Life of Charles Darwin

“Dear Sir, – In answer to your courteous letter of April 7, I have no objection to express my opinion with respect to the right of experimenting on living animals. I use this latter expression as more correct and comprehensive than that of vivisection. You are at liberty to make any use of this letter which you may think fit, but if published I should wish the whole to appear. 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. It is right to add that the investigation of the matter by a Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against our English physiologists were false. From all that I have heard, however, I fear that in some parts of Europe little regard is paid to the sufferings of animals, and if this be the case I should be glad to hear of legislation against inhumanity in any such country. On the other hand, I know that 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 remembers, 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.

“What improvements in medical practice may be directly attributed to physiological research is a question which can be properly discussed only by those physiologists and medical practitioners who have studied the history of their subjects; but, as far as I can learn, the benefits are already great. However this may be, no one, unless he is grossly ignorant of what science has done for mankind, can entertain any doubt of the incalculable benefits which will hereafter be derived from physiology, not only by man, but by the lower animals. Look, for instance, at Pasteur’s results of modifying the germs of the most malignant diseases, from which, as it so happens, animals will, in the first place, receive more relief than man. Let it be remembered how many lives, and what a fearful amount of suffering have been saved by the knowledge gained of parasitic worms through the experiments of Virchow and others on living animals. In the future every one will be astonished at the ingratitude shown, at least in England, to these benefactors of mankind. As for myself, permit me to assure you that I honour, and shall always honour, every one who advances the noble science of physiology.

“Dear sir, yours faithfully,“Charles Darwin.”

As an experimenter Darwin was by no means overconfident either in his methods or his power of obtaining results. He simply took the best means open to him, or that he could devise, applied them in the best way known to him, and calmly studied the result. “As far as my experience goes,” he wrote, in reference to experimental work, “what one expects rarely happens.” On another occasion, after working like a slave at a certain investigation, “with very poor success;” he remarks, “as usual, almost everything goes differently to what I had anticipated.” How few investigators have the magnanimity which appears in this confession. But more than this, it is an indication of the rare patience with which he stuck at a subject till he knew all he could read or discover or develop in connection with it. It was “dogged” that did it; “awfully hard work” sometimes. In reference to an attempt of his to define intelligence, which he regarded as unsatisfactory, after remarking that he tried to observe what passed in his own mind when he did the work of a worm, he writes: “If I come across a professed metaphysician, I will ask him to give me a more technical definition with a few big words, about the abstract, the concrete, the absolute, and the infinite. But sincerely, I should be grateful for any suggestions; for it will hardly do to assume that every fool knows what ‘intelligent’ means.”

Inasmuch as it must necessarily be of great interest to know the attitude which so great a thinker as Darwin adopted towards Christianity, revelation, and other matters of theology, we give unabridged two letters which were written without a view to publication, and were published after his death without the authorisation of his representatives. Having been widely published, however, it is right that they should be given here.

The first of these was sent in 1873 to N. D. Deedes, a Dutch gentleman, who wrote to ask Darwin his opinion on the existence of a God:

“It is impossible to answer your question briefly; I am not sure that I could do so even if I wrote at some length. But I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me our chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am, also, induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment of the many able men who have fully believed in God; but here, again, I see how poor an argument this is. The safest conclusion seems to be that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man’s intellect, but man can do his duty.”

The second letter was addressed to Nicholas, Baron Mengden, a German University student, in whom the study of Darwin’s books had raised religious doubts. It is dated June 5, 1879. The following is a re-translation of a German translation:

“I am very busy, and am an old man in delicate health, and have not time to answer your questions fully, even assuming that they are capable of being answered at all. Science and Christ have nothing to do with each other, except in so far as the habit of scientific investigation makes a man cautious about accepting any proofs. As far as I am concerned, I do not believe that any revelation has ever been made with regard to a future life; every one must draw his own conclusions from vague and contradictory probabilities.”

It should be added that he was greatly averse to every form of militant anti-religious controversy, and always deprecated it. He would have been the last to desire that his words should be quoted as of scientific authority, or as being more than the results of his own thought on questions which were not the subject of his life study. Let those who think that his having expressed these views is a regrettable blow to orthodox Christianity, set against it the enormous service Darwin did to reasonable natural theology by giving an intelligible key to the explanation of the universe. And let all men remember that genuine honesty such as Darwin’s cannot possibly hinder the interests or the spread of truth. His declaration that “man can do his duty,” implies his conviction that man may know what his duty is; and very many noble spirits besides Darwin have not found it possible to advance with certainty beyond this point.

