Charles Robert Darwin,
FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English
naturalist and
geologist,
[1] best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory.
[I] He established that all
species of life have descended over time from
common ancestors,
[2] and in a joint publication with
Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his
scientific theory that this
branching pattern of
evolution resulted from a process that he called
natural selection, in which the
struggle for existence has a similar effect to the
artificial selection involved in
selective breeding.
[3]
Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book
On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of
transmutation of species.
[4][5] By the 1870s the
scientific community and much of the general public had accepted
evolution as a fact. However, many favoured
competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the
modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.
[6][7] In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the
life sciences, explaining the
diversity of life.
[8][9]
Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his
medical education at the
University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate
marine invertebrates. Studies at the
University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for
natural science.
[10] His
five-year voyage on
HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported
Charles Lyell's
uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his
journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.
[11]
Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and
fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and in 1838 conceived his theory of natural selection.
[12]
Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed
time for extensive research and his geological work had priority.
[13]
He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent
him an essay which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint
publication of
both of their theories.
[14]
Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the
dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.
[6] In 1871 he examined
human evolution and
sexual selection in
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined
earthworms and their effect on soil.
[15]
In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence as a scientist, he was honoured with a major ceremonial funeral and buried in
Westminster Abbey, close to
John Herschel and
Isaac Newton.
[16] Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history.
[17][18]
Biography
Early life and education
Charles Robert Darwin was born in
Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on 12 February 1809 at his family home,
The Mount.
[19] He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier
Robert Darwin, and
Susannah Darwin (
née Wedgwood). He was the grandson of two prominent
abolitionists:
Erasmus Darwin on his father's side, and of
Josiah Wedgwood on his mother's side.
The seven-year-old Charles Darwin in 1816.
Both families were largely
Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting
Anglicanism. Robert Darwin, himself quietly a
freethinker, had baby Charles
baptised in November 1809 in the Anglican
St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury,
but Charles and his siblings attended the Unitarian chapel with their
mother. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for natural
history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher
in 1817. That July, his mother died. From September 1818 he joined his
older brother
Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican
Shrewsbury School as a
boarder.
[20]
Darwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire, before going to the
University of Edinburgh Medical School, at the time the best medical school in the UK, with his brother Erasmus in October 1825. He found lectures dull and
surgery distressing, so neglected his studies. He learned
taxidermy from
John Edmonstone, a freed black slave who had accompanied
Charles Waterton in the South American
rainforest, and often sat with this "very pleasant and intelligent man".
[21]
In Darwin's second year he joined the
Plinian Society, a student
natural history group whose debates strayed into
radical materialism. He assisted
Robert Edmond Grant's investigations of the anatomy and life cycle of
marine invertebrates in the
Firth of Forth, and on 27 March 1827 presented at the Plinian his own discovery that black spores found in
oyster shells were the eggs of a skate
leech. One day, Grant praised
Lamarck's evolutionary ideas. Darwin was astonished by Grant's audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus' journals.
[22] Darwin was rather bored by
Robert Jameson's natural history course which covered geology including the debate between
Neptunism and
Plutonism. He learned
classification of plants, and assisted with work on the collections of the
University Museum, one of the largest museums in Europe at the time.
[23]
This neglect of medical studies annoyed his father, who shrewdly sent him to
Christ's College, Cambridge, for a
Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican
parson. As Darwin was unqualified for the
Tripos, he joined the
ordinary degree course in January 1828.
[24] He preferred
riding and
shooting to studying. His cousin
William Darwin Fox introduced him to the popular craze for
beetle collecting; Darwin pursued this zealously, getting some of his finds published in
Stevens' Illustrations of British entomology. He became a close friend and follower of botany professor
John Stevens Henslow and met other leading naturalists who saw scientific work as religious
natural theology, becoming known to these
dons
as "the man who walks with Henslow". When his own exams drew near,
Darwin focused on his studies and was delighted by the language and
logic of
William Paley's
Evidences of Christianity.
[25] In his final examination in January 1831 Darwin did well, coming tenth out of 178 candidates for the
ordinary degree.
[26]
Darwin had to stay at Cambridge until June. He studied Paley's
Natural Theology, which made an
argument for divine design in nature, explaining
adaptation as God acting through
laws of nature.
[27] He read
John Herschel's new book, which described the highest aim of
natural philosophy as understanding such laws through
inductive reasoning based on observation, and
Alexander von Humboldt's
Personal Narrative of scientific travels. Inspired with "a burning zeal" to contribute, Darwin planned to visit
Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the
tropics. In preparation, he joined
Adam Sedgwick's
geology course, then travelled with him in the summer for a fortnight, in order to map
strata in
Wales.
[28]
Voyage of the Beagle
After a week with student friends at
Barmouth,
Darwin returned home on 29 August to find a letter from Henslow
proposing him as a suitable (if unfinished) gentleman naturalist for a
self-funded
supernumerary place on
HMS Beagle with captain
Robert FitzRoy,
more as a companion than a mere collector. The ship was to leave in
four weeks on an expedition to chart the coastline of South America.
[29] Robert Darwin objected to his son's planned two-year voyage, regarding it as a waste of time, but was persuaded by his brother-in-law,
Josiah Wedgwood, to agree to (and fund) his son's participation.
