species, and as a consequence that man was derived from some Quadrumanous animal, it would have been very proper to have discussed by compilation the differences in the most important organ, viz. the brain. As it is, the chapter seems to me to come in rather by the head and shoulders. I do not think (but then I am as prejudiced as Falconer and Huxley, or more so) that it is too severe; it struck me as given with judicial force. It might perhaps be said with truth that he had no business to judge on a subject on which he knows nothing; but compilers must do this to a certain extent. (You know I value and rank high compilers, being one myself!) I have taken you at your word, and scribbled at great length. If I get the "Athenaeum" to-morrow, I will add my impression of Owen's letter.
... The Lyells are coming here on Sunday evening to stay till Wednesday. I dread it, but I must say how much disappointed I am that he has not spoken out on species, still less on man. And the best of the joke is that he thinks he has acted with the courage of a martyr of old. I hope I may have taken an exaggerated view of his timidity, and shall PARTICULARLY be glad of your opinion on this head. (On this subject my father wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker: "Cordial thanks for your deeply interesting letters about Lyell, Owen, and Co. I cannot say how glad I am to hear that I have not been unjust about the species-question towards Lyell. I feared I had been unreasonable.") When I got his book I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public than all of us, and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven he had said not a word on the subject.
WEDNESDAY MORNING:
I have read the "Athenaeum". I do not think Lyell will be nearly so much annoyed as you expect. The concluding sentence is no doubt very stinging. No one but a good anatomist could unravel Owen's letter; at least it is quite beyond me.
... Lyell's memory plays him false when he says all anatomists were astonished at Owen's paper ("On the Characters, etc., of the Class Mammalia." 'Linn. Soc. Journal,' ii, 1858.); it was often quoted with approbation. I WELL remember Lyell's admiration at this new classification! (Do not repeat this.) I remember it, because, though I knew nothing whatever about the brain, I felt a conviction that a classification thus founded on a single character would break down, and it seemed to me a great error not to separate more completely the Marsupialia...
What an accursed evil it is that there should be all this quarrelling within, what ought to be, the peaceful realms of science. I will go to my own present subject of inheritance and forget it all for a time. Farewell, my dear old friend,
C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, February 23 [1863].
... If you have time to read you will be interested by parts of Lyell's book on man; but I fear that the best part, about the Glacial period, may be too geological for any one except a regular geologist. He quotes you at the end with gusto. By the way, he told me the other day how pleased some had been by hearing that they could purchase your pamphlet. The "Parthenon" also speaks of it as the ablest contribution to the literature of the subject. It delights me when I see your work appreciated.
The Lyells come here this day week, and I shall grumble at his excessive caution... The public may well say, if such a man dare not or will not speak out his mind, how can we who are ignorant form even a guess on the subject? Lyell was pleased when I told him lately that you thought that language might be used as an excellent illustration of derivation of species; you will see that he has an ADMIRABLE chapter on this...
I read Cairns's excellent Lecture (Prof. J.E. Cairns, 'The Slave Power, etc.: an attempt to explain the real issues involved in the American contest.' 1862.), which shows so well how your quarrel arose from Slavery. It made me for a time wish honestly for the North; but I could never help, though I tried, all the time thinking how we should be bullied and forced into a war by you, when you were triumphant. But I do most truly think it dreadful that the South, with its accursed slavery, should triumph, and spread the evil. I think if I had power, which thank God, I have not, I would let you conquer the border States, and all west of the Mississippi, and then force you to acknowledge the cotton States. For do you not now begin to doubt whether you can conquer and hold them? I have inflicted a long tirade on you.
"The Times" is getting more detestable (but that is too weak a word) than ever. My good wife wishes to give it up, but I tell her that is a pitch of heroism to which only a woman is equal. To give up the "Bloody Old 'Times'," as Cobbett used to call it, would be to give up meat, drink and air. Farewell, my dear Gray,
Yours most truly, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, March 6, [1863].
