Notes on Charles Darwin's

Autobiography

RALPH COLP, JR., M.D.

993 Park A venue New York, N Y 10028

A l t h o u g h Charles Darwin d e v o t e d m o s t o f his energies to his scientific work, he also t h r o u g h o u t his life read biographies o f divers individuals, a As an old m a n he observed that while m a n y o f his nonscientific interests had declined his interest in b i o g r a p h y remained strong? During his late twenties he began to preserve d o c u m e n t s that per. tained to his life - his Beagle journals and post-Beagle scientific notes and n o t e b o o k s - and w r o t e t w o short recollections o f his c h i l d h o o d and y o u t h . He also began keeping a little " J o u r n a l " in w h i c h he re, corded, year b y year, the m o s t i m p o r t a n t events o f his personal and professional life. 3 During his thirties and forties, w h e n he was raising a family, he w o u l d tell his children stories about his past. "We used to t h i n k it m o s t delightful," his daughter Henrietta w r o t e , " w h e n he 1. From 1838 to 1860 Darwin read at least a hundred biographies. He read the lives of scientists (Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Buffon, Lavater, Priestley, Hutton, and St. Hilaire), but he also read many more lives of nonscientific individuals: literary figures (Montaigne, Bunyan, Byron, Goldsmith, Bronte, Collins, Southey, Scott, Swift, Burns, Dryden, Goethe, Sydney Smith); historical figures (Wellington, Cromwell, Clive, and Constantine the Great); and musicians (Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart). He read collections of lives of the chancellors and of "Great Artists and Great Anatomists." When he was sixteen years old, he read Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, a volume at a time; when he was thirty, he reread it. In 1848 he read Alexander Sommerville's just-published Autobiography of a Working Man, which described how a lower-class Englishman was affected by the Industrial Revolution and the Reform Bill of 1832; he rated it "excellent." From 1854 to 1856 he read all of the volumes of Samuel Popys' Diary, commenting that the early volumes were "excellent," but that the particular edition was "poor." Peter J. Vorzimmer, "The Darwin Reading Notebooks (18381860)," J. Hist. Biol., 10 (1977), 107-153; W. E. Swinton, "Charles Darwin in Scotland," Adv. Sci., 1958, 201; L. Robert Stevens, "Darwin's Humane Reading," Vict. Stud., 26 (1982), 55-56. 2. Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, ed. Nora Barlow (London: Collins, 1958), p. 139. Hereafter cited as A, in text and notes. 3. Darwin's recollections and "Journal" are discussed by Ralph Colp, Jr., " 'I Was Born a Naturalist': Charles Darwin's 1838 Notes about Himself," J. Hist. Med., 35 (1980), 20-26.

Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 18, no. 3 (Fall 1985), pp. 357-401. 0022-5010/85.10 © 1985 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.

RALPH COLP, JR. t o l d us a n y stores a b o u t t h e Beagle, or a b o u t early S h r e w s b u r y days little b i t s a b o u t school-life a n d his b o y i s h tastes. ' ' 4 D a r w i n ' s s o n -

George, in his Recollections o f his f a t h e r , relates several o f these stories, s In t h e 1860s, as D a r w i n e n t e r e d his fifties a n d b e c a m e f a m o u s as t h e a u t h o r o f t h e Origin o f Species, h e w r o t e u p o n r e q u e s t t h r e e b i o g r a p h i c a l n o t e s a b o u t h i m s e l f , listing the m a i n e v e n t s o f his life a n d his p r i n c i p a l p u b l i c a t i o n s . 6 He also w r o t e , u p o n r e q u e s t a n d a f t e r s o m e h e s i t a t i o n , his recollections o f his C a m b r i d g e t e a c h e r , J o h n S t e v e n s H e n s l o w . 7 In 1 8 6 9 - 7 0 h e a n s w e r e d s o m e b i o g r a p h i c a l

4. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), I, 114. Hereafter referred to as Life and Letters. 5. George H. Darwin, Recollections of My Father, manuscript in the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library (hereafter abbreviated DAR), vol. 112. One section, entitled "Stories about My Father's School Days," recounts Darwin's memories of his experiences at Shrewsbury, Edinburgh, and Cambridge. 6. Darwin's three biographical notes appeared in the Comprehensive Dictionary of Biography (London: R. Griffin, 1860); Edward Wa!ford, Men of the Time: A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Living Characters (Including Women) (London: Routledge, Warne, & Routledge, 1862), pp. 2 1 1 - 2 t 2 ; R o b e r t Hunt, Biographical Memoirs of Men of Eminence. Hunt's book, after being printed in proof sheets, was not published. Darwin's correspondence on these biographies is published in Gavin de Beer, ed., "Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," Notes Rec. Roy. Soc. London, 14 (1959), 3 6 - 3 7 ; idem, "Further Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," Ann. ScL, 14 June 1958 (published August 1960), 9 4 - 9 9 ; Ralph Colp, Jr., " 'I Never Wrote So Much About Myself': Charles Darwin's 1861-1870 Autobiographical Notes," in Darwin

Today: The 8th Kfihlungsborn Colloquium on Philosophical and Ethical Problems of Biosciences, ed. E. Geissler and W. Scheler, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Abteilung Mathematik - Naturwissenschaften - Technik, Jahrgang 1983, Nr. 1N (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1983), pp. 3 7 - 5 1 . This last article also discusses Darwin's Walford and Hunt biographies. 7. After Henslow died, Joseph Hooker (Henslow's son-inqaw) wrote to inform Darwin that a biography of Henslow was being prepared and asked him to contribute a memoir. Darwin at first replied that he could "think of scarcely anything," and that "the more I think the less I can think to write down." Six days later he told Hooker that he had written his memoir of Henslow at Cambridge in 1830 and that he "liked the job." (Darwin to Hooker, 24 and 30 May 1861, DAR 115: 101, 102). His memoir was first published in Leonard Jenyns, Memoir of the Rev. John Stevens Henslow (London: Van Voorst, 1862), pp. 5 1 - 5 5 . It has been reprinted in Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of an ldea, ed. Nora Barlow (London: Bentham-Moxon Trust/John Murrary, 1967), pp. 2 2 1 - 2 2 4 ; and The Collected Papers of Charles Darwin, 2 vols., ed. Paul H. Barrett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), II, 7 2 - 7 4 . See also note 117. 358

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography queries o f Wilhelm Preyer, a young German scientist who was writing Darwin's biographical sketch in German for the German periodical Das Ausland. In February 1870 Darwin wrote Preyer a letter in which, after vividly recollecting some o f his youthful scientific interests, he concluded, "I never wrote so much about myself in m y life, and I hope it may be worth your reading, but I d o u b t . " It was probably the most autobiographical letter he had ever written. There was no further biographical correspondence between himself and Preyer. s In May 1873 Francis Galton (Darwin's cousin), in the course o f preparing a b o o k on English Men o f Science: Their Nature and Nurture, sent him a list o f questions about his education and mental attributes. Darwin at first found it "impossible" to evaluate himself and had his son George reply to some o f Galton's questions. He then deleted some o f George's answers - retaining those that he thought were accurate - and added some answers o f his own. 9 His replies to Galton contained, as will be seen, important observations about himself. In the fall o f 1875 Darwin received a letter from Ernst yon HesseWarteg, a German travel writer, who in August had sent Darwin his review of Darwin's b o o k on Insectivorous Plants. Now yon HesseWarteg, residing in a hotel near the Franch town o f Sassetot, wrote the following request for biographical information: One o f m y German papers, the "Pionier" o f Leipzig asked me to write an article o f about two " T i m e s " columns on your life. As the articles in the mentioned paper serve as sources for the German Encyclopedias and other Lexicas I thought it right to address my request for nearer dates o f your life directly to you, because the hitherto known descriptions are generally wanting of truth and corrections. I therefore take the liberty to ask y o u for lending me for a few days any description of your illustrious life and your working (in any language), as well as a fotograf o f yours, to bring a large picture. Not only the circumstances that here in the little mattering place is no library, but more the desire to bring correct statements and an similar picture caused me to produce m y request and I hope in consideration o f the importance o f the paper, that you will kindly fulfill m y request. 1° 8. Colp, " 'I Never Wrote So Much About Myself,' "pp. 43-49. 9. Darwin to Galton, 28 May 1873; Karl Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914-30), II, 178-179. 10. The two letters from yon Hesse-Warteg to Darwin are addressed and 359

RALPH COLP, JR. There is no evidence that Darwin ever sent yon Hesse-Warteg the requested information. 11 Between 24 and 31 May 1876, while staying at Hopedene, Surrey, in the home o f Hensleigh Wedgwood (his cousin and brother-in-law), Darwin began writing what he entitled Recollections o f the Developm e n t o f m y Mind and Character, and what he referred to in his " J o u r n a l " as " m y little Autobiography." He wrote for about an hour in the afternoon, reserving his best working hours in the morning for his scientific writing (A, 145). Although he wrote very rapidly and took no pains about his literary style, he made frequent small changes and rewrote several pages. 12 On 3 August 1876, when he was back in his Down home, he brought his Autobiography up to date. He seems to have regarded what he had written as only a first d r a f t ) 3 Yet in the remaining years o f his life, although he would make several important additions to the Autobiography, he never found the time to revise it. He commented that it was essential to revise his writings, because he was then " o f t e n led to see errors in reasoning and in my own observations" (A, 137). At the beginning o f the Autobiography he wrote, " A German Editor having written to me to ask for an account o f the development o f my mind and character with some sketch o f my autobiography, I have thought that that attempt would amuse me, and might possibly interest my children or their children" (A, 21). In this passage he dated as follows: "Paris, 16 August 1875; Grand Hotel Les Petites Dalles par Sassetot/ Dept. Seine inf France/ 20 Sept. 1875." Von Hesse-Warteg wrote in English, a language in which he was not fluent, and his letter is transcribed as it was written. Both letters are in DAR 166. 11. The last known correspondence between Darwin and yon Hesse-Warteg is a letter from Darwin, commenting on the spread of evolution and saying that he can offer no information on the natural history of Bermuda - which yon Hesse-Warteg planned to visit. The letter is in Emma Darwin's handwriting, signed by Charles Darwin, and dated 22 March 1876. It is in the Seymour Library, Knox College, Galensburg, Illinois. 12. Twelve early manuscript pages, or parts of pages, from the Autobiography have recently been discovered. Peter Gautrey, "A Previously Unidentified Darwin Manuscript in Cambridge University Library," Cambridge Univ. Lib. Inf. Bull., 4 (1980), 1-3. See also note 83. 13. In his "Journal" for May 1876 Darwin wrote, "Began my little Autobiography." "Darwin's Journal," ed. Gavin de Beer, Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) Hist. Ser., 2 (1959), 20. He then made no further reference to the Autobiography in his "Journal." Since he was careful to record when he began and finished a work, it seems likely that the Autobiography was a work that he began and then did not revise and complete. 360