[30]
After delays, the voyage began on 27 December 1831; it lasted almost
five years. As FitzRoy had intended, Darwin spent most of that time on
land investigating geology and making natural history collections, while
the
Beagle surveyed and charted coasts.
[6][31]
He kept careful notes of his observations and theoretical speculations,
and at intervals during the voyage his specimens were sent to Cambridge
together with letters including a copy of
his journal for his family.
[32] He had some expertise in geology, beetle collecting and dissecting
marine invertebrates, but in all other areas was a novice and ably collected specimens for expert appraisal.
[33]
Despite suffering badly from seasickness, Darwin wrote copious notes
while on board the ship. Most of his zoology notes are about marine
invertebrates, starting with
plankton collected in a calm spell.
[31][34]
On their first stop ashore at
St. Jago, Darwin found that a white band high in the
volcanic rock cliffs included seashells. FitzRoy had given him the first volume of
Charles Lyell's
Principles of Geology which set out
uniformitarian concepts of land slowly rising or falling over immense periods,
[II] and Darwin saw things Lyell's way, theorising and thinking of writing a book on geology.
[35]
When they reached
Brazil Darwin was delighted by the
tropical forest,
[36] but detested the sight of
slavery.
[37] The survey continued to the south in
Patagonia. They stopped at
Bahía Blanca, and in cliffs near
Punta Alta Darwin made a major find of fossil bones of huge extinct
mammals beside modern seashells, indicating recent
extinction with no signs of change in climate or catastrophe. He identified the little-known
Megatherium by a tooth and its association with bony armour which had at first seemed to him like a giant version of the armour on local
armadillos. The finds brought great interest when they reached England.
[38][39]
On rides with
gauchos into the interior to explore geology and collect more fossils, Darwin gained social, political and
anthropological insights into both native and colonial people at a time of revolution, and learnt that two types of
rhea had separate but overlapping territories.
[40][41] Further south he saw stepped plains of shingle and seashells as
raised beaches
showing a series of elevations. He read Lyell's second volume and
accepted its view of "centres of creation" of species, but his
discoveries and theorising challenged Lyell's ideas of smooth continuity
and of extinction of species.
[42][43]
As
HMS Beagle surveyed the coasts of South America, Darwin theorised about geology and extinction of giant mammals.
Three Fuegians on board, who had been seized during the
first Beagle voyage and had spent a year in England, were taken back to
Tierra del Fuego
as missionaries. Darwin found them friendly and civilised, yet their
relatives seemed "miserable, degraded savages", as different as wild
from domesticated animals.
[44]
To Darwin the difference showed cultural advances, not racial
inferiority. Unlike his scientist friends, he now thought there was no
unbridgeable gap between humans and animals.
[45] A year on, the mission had been abandoned. The Fuegian they had named
Jemmy Button lived like the other natives, had a wife, and had no wish to return to England.
[46]
Darwin experienced an earthquake in
Chile and saw signs that the land had just been raised, including
mussel-beds stranded above high tide. High in the
Andes he saw seashells, and several fossil trees that had grown on a sand beach. He theorised that as the land rose,
oceanic islands sank, and
coral reefs round them grew to form
atolls.
[47][48]
On the geologically new
Galápagos Islands Darwin looked for evidence attaching wildlife to an older "centre of creation", and found
mockingbirds allied to those in Chile but differing from island to island. He heard that slight variations in the shape of
tortoise shells showed which island they came from, but failed to collect them, even after eating tortoises taken on board as food.
[49][50] In Australia the
marsupial rat-kangaroo and the
platypus seemed so unusual that Darwin thought it was almost as though two distinct Creators had been at work.
[51] He found the
Aborigines "good-humoured & pleasant", and noted their depletion by European settlement.
[52]
The
Beagle investigated how the atolls of the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands had formed, and the survey supported Darwin's theorising.
[48] FitzRoy began writing the official
Narrative of the
Beagle voyages, and after reading Darwin's diary he proposed incorporating it into the account.
[53] Darwin's
Journal was eventually rewritten as a separate third volume, on natural history.
[54]
In
Cape Town Darwin and FitzRoy met
John Herschel, who had recently written to Lyell praising his
uniformitarianism
as opening bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries, the
replacement of extinct species by others" as "a natural in
contradistinction to a miraculous process".
[55]
When organising his notes as the ship sailed home, Darwin wrote that if
his growing suspicions about the mockingbirds, the tortoises and the
Falkland Islands Fox were correct, "such facts undermine the stability of Species", then cautiously added "would" before "undermine".
[56] He later wrote that such facts "seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species".
[57]
Inception of Darwin's evolutionary theory
While still a young man, Charles Darwin joined the scientific elite
When the
Beagle reached
Falmouth, Cornwall, on 2 October 1836, Darwin was already a celebrity in scientific circles as in December 1835
Henslow had fostered his former pupil's reputation by giving selected naturalists a pamphlet of Darwin's geological letters.
[58] Darwin visited his home in Shrewsbury and saw relatives, then hurried to
Cambridge
to see Henslow, who advised on finding naturalists available to
catalogue the collections and agreed to take on the botanical specimens.