... I have been of course deeply interested by your book. ('Antiquity of Man.') I have hardly any remarks worth sending, but will scribble a little on what most interested me. But I will first get out what I hate saying, viz., that I have been greatly disappointed that you have not given judgment and spoken fairly out what you think about the derivation of species. I should have been contented if you had boldly said that species have not been separately created, and had thrown as much doubt as you like on how far variation and natural selection suffices. I hope to Heaven I am wrong (and from what you say about Whewell it seems so), but I cannot see how your chapters can do more good than an extraordinary able review. I think the "Parthenon" is right, that you will leave the public in a fog. No doubt they may infer that as you give more space to myself, Wallace, and Hooker, than to Lamarck, you think more of us. But I had always thought that your judgment would have been an epoch in the subject. All that is over with me, and I will only think on the admirable skill with which you have selected the striking points, and explained them. No praise can be too strong, in my opinion, for the inimitable chapter on language in comparison with species.
(After speculating on the sudden appearance of individuals far above the average of the human race, Lyell asks if such leaps upwards in the scale of intellect may not "have cleared at one bound the space which separated the higher stage of the unprogressive intelligence of the inferior animals from the first and lowest form of improvable reason manifested by man.") page 505 — A sentence at the top of the page makes me groan...
I know you will forgive me for writing with perfect freedom, for you must know how deeply I respect you as my old honoured guide and master. I heartily hope and expect that your book will have gigantic circulation and may do in many ways as much good as it ought to do. I am tired, so no more. I have written so briefly that you will have to guess my meaning. I fear my remarks are hardly worth sending. Farewell, with kindest remembrance to Lady Lyell.
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
[Mr. Huxley has quoted (vol. i. page 546) some passages from Lyell's letters which show his state of mind at this time. The following passage, from a letter of March 11th to my father, is also of much interest: —
"My feelings, however, more than any thought about policy or expediency, prevent me from dogmatising as to the descent of man from the brutes, which, though I am prepared to accept it, takes away much of the charm from my speculations on the past relating to such matters... But you ought to be satisfied, as I shall bring hundreds towards you who, if I treated the matter more dogmatically, would have rebelled."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, 12 [March, 1863].
My dear Lyell,
I thank you for your very interesting and kind, I may say, charming letter. I feared you might be huffed for a little time with me. I know some men would have been so. I have hardly any more criticisms, anyhow, worth writing. But I may mention that I felt a little surprise that old B. de Perthes (1788-1868. See footnote below.) was not rather more honourably mentioned. I would suggest whether you could not leave out some references to the 'Principles;' one for the real student is as good as a hundred, and it is rather irritating, and gives a feeling of incompleteness to the general reader to be often referred to other books. As you say that you have gone as far as you believe on the species question, I have not a word to say; but I must feel convinced that at times, judging from conversation, expressions, letters, etc., you have as completely given up belief in immutability of specific forms as I have done. I must still think a clear expression from you, IF YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN IT, would have been potent with the public, and all the more so, as you formerly held opposite opinions. The more I work the more satisfied I become with variation and natural selection, but that part of the case I look at as less important, though more interesting to me personally. As you ask for criticisms on this head (and believe me that I should not have made them unasked), I may specify (pages 412, 413) that such words as "Mr. D. labours to show," "is believed by the author to throw light," would lead a common reader to think that you yourself do NOT at all agree, but merely think it fair to give my opinion. Lastly, you refer repeatedly to my view as a modification of Lamarck's doctrine of development and 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, and others, propounded the OBVIOUS views that if species were not created separately they must have descended from other species, and I can see nothing else in common between the 'Origin' and Lamarck. I believe this way of putting the case is very injurious to its acceptance, as it implies necessary progression, and closely connects Wallace's and my views with what I consider, after two deliberate readings, as a wretched book, and one from which (I well remember my surprise) I gained nothing. But I know you rank it higher, which is curious, as it did not in the least shake your belief. But enough, and more than enough. Please remember you have brought it all down on yourself!!!
I am very sorry to hear about Falconer's "reclamation." ("Falconer, whom I referred to oftener than to any other author, says I have not done justice to the part he took in resuscitating the cave question, and says he shall come out with a separate paper to prove it. I offered to alter anything in the new edition, but this he declined. — C. Lyell to C. Darwin, March 11, 1863; Lyell's 'Life,' vol. ii. page 364.) I hate the very word, and have a sincere affection for him.
Did you ever read anything so wretched as the "Athenaeum" reviews of you, and of Huxley ('Man's Place in Nature,' 1863.) especially. Your OBJECT to make man old, and Huxley's OBJECT to degrade him. The wretched writer has not a glimpse what the discovery of scientific truth means. How splendid some pages are in Huxley, but I fear the book will not be popular...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [March 13, 1863].