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography seems to acknowledge the previous six-month-old request o f yon Hesse-Werteg (without indicating whether he ever answered it), and then passes on to the deeper reasons for writing his recollections - his feelings about his family and himself. The Autobiography has been called "a prolonged family letter." 14 Darwin knew that it would be read, first o f all, b y his immediate family (his wife read it as soon as he had finished it, then told one of her sons about it), is and b y some o f his other relatives. By May 1876 Darwin learned that for the first time he was going to become a grandfather. ~6 This caused him to think of his grandchildren's reading about him, and to wish that when he was a child he had been able to read an account of his famous grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who had died seven years before he was born. He also knew that the impact of his own ideas had been exceptional - he had been called the Aristotle o f his time ~7 _ and he must have anticipated that in the future there would be a great public interest in his Autobiography. A final thought that especially prompted him to write about himself was his somber realization that "life is nearly over with m e " (in 1876 he was sixty-seven years old and had six years to live). His acceptance o f the proximity o f death then caused him to state, "I have a t t e m p t e d to write the following account o f myself, as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at m y own life" (A, 21). His "dead m a n " attitude meant several things: that although he viewed his past with interest and insight, he saw it in a more detached m o o d and with less emotion (and less interest in his past emotions) than in his 1838 recollections o f himself. 18 Thus, a little before he wrote the Autobiography, he told his old friend and relative William Darwin Fox, "I feel as old as Methusalem [sic] ; b u t not much in mind, except that I think one takes everything more quietly, as not signifying so much." 19 14. William Irvine, Apes, Angels, and Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley and Evolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955), p. 207. 15. Emma Darwin to her son Leonard, 4 August 1876, Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters, ed. Henrietta Litchfield, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1915), II, 223. 16. Darwin's first grandchild, Bernard Richard Meiron Darwin, was born on 7 September 1876. Bernard's father was Darwin's son Francis, and his mother was Francis' wife, Amy Richenda Ruck. 17. Francis Galton, English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture (London: 1874), p. 47. 18. L. Robert Stevens, CharlesDarwin (Boston: Twayne, 1978), p. 128. 19. Darwin to Fox, postmarked 11 May 1874, Darwin-Fox correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge. 361

RALPH COLP, JR. The

Autobiography

was

first p u b l i s h e d in e x p u r g a t e d f o r m in

1887, as part o f D a r w i n ' s Life and Letters, t h e n in its e n t i r e t y , as a separate v o l u m e , in 1958. It has b e c o m e the m o s t w i d e l y read w o r k o n D a r w i n ' s life and personality• It has also b e e n t h e o b j e c t o f o p i n i o n s for 2° a n d against. 21 R e c e n t l y its validity has b e e n q u e s t i o n e d , and it has b e e n h e l d t h a t in o r d e r t o u n d e r s t a n d D a r w i n it is n e c e s s a r y t o " s u r p a s s " t h e Autobiography. 22

20. Those who admired the Autobiography did not question its validity and were impressed by Darwin's simplicity• In 1906 Lytton Strachey commented that the Autobiography showed Darwin's "complete simplicity" and that this made him "curiously different from any of us." Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey: The Unknown Years, 1880-1910 (London: Heineman, 1967), p. 294. "The autobiography is only a few pages long, but what it lacks in size it makes up in candor and humility. Here we have the self-portrait of a genius • . . taking a modest view of his abilities." Confessions and Self-Portraits: 4600 Years o f Autobiography, ed. Saul K. Padover (New York: John Day, 1957), p. 195. "In the main it is a true autobiography; the personal affairs he speaks of belong coherently to his theme, and make it, for all his reticence, a most moving document." Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960), p. 114. 21. After the appearance of the views recorded in note 20, the Autobiography was criticized for its psychological shortcomings. "Charles Darwin had no insight into his own personality." Douglas Hubble, "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin," Lancet, 5 July 1958, 37. "Darwin was • . . trying . . . to understand how he became so eminent. He did not find an answer really satisfactory to himself, or present readers . . . Darwin had no theory that would explain Darwin." George Gaylord Simpson, "Charles Darwin in Search of Himself," Sci. Amer., 199 (1958), 118,122. "His Autobiography and his biographical sketch of his grandfather, for all their intelligence and charm, have a cool impersonal air. His Autobiography was neither very concerned with the examination of his inner life nor on that score very revealing." Howard E. Gruber and Paul H. Barrett, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Creativity (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974), p. 223. "Darwin was a man incapable of the exuberant self-revelation that good autobiography d e m a n d s . . . There is something curiosly impenetrable and elusive in everything he writes about himself; his view is lucid and objective, yet guarded." Peter Brent, Charles Darwin: A Man o f Enlarged Curiosity (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 494. The Autobiography has also been described as "misleadingly low-key and awkwardly modest." Redmond O'Hanlon, "Biography and Memoirs," Times Lit. Suppl., 26 August 1983, 915. This essay will show that while there is some truth in these criticisms, Darwin does depict some of his early intellectual traits and his emotional feelings for scenery and the sublime. 22. "In the last 20 years we have moved beyond the Autobiography... We are discovering at last what Darwin concealed from us. We have learned not to believe him when he denigrated his own abilities in philosophy and languages or when he lamented upon his own waning aesthetic sensibilities; we 362

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography H o w accurate is the Autobiography? The following essay collates what Darwin w r o t e in the Autobiography w i t h w h a t he w r o t e about h i m s e l f elsewhere (especially in his letters, n o t e b o o k s , and various autobiographical c o m m e n t s ) , w i t h w h a t those w h o k n e w him w r o t e , and w i t h the recent findings o f scholars. It aims to delineate w h i c h parts o f the Autobiography are valid, and w h i c h parts need to be qualified a n d / o r questioned. In the Autobiography Darwin stressed his innate traits and his self-education (in his answers to Francis Galton he had w r i t t e n , " I consider that all I have learnt o f any value has been self-taught"). 2a By the age o f eight he had a "passion for collecting," and he "collected all sorts o f things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals." he regarded this passion as the first step in his b e c o m i n g a " s y s t e m a t i c naturalist," and as a character trait that was present in no o t h e r m e m ber o f his i m m e d i a t e family (A, 2 2 - 2 3 ) . He had earlier observed that he first collected seals and franks, and t h e n minerals and shells. 24 A n d he later c a m e to believe that he had inherited his collecting trait f r o m his paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. 2s In his later b o y h o o d he read Wonders o f the World and t h e n wished to travel to r e m o t e countries (A, 44). 26 He seems to have aspired to b e c o m e a c o u n t r y

have learned to understand his illness as part of the whole, rather than the crippled, Darwin. We have found at the roots of his atheism the remnants of a natural theology which nourished his scientific inventions, and we have learned to see in Darwin a man who was more intensely involved with the success of his accomplishments than the modest autobiographical disclaimers would have us believe. The Autobiography has been found and now surpassed." Frederick B. Churchill, "Darwin and the Historian," in CharlesDarwin: A Commemoration, 1882-1982, ed. R. J. Berry (London: Academic Press, 1982), p. 68. 23. Darwin's replies 28 May 1873 to Galton's questions; Life and Letters, II, 355. 24. Darwin to Galton, 28 May 1873; in Pearson, Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, II, 179. 25. "As we have been here considering how much or how little the same tastes and disposition prevail in the same family, I may be permitted to add that from my earliest days I had the strongest desire to collect objects of natural history, and this was certainly innate or spontaneous, being probably inherited from my grandfather. Some of my sons have exhibited an apparently innate taste for science." Charles Darwin's 1879 "Life of Erasmus Darwin," galley 8, DAR 213.14. This passage was omitted from the published version of Darwin's Life of his grandfather. 26. After a search of the libraries of England and America, the only copy of Wonders of the World that I have been able to locate is Rev. C. C. Clarke, 363

RALPH COLP, JR. g e n t l e m a n -- w h o like G i l b e r t W h i t e m a d e o b s e r v a t i o n s o n o b j e c t s in n a t u r e ; w h o i n d u l g e d in t h e g e n t l e m a n ' s s p o r t o f h u n t i n g ; a n d w h o c u l t i v a t e d r e f i n e d m a n n e r s a n d was p a i n e d w h e n o t h e r s l a c k e d t h e s e m a n n e r s (A, 4 5 , 53, 56). 27 H o w D a r w i n r e a c t e d t o t h e d e a t h o f his m o t h e r , w h i c h o c c u r r e d w h e n h e was eight years old, is o b s c u r e . In t h e Autobiography h e j u x t a p o s e s his lack o f m e m o r i e s a b o u t his m o t h e r , a n d t h e events o f h e r d e a t h a n d f u n e r a l , 2s w i t h his vivid m e m o r y o f t h e m i l i t a r y f u n e r a l o f a d e a d soldier w h i c h " d e e p l y s t i r r e d " his " p o e t i c f a n c y " (A, 22, 24). 29 His j u x t a p o s i t i o n suggests t h a t p e r h a p s o n e o f his p s y c h o l o g i c a l d e f e n s e s against t h e p a i n o f his m o t h e r ' s d e a t h was n o t o n l y t o repress his m e m o r y o f her, b u t t o shift t h a t m e m o r y to a n o t h e r d e a t h , w h i c h h e c o u l d t h e n m a k e p o e t i c a n d stirring instead o f p a i n f u l . F r o m this t i m e o n h e was m o v e d b y p a r a d e s a n d military panache.