Darwin's father organised investments, enabling his son to be a
self-funded
gentleman scientist,
and an excited Darwin went round the London institutions being fêted
and seeking experts to describe the collections. Zoologists had a huge
backlog of work, and there was a danger of specimens just being left in
storage.
[59]
Charles Lyell eagerly met Darwin for the first time on 29 October and soon introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist
Richard Owen, who had the facilities of the
Royal College of Surgeons to work on the fossil bones collected by Darwin. Owen's surprising results included other gigantic extinct
ground sloths as well as the
Megatherium, a near complete skeleton of the unknown
Scelidotherium and a
hippopotamus-sized
rodent-like skull named
Toxodon resembling a giant
capybara. The armour fragments were actually from
Glyptodon, a huge armadillo-like creature as Darwin had initially thought.
[60][39] These extinct creatures were related to living species in South America.
[61]
In mid-December Darwin took lodgings in Cambridge to organise work on his collections and rewrite his
Journal.
[62]
He wrote his first paper, showing that the South American landmass was
slowly rising, and with Lyell's enthusiastic backing read it to the
Geological Society of London on 4 January 1837. On the same day, he presented his mammal and bird specimens to the
Zoological Society. The ornithologist
John Gould soon announced that the Galapagos birds that Darwin had thought a mixture of
blackbirds, "
gros-beaks" and
finches, were, in fact, twelve
separate species of finches.
On 17 February Darwin was elected to the Council of the Geological
Society, and Lyell's presidential address presented Owen's findings on
Darwin's fossils, stressing geographical continuity of species as
supporting his uniformitarian ideas.
[63]
Early in March, Darwin moved to London to be near this work, joining Lyell's social circle of scientists and
experts such as
Charles Babbage,
[64] who described God as a programmer of laws. Darwin stayed with his
freethinking brother
Erasmus, part of this
Whig circle and close friend of writer
Harriet Martineau who promoted
Malthusianism underlying the controversial Whig
Poor Law reforms to stop welfare from causing overpopulation and more poverty. As a
Unitarian she welcomed the
radical implications of
transmutation of species, promoted by
Grant and younger surgeons influenced by
Geoffroy. Transmutation was anathema to Anglicans defending social order,
[65] but reputable scientists openly discussed the subject and there was wide interest in
John Herschel's letter praising Lyell's approach as a way to find a
natural cause of the origin of new species.
[55]
Gould met Darwin and told him that the Galápagos
mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and what Darwin had thought was a "
wren" was also
in the finch group. Darwin had not labelled the finches by island, but from the notes of others on the
Beagle, including FitzRoy, he allocated species to islands.
[66] The two
rheas were also distinct species, and on 14 March Darwin announced how their distribution changed going southwards.
[67]
In mid-July 1837 Darwin started his "B" notebook on
Transmutation of Species, and on page 36 wrote "I think" above his first
evolutionary tree.
By mid-March, Darwin was speculating in his
Red Notebook on
the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain
the geographical distribution of living species such as the rheas, and
extinct ones such as the strange
Macrauchenia which resembled a giant
guanaco. His thoughts on lifespan,
asexual reproduction and
sexual reproduction developed in his "B" notebook around mid-July on to variation in offspring "to adapt & alter the race to
changing world" explaining the
Galápagos tortoises, mockingbirds and rheas. He sketched branching descent, then a
genealogical branching of a single
evolutionary tree, in which "It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another", discarding
Lamarck's independent
lineages progressing to higher forms.
[68]
Overwork, illness, and marriage
While developing this intensive study of
transmutation, Darwin became mired in more work. Still rewriting his
Journal, he took on editing and publishing the expert reports on his collections, and with Henslow's help obtained a Treasury grant of
£1,000 to sponsor this multi-volume
Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, a sum equivalent to about £77,000 in 2011.
[69] He stretched the funding to include his planned books on geology, and agreed unrealistic dates with the publisher.
[70] As the
Victorian era began, Darwin pressed on with writing his
Journal, and in August 1837 began correcting
printer's proofs.
[71]
Darwin's health suffered from the pressure. On 20 September he had
"an uncomfortable palpitation of the heart", so his doctors urged him to
"knock off all work" and live in the country for a few weeks. After
visiting Shrewsbury he joined his Wedgwood relatives at
Maer Hall,
Staffordshire, but found them too eager for tales of his travels to
give him much rest. His charming, intelligent, and cultured cousin
Emma Wedgwood, nine months older than Darwin, was nursing his invalid aunt. His uncle
Jos pointed out an area of ground where cinders had disappeared under
loam and suggested that this might have been the work of
earthworms, inspiring "a new & important theory" on their role in
soil formation which Darwin presented at the Geological Society on 1 November.
[72]
William Whewell
pushed Darwin to take on the duties of Secretary of the Geological
Society. After initially declining the work, he accepted the post in
March 1838.
[73] Despite the grind of writing and editing the
Beagle
reports, Darwin made remarkable progress on transmutation, taking every
opportunity to question expert naturalists and, unconventionally,
people with practical experience such as farmers and
pigeon fanciers.
[6][74]
Over time his research drew on information from his relatives and
children, the family butler, neighbours, colonists and former shipmates.
[75] He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing an
orangutan in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its childlike behaviour.