I should have thanked you sooner for the "Athenaeum" and very pleasant previous note, but I have been busy, and not a little uncomfortable from frequent uneasy feeling of fullness, slight pain and tickling about the heart. But as I have no other symptoms of heart complaint I do not suppose it is affected... I have had a most kind and delightfully candid letter from Lyell, who says he spoke out as far as he believes. I have no doubt his belief failed him as he wrote, for I feel sure that at times he no more believed in Creation than you or I. I have grumbled a bit in my answer to him at his ALWAYS classing my work as a modification of Lamarck's, which it is no more than any author who did not believe in immutability of species, and did believe in descent. I am very sorry to hear from Lyell that Falconer is going to publish a formal reclamation of his own claims...
It is cruel to think of it, but we must go to Malvern in the middle of April; it is ruin to me. (He went to Hartfield in Sussex, on April 27, and to Malvern in the autumn.)...
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, March 17 [1863].
My dear Lyell,
I have been much interested by your letters and enclosure, and thank you sincerely for giving me so much time when you must be so busy. What a curious letter from B. de P. [Boucher de Perthes]. He seems perfectly satisfied, and must be a very amiable man. I know something about his errors, and looked at his book many years ago, and am ashamed to think that I concluded the whole was rubbish! Yet he has done for man something like what Agassiz did for glaciers. (In his 'Antiquites Celtiques' (1847), Boucher de Perthes described the flint tools found at Abbeville with bones of rhinoceros, hyaena, etc. "But the scientific world had no faith in the statement that works of art, however rude, had been met with in undisturbed beds of such antiquity." ('Antiquity of Man,' first edition, page 95).)
I cannot say that I agree with Hooker about the public not liking to be told what to conclude, IF COMING FROM ONE IN YOUR POSITION. But I am heartily sorry that I was led to make complaints, or something very like complaints, on the manner in which you have treated the subject, and still more so anything about myself. I steadily ENDEAVOUR never to forget my firm belief that no one can at all judge about his own work. As for Lamarck, as you have such a man as Grove with you, you are triumphant; not that I can alter my opinion that to me it was an absolutely useless book. Perhaps this was owing to my always searching books for facts, perhaps from knowing my grandfather's earlier and identically the same speculation. I will only further say that if I can analyse my own feelings (a very doubtful process), it is nearly as much for your sake as for my own, that I so much wish that your state of belief could have permitted you to say boldly and distinctly out that species were not separately created. I have generally told you the progress of opinion, as I have heard it, on the species question. A first-rate German naturalist (No doubt Haeckel, whose monograph on the Radiolaria was published in 1862. In the same year Professor W. Preyer of Jena published a dissertation on Alca impennis, which was one of the earliest pieces of special work on the basis of the 'Origin of Species.') (I now forget the name!), who has lately published a grand folio, has spoken out to the utmost extent on the 'Origin.' De Candolle, in a very good paper on "Oaks," goes, in Asa Gray's opinion, as far as he himself does; but De Candolle, in writing to me, says WE, "we think this and that;" so that I infer he really goes to the full extent with me, and tells me of a French good botanical palaeontologist (name forgotten) (The Marquis de Saporta.), who writes to De Candolle that he is sure that my views will ultimately prevail. But I did not intend to have written all this. It satisfies me with the final results, but this result, I begin to see, will take two or three lifetimes. The entomologists are enough to keep the subject back for half a century. I really pity your having to balance the claims of so many eager aspirants for notice; it is clearly impossible to satisfy all... Certainly I was struck with the full and due honour you conferred on Falconer. I have just had a note from Hooker... I am heartily glad that you have made him so conspicuous; he is so honest, so candid, and so modest...
I have read — . I could find nothing to lay hold of, which in one sense I am very glad of, as I should hate a controversy; but in another sense I am very sorry for, as I long to be in the same boat with all my friends... I am heartily glad the book is going off so well.
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [March 29, 1863].