As to Darwin’s place in literature, that is due supereminently to his thoughts. In his expression of them he had the saving quality of directness, and usually wrote with simplicity. Incisive he was not ordinarily; caution of his type harmonises ill with incisiveness. But what he lost thereby he gained in solidity and in permanence. Sometimes, as we have pointed out, his imagination carried him beyond his usual sober vein, and then he showed himself aglow with feeling or with sympathetic perception.

But when we speak of his imagination we pass at once to the other side of his mind – if indeed any such patient inquiry as his could have been maintained except for the imaginative side of him. This lit up his path, buoyed him in difficulties and failures, suggested new expedients, experiments, and combinations. The use of imagination in science has never been more aptly illustrated nor more beneficial than in his case. Darwin, more than any other man perhaps, showed the value, if not the essentiality, of “working hypotheses”; and if any man now wants to progress in biology, he will be foolish if he does not seek such and use them freely, and abandon them readily if disproved.

Darwin imagined grandly, and verified his imaginings as far as one man’s life suffices; and no man can do more. And Darwin won, as far as a man can win, success during his lifetime. As Professor Huxley said, in lecturing on “The Coming of Age of ‘The Origin of Species,’” “the foremost men of science in every country are either avowed champions of its leading doctrines, or at any rate abstain from opposing them.” His prescience has in less than a generation been justified by the discovery of intermediate fossil forms of animals too numerous to be here recounted. The break between vertebrate and invertebrate animals, between flowering and non-flowering plants, between animal and plant, is now bridged over by discoveries in the life histories of animals and plants which exist to-day. Embryo animals and plants are now known to go through stages which repeat and condense the upward ascent of life; and they give us information of the greatest value as to lost stages in the path. We can, as it were, see the actual track through which evolution may have proceeded. “Thus,” says Professor Huxley, “if the doctrine of evolution had not existed, palæontologists must have invented it, so irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of the remains of the Tertiary mammalia which have been brought to light since 1859;” and again, “so far as the animal world is concerned, evolution is no longer a speculation, but a statement of historical fact.”

As to the limits of the truth of Darwin’s theory, Professor Huxley, writing on “Evolution in Biology,” in “The Encyclopædia Britannica,” says: “How far natural selection suffices for the production of species remains to be seen. Few can doubt that, if not the whole cause, it is a very important factor in that operation; and that it must play a great part in the sorting out of varieties into those which are transitory, and those which are permanent. But the causes and conditions of variation have yet to be thoroughly explored; and the importance of natural selection will not be impaired, even if further inquiries should prove that variability is definite, and is determined in certain directions rather than in others, by conditions inherent in that which varies.”

We have not space to describe the importance of the work Darwin did in, or bearing on, entomology, changing its face and vastly elevating its importance. A volume might be compiled from his writings on this subject, as reference to Professor Riley’s excellent summary (Darwin Memorial Meeting, Washington, 1882) will readily show. Nor can we recount his important work in other branches of biology further than has been already done in the foregoing pages. To do so would require much more than a volume of this size.

One special department may perhaps claim notice on the ground of its supposed non-scientific character. Dr. Masters (Gardeners’ Chronicle, April 22, 1882) says of Darwin’s service to horticulture: “Let any one who knows what was the state of botany in this country even so recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, compare the feeling between botanists and horticulturists at that time with what it is now. What sympathy had the one for the pursuits of the other? The botanist looked down on the varieties, the races, and strains, raised with so much pride by the patient skill of the florist as on things unworthy of his notice and study. The horticulturist, on his side, knowing how very imperfectly plants could be studied from the mummified specimens in herbaria, which then constituted in most cases all the material that the botanist of this country considered necessary for the study of plants, naturally looked on the botanist somewhat in the light of a laborious trifler… Darwin altered all this. He made the dry bones live; he invested plants and animals with a history, a biography, a genealogy, which at once conferred an interest and a dignity on them. Before, they were as the stuffed skin of a beast in the glass case of a museum; now they are living beings, each in their degree affected by the same circumstances that affect ourselves, and swayed, mutatis mutandis, by like feelings and like passions. If he had done nothing more than this we might still have claimed Darwin as a horticulturist; but as we shall see, he has more direct claims on our gratitude. The apparently trifling variations, the variations which it was once the fashion for botanists to overlook, have become, as it were, the keystone of a great theory.”