[76]
The strain took a toll, and by June he was being laid up for days on
end with stomach problems, headaches and heart symptoms. For the rest of
his life, he was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach
pains, vomiting, severe
boils,
palpitations, trembling and other symptoms, particularly during times
of stress such as attending meetings or making social visits. The cause
of
Darwin's illness remained unknown, and attempts at treatment had little success.
[77]
On 23 June he took a break and went "geologising" in Scotland. He visited
Glen Roy
in glorious weather to see the parallel "roads" cut into the hillsides
at three heights. He later published his view that these were marine
raised beaches, but then had to accept that they were shorelines of a
proglacial lake.
[78]
Fully recuperated, he returned to Shrewsbury in July. Used to jotting
down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts
about career and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns
headed
"Marry" and
"Not Marry". Advantages included
"constant companion and a friend in old age ... better than a dog
anyhow", against points such as "less money for books" and "terrible
loss of time."
[79]
Having decided in favour, he discussed it with his father, then went to
visit Emma on 29 July. He did not get around to proposing, but against
his father's advice he mentioned his ideas on transmutation.
[80]
Malthus and natural selection
Continuing his research in London, Darwin's wide reading now included the sixth edition of
Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population,
and on 28 September 1838 he noted its assertion that human "population,
when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty five years, or
increases in a geometrical ratio", a
geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply in what is known as a
Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to
de Candolle's
"warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among
wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As
species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations
would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on
to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He
wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out
proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there
is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind
of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or
rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."
[6][81] This would result in the formation of new species.
[6][82] As he later wrote in his
Autobiography:
In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I
had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement
Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the
struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued
observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me
that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be
preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this
would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a
theory by which to work..."
[83]
By mid December Darwin saw a similarity between farmers picking the best stock in
selective breeding,
and a Malthusian Nature selecting from chance variants so that "every
part of newly acquired structure is fully practical and perfected",
[84] thinking this comparison "a beautiful part of my theory".
[85] He later called his theory
natural selection, an analogy with what he termed the
artificial selection of selective breeding.
[6]
On 11 November, he returned to Maer and proposed to Emma, once more
telling her his ideas. She accepted, then in exchanges of loving letters
she showed how she valued his openness in sharing their differences,
also expressing her strong
Unitarian beliefs and concerns that his honest doubts might separate them in the afterlife.
[86]
While he was house-hunting in London, bouts of illness continued and
Emma wrote urging him to get some rest, almost prophetically remarking
"So don't be ill any more my dear Charley till I can be with you to
nurse you." He found what they called "Macaw Cottage" (because of its
gaudy interiors) in
Gower Street, then moved his "museum" in over Christmas. On 24 January 1839 Darwin was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society.
[87]
On 29 January Darwin and Emma Wedgwood were married at Maer in an
Anglican ceremony arranged to suit the Unitarians, then immediately
caught the train to London and their new home.
[88]
Geology books, Barnacles, evolutionary research
Darwin now had the framework of his theory of
natural selection "by which to work",
[83] as his "prime hobby".
[89] His research included extensive experimental
selective breeding
of plants and animals, finding evidence that species were not fixed and
investigating many detailed ideas to refine and substantiate his
theory.
[6]
For fifteen years this work was in the background to his main
occupation of writing on geology and publishing expert reports on the
Beagle collections.
[90]
When FitzRoy's
Narrative was published in May 1839, Darwin's
Journal and Remarks was such a success as the third volume that later that year it was published on its own.
[91] Early in 1842, Darwin wrote about his ideas to
Charles Lyell, who noted that his ally "denies seeing a beginning to each crop of species".
[92]
Darwin's book
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs on his theory of
atoll
formation was published in May 1842 after more than three years of
work, and he then wrote his first "pencil sketch" of his theory of
natural selection.
[93] To escape the pressures of London, the family moved to rural
Down House in September.
[94] On 11 January 1844 Darwin mentioned his theorising to the botanist
Joseph Dalton Hooker, writing with melodramatic humour "it is like confessing a murder".
[95][96]
Hooker replied "There may in my opinion have been a series of
productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I
shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have
taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the
subject."
[97]
By July, Darwin had expanded his "sketch" into a 230-page "Essay", to
be expanded with his research results if he died prematurely.
[99] In November the anonymously published sensational best-seller
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
brought wide interest in transmutation. Darwin scorned its amateurish
geology and zoology, but carefully reviewed his own arguments.
Controversy erupted, and it continued to sell well despite contemptuous
dismissal by scientists.
[100][101]
Darwin completed his third geological book in 1846. He now renewed a fascination and expertise in
marine invertebrates, dating back to his student days with
Grant, by dissecting and classifying the
barnacles he had collected on the voyage, enjoying observing beautiful structures and thinking about comparisons with allied structures.
[102]
In 1847, Hooker read the "Essay" and sent notes that provided Darwin
with the calm critical feedback that he needed, but would not commit
himself and questioned Darwin's opposition to continuing acts of
creation.
[103]
In an attempt to improve his chronic ill health, Darwin went in 1849 to Dr.
James Gully's
Malvern spa and was surprised to find some benefit from
hydrotherapy.
[104] Then in 1851 his treasured daughter
Annie fell ill, reawakening his fears that his illness might be hereditary, and after a long series of crises she died.