... Many thanks for "Athenaeum", received this morning, and to be returned to-morrow morning. Who would have ever thought of the old stupid "Athenaeum" taking to Oken-like transcendental philosophy written in Owenian style! (This refers to a review of Dr. Carpenter's 'Introduction to the study of Foraminifera,' that appeared in the "Athenaeum" of March 28, 1863 (page 417). The reviewer attacks Dr. Carpenter's views in as much as they support the doctrine of Descent; and he upholds spontaneous generation (Heterogeny) in place of what Dr. Carpenter, naturally enough, believed in, viz. the genetic connection of living and extinct Foraminifera. In the next number is a letter by Dr. Carpenter, which chiefly consists of a protest against the reviewer's somewhat contemptuous classification of Dr. Carpenter and my father as disciple and master. In the course of the letter Dr. Carpenter says — page 461: —
"Under the influence of his foregone conclusion that I have accepted Mr. Darwin as my master, and his hypothesis as my guide, your reviewer represents me as blind to the significance of the general fact stated by me, that 'there has been no advance in the foraminiferous type from the palaeozoic period to the present time.' But for such a foregone conclusion he would have recognised in this statement the expression of my conviction that the present state of scientific evidence, instead of sanctioning the idea that the descendants of the primitive type or types of Foraminifera can ever rise to any higher grade, justifies the ANTI-DARWINIAN influence, that however widely they diverge from each other and from their originals, THEY STILL REMAIN FORAMINIFERA.")... It will be some time before we see "slime, protoplasm, etc.," generating a new animal. (On the same subject my father wrote in 1871: "It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.") But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation (This refers to a passage in which the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter's books speaks of "an operation of force," or "a concurrence of forces which have now no place in nature," as being, "a creative force, in fact, which Darwin could only express in Pentateuchal terms as the primordial form 'into which life was first breathed.'" The conception of expressing a creative force as a primordial form is the Reviewer's.), by which I really meant "appeared" by some wholly unknown process. It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, Friday night [April 17, 1863].
My dear Hooker,
I have heard from Oliver that you will be now at Kew, and so I am going to amuse myself by scribbling a bit. I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed your tour. I never in my life saw anything like the spring flowers this year. What a lot of interesting things have been lately published. I liked extremely your review of De Candolle. What an awfully severe article that by Falconer on Lyell ("Athenaeum", April 4, 1863, page 459. The writer asserts that justice has not been done either to himself or Mr. Prestwich — that Lyell has not made it clear that it was their original work which supplied certain material for the 'Antiquity of Man.' Falconer attempts to draw an unjust distinction between a "philosopher" (here used as a polite word for compiler) like Sir Charles Lyell, and original observers, presumably such as himself, and Mr. Prestwich. Lyell's reply was published in the "Athenaeum", April 18, 1863. It ought to be mentioned that a letter from Mr. Prestwich ("Athenaeum", page 555), which formed part of the controversy, though of the nature of a reclamation, was written in a very different spirit and tone from Dr. Falconer's.); I am very sorry for it; I think Falconer on his side does not do justice to old Perthes and Schmerling... I shall be very curious to see how he [Lyell] answers it t-morrow. (I have been compelled to take in the "Athenaeum" for a while.) I am very sorry that Falconer should have written so spitefully, even if there is some truth in his accusations; I was rather disappointed in Carpenter's letter, no one could have given a better answer, but the chief object of his letter seems to me to be to show that though he has touched pitch he is not defiled. No one would suppose he went so far as to believe all birds came from one progenitor. I have written a letter to the "Athenaeum" ("Athenaeum", 1863, page 554: "The view given by me on the origin or derivation of species, whatever its weaknesses may be, connects (as has been candidly admitted by some of its opponents, such as Pictet, Bronn, etc.), by an intelligible thread of reasoning, a multitude of facts: such as the formation of domestic races by man's selection, — the classification and affinities of all organic beings, — the innumerable gradations in structure and instincts, — the similarity of pattern in the hand, wing, or paddle of animals of the same great class, — the existence of organs become rudimentary by disuse, — the similarity of an embryonic reptile, bird, and mammal, with the retention of traces of an apparatus fitted for aquatic respiration; the retention in the young calf of incisor teeth in the upper jaw, etc. — the distribution of animals and plants, and their mutual affinities within the same region, — their general geological succession, and the close relationship of the fossils in closely consecutive formations and within the same country; extinct marsupials having preceded living marsupials in Australia, and armadillo-like animals having preceded and generated armadilloes in South America, — and many other phenomena, such as the gradual extinction of old forms and their gradual replacement by new forms better fitted for their new conditions in the struggle for life. When the advocate of Heterogeny can thus connect large classes of facts, and not until then, he will have respectful and patient listeners.") (the first and last time I shall take such a step) to say, under the cloak of attacking Heterogeny, a word in my own defence. My letter is to appear next week, so the Editor says; and I mean to quote Lyell's sentence (See the next letter.) in his second edition, on the principle if one puffs oneself, one had better puff handsomely...