The Wonders of the World, Described according to the best and latest authorities, and illustrated by engravings (New Haven, 1822). This book - described as "abridged from the tenth London edition" - contains vivid descriptions of the Atlantic island of Tenerife, the South American mountain ranges, and the Pacific islands. Reading this book may have first stimulated Darwin to visit the lands to which the Beagle would journey. 27. During his life Darwin would be impressed by the good manners of the individuals he met. Captain FitzRoy possessed "highly courteous manners, which resembled those of his maternal uncle, the famous Lord Castlereagh" (A, 73). After meeting the historian George Grote, he was "pleased by the simplicity and absence of all pretension in his manners" (A, 111). Darwin never precisely delineated what it was that attracted him about good manners. 28. Darwin told Galton, "My mother died during my infancy and I can say hardly anything about her." Darwin to Galton, 28 May 1873, in Pearson Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, II, 178. During his life Darwin seems never to have questioned members of his family about his mother. In the last year of his life he loaned a miniature of her to his sister Caroline. He commented in a letter to Caroline that the portrait showed "a most sweet expression" and that he valued it. "I cannot remember riding behind her [his mother] ," he wrote Caroline, "nor about guns or thunder. What you tell me is very pathetic and I am deeply glad to have heard it." We do not know what he was referring to, and he did not further question Caroline. Darwin to Caroline, 20 September 1881, DAR 153: 26. 29. The details of Darwin's memory of the funeral are corroborated by F. E. Gretton (a Shrewsbury schoolmate of Darwin's) in Gretton's autobiography, Memory's Harback, Through Half-A-Century. The soldier was named William Matthew; he was thirty-six years old and had been a hussar, not a dragoon as Darwin and Gretton claim. I thank Mary Hill, Shrewsbury County Archivist, for informing me about Matthew's burial. 364

N o t e s o n Charles D a r w i n ' s Autobiography A f t e r his m o t h e r died h e was i n s t r u c t e d b y his elder sister Caroline. " C a r o l i n e , " h e r e c o l l e c t e d , " w a s t o o zealous in t r y i n g t o i m p r o v e m e ; for I clearly r e m e m b e r a f t e r this l o n g interval o f years, saying t o m y s e l f w h e n a b o u t t o e n t e r a r o o m w h e r e she was - ' W h a t will she b l a m e m e f o r n o w ? ' a n d I m a d e m y s e l f dogged so as n o t t o care w h a t she m i g h t s a y " (A, 22). W h a t h e does n o t f u r t h e r say is t h a t m a k i n g h i m s e l f " d o g g e d " t o a critic m e a n t several t h i n g s : c o n t i n u i n g c o v e r t l y t o go o n d o i n g w h a t h e was criticized for (in his l a t e r life h e w o u l d o f t e n r e m a r k , " I t ' s dogged as does i t " ) ; 3° s u p p r e s s i n g a n y o u t w a r d e x p r e s s i o n o f anger; a n d b e c o m i n g o u t w a r d l y c o m p l i a n t a n d s u b s e r v i e n t t o w a r d his critic. 31 T h e Autobiography m a k e s n o m e n t i o n o f a n o t h e r elder sister, S u s a n , n o r o f a y o u n g e r sister, C a t h e r i n e . He c o m m e n t s t h a t , a l t h o u g h his sisters were " e x t r e m e l y k i n d a n d a f f e c t i o n a t e " t o h i m , h e did n o t owe m u c h t o t h e m i n t e l l e c t u a l l y (A, 4 2 - 4 3 ) . T h e e x t a n t c o r r e s p o n d e n c e b e t w e e n h i m a n d his sisters ( C a r o l i n e , S u s a n , a n d C a t h e r i n e ) 3 2 reveals t h a t C a t h e r i n e e n c o u r a g e d h i m t o read serious b o o k s a n d periodicals, t o s t u d y h a r d , a n d to f o r m o p i n i o n s o n p e o p l e a n d o n political a n d social issues. 33 A l t h o u g h h e s t a t e d t h a t h e did n o t " o w e 30. Life and Letters, I, 125. 31. When Darwin was seventeen years old he wrote to Caroline: "I dare say I shall not be able to finish this letter, but I cannot help writing to thank you for your very nice and kind letter. It makes me feel how very ungrateful I have been to you for all the kindness and trouble you took for me when I was a child. Indeed I cannot often help wondering at my own blind ungratefulness. I have tried to follow your advice about the Bible; what part of the Bible do you like best? I like the Gospels. Do you know which of them is generally reckoned the best? Do write me again soon, for you do not know how I like receiving such letters as yours." Darwin to Caroline, 8 April 1826. DAR 154. Although this letter is dated 1828, its contents show that it was written in the year 1826. Ten years later, when Darwin was aboard the Beagle and longing to return to his Shrewsbury home, he could be more humorous and outspoken with Caroline and remember her in a way that foreshadowed his Autobiography memory of her. "I shall put myself under your hands," he wrote Caroline, "& you must undertake the task of scolding, as in years long gone past, & civilizing me. - Oh for the time, when we shall take a ride together on the Oswestry road. - My dear Caroline I do long to see you." Darwin to Caroline, 18 July 1836, in Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, ed. Nora Barlow, (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), p. 144. 32. In the Autobiography Darwin makes no mention of his eldest sister, Marianne, who married and left the Shrewsbury home in 1824. Although he and Marianne corresponded, his relations with her do not seem to have been as close as with his three other sisters. 33. When Darwin was a teenaged student at Edinburgh University, he 365

RALPH COLP, JR. much"

t o his elder b r o t h e r Erasmus, he r e c o l l e c t e d t h a t E r a s m u s

l e n t h i m b o o k s and e n c o u r a g e d h i m t o read. He assisted E r a s m u s in c h e m i s t r y e x p e r i m e n t s , w h i c h first s h o w e d h i m " t h e m e a n i n g o f e x p e r i m e n t a l s c i e n c e " (A, 4 2 - 4 3 , 4 5 - 4 6 ) . D a r w i n ' s r e c o l l e c t i o n o f his father, R o b e r t D a r w i n , was a late a d d i t i o n t o t h e A u t o b i o g r a p h y 34 and his m o s t detailed m e m o i r o f a p e r s o n he h a d k n o w n . With a d m i r a t i o n and awe 3s h e recollects his f a t h e r ' s p o w e r s as a p h y s i c i a n , b u s i n e s s m a n , and p h i l a n t h r o p i s t ( o n w h i c h m o r e later); his f a t h e r ' s p e n c h a n t for f o r m i n g " a t h e o r y for

almost e v e r y t h i n g w h i c h o c c u r r e d , " and his u n e q u a l e d p o w e r

received the following letters from his sisters. "Remember to write slow and then you will form each letter distinctly... Don't waste your time by going to the Play as it must prevent your getting up early or attending to your studies . . . devote yourself to wisdom & you will be much happier." Susan to Darwin, 27 March 1826, DAR 204.2. "Mr. [Samuel Tertius] Galton [Darwin's relative] has sent you a letter of introduction to Mr. Homer a friend of his, & a very clever agreeable man. Erasmus tells me you will gladly accept any letter of introduction - particularly to pleasant people like the Homers. & if you will call with it I dare say they will be very civil to you." Caroline to Darwin, 11 April 1826, DAR 204.2. Leonard Homer was a prominent industrialist, philanthropist, educationalist, and one of the founders of the London Geological Society. After Darwin introduced himself to Homer, the two became friends. "I am very glad that we shall be able to renew our acquaintance in so short a time. I long to see you again my very dear Bobby [Darwin's middle name was Robert, and he was sometimes called Bobby by his brother and Catherine], and I hope we shall have some very nice walks and talks together a g a i n . . . I am reading your favorite Southey's Peninsular War [Robert Southey, History o f the Peninsular lear], and like it exceedingly. Do you remember the account of the siege of Saragossa? One cannot conceive of anything more dreadful. The second volume is out, and we are going to order it in the society; it really is the greatest labor of Hercules I ever undertook." Catherine to Darwin, 11 April 1826, DAR 204.2. 34. In 1879 Darwin first wrote a short sketch of his father as part of his biography of Erasmus Darwin. Between 1879 and 1881 he wrote a greatly enlarged account of his father's many "remarkable" (A, 28) traits and added this to his Autobiography. 35. In his account Darwin uses the word father seventy times: in forty-nine times it is given with a small letter and twenty-one times with a capital. Sometimes one can differentiate between the small and capital letters: "My father heard his reasons for believing that he could ultimately repay the money, and from my Father's intuitive perception of character felt sure that he was to be trusted" (A, 29). It has been postulated that Darwin was here expressing his thought that "all fathers hear but only godlike Fathers have an intuitive comprehension." Hubble, "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin," p. 39. In other instances, however, there is no discernible reason for Darwin's choice. 366

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography of observing people in health and disease. Then Darwin c o m m e n t s , " M y father's m i n d was n o t scientific, and he did n o t try to generalise his k n o w l e d g e u n d e r general laws . . . I do not think I gained m u c h f r o m h i m i n t e l l e c t u a l l y " (A, 29, 39, 42). This c o m m e n t requires some qualification. Certainly the father, unlike the son, never f o r m e d scientific theories that o t h e r scientists accepted. Yet the father was the son's first e x a m p l e o f a person w h o observed and theorized, and it seems likely that f r o m this e x a m p l e the son t h e n evolved into his mature career as an observer and theorizer. A l t h o u g h Dr. Darwin was an autocrat w h o e x p e c t e d always to be o b e y e d " t o the l e t t e r " (A 39), he also experienced times w h e n he was unable to f o r m an opinion 36 and w h e n "small events a n n o y e d or pained him m u c h " (A, 40). These painful small events m a y have been obsessional doubts. I f the father suffered f r o m a t e n d e n c y to indecision and doubting, this could partially explain w h y he gave up his wishes for his son to be a d o c t o r and then a clergyman, and w h y he so easily reversed his first decision against his son's going on the Beagle. It could also explain w h y Darwin came to hero-worship the u n c o m p r o m i s i n g and intransigent qualities o f his uncle, Josiah W e d g w o o d (A, 56). 37 Darwin's recollection o f his seven years at Shrewsbury s c h o o l and his study o f the Greek and Latin classics - is that the school 36. In 1804 Anna Seward, noted poet and author, wished to publish a correction to her biography of Erasmus Darwin. This led to a correspondence between Robert Darwin - Dr. Erasmus' oldest surviving son - and Miss Seward, which the latter described as follows: "I sent Dr. R. Darwin a copy of what I wished might be inserted in the reviews... He objected to the paragraph as being too tong and needlessly explanatory. After several letters had passed between us, and my spirits had been harassed on the theme, I left, in great measure, to him the form and manner of this corrective attestation." Anna Seward, Letters o f Anna Seward (Edinburgh: Constable, 1811), 6 vols., VI, 135-136. Karl Aschaffenburg, a graphologist who has studied the handwriting of members of the Darwin family, studied a letter of Dr. Darwin written in 1824, when he was fifty-eight, and thought that it revealed "weakness, debility, the approach of old age, and a tendency to compromise and avoid difficulties." 37. Darwin applied to his uncle Wedgwood the following ode of the Roman poet Horace: "The man who is just and tenacious of his purpose neither the anger of his citizens bidding him do what is wrong nor the face of a threatening tyrant shakes from his solid determination, nor the south wind, wild emperor of the restless Adristic, nor the mighty hand of thundering Jupiter: if the world should fall shattered, the ruins will strike him unafraid." In The Third Book o f Horace's Odes, ed. and trans. Gordon Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 40. 367