[105]
In eight years of work on barnacles (Cirripedia), Darwin's theory helped him to find "
homologies" showing that slightly changed body parts served different functions to meet new conditions, and in some
genera he found minute males
parasitic on
hermaphrodites, showing an
intermediate stage in evolution of
distinct sexes.
[106] In 1853 it earned him the
Royal Society's Royal Medal, and it made his reputation as a
biologist.
[107]
He resumed work on his theory of species in 1854, and in November
realised that divergence in the character of descendants could be
explained by them becoming adapted to "diversified places in the economy
of nature".
[108]
Publication of the theory of natural selection
Charles Darwin, aged 46 in 1855, by then working towards publication of his theory of
natural selection.
He wrote to Hooker about this portrait, "if I really have as bad an
expression, as my photograph gives me, how I can have one single friend
is surprising."
[109]
By the start of 1856, Darwin was investigating whether eggs and
seeds could survive travel across seawater to spread species across oceans.
Hooker increasingly doubted the traditional view that species were fixed, but their young friend
Thomas Henry Huxley was firmly against transmutation of species.
Lyell was intrigued by Darwin's speculations without realising their extent. When he read a paper by
Alfred Russel Wallace,
"On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species", he
saw similarities with Darwin's thoughts and urged him to publish to
establish precedence. Though Darwin saw no threat, he began work on a
short paper. Finding answers to difficult questions held him up
repeatedly, and he expanded his plans to a "big book on species" titled
Natural Selection. He continued his researches,
obtaining information and specimens from naturalists worldwide including Wallace who was working in
Borneo. The American botanist
Asa Gray showed similar interests, and on 5 September 1857 Darwin sent Gray a detailed outline of his ideas including an abstract of
Natural Selection. In December, Darwin received a letter from Wallace asking if the book would examine
human origins.
He responded that he would avoid that subject, "so surrounded with
prejudices", while encouraging Wallace's theorising and adding that "I
go much further than you."
[110]
Darwin's book was only partly written when, on 18 June 1858, he
received a paper from Wallace describing natural selection. Shocked that
he had been "forestalled", Darwin sent it on that day to Lyell, as
requested by Wallace,
[111][112]
and although Wallace had not asked for publication, Darwin suggested he
would send it to any journal that Wallace chose. His family was in
crisis with children in the village dying of
scarlet fever, and he put matters in the hands of Lyell and Hooker. After some discussion, they decided on a joint presentation at the
Linnean Society on 1 July of
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection; however, Darwin's baby son died of the scarlet fever and he was too distraught to attend.
[113]
There was little immediate attention to this announcement of the
theory; the president of the Linnean Society remarked in May 1859 that
the year had not been marked by any revolutionary discoveries.
[114] Only one review rankled enough for Darwin to recall it later; Professor
Samuel Haughton of Dublin claimed that "all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old."
[115]
Darwin struggled for thirteen months to produce an abstract of his "big
book", suffering from ill health but getting constant encouragement
from his scientific friends. Lyell arranged to have it published by
John Murray.
[116]
On the Origin of Species
proved unexpectedly popular, with the entire stock of 1,250 copies
oversubscribed when it went on sale to booksellers on 22 November 1859.
[117]
In the book, Darwin set out "one long argument" of detailed
observations, inferences and consideration of anticipated objections.
[118] His only allusion to
human evolution was the understatement that "light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history".
[119] His theory is simply stated in the introduction:
As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly
survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle
for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in
any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes
varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and
thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.[120]
He put a strong case for
common descent, and at the end of the book concluded that:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that,
whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and
most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.[121]
The last word was the only variant of "evolved" in the first five editions of the book. "
Evolutionism" at that time was associated with other concepts, most commonly with
embryological development, and Darwin first used the word
evolution in
The Descent of Man in 1871, before adding it in 1872 to the 6th edition of
The Origin of Species.
[122]
Responses to publication
An 1871 caricature following publication of
The Descent of Man was typical of many showing Darwin with an
ape body, identifying him in popular culture as the leading author of evolutionary theory.
The book aroused international interest, with less controversy than had greeted the popular
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.
Though Darwin's illness kept him away from the public debates, he
eagerly scrutinised the scientific response, commenting on press
cuttings, reviews, articles, satires and caricatures, and
corresponded on it with colleagues worldwide.
Darwin had only said "Light will be thrown on the origin of man",
but the first review claimed it made a creed of the "men from monkeys" idea from
Vestiges.
Amongst early favourable responses, Huxley's reviews swiped at
Richard Owen, leader of the scientific establishment Huxley was trying to overthrow.
In April, Owen's review attacked Darwin's friends and condescendingly dismissed his ideas, angering Darwin,
but Owen and others began to promote ideas of supernaturally guided evolution.
The
Church of England's response was mixed. Darwin's old Cambridge tutors
Sedgwick and
Henslow dismissed the ideas, but
liberal clergymen interpreted natural selection as an instrument of God's design, with the cleric
Charles Kingsley seeing it as "just as noble a conception of Deity".
In 1860, the publication of
Essays and Reviews by seven liberal Anglican theologians diverted
clerical attention from Darwin, with its ideas including
higher criticism attacked by church authorities as
heresy. In it,
Baden Powell argued that
miracles broke God's laws, so belief in them was
atheistic, and praised "Mr Darwin's masterly volume [supporting] the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature".