A valuable summary of Darwin’s influence on general philosophic thought has been given by Mr. James Sully, in his article, “Evolution in Philosophy,” in “The Encyclopædia Britannica,” 9th ed., vol. viii. He, like many other thinkers, considers that Darwin has done much to banish old ideas as to the evidence of purpose in nature. Mr. Sully’s views are not entirely shared, however, by Professor Winchell, an able American evolutionist (“Encyclopædia Americana,” vol. ii.) who considers that the question of teleology, or of purpose in nature, is not really touched by the special principle of natural selection, nor by the general doctrine of evolution. The mechanical theorist may, consistently with these doctrines, maintain that every event takes place without a purpose; while the teleologist, or believer in purpose, may no less consistently maintain that the more orderly and uniform we find the succession of events, the more reason is there to presume that a purposeful intelligence is regulating them. It is certainly impossible to show that the whole system of evolution does not exist for a purpose. The ranks of the evolutionists, and even of the Darwinians, as a fact, embrace believers in the most diverse systems of philosophy, including many of those who accept Christ’s teaching as an authoritative Divine revelation. May not this diversity among Darwinians itself teach hope? Darwinism is held with vital grip and will therefore not become a dead creed, a fossil formula. The belief that every generation is a step in progress to a higher and fuller life contains within it the promise of a glorious evolution which is no longer a faint hope, but a reasoned faith.

  “Man’s thought is like Antæus, and must beTouched to the ground of Nature to regainFresh force, new impulse, else it would remainDead in the grip of strong Authority.But, once thereon reset, ’tis like a tree,Sap-swollen in spring-time: bonds may not restrain;Nor weight repress; its rootlets rend in twainDead stones and walls and rocks resistlessly.Thine then it was to touch dead thoughts to earth,Till of old dreams sprang new philosophies,From visions systems, and beneath thy spellSwiftly uprose, like magic palaces, —Thyself half-conscious only of thy worth —Calm priest of a tremendous oracle.”13

Here let us leave Charles Darwin; a marvellously patient and successful revolutioniser of thought; a noble and beloved man.

THE END

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BY JOHN P. ANDERSON(British Museum)

I. Works.

II. Miscellaneous Writings.

III. Appendix – Biography, Criticism, etc. Magazine Articles.

IV. Chronological List of Works.

I. WORKS

Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the Southern Shores of South America, and the Beagle’s circumnavigation of the globe. [With appendices and addenda.] 3 vols. London, 1839, 8vo.

Vol. iii. is the “Journal and Remarks, 1832-1836,” by Charles Darwin. The appendix to vol. ii. has a distinct title-page and pagination. Some copies of this work were issued in 2 vols., the third being complete in itself, and sold separately with the title “Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., from 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin, Esq.,” etc.

Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the World, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N. Second edition, corrected, with additions. (Murray’s Colonial and Home Library.) London, 1845, 8vo.

This has been reprinted with a new title-page reading, “A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World, etc.”

The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, under the command of Captain R. Fitzroy, during the years 1832-36. Edited and superintended by C. D. Part i., Fossil Mammalia, by R. Owen. (Part ii., Mammalia, described by G. R. Waterhouse, with a notice of their habits and ranges by C. D. Part iii., Birds, described by J. Gould, with a notice of their habits and ranges by C. D., with an anatomical appendix by T. C. Eyton. Part iv., Fish, described by L. Jenyns. Part v., Reptiles, described by T. Bell.) 5 parts. London, 1840-39-43, 4to.

The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. Being the first part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, 1832 to 1836. London, 1842, 8vo.

Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, together with some brief notices on the Geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, etc. London, 1844, 8vo.

Geological Observations on South America. Being the third part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, etc. London, 1846, 8vo.

The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, by C. D. With three plates. Second edition, revised. London, 1874, 8vo.

Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and parts of South America, visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, by C. D. Second edition, with maps and illustrations. London, 1876, 8vo.

A Monograph on the Fossil Lepadidæ or Pedunculated Cirripedes of Great Britain. (Palæontographical Society.) London, 1851, 4to.

A Monograph of the sub-class Cirripedia, with figures of all the species. (Ray Society.) 2 vols. London, 1851-54, 8vo.

A Monograph of the Fossil Balanidæ and Verrucidæ of Great Britain. (Palæontographical Society.) London, 1854, 4to.

On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By C. D. London, 1859, 8vo.

– Fifth thousand. London, 1860, 8vo.

– Third edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1861, 8vo.

– Fourth edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1866, 8vo.

– Fifth edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1869, 8vo.

– Sixth edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1872, 8vo.