RALPH COLP, JR. failed to develop his mind and "as a means of education to me was simply a blank" (A, 27). He had earlier observed that the school had been "restrictive" of the development of his powers of scientific observation. 38 He may have again thought of how a classical education restricts scientific interests when he later described how Chalres Darwin, his scientifically inclined paternal uncle, had mentally "languished in the pursuit of classical elegance" at Oxford. 39 Despite Darwin's lack of interest, he "generally worked conscientiously" at his school courses (A, 28), but his grades were undistinguished.4° He came to be regarded, by all of his school teachers and by his father, "as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect" (A, 28). The opinion that he was "below the common standard in intellect" would affect him deeply and in varied ways for the rest of his life. Sometimes he would think that it was true, and he would add to it an earlier " c o n t e m p t " of h i m s e l f y then savagely disparage himself not only for his shortcomings but for some of h i s abilities. Early in the Autobiography he asserts, "During m y whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language" (A, 27). His correspondence, and the books in his library, show that he could read French 42 and G e r m a n y He could not properly pronounce certain 38. Darwin's 28 May 1873 replies to Galton's questions; Life and Letters, II, 355. 39. This comparison of Darwin and his paternal uncle has been made in Gruber and Barrett, Darwin on Man, pp. 61-62. 40. The records of Shrewsbury School show that Darwin attained average school marks. He was competing with many students who were inspired to work hard at Greek and Latin classics and who thus attained higher grades. I thank James Lawson, Shrewsbury School Library, for this information. 41. Darwin wrote that at age four he had recollections of "vanity, & what is odder a consciousness, as if instinctive, & contempt of myself that I was vain mainly thinking that people were admiring me in one instance for perseverence & another for boldness in climbing [a] low tree." Darwin, "Life written August 1838," DAR 91, p. 3. This has been published in More Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin and A. C. Seward (New York: D. Appleton, 1903), 2 vols., I, 2; and Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley. Autobiographies, ed. Gavin de Beer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 4. 42. Darwin's reading list shows 150 French titles. Stevens, "Darwin's Humane Reading", p. 59. His copy of Jean Lamarck's Philosophie zoologique is heavily annotated, and he carried on a correspondence with the French scientist Gaston de Saporta, with Saporta writing to him in French. Correspondence entre Charles Darwin et Gaston Saporta, ed. Y. Conry, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972). 43. Darwin's reading list shows 43 German titles. Stevens, "Darwin's Humane -

-

368

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography German words, 44 and in this sense he was not a master of the German language. At other times Darwin saw himself as the Newton of biology, and he may have felt that Milton was speaking to him in Paradise Lost: " T h o u with Eternal Wisdom didst converse. ''4s And at still other times Darwin may have reacted to the opinion that he was "below the common standard" with feelings of anger, which evolved into feelings of defiance: he would show his teachers and his father that he was indeed worthy of their admiration .46 Darwin's recollection of his years as a student at Edinburgh and then at Cambridge stresses his extra-academic self-education in different natural sciences. His recollection of his Edinburgh work on the polyzoan flustra is incorrect - first, with regard to the nature of what he discovered, then with regard to the date when he presented his discovery to the Edinburgh Plinian Society. 47 He mentions, without comment, that the papers on flustra (and related subjects) that he gave to the Plinian Society "were not printed, so that I had not the satisfaction of seeing my paper in print"; and that his Edinburgh mentor, Robert Grant, "noticed my small discovery in his excellent memoir on Flustra" (A, 51). Dr. Grant did indeed publish a warm and accurate tribute to Darwin's flustra work. 4s But what is muted in the recollection is his rivalry with Grant over their both working on flustra; 49 his frustration at not seeing his Plinian Society paper published; and (most important) his recognition that scientific discovery can have a competitive aspect, and that in order to make a scientific discovery it is sometimes necessary to publish that discovery ahead of someone else.

Reading," p. 59. His copy of C. K. Sprengel's Das entdeckte Geheimnis der Natur is heavily annotated. When he was writing the biography of his grandfather, he corresponded intensively with Ernst Krause (the German botanist and science writer), with Krause writing to him in German. See Ralph Colp, Jr., "The Relationship of Charles Darwin to the Ideas of His Grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin," forthcoming in biography. 44. Darwin "never attempted to speak German correctly, but pronounced the words as though they were English." Life and Letters, I, 104. 45. Silvan S. Schweber, "The Young Darwin,",/.. Hist. Biol. 12 (1979), 183. 46. Brent, Charles Darwin, pp. 369-370. 47. Richard B. Freeman, "Plinian Society of Edinburgh," in idem, Charles Darwin: A Companion (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, Shoe String Press, 1978), p. 232. 48. J. H. Ashworth, "Charles Darwin as a Stuent at Edinburgh, 18251827," Proe. Boy. Soe. Edinburgh, 50 (1934-35), 105. 49. P. Helveg Jesperson, "Charles Darwin and Dr. Grant," Lychnos, 194849,164-165. 369

RALPH COLP, JR. His recollection o f hearing Dr. Grant discourse on L a m a r c k ' s evolutionary ideas (he m a y have t h e n read Lamarck's first published statem e n t on evolution), s° and his recognition that these were similar to the ideas o f Erasmus Darwin, indicates that at the age o f seventeen he k n e w about the c o n c e p t o f evolution. His further c o m m e n t , that his early k n o w l e d g e o f the e v o l u t i o n a r y ideas o f Dr. Darwin " m a y have favoured m y u p h o l d i n g t h e m under a different f o r m in m y Origin o f Species" (A, 49), was his belated private tribute to the intellectual influence o f his grandfather. A t the same time, in the Origin, he c o n t i n u e d to criticize his grandfather's evolutionary ideas as " e r r o n e o u s . ' ' s l A t Cambridge his main scientific w o r k was collecting rare beetles. Notices o f the beetles he discovered were published, along w i t h his name, in S t e p h e n s ' Illustrations o f British Entomology. s2 " N o p o e t , " he recollected, "ever felt m o r e delight in seeing his first p o e m published than I did at seeing in S t e p h e n ' s Illustrations o f British lnsects [sic] the magic words, ' c a p t u r e d b y C. Darwin, Esq.' " (A, 63). 53 His "delight" in first seeing his n a m e in print was especially great because 50. Darwin read Lamarck's Systkm des animaux sans vertkbres, ou tableau gbndral des classes, des ordres et des genres de ces animaux (Paris, 1801), which contained a lecture Lamarck delivered at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, on 12 May 1800. In this lecture Lamarck first publicly enunciated his evolutionary views, Frank N. Egerton III, "Darwin Early Reading of Lamarck," Isis, 67 (1967), 452-456. 51. See Colp, "The Relationship of Charles Darwin to His Grandfather." 52. James Francis Stephens, Illustrations of British Entomology; or, a synopsis of indigenous insects: containing their generic and specific distinctions; with an account o f their metamorphoses, times o f appearance localities, food, and economy, as far as practicable, 11 vols. (London: 1827-45). The main work is divided into four volumes of Haustellata and seven of Mandibulata. The beetles occur in the first five volumes of the latter work, and there are about thirty-five notices with Darwin's name. 53. The word "captured" is printed in only two of the thirty-five notices that bear Darwin's name; after that it is used to describe beetles found by both Darwin and the Rev. F. W. Hope (Mandibulata, XI, 154, 266). The word held a deep attraction for Darwin. Four years after writing his Autobiography, he told an individual who had known him during his years at Cambridge, "I remember the pride which I felt when I saw in a book about beetles the impressive words 'captured by C. Darwin.' Captured sounded so grand compared with caught. This seemed to me glory enough for any man!" Darwin to Mrs. Haliburton, 22 November 1880, Life and Letters, II, 507-508. The "glory" in the word "captured" was that it dramatized and publicized the bumptiousness that Darwin felt for his beetle work. His attraction for "captured" may also have been an identification with James Stephens, who used the word frequently in referring to the beetles he had found. 370

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography of the previous failure to publish his flustra discovery. He was also delighted by the feeling that he was successfully competing with other beetle collectors, notably Rev. Leonard Jenyns, a Cambridge acquaintance who was a naturalist and entomologist, s4 In his letters to William Darwin Fox (who had first introduced him to entomology, and whom he had then surpassed) he reported on his competition with Jenyns. In May 1829: "I think I beat Jenyns in Colymbetes."ss Stephens' Mandibulata volume for July 1829 refers to four different Colymbetes, all discovered b y "C. Darwin, Esq. ''s6 In July 1829: "You will see m y name in Stephens' last number. I am glad of it, if it is merely to spite Mr. Jenyns." 57 In January 1830 he met with Jenyns, exchanged some beetles, s8 and kept from Jenyns a rare beetle he had discovered in Cambridgeshire. In later years he remembered his action and became ashamed of it. s9 In March 1830, anticipating how he and Fox would jointly collect beetles, he wrote his frined: "We will make regular compaigns into the Fens; Heaven protect the beetles & Mr. Jenyns, for we wont leave him a pair in the whole Country. ''6° At this time, however, Stephens' Mandibulata began publishing fewer notices by Darwin and more notices b y Jenyns. Darwin did not comment on this change in his letters to Fox. Jenyns' success, however, may have prompted Darwin to give up beetle collecting in 1831.