Asa Gray discussed
teleology with Darwin, who imported and distributed Gray's pamphlet on
theistic evolution,
Natural Selection is not inconsistent with Natural Theology.
The most famous confrontation was at the public
1860 Oxford evolution debate during a meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, where the
Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce, though not opposed to
transmutation of species, argued against Darwin's explanation and human descent from apes.
Joseph Hooker argued strongly for Darwin, and
Thomas Huxley's
legendary retort, that he would rather be descended from an ape than a
man who misused his gifts, came to symbolise a triumph of science over
religion.
Even Darwin's close friends Gray, Hooker, Huxley and Lyell still
expressed various reservations but gave strong support, as did many
others, particularly younger naturalists. Gray and Lyell sought
reconciliation with faith, while Huxley portrayed a polarisation between
religion and science. He campaigned pugnaciously against the authority
of the clergy in education,
aiming to overturn the dominance of clergymen and aristocratic amateurs
under Owen in favour of a new generation of professional scientists.
Owen's claim that brain anatomy proved humans to be a separate
biological order from apes was shown to be false by Huxley in a long running dispute parodied by Kingsley as the "
Great Hippocampus Question", and discredited Owen.
Darwinism became a movement covering a wide range of evolutionary ideas. In 1863
Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man popularised prehistory, though his caution on evolution disappointed Darwin. Weeks later Huxley's
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature showed that anatomically, humans are apes, then
The Naturalist on the River Amazons by
Henry Walter Bates provided empirical evidence of natural selection.
[136] Lobbying brought Darwin Britain's highest scientific honour, the
Royal Society's
Copley Medal, awarded on 3 November 1864.
That day, Huxley held the first meeting of what became the influential
X Club devoted to "science, pure and free, untrammelled by religious dogmas".
By the end of the decade most scientists agreed that evolution
occurred, but only a minority supported Darwin's view that the chief
mechanism was natural selection.
The
Origin of Species was translated into many languages,
becoming a staple scientific text attracting thoughtful attention from
all walks of life, including the "working men" who flocked to Huxley's
lectures.
Darwin's theory also resonated with various movements at the time and became a key fixture of
popular culture.
Cartoonists parodied animal ancestry in an old tradition of showing
humans with animal traits, and in Britain these droll images served to
popularise Darwin's theory in an unthreatening way. While ill in 1862
Darwin began growing a beard, and when he reappeared in public in 1866
caricatures of him as an
ape helped to identify all forms of
evolutionism with Darwinism.
Descent of Man, sexual selection, and botany
By 1878, an increasingly famous Darwin had suffered years of illness.
- More detailed articles cover Darwin's life from Orchids to Variation, from Descent of Man to Emotions and from Insectivorous Plants to Worms
Despite repeated bouts of illness during the last twenty-two years of his life, Darwin's work continued. Having published
On the Origin of Species as an
abstract of his theory, he pressed on with experiments, research, and writing of his "big book". He covered
human descent
from earlier animals including evolution of society and of mental
abilities, as well as explaining decorative beauty in wildlife and
diversifying into innovative plant studies.
Enquiries about insect
pollination led in 1861 to novel studies of wild
orchids, showing adaptation of their flowers to
attract specific moths to each species and ensure
cross fertilisation. In 1862
Fertilisation of Orchids
gave his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection
to explain complex ecological relationships, making testable
predictions. As his health declined, he lay on his sickbed in a room
filled with inventive experiments to trace the movements of
climbing plants.
Admiring visitors included
Ernst Haeckel, a zealous proponent of
Darwinismus incorporating
Lamarckism and
Goethe's idealism.
Wallace remained supportive, though he increasingly turned to
Spiritualism.
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication of 1868 was the first part of Darwin's planned "big book", and included his unsuccessful hypothesis of
pangenesis attempting to explain
heredity.
It sold briskly at first, despite its size, and was translated into
many languages. He wrote most of a second part, on natural selection,
but it remained unpublished in his lifetime.
Punch's almanac
for 1882, published shortly before Darwin's death, depicts him amidst
evolution from chaos to Victorian gentleman with the title
Man Is But A Worm.
Lyell had already popularised human prehistory, and
Huxley had shown that anatomically humans are apes.
With
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
published in 1871, Darwin set out evidence from numerous sources that
humans are animals, showing continuity of physical and mental
attributes, and presented
sexual selection to explain impractical animal features such as the
peacock's plumage as well as human evolution of culture, differences between sexes, and physical and cultural
racial characteristics, while emphasising that humans are all one species.
[145] His research using images was expanded in his 1872 book
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, one of the first books to feature printed photographs, which discussed the
evolution of human psychology and its continuity with the
behaviour of animals.
Both books proved very popular, and Darwin was impressed by the general
assent with which his views had been received, remarking that
"everybody is talking about it without being shocked."
His conclusion was "that man with all his noble qualities, with
sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which
extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with
his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and
constitution of the solar system–with all these exalted powers–Man still
bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."