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April 18 [1863].
My dear Lyell,
I was really quite sorry that you had sent me a second copy (The second edition of the 'Antiquity of Man' was published a few months after the first had appeared.) of your valuable book. But after a few hours my sorrow vanished for this reason: I have written a letter to the "Athenaeum", in order, under the cloak of attacking the monstrous article on Heterogeny, to say a word for myself in answer to Carpenter, and now I have inserted a few sentences in allusion to your analogous objection (Lyell objected that the mammalia (e.g. bats and seals) which alone have been able to reach oceanic islands ought to have become modified into various terrestrial forms fitted to fill various places in their new home. My father pointed out in the "Athenaeum" that Sir Charles has in some measure answered his own objection, and went on to quote the "amended sentence" ('Antiquity of Man,' 2nd Edition page 469) as showing how far Lyell agreed with the general doctrines of the "Origin of Species': "Yet we ought by no means to undervalue the importance of the step which will have been made, should it hereafter become the generally received opinion of men of science (as I fully expect it will) that the past changes of the organic world have been brought about by the subordinate agency of such causes as Variation and Natural Selection." In the first edition the words (as I fully expect it will," do not occur.) about bats on islands, and then with infinite slyness have quoted your amended sentence, with your parenthesis ("as I fully believe") (My father here quotes Lyell incorrectly; see the previous foot-note.); I do not think you can be annoyed at my doing this, and you see, that I am determined as far as I can, that the public shall see how far you go. This is the first time I have ever said a word for myself in any journal, and it shall, I think, be the last. My letter is short, and no great things. I was extremely concerned to see Falconer's disrespectful and virulent letter. I like extremely your answer just read; you take a lofty and dignified position, to which you are so well entitled. (In a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker he wrote: "I much like Lyell's letter. But all this squabbling will greatly sink scientific men. I have seen sneers already in the 'Times'.")
I suspect that if you had inserted a few more superlatives in speaking of the several authors there would have been none of this horrid noise. No one, I am sure, who knows you could doubt about your hearty sympathy with every one who makes any little advance in science. I still well remember my surprise at the manner in which you listened to me in Hart Street on my return from the "Beagle's" voyage. You did me a world of good. It is horridly vexatious that so frank and apparently amiable a man as Falconer should have behaved so. (It is to this affair that the extract from a letter to Falconer, given in volume i., refers.) Well it will all soon be forgotten...
[In reply to the above-mentioned letter of my father's to the "Athenaeum", an article appeared in that Journal (May 2nd, 1863, page 586), accusing my father of claiming for his views the exclusive merit of "connecting by an intelligible thread of reasoning" a number of facts in morphology, etc. The writer remarks that, "The different generalizations cited by Mr. Darwin as being connected by an intelligible thread of reasoning exclusively through his attempt to explain specific transmutation are in fact related to it in this wise, that they have prepared the minds of naturalists for a better reception of such attempts to explain the way of the origin of species from species."
To this my father replied in the "Athenaeum" of May 9th, 1863:]
Down, May 5 [1863].
I hope that you will grant me space to own that your reviewer is quite correct when he states that any theory of descent will connect, "by an intelligible thread of reasoning," the several generalizations before specified. I ought to have made this admission expressly; with the reservation, however, that, as far as I can judge, no theory so well explains or connects these several generalizations (more especially the formation of domestic races in comparison with natural species, the principles of classification, embryonic resemblance, etc.) as the theory, or hypothesis, or guess, if the reviewer so likes to call it, of Natural Selection. Nor has any other satisfactory explanation been ever offered of the almost perfect adaptation of all organic beings to each other, and to their physical conditions of life. Whether the naturalist believes in the views given by Lamarck, by Geoffrey St. Hilaire, by the author of the 'Vestiges,' by Mr. Wallace and myself, or in any other such view, signifies extremely little in comparison with the admission that species have descended from other species, and have not been created immutable; for he who admits this as a great truth has a wide field opened to him for further inquiry. I believe, however, from what I see of the progress of opinion on the Continent, and in this country, that the theory of Natural Selection will ultimately be adopted, with, no doubt, many subordinate modifications and improvements.