54. Jenyns was also Henslow's brother-in-law. 55. Darwin to Fox, postmarked 18 May 1829, Darwin-Fox correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge. 56. Mandibulata, XI, 70-71. 57. Darwin to Fox, postmarked 18 July 1829, Darwin-Fox correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge. 58. Darwin to Fox, postmarked 16 January 1830, Darwin-Fox correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge. 59. Darwin and Jenyns later became good friends, and Jenyns related the following anecdote. "He [Darwin 1 occasionally came over from Cambridge to my Vicarage . . . and we went out together to collect insects in the woods . . . on one occasion he captured . . . a rare coleopterous insect . . . which I myself had never taken in Cambridgeshire. He was pleased with his capture, and of course carried it home in triumph. Some years afterwards . .. talking over old times with him, I reverted to this circumstance, and asked him if he remembered it. 'Oh yes,' (he said,) 'I remember it well; and I was selfish enough to keep the specimen, when you were collecting materials for a Fauna of Cambridgeshire, and for the local museum in the Philosophical Society.' He followed this up with some remarks on the pettiness of collectors, who aimed at nothing beyond filling their cabinets with rare things." Life and Letters, I, 332n. 60. Darwin to Fox, postmarked 25 March 1830, Darwin-Fox correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge. 371

RALPH COLP, JR. Darwin had been sent to Cambridge by his father to study for the ministry. In his recollections he comments that he "liked the thought of being a country clergyman" (it was somewhat similar to his previous aspiration to being a country gentleman), and he enjoyed studying the logic of William Paley's Evidences of Christianity. He says little else about his thoughts on religion (A, 57, 59). From his letters to Fox it is evident that his interest in religion centered on courses and available positions and was not concerned with questions of religious belief. 61 In his account o f the events leading to the Beagle voyage, Darwin twice suggests that it was because his uncle Wedgwood traveled to Shrewsury and talked to Dr. Darwin that the latter with drew his objections to his son's proposed voyage (A, 72, 7 6 - 7 7 ) . The correspondence between Darwin and Wedgwood shows that Darwin gave his consent (before meeting with Wedgwood) after reading Wedgwood's letter, which answered his objections. 62 When the Begale's sailing was delayed for two months, Darwin suffered from an upset stomach (mainly seasickness during two attempts to sail) and depression, which he recorded in his Diary. In his Autobiography he for the first time revealed an additional symptom: 63 "I was also troubled with palpitations and pain about the heart, and like many a young ignorant man, especially one with a smattering of medical knowledge, was convinced that I had heartdisease. I did not consult any doctor, as I fully expected to hear the verdict that I was not fit for the voyage, and I was resolved to go at all hazards" (A, 8 0 - 8 1 ) . He knew that palpitations could indicate heart disease, which might be incapacitating and/or fatal; and that if his father were aware of these palpitations, his sailing on the Beagle would probably be interdicted. So he made no notations about the palpitations in his Diary (which he planned to show to his family) and bore the knowledge of his cardiac illness in silence and solitude. 61. Sandra Herbert, "The Place of Man ha the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation. Part I. To July 1837", J. Hist. BioL, 7 (1974), 217218. 62. Brent, CharlesDarwin, pp. 116-117. 63. Darwin never mentioned his cardiac pain and palpitations in letters to his friends and family; and in his 1838 "Journal" he only mentioned that the two months prior to the sailing of the Beagle were "very miserable." See Ralph Colp, Jr., "The Pre-Beagle Misery of Charles Darwin," Psychohist. Rev., 13 (1984), 4-15. 372

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography In the Autobiography (written after he had experienced many periods of painful and incapacitating illness) he comments that these two months "were the most miserable which I ever spent" (A, 79). What gave them their quality of special misery (they may not have actually been his "most" miserable months) was that he probably experienced guilt over concealing his symptoms from his father, and fear that in avoiding medical help he was risking life and limb. Yet throughout these months he maintained his resolve to sail on the Beagle despite "all hazards." It was a striking example of his courage. Once the Beagle voyage actually began, his cardiac symptoms abated. His recollections of the five years of the voyage Contain some exaggerations and omissions. His description of his relationship with Beagle Captain FitzRoy stresses their quarrels, and FitzRoy's unstable temper (A, 7 3 - 7 6 ) . Darwin's account, while true, was u n d u l y influenced b y his post-Beagle estrangement from FitzRoy. For most of the voyage the two maintained an affection and respect for each other, and FitzRoy aided Darwin in many of his land excursions. 64 No mention is made of Darwin's cordial and steady relations with the Beagle crew. Arthur Metlersh, first mate on the Beagle, later commented that Darwin "was the only man I ever knew against whom I never heard a word said; and as people when shut up in a ship for five years are apt to get cross with each other, that is saying a good deal. ''6s Although Darwin mentions the "danger" and "discomfort" of some his land and boat excursions (A, 80), he omits instances of his physical energy, endurance, and courage. 6~ 64. The Beagle Record: Selections From the Original Pictorial Records and Written Accounts of the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle, ed. Richard Darwin Keynes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 77,160,220-221. 65. Ibid., p.42. 66. In replying to Galton's question about "Energy of body," Darwin offered the following Beagle recollection: "Energy shown by much activity, and whilst I had health, power of resisting fatigue. I and one other man were alone able to fetch water for a large party of officers and sailors utterly prostrated." Darwin's 28 May 1873 replies to Galton's questions, Life and Letters, II, 356. He was correct in his recollection of his physical energy and endurance, but was in error in writing that he and his companion were able to procure water. The episode he refers to took place on 11 January 1834, at Port Saint Julian in southern Patagonia. Darwon, FitzRoy, and other members of the Beagle crew were exploring inland from the coast and soon became fatigued and excessively thirsty. The group thought they saw two lakes in the distance. "Mr. Darwin," FitzRoy recollected, "more accustomed than the men, or myself, to long excursions on shore, thought he could get to the lakes, and went to try. We watched him anxiously . . . saw him stoop down at the lake, but immediately leave it 373

RALPH COLP, JR. Throughout the voyage he carried with him and studied the first volume of Charles Lyell's Principles o f Geology, which propounded the theory of Uniformitarianism. "The very first place which I examined," he recollected, "namely St. Jago in the Cape Verde Islands, showed me clearly the wonderful superiority of Lyell's manner of treating geology compared with that of any other author" (A, 77). His geological notes, however, show that on Saint Jago his geological ideas were a "peculair blend" of Uniformitarianism and older Catastrophist ideas. Only slowly, and with vacillations, did he come to believe in Lyell's views. 67 The Autobiography is at its strongest in providing a succession of terse overviews on how the voyage affected Darwin's future career by altering his ways of working and thinking. He recalled how he collected animals of all classes, wrote careful daily notes, and made everything he had read and thought about bear on what he saw. In an especially insightful overview he described how his love for hunting - which had been with him since early adolescence - changed to an interest in geology. And he brought to whatever he was working on habits of "energetic industry and concentrated attention" (A, 7 7 - 7 9 ) . He did not mention in the Autobiography that he also developed the habit of accomplishing work in short periods, what he called "the golden rule for saving time. ''68 As he became more confident of his scientific work, he stopped referring to himself as a future country clergyman 69 and anticipated and go on to another, that also he quitted without delay, and we knew by his slow returning pace that the apparent lakes were 'salinas'... After some hours two of my boat's crew returned with water, and we were very soon revived." Darwin's 11 January diary entry agrees with FitzRoy's account. (Darwin adds that when he walked to the salinas, a man volunteered to accompany him.) Robert FitzRoy, Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventures and Beagle (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), II, 320; CharlesDarwin's Diary of the Voyage of the H. M. S. 'Beagle', ed. Nora Barlow, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), p. 205. 67. Howard Gruber and Valmai Gruber, "The Eye of Reason: Darwin's Development during the Beagle Voyage,' Isis, 53 (1962), 194-195. 68. Darwin would later say that it was on the Beagle "that he learned what he considered the golden rule for saving time; i.e., taking care of the minutes." Life and Letters, I, 193. 69. Darwin referred to himself as a future country clergyman in November 1832, and 23 May 1833 letters to Fox (Darwin-Fox correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge). Such references then stop. In July 1835 he wrote to Fox: "I do not know what will become of me. Your situation [Fox is a clergymna] is above envy: I do not venture even to frame such happy visions. To a person 374

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography a purely scientific future. He recollected that " w h e n in G o o d Success Bay, in Tierra del Fuego . . . I w r o t e h o m e . . , that I could n o t e m p l o y m y life b e t t e r than in adding a little to natural science" ( . 4 , 1 2 6 ) . 70 Darwin's s o m e w h a t cryptic c o m m e n t s - that his " f a t h e r ' s w i s h " for him to be a clergyman " d i e d a natural d e a t h " and that his father said the "shape o f his h e a d " had " q u i t e a l t e r e d " (A, 57, 79) - are his only recollections o f discussion w i t h his father a b o u t Darwin's future career after his return h o m e f r o m the Beagle voyage. Dr. Darwin's a c c o u n t b o o k shows that three m o n t h s after the Beagle voyage, in J a n u a r y 1837, he provided his son w i t h an annual i n c o m e o f £400. 71 F r o m this time on Darwin was e c o n o m i c a l l y i n d e p e n d e n t , and he seems to have been left entirely free to do as he wished. He evaluates the period o f t w o years and four m o n t h s f r o m his return to England on 2 O c t o b e r 1836 until his marriage on 29 January 1839 as " t h e m o s t active" o f his life (A, 82). In a m a n n e r that is disjointed and cursory, yet accurate, he describes his main public activities. The publication o f his Journal o f Researches - his first b o o k - caused him to experience unsurpassed feelings o f pleasure, 7z and then to recall that its republication and success "always tickles m y v a n i t y m o r e than that o f any o f m y other b o o k s " (A, 116). He twice m e n t i o n s his w o r k on the Zoology of" the Voyage o f the Beagle (A, 83, 99), but fails to c o m m e n t on this interesting and i m p o r t a n t w o r k . 7a He recollects his t h e o r y o f the origin o f coral reefs (his first i m p o r t a n t scientific t h e o r y ) and his geological observations on S o u t h

fit to take the office, the life of a clergyman is a type of all that is respectable and happy." Life and Letters, I, 234. 70. Darwin here refers, quite accurately, to a letter written to his sister Catherine from Maldonado, Patagonia, in June 1833: "I trust & believe that the time spent in this voyage, if thrown away for all other respects, will produce its full worth in Nat. History. And it appears to me, doing what little one can to encrease the general stock of knowledge, is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue." Charles Darwin and the Voyage, p. 86. 71. Arthur Keith, Darwin Revalued (London: Watts, 1955), pp. 221-222. 72. After receiving the first printing of his Journal, Darwin on 4 November 1837 wrote to Henslow: "If I live till I am eighty years old I shall not cease to marvel at finding myself an author: in the summer before I started, if anyone had told me I should have been an angel by this time, I should have thought it an equal improbability." Barlow, Darwin and Henslow, p. 141. 73. In the Zoology Darwin revealed his "easy confidence" in his powers to describe animals. See the review of the reprint of the Zoology by Redmond O'Hanlon in Times Lit. Suppl., 17 April 1981, p. 438. 375