His evolution-related experiments and investigations led to books on
Insectivorous Plants, The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, and
The Power of Movement in Plants. In his last book he returned to
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
Death and legacy
In 1882 he was diagnosed with what was called "
angina pectoris"
which then meant coronary thrombosis and disease of the heart. At the
time of his death, the physicians diagnosed "anginal attacks", and
"heart-failure".
He died at
Down House
on 19 April 1882. His last words were to his family, telling Emma "I am
not the least afraid of death – Remember what a good wife you have been
to me – Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to
me", then while she rested, he repeatedly told Henrietta and Francis
"It's almost worth while to be sick to be nursed by you".
[149] He had expected to be buried in St Mary's churchyard at
Downe, but at the request of Darwin's colleagues, after public and parliamentary petitioning,
William Spottiswoode (President of the
Royal Society) arranged for Darwin to be buried in
Westminster Abbey, close to
John Herschel and
Isaac Newton.
Man dressed as Charles Darwin during
Lyme Regis Fossil Festival.
Darwin had convinced most scientists that
evolution as
descent with modification
was correct, and he was regarded as a great scientist who had
revolutionised ideas. Though few agreed with his view that "natural
selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of
modification", he was honoured in June 1909 by more than 400 officials
and scientists from across the world who met in
Cambridge to
commemorate his centenary and the fiftieth anniversary of
On the Origin of Species.
During this period, which has been called "
the eclipse of Darwinism", scientists proposed various alternative evolutionary mechanisms which eventually proved untenable. The development of the
modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s, incorporating
natural selection with
population genetics and
Mendelian genetics,
brought broad scientific consensus that natural selection was the basic
mechanism of evolution. This synthesis set the frame of reference for
modern debates and refinements of the theory.
Children
The Darwins had ten children: two died in infancy, and
Annie's
death at the age of ten had a devastating effect on her parents.
Charles was a devoted father and uncommonly attentive to his children.
Whenever they fell ill, he feared that they might have inherited weaknesses from
inbreeding due to the close family ties he shared with his
wife and cousin,
Emma Wedgwood. He examined this topic in his writings, contrasting it with the advantages of crossing amongst many organisms.
[152] Despite his fears, most of the surviving children and many of their descendants went on to have distinguished careers (see
Darwin-Wedgwood family).
Of his surviving children,
George,
Francis and
Horace became Fellows of the Royal Society,
distinguished as
astronomer,
botanist and
civil engineer, respectively. His son
Leonard went on to be a soldier, politician, economist,
eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and
evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.
[156]
Views and opinions
Religious views
In 1851 Darwin was devastated when his daughter
Annie died. By then his faith in Christianity had dwindled, and he had stopped going to church.
Darwin's family tradition was
nonconformist Unitarianism, while his father and grandfather were
freethinkers, and his
baptism and
boarding school were
Church of England.
When going to Cambridge to become an
Anglican clergyman, he did not doubt the
literal truth of the Bible.
He learned
John Herschel's science which, like
William Paley's
natural theology, sought explanations in laws of nature rather than miracles and saw
adaptation of species as
evidence of design On board the
Beagle, Darwin was quite
orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on
morality.
He looked for "centres of creation" to explain distribution,
and related the
antlion found near
kangaroos to distinct "periods of Creation".
By his return he was
critical of the Bible as history, and wondered why all religions should not be equally valid.
In the next few years, while intensively speculating on geology and
transmutation of species, he gave much thought to religion and openly discussed this with his wife
Emma, whose beliefs also came from intensive study and questioning.
The
theodicy of Paley and
Thomas Malthus vindicated evils such as starvation as a result of a benevolent creator's laws which had an overall good effect. To Darwin,
natural selection produced the good of adaptation but removed the need for design,
and he could not see the work of an omnipotent deity in all the pain and suffering such as the
ichneumon wasp paralysing
caterpillars as live food for its eggs.
He still viewed organisms as perfectly adapted, and
On the Origin of Species reflects theological views. Though he thought of religion as a
tribal survival strategy, Darwin was reluctant to give up the idea of
God as an ultimate lawgiver. He was increasingly troubled by the
problem of evil.
Darwin remained close friends with the
vicar of Downe,
John Innes, and continued to play a leading part in the parish work of the church,
but from around 1849 would go for a walk on Sundays while his family attended church.
He considered it "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist"
and, though reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he wrote that
"I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a
God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct
description of my state of mind."
The "
Lady Hope Story",
published in 1915, claimed that Darwin had reverted to Christianity on
his sickbed. The claims were repudiated by Darwin's children and have
been dismissed as false by historians.
Human society
Darwin's views on social and political issues reflected his time and
social position. He thought men's eminence over women was the outcome of
sexual selection, a view disputed by
Antoinette Brown Blackwell in
The Sexes Throughout Nature.
He valued European civilisation and saw colonisation as spreading its
benefits, with the sad but inevitable effect of extermination of savage
peoples who did not become civilised. Darwin's theories presented this
as natural, and were cited to promote policies which went against his
humanitarian principles.
Darwin was strongly against slavery, against "ranking the so-called
races of man as distinct species", and against ill-treatment of native
people.