On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are fertilised by Insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1862, 8vo.

– Second edition. With illustrations. London, 1877, 8vo.

The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. By C. D. [From the Journal of the Linnean Society.] London, 1865, 8vo.

– Second edition, revised. With illustrations. London, 1875, 8vo.

The Variation of Animals and Plants under domestication, by C. D. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1868, 8vo.

– Second edition, revised. Fourth thousand. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1875, 8vo.

– Second edition, revised. Fifth thousand. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1885, 8vo.

The Descent of Man, and Selection in relation to Sex. By C. D. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1871, 8vo.

– Second edition, revised and augmented. Tenth thousand. London, 1874, 8vo.

– Second edition, revised and augmented. Seventeenth thousand. London, 1883, 8vo.

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. By C. D. With photographic and other illustrations. London, 1872, 8vo.

Insectivorous Plants. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1875, 8vo.

The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom. By C. D. London, 1876, 8vo.

The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same Species. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1877, 8vo.

The Power of Movement in Plants. By C. D., assisted by Francis Darwin. With illustrations. London, 1880, 8vo.

The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with observations on their habits. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1881, 8vo.

– Fifth thousand (corrected). London, 1881, 8vo.

– Sixth thousand (corrected). London, 1882, 8vo.

II. MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

For private distribution. The following pages contain extracts from letters addressed to Professor Henslow by C. Darwin, Esq., printed for private distribution among the Members of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in consequence of the geological notices which they contain, etc. [Cambridge, 1835.] 8vo.

Note sur la découverte de quelques Ossemens Fossiles dans l’Amérique du Sud.

Annal. Sci. Nat. 2nd Ser. (Zoology). Tom. vii., 1837, pp. 319, 320.

Notes upon the Rhea Americana.

Zool. Soc. Proc., vol. v., 1837, pp. 35, 36.

Remarks upon the Habits of the Genera Geospiza, Camarhynchus, Cactornis, and Certhidea of Gould.

Proc. Zool. Soc., 1837, p. 49.

Sur trois Espèces du Genre Felis.

L’Institut. Tom. vi., 1838, No. 235, pp. 210, 211.

On the formation of Mould (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 574-576;

Geol. Soc. Trans., vol. v., 1840, pp. 505-510;

Froriep, Notizen. Bd. vi., 1838, col. 180-183.

Observations of proofs of recent elevation on the Coast of Chili, made during the survey of H.M.S. “Beagle,” commanded by Capt. Fitzroy (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol ii., 1838, pp. 446-449.

A sketch of the deposits containing extinct Mammalia in the neighbourhood of the Plata (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 542-544;

Ann. Sci. Nat. Tom. vii., (Zool.) 1837, pp. 319, 320.

On certain areas of elevation and subsidence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as deduced from the study of coral formations (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 552-554;

Froriep, Notizen. Bd. iv., 1838, col. 100-103.

Geological Notes made during a survey of the East and West Coasts of South America in the years 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835; with an account of a transverse section of the Cordilleras of the Andes between Valparaiso and Mendoza.

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 210-212.

Origin of saliferous deposits. Salt Lakes of Patagonia and La Plata.

Geol. Soc. Jour., vol. ii. (pt. 2), 1838, pp. 127, 128.

On the connexion of certain volcanic phenomena, and on the formation of mountain chains, and the effects of continental elevations.

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 654-660;

Geol. Soc. Trans., vol. v., 1840, pp. 601-632;

Poggendorff, Annal. Bd. lii., 1841, pp. 484-496.

Monographia Chalciditum, by Francis Walker. (Vol. ii., Species collected by C. Darwin.) London, 1839, 8vo.

Note on a rock seen on an iceberg in 16° South Latitude.

Geog. Soc. Jour., vol. ix., 1839, pp. 528, 529.

Ueber die Luftschifferei der Spinnen.

Froriep, N. Not. Bd. lxxvii., No. 222, 1839, pp. 23, 24.

Observations on the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, and of other parts of Lochaber in Scotland, with an attempt to prove that they are of marine origin.

Phil. Trans., 1839, pp. 39-82;

Edinb. New Phil. Jour., vol. xxvii., 1839, pp. 395-403.

On a remarkable bar of Sandstone off Pernambuco, on the coast of Brazil.

Phil. Mag., vol. xix., 1841, pp. 257-260.

Notes on the effects produced by the ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire, and on the Boulders transported by floating ice.

Edinb. New Phil. Jour., vol. xxxiii., 1842, pp. 352, 353.