RALPH COLP, JR. A m e r i c a (A, 83, 9 8 - 9 9 ) ; then, referring to the intellectually stimulating a m b i e n c e o f the L o n d o n Geological Society, 74 he c o m m e n t s that it was a " t i m e w h e n geology was advancing w i t h t r i u m p h a n t s t e p s " and that he k n e w "all the leading geologists" (A, 102). In hsi r e m e m b r a n c e s o f these geologists he draws a w a r m and s y m p a t h e t i c portrait o f Charles Lyell and carefully delineates Lyell's intellect, and intellectual influence on him. But he criticizes Lyell's p e n c h a n t for advancing h i m s e l f socially and for his " o v e r - e s t i m a t i o n o f a man's position in the w o r l d " (A, 1 0 0 - 1 0 1 ) . In a similar m a n n e r he criticized R o d e r i c k Murchison for the " l u d i c r o u s " w a y in w h i c h " h e valued r a n k , " and William Buckland for the "vulgar and almost c o a r s e " w a y in w h i c h he asserted h i m s e l f socially, and for his "craving for n o t o r i e t y " (A, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3 ) . 7s Darwin, for u n d e t e r m i n e d reasons, was ( o u t w a r d l y at least) e x t r e m e l y reluctant to be socially aggressive. 76 What Darwin valued in the e m i n e n t m e n he met at this time (aside f r o m their intellect) were two attributes that he prized in himself: consideration for others 77 and graceful manners. 78

74. In the 1830s the London Geological Society was described as "the outstanding center of scientific activity in England." Sandra Herbert, "Remembering Charles Darwin as a Geologist," in Charles Darwin: A Centennial Commemorative, ed. Roger G. Chapman and Cleveland T. Duval (Wellington: Nova Pacifica, 1982), p. 239. 75. Buckland (1784-1856) possessed an outwardly confident manner and sense of humor that may have seemed appropriate to his own partly eighteenthcentury generation, but seemed coarse to the Victorians. See Nicholas Rupke, The Great Chain of History: William Buckland and the English School of Geology, 1814-1849 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), VII, 270. I thank Dr. Rupke and Leonard G. Wilson, for writing to me about Buckland's characteristics. 76. Darwin's aversion to socializing - and also to addressing the public has been commented on by Sandra Herbert, "The Place of Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation: Part II", J. Hist. Biol., 10 (1977), 160-161. 77. After commenting that the botanist Robert Brown was fearful, jealous, and "a complete miser," he added that Brown was also "capable of the most generous actions. When old, much out of health and quite unfit for any exertion, he daily visited (as Hooker told me) an old man-servant, who lived at a distance and whom he supported, and read aloud to him. This is enough to make up for any degree of scientific penuriousness or jealousy" (A, 103-104). 78. Darwin was attracted by different kinds of graceful manners. He described FitzRoy as "a handsome man, strikingly like a gentleman, with highly courteous manners, which resembled those of his maternal uncle, the famous Lord Castlereagh" (A, 72-73). After once talking briefly with the historian George Grote, Darwin recollected that he was "much interested" by Grote's -

376

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography Darwin recollects how, along with his activities and publications, he began in July 1837 to keep a n o t e b o o k "for facts in relation to the Origin o f Species, about which I had long reflected, and never ceased working on for the next twenty years" (A, 83). Darwin clearly recognizes the significance o f this n o t e b o o k for his intellectual development. But his recollections o f the origins and growth o f his evolutionary ideas have many shortcomings. He recalled that he was stimulated to think about evolution because "during the voyage o f the Beagle" he had "been deeply impressed" by the similarity between South American fossil animals covered with armor and existing armadillos, and b y the distribution o f closely allied species o f animals in South America and in the Galapagos Islands (A, 118). 79 A study o f his notes, however, shows that during the Beagle voyage he did not think in any sustained manner about the possibility o f evolution. Only after he returned - when different experts examined his collections o f birds and animals - did he begin to consider the evolutionary implications o f what he had collected and seen. a° He recollected that he began his first species n o t e b o o k "without any t h e o r y " and "collected facts on a wholesale scale" (A, 119). Research has shown that he formulated a theory that species isolated on islands would sponteneously evolve into new species, and he started his July 1837 n o t e b o o k in order to test this thesis. When his theory o f evolution in isolated species did not explain many facts, he discarded it and considered a succession o f other evolutionary theories - e a c h o f which he soon rejected. 81 He asserted that he "soon perceived"

conversation "and pleased by the simplicity and absence of all pretension in his manners" (.4,111). 79. Darwin gave a similar recollection of his Beagle evolutionary observations in the Introduction to his book The Variation o f Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1868), I, 9-11. 80. For an account of Darwin's Beagle and early post-Beagle evolutionary thinking, see Gruber and Gruber, "The Eye of Reason," pp. 186-200; The Red Notesboolc o f Charles Darwin, ed. with intro., Sandra Herbert (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), pp. 5-16; Frank J. Sulloway, "Darwin's Conversion: The Beagle Voyage and Its Aftermath," Z Hist. Biol., 15 (1982), 325396. I thank Dr. Sulloway for sending me a prepublication copy of his essay. 81. For an account of Darwin's early evolutionary theories see Gruber and Barrett, Darwin on Man, pp. 129-174; George Grinnell, "The Rise and Fall of Darwin's First Theory of Transmutation," J. Hist. BioL, 7 (1977), 259273; David Kohn, "Theories to Work By: Rejected Theories, Reproduction, and Darwin's Path to Natural Selection," in Studies in the History o f Biology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), IV, 67-140. 377

RALPH COLP, JR. the importance of the principle of "selection" in man's production of domestic breeds of animals and plants, and that he thought of applying this principle to organisms in nature (A, 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 ) . However, his earliest use of the term "selection" seems to have been in a note dated "Jan 1840. ''s2 In a retrospective overview of his species notebooks Darwin comments, "When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry" (A, 119). This comment does not describe the unique youthful attributes that he displays in the notebooks: the range of his intellect - touching on biology, psychology, morality, philosophy of art, and literature - and the sense of intellectual drama and excitment; his capacity for creative thinking, and for forming a series of new pictures of the world. Even today, a reading of the notebooks still produces an effect that can best be described as electric: an effect that the Autobiography does not convey. Darwin in his sixties seems to be looking at himself in his twenties "quietly," and as a "dead m a n . " The most famous passage in the Autobiography is its account of the discovery of natural selection. Darwin recollected how in the fall of 1838, fifteen months after he had begun writing his species notebooks, he read Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principles of" Population and, "being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long continued observation of the habits on 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" (A, 120). This passage has developed a history of its own. For about seventy years following its publication in 1887, it was the principal account of how natural selection came to be discovered, s3 Then in the 1950s

82. Dov Ospovat, "Darwin after Malthus, " J. Hist. Biol., 12 (1979), 212213n4. 83. Over a period of seventeen years Darwin wrote the following recollections of how he came to discover natural selection: "You are right, that I came to the conclusion that selection was the principle of change from the study of domesticated productions; and then, on reading Malthus, I saw at once how to apply this principle." Darwin to Alfred Wallace, 6 April 1859, in More Letters of Charles Darwin, I, 118. "It long remained to me an inexplicable problem how the necessary degree of modification [of natural species] could have been effected, and it would have thus remained for ever, had I not studied domestic 378

N o t e s o n Charles D a r w i n ' s Autobiography it was p o s t u l a t e d t h a t D a r w i n c o u l d have d i s c o v e r e d n a t u r a l s e l e c t i o n w i t h o u t M a l t h u s , 84 or t h a t h e m i g h t h a v e l a t e r f a b r i c a t e d t h e i n f l u e n c e o f M a l t h u s . 8s D a r w i n ' s n o t e b o o k pages d e s c r i b i n g his r e a c t i o n t o reading M a l t h u s ' Essay were p u b l i s h e d in 1 9 6 4 , a n d it was at first thought that Malthus had not advanced Darwin's evolutionary thinking. 86 It t h e n c a m e t o b e b e l i e v e d b y a n increasing n u m b e r o f scholars t h a t M a l t h u s did radically alter D a r w i n ' s e v o l u t i o n a r y t h i n k i n g , alt h o u g h t h e f o r m t h a t this a l t e r a t i o n t o o k has b e e n p i c t u r e d in diff e r e n t ways. 87 T o d a y it seems e v i d e n t t h a t D a r w i n ' s old-age m e m o r y productions, and thus acquired a just idea of the power of Selection. As soon as I had fully recognized this idea, I saw, on reading Malthus on Population, that Natural Selection was th inevitable result of the rapid increase of all organic beings; for I was prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence by having long. studied the habits of animals." Darwin, Variation under Demonstication, I, 10. In an early version of the first draft of his Autobiography Darwin wrote: "After my return to England it seemed to me that by following Lyell's ['book' crossed out] examples suggested to me to begin collecting facts - & the study of domestic var [ieties] seemed the most promising field. Opened first note-book July 1837[ .] ['It was July 15' crossed out; 'All domestic varieties most favourable' crossed out.] I worked on true Baconian principles - printed enquiries, reading & conversation with men. Soon saw that selection by man was most effective means; but cd not apply it - Happened to read Malthus on. - was prepared by having long studied habits of anim[als] & the struggle of life. - Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work." DAR 53.ii. I thank Peter Gautrey for sending me this early version, along with other early pages, of the Autobiography. Gautrey has described how he discovered these pages in "A Previously Unidentified Darwin Manuscript in Cambridge University Library"; see note 12.) All the above Darwin recollections are essentially similar in stressing the importance of Malthus' Essay in helping Darwin conceptualize natural selection. 84. S. L. Sobol, "Evolutionary Conceptions of Darwin during the Period Preceeding his Acquaintance with Malthus's Theory," Zool. Zh., 37, (1958), 6 4 3 - 6 5 8 ; Gavin de Beer, "The Origins of Darwin's Ideas on Evolution and Natural Selection" (1961 Wilkins Lecture), Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 155 (1962), 321-338. 85. Loren Eiseley, "Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the Theory of Natural Selection," Proc. Amer. Phil, Soc., 103 (1959), 9 4 - 1 5 8 . 86. Gavin de Beer, "How Darwin Came By His Theory of Natural Selection," New Sci., 23 January 1964, 2 1 6 - 2 1 8 ; Camille Limoges, La sklection naturelle: Etudes sur la premikre constitution d'un concept (1837-1859) (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1970), p. 79. 87. Sandra Herbert, "Darwin, Malthus, and Selection," J. Hist. Biol., 4 (1971), 2 0 9 - 2 1 7 ; Gruber and Barrett, Darwin on Man, pp. 1 6 4 - 1 6 5 n 1 0 ; Silvan S. Schweber, "The Origin of the Origin Revisited," J. Hist. Biol., 8 (1977) 2 3 0 - 2 3 1 , nn 8, 9, and 12; Kohn, "Theories to Work By," p. 140; Dov Ospovat, The Deveopment of Darwin's Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 6 0 - 7 3 . 379