Darwin was intrigued by his
half-cousin Francis Galton's argument, introduced in 1865, that
statistical analysis of
heredity showed that moral and mental human traits could be inherited, and principles of animal breeding could apply to humans. In
The Descent of Man Darwin noted that aiding the weak to survive and have families could lose the benefits of
natural selection,
but cautioned that withholding such aid would endanger the instinct of
sympathy, "the noblest part of our nature", and factors such as
education could be more important. When Galton suggested that publishing
research could encourage intermarriage within a "caste" of "those who
are naturally gifted", Darwin foresaw practical difficulties, and
thought it "the sole feasible, yet I fear
utopian,
plan of procedure in improving the human race", preferring to simply
publicise the importance of inheritance and leave decisions to
individuals.
Francis Galton named this field of study "
eugenics" in 1883.
Evolutionary social movements
Darwin's fame and popularity led to his name being associated with
ideas and movements which at times had only an indirect relation to his
writings, and sometimes went directly against his express comments.
Thomas Malthus had argued that
population growth beyond resources was ordained by God to get humans to
work productively and show restraint in getting families, this was used in the 1830s to justify
workhouses and
laissez-faire economics.
Evolution was by then seen as having social implications, and
Herbert Spencer's 1851 book
Social Statics based ideas of human freedom and individual liberties on his
Lamarckian evolutionary theory.
Soon after the
Origin was published in 1859, critics derided his description of a struggle for existence as a
Malthusian justification for the English industrial capitalism of the time. The term
Darwinism was used for the evolutionary ideas of others, including Spencer's "
survival of the fittest" as free-market progress, and
Ernst Haeckel's
racist ideas of
human development. Writers used
natural selection to argue for various, often contradictory, ideologies such as laissez-faire dog-eat dog capitalism, racism, warfare,
colonialism and
imperialism. However, Darwin's holistic view of nature included "dependence of one being on another"; thus
pacifists, socialists, liberal social reformers and anarchists such as
Peter Kropotkin stressed the value of co-operation over struggle within a species.
Darwin himself insisted that social policy should not simply be guided by concepts of struggle and selection in nature.
After the 1880s a
eugenics
movement developed on ideas of biological inheritance, and for
scientific justification of their ideas appealed to some concepts of
Darwinism. In Britain, most shared Darwin's cautious views on voluntary
improvement and sought to encourage those with good traits in "positive
eugenics". During the "
Eclipse of Darwinism" a scientific foundation for eugenics was provided by
Mendelian genetics. Negative eugenics to remove the "feebleminded" were popular in America, Canada and Australia, and
eugenics in the United States introduced
compulsory sterilization laws, followed by several other countries. Subsequently,
Nazi eugenics brought the field into disrepute.
The term "
Social Darwinism" was used infrequently from around the 1890s, but became popular as a derogatory term in the 1940s when used by
Richard Hofstadter to attack the laissez-faire conservatism of those like
William Graham Sumner
who opposed reform and socialism. Since then it has been used as a term
of abuse by those opposed to what they think are the moral consequences
of evolution.
Commemoration
In 1881 Darwin was an eminent figure, still working on his contributions
to evolutionary thought that had an enormous effect on many fields of
science.
During Darwin's lifetime, many geographical features were given his name. An expanse of water adjoining the
Beagle Channel was named
Darwin Sound by
Robert FitzRoy
after Darwin's prompt action, along with two or three of the men, saved
them from being marooned on a nearby shore when a collapsing
glacier caused a large wave that would have swept away their boats,
and the nearby
Mount Darwin in the Andes was named in celebration of Darwin's 25th birthday.
When the
Beagle was surveying Australia in 1839, Darwin's friend
John Lort Stokes sighted a natural harbour which the ship's captain
Wickham named
Port Darwin: a nearby settlement was renamed
Darwin in 1911, and it became the capital city of Australia's
Northern Territory.
More than 120
species and nine
genera have been named after Darwin.
In one example, the group of
tanagers related to those Darwin found in the
Galápagos Islands became popularly known as "
Darwin's finches" in 1947, fostering inaccurate legends about their significance to his work.
Darwin's work has continued to be celebrated by numerous publications and events. The
Linnean Society of London has commemorated Darwin's achievements by the award of the
Darwin–Wallace Medal since 1908.
Darwin Day
has become an annual celebration, and in 2009 worldwide events were
arranged for the bicentenary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary
of the publication of
On the Origin of Species.
Darwin has been commemorated in the UK, with his portrait printed on the reverse of £10 banknotes printed along with a
hummingbird and
HMS Beagle, issued by the
Bank of England.
A life size seated statue of Darwin can be seen in the main hall of the
Natural History Museum in London. .
A seated statue of Darwin stands in front of
Shrewsbury Library, the building that used to house
Shrewsbury School, which Darwin attended as a boy.
Darwin College, a postgraduate college at
Cambridge University, is named after the Darwin family.
Works
Darwin was a prolific writer. Even without publication of his works
on evolution, he would have had a considerable reputation as the author
of
The Voyage of the Beagle, as a geologist who had published extensively on South America and had solved the puzzle of the formation of
coral atolls, and as a biologist who had published the definitive work on
barnacles. While
On the Origin of Species dominates perceptions of his work,
The Descent of Man and
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals had considerable impact, and his books on plants including
The Power of Movement in Plants were innovative studies of great importance, as was his final work on
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
William Harvey
Color Portrait
William Harvey, after a painting by Cornelius Jansen
William Harvey