RALPH COLP, JR. o f reading Malthus and then discovering natural selection contains a deep truth; but it is also a memory that is too simplistic. At the time he read Malthus, Darwin may not have been fully aware o f all o f the manifold changes in thinking that this reading caused him to experience, as After recounting the discovery o f natural selection, Darwin added, "Here then I had at last got a theory b y which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch o f i t " (A, 120). By "prejudice" he meant the prevailing opinion that regarded evolutionary ideas as implausible and immoral. He does not record whether, at the time o f its inception, he discussed his theory with the intellectual members of his family - his father, his brother, and Hensleigh Wedgwood (the latter two lived near him in London). He does remember that he wrote a summary o f his theory in 1844, afterward (in the 1840s and 1850s) discussed it with "able men" and his friends Lyell and Hooker, and was unable to find any individual who understood or accepted his ideas (A, 120, 124). He is silent about his deeper feelings over this original lack o f acceptance: his (undoubted) fears and anxieties at becoming intellectually isolated and at being exposed to "prejudice." While noting the lack o f support from Lyell and Hooker, Darwin does not mention that, after analyzing aspects o f his theory with them, he sometimes suffered from distressing thoughts and psychosomatic symptoms. 89 He also omits the relation between his evolutionary thinking and the onset, then exacerbation, o f his illness. 9° The individual for whom Darwin expressed his most positive and emphatic feelings was his wife, Emma. After mentioning that he was married on 29 January 1839, he described Emma as follows: "She has been my greatest blessing, and I can declare that in m y whole life I have never heard her utter one word which I had rather have 88. It has been suggested that Darwin may have "forgotten what a complex shift in four or five major concepts had been required to arrive at the new theory [natural selection]. He probably never fully realised himself how unprecedented his new concept was and how totally opposed to many traditional assumptions." Ernst Mayr, "Darwin and Natural Selection: How Darwin May Have Discovered His Highly Unconventional Theory," Amer. Sci., 65 (1977), 321-327. 89. Ralph Colp, Jr., To Be an Invalid: The Illness o f Charles Darwin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 31-32, 55-56; Leonard G. Wilson, "The Puzzling Illness of Charles Darwin: An Essay review", J. Hist. Med., 32 (1977), 437-442. 90. Colp, To Be an Invalid, pp. 14-27. 380

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography been unsaid" (A, 96). He was repeating what he had written to Emma three decades previously: "Often have I thought over Elisabeth's [Emma's older sister[ words when I married you, that she had never heard a word pass your lips which she had rather not have been uttered, and sure I am that I can now say so and shall say so on m y deathbed, bless you m y dear wife." 92 Soon after his marriage his illness exacerbated, and for over three years it seriously reduced his ability to work. He subsequently had periods o f illness for most o f his life. Emma became his nurse, and her devoted care caused him to develop deep feelings o f gratitutde. "She has born with the utmost patience my frequent complaints from ill-health and d i s c o m f o r t . . . She has been m y wise adviser and cheerful comforter throughout life, which without her would have been during a very long period a miserable one from ill-health" (A, 9 6 - 9 7 ) . It has been held that the above recollections have a "Polyanna tone," and a style that "reeks of fiction. ''92 Yet Darwin deeply believed what he wrote and expressed similar sentiments to Emma throughout their marriage; she warmly responded to them. In a re. trospect on her husband she commented that she had received from him "the same loving gratitude many times a d a y , " and that he was a man whom she "could almost always make more h a p p y . " 93 Among the few times she did not make him h a p p y were those when they confronted their religious differences. He recalled that at about the time o f his engagement and marriage, he came to disbelieve in immortality and in "Christianity as a divine revelation" (A, 8 6 - 8 7 ) . He does not mention that Emma retained a belief in Christianity. 94 However, in a section o f the Autobiography (immediately preceding his account o f his marriage) Darwin related how before he became engaged, his father had advised him to conceal his disbelief from his religious wife, because such disbelief could cause "extreme misery" in a marriage (A, 95). He did not follow his father's advice,

91. Darwin to Emma, June 1846, in Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters, ed. Henrietta Litchfield, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1915), II, 104. 92. Howard Helsinger, "Credence and Credibility: The Concern for Honesty in Victorian Autobiography," in Approaches to Victorian Autobiography, ed., George P. Landow (Athens; Ohio University Press, 1979), p. 51. 93. Emma Darwin, II, 253,257. 94. Emma went to church regularly and took the sacrament; she read the Bible to her children and taught them a simple Unitarian creed. She told her daughter Henrietta that "she had often felt she could only bear her anxiety by saying a prayer for help." Ibid., pp. 173,175. 381

RALPH COLP, JR. and during their engagement he and Emma discussed their religious differences. 95 Soon after their marriage she wrote him a letter, faulting some o f the reasons for his disbelief and concluding, "Everything that concerns you concerns me and I should be most unhappy if I thought we did not belong to each other for ever." He was painfully moved by her mixture o f Christian faith and love for him, and at the b o t t o m o f her letter he wrote, "When I am dead, know that many times I have cryed over this" (A, 2 3 5 - 2 3 7 ) . He kept her letter and referred to it b y inserting in his Autobiography, after recollections o f her, the following addendum: "(Mere: her beautiful letter to myself preserved, shortly after our marriage)" (A, 97). 96 His parenthetical reference to the existence o f this letter was his way o f noting the religious differences between the two of thenl, 97 and o f distancing himself from them. The differences persisted throughout their marriage (along with their mutual devotion and need for each other) 98 and m a y have affected his health. In his recollections o f his father's views on husbandwife religious differences he wrote that Dr. Darwin had observed that "things went on pretty well until the wife or husband became out o f health, and then some women suffered miserably by doubting about the salvation of their husbands, thus making them likewise to suffer" (A, 95). Darwin may have thought o f himself and Emma when he wrote this sentence. Once, when he was sick, Emma (in order to "relieve" her mind) wrote him a letter, first expressing her compassion for his suffering and then urging him to direct his thoughts "upwards," to God. He wrote on the letter "God Bless y o u , " and preserved it (A, 2 3 7 - 2 3 8 ) . There may have been other times, when hc was sick and she was nursing him, that each "suffered miserably" in thinking about their religious differences, and when his disturbed thoughts aggravated the psychosomatic symptoms o f his illness.

95. Brent, Charles Darwin, pp. 255-256. 96. In the manuscript of his Autobiography it can be seen that Darwin inserted this addendum at a later date. C. Darwin, Recollections of the Development of my mind & character, DAR 26. MS 74. 97. It was sometimes Darwin's habit, when writing on a subject about which he felt deep conflicts, to enclose his writing in parentheses. An example of this is the famous comment to his new friend Hooker about his theory of natural selections: "(It is like confessing a murder)." 98. In October 1880 Darwin wrote to Edward Aveling that he had always avoided public attacks on religion because of "the concern it might cause some members of my family." He was, probably, mainly referring to Emma. 382

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography One paragraph in the Autobiography is about Darwin's interactions with his children: his "delight" in playing with them when they were very young, and regret that these times had have passed; his "affectionate" relations with his adult children; and his "anxiety" over their health (his deep fear that his children had inherited his tendency to ill health). 99 He recollected his "very severe grief" over the "April 24th, 1851" death of his ten-year-old daughter Annie (the actual date of her death was April 23rd), and the sketch he wrote of her character at the time of her death (A, 97). In this sketch, in which he fused deep emotion with exact observation, he wrote one of the most beautiful threnodies in the English language, and one of the most intensely moving accounts of one person ever written by another. 1°° However, there was no m e n t i o n of the death of his infant daughter, Mary Eleanor, and of his baby son, Charles Waring; nor of his home education of his children TM and his concern over the school education of his five sons. a°2 And he said nothing about the careers of his sons. a°3 He recalled how his illness caused him to move from London to the seclusion of Down House, and then to limit his conversation with scientific acquaintances - because the "excitement" from such conversation caused him to experience "violent shivering and vomiting attacks" (A, 115). "I have lost," he recollected, "the power of becoming deeply attached to anyone, not even so deeply to my good and dear friends Hooker and Huxley, as I should formerly have been" (A, 115). His capacity for friendship, though diminished, was still 99. Darwin's thoughts about his children inheriting his illness are discussed in Colp, To Be an Invalid, pp. 120-121. 100. Darwin's sketch of Annie is published in Life and Letters, I, 109-111. 101. George Darwin recalls how his father, with the aid of diagrams explained the workings of the steam engine to him; and how he and his father read a book on optics and then did several little experiments with lenses. George Darwin, Recollections of my Father, p. 5. Darwin also gave "a few little lectures on the steam-engine" to his daughter Henrietta. Life and Letters, I, 114. 102. How Darwin followed the schooling of his sons is described in James R. Moore, "On the Education of Darwin's Sons: The Correspondence Between Charles Darwin and the Reverend G. V. Reed, 1857-1864," Notes Rec. Roy. Soc. London, 32 (1977), 51-70. 103. On 13 July 1876 Darwin wrote to his son George, congratulating him on his scientific work and mentioning the successful work of his other sons Horace, Frank, and Leonard. At the end of his letter he wrote, "Oh Lord, what a set of sons I have, all doing wonders." (Emma Darwin, II, 224). Yet in his Autobiography - at this time being completed - he is silent on the work of his sons. 383

RALPH COLP, JR. considerable. He c o m m e n t e d that he had hardly known "any man more lovable than H o o k e r " (A, 106). 1°4 In a moving and insightful letter to his old friend Fox, he tried to define precisely his postillness capacity for friendship: "Long continued ill health has much changed me, & I very often think with pain how cold & indifferent I must appear to my old friends to what I was formerly: but I internally know that the inner part o f mind remains the same with my old affections. Believe me m y dear Fox, I am & shall ever be your affectionate friend." los In the Autobiography he frequently worried about time he had lost through being sick. He quoted a sentence he had written in his " J o u r n a l " in 1846: " 'How much time have I lost by illness?' " (,4, 116). 1°6 He then recollected that his " J o u r n a l " showed that from 1846 to 1854 about two years had been lost by illness, and that during the eight years "! went in 1848 for some months to Malvern for hydropathic treatment, which did me much g o o d . . . So much was I out o f health that when my dear father died on November 13th, 1847, I was unable to attend his funeral or to act as one o f his executors" (A, 117). This recollection contains several striking errors. Darwin's " J o u r n a l " shows that his father died in Shrewsbury on 13 November 1848; Darwin visited Shrewsbury on 1 7 - 2 6 November 1848; and he was at Malvern from 10 March to 30 June 1849. For him it was 104. Darwin valued Hooker not only because of the latter's support for his work, but for the deep feelings of friendship each felt for the other, feelings extending over a period of almost forty years. In the fall of 1863, when Darwin was very sick, he wrote Hooker the following terse note: "My dear old friend/ I must just have pleasure of saying this/ your affect./ C. Darwin". Darwin to Hooker, 30 October 1863, DAR 115 (iii): 207. 105. Darwin to Fox, 27 March 1851, Darwin-Fox correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge. 106. In the original version of this "Journal," which is in Darwin's handwriting, the sentence is written "How much time lost by illness!" (DAR 158). In his Autobiography Darwin quotes from his "Journal," adding the words "have I" and dropping his exclamation mark (Autobiography, msp. 82-83), and without the question mark that occurs in the Gavin de Beer edition. (Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley. Autobiographies, p. 71, reproduces the Autobiography manuscript version, again without the question mark. In the printed edition of the "Journal" the sentence is reproduced without exclamation or question mark.) The differences between the sentence Darwin first wrote in his "Journal" and the sentence he reproduced in the manuscript of his Autobiography suggests that his anxiety over losing time had lessened between 1846, when he made the "Journal" entry, and 1876, when he quoted -imprecisely from this entry in his Autobiography. 384

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography a time of extreme physical and mental distress (when he feared he was soon to die),1°7 a time it was painful to recollect. But why, when he had his "Journal" with him, he should make errors in dates remains unexplained. It is not known what he did in Shrewsbury during the nine days between November 17 and 26.1°8 His remembrances of how he developed his evolutionary theory and then wrote the Origin o f Species touch on two reasons for the Origin's success. He worked on his theory for t w e n t y years, accumlated many facts, wrote sketches and "a much larger manuscript." Because of this, in the course o f writing the Origin he was "enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions." He could confront for long periods the important objections to his theory, and answer them (A, 123). Iris Origin recollections omit much of the richness, subtlety, and range o f his evolutionary work. He simply remarks that he - "sudd e n l y " and j o y f u l l y - thought of the principle o f species divergence (how dominant and increasing species become adapted to diversified places in the e c o n o m y o f natur) while riding in his carriage at Down (A, 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 ) . It has been shown that he developed this principle from several quite different sources: the work o f the French naturalist Milne-Edwards; 1°9 the ideas o f contemporary political economists on the division of labor, the new science o f statistics, and the displays of divers industrial products at the Great Exhibition o f 1851; 11° and mathematical calculations on the relations between large and small genera. 111 It has also been asserted that along with his work on the principle o f diversion from 1844 to 1858, Darwin twice revised his evolutionary theory. 112 In order to substantiate his theory, he 107. Colp, To Be an Invalid, pp. 38-39. 108. Darwin seems to have tried to forget his Novemeber 1848 trip to Shrewsbury very soon after his father's death. "I was at the time [of the death] so unwell that I was unable to travel, which added to my misery." Darwin to Hooker, 28 March 1849, DAR 114: 113; printed without change in Life and Letters, I, 340. 109. Camille Limoges, "Darwin, Milne-Edwards et le Principe de Divergence", Xll e Congrbs International d'Histoire des Sciences (Paris, 1968), pp. 111-115. 110. Silvan S. Schweber, "Darwin and the Political Economists: Divergence of Character," J. Hist. BioL, 13 (1980), 195-289. 111. Janet Browne, "Darwin's Botanical Arithmetic and the 'Principle of Divergence,' 1854-1858," J. Hist. Biol., 13 (1980), 53-89. An overview of Darwin's work on divergence is provided by David Kohn, "On the Origin of the Principle of Diversity," Science, 213 (1981), 1105-8. 112. Ospovat, The Development of Darwin's Theory, and reviews by Michael 385

RALPH COLP, JR. had to draw on all of natural history and venture into fields outside the realm of natural science. Only recently, for instance, has his work on pigeons (which was important in the analogy between domestic and natural selection) come to be appreciated, n3 Referring to Alfred Wallace's independent discovery of natural selection, Darwin wrote: "I cared very little whether men attributed most originality to me or Wallace" (A, 124). His letters indicate the opposite. When he first received Wallace's essay on natural selection, he told Lyell that he had been "forestalled," and that "all my originality, whatever it may amount to will be smashed. ''a14 From then on he rated himself as the senior discoverer of natural selection, a priority Wallace never disputed. In his A u t o b i o g r a p h y Darwin paid tribute to Wallace's "generous and n o b l e . . , disposition" (A, 126). In his recollections of his post-Origin years Darwin primarily noted his books, largely passed over his mental reactions to the Origin controversy, and only mentioned in passing that during the controversy he had "frequent illnesses, one of which lasted seven months." (A, 127).us His main mental recollection of himself during the controversy was that when it was shown that he had blundered, or that his work had been imperfect, it became his "greatest comfort" to say to himself "hundreds of times" that "I have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this" (A, 126). When he made a scientific error, it was appropriate that he say to himself that he had worked hard. To then repeat this "hundreds of times" may have Ruse, Isis, 74 (1983), 292-293; Neal C. Gillespie, Vict. Stud., Winter 1983, 229-230; and Janet Browne, "Eassy Review: New Developments in Darwin Studies?", J. Hist. Biol., 15 (1982), 275-280. 113. "Scientific innovation often depends on borrowings from outside th usual boundaries of a body of knowledge. In the case of Darwin's work on pigeons these boundaries were socially as well as intellectually defined. Almost alone among the theoretical naturalists of his time Darwin had the patience to join pigeon clubs, read the Poultry Chronicle, and visit the Crystal Palace and Anerley Shows. In a world removed from orthodox natural history, he associated with men well beneath him in income, birth and education. Much of Darwin's stature as a scientist lies in the thoroughness and enthusiasm with which he entered into new (and sometimes alien) fields of research: the same tenacity that led him into the byways of fancying lore lent depth and authority to his discussion of a whole range of issues touched on in the Origin, from barnacle systematics to botanical distribution." James A. Secord, "Nature's Fancy: Charles Darwin and the Breeding of Pigeons," Isis, 72 (1981), 186. 114. Darwin to Lyell, 18 [June 1858], Life and Letters, I, 473. 115. Darwin was ill from March 1863 until March 1864, and from May to September 1865. Colp, To Be an Invalid, pp. 74 86. 386

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography been self-punitive, his w a y o f obsessionally torturing himself, because o f his feelings o f guilt and shame a b o u t m a k i n g an error. A f t e r describing h o w he b e c a m e an agnostic, Darwin c o n t e n d e d that a man w h o has lost his belief in G o d can c o m p e n s a t e for this loss by developing a naturalistic ethic, in w h i c h b y doing " g o o d for o t h e r s " he gains " t h e love o f those w i t h w h o m he lives" (A, 94). T w o m e n w h o m he saw as exemplifying this ethic were his father and his Cambridge teacher, Henslow. He recollected that his father was "always scheming to give pleasure to o t h e r s , " and p e r f o r m e d " m a n y generous a c t i o n s " (A, 29). He told Francis Gatton ( w h o had k n o w n his father) that Dr. Darwin had "great social a f f e c t i o n , " b u t " n o t m u c h public spirit. ''116 In his 1861 recollections o f Henslow, Darwin observed that the latter possessed a " r e m a r k a b l e b e n e v o l e n c e " and " c a r e d s o m e w h a t less about science, and m o r e for his parishi o n e r s . " Henslow's " m o r a l a t t r i b u t e s " were "in pre-eminence over his intellect. ' ' n 7 In his Autobiography Darwin again observed that 116. Darwin's 28 May 1873 replies to Galton's questions, Life and Letters, II, 357. Darwin's observation on his father's lack of public spirit is contradicted by several pieces of evidence. "He [Dr. Darwin] visited the poor without reward, and assisted them in other ways. He occasionally made small loans to struggling tradesmen, and assisted them by giving work, and by recommending them to others. Towards the close of his life, he was called 'the Father of Frankwell' [a slum section of Shrewsbury]. In about 1823 or 1824 he and his daughters established the first infant school in Shrewsbury at a considerable cost - for it included a specially erected schoolhouse in a squalid district by the Welsh Bridge - and this was supplied with the then novel appliances of black boards, arithmetical beads and frames, and the other educational devices of Pestalozzi, Wilderspin, and others." Eliza Meteyard, A Group of Englishmen, London, 1871, pp. 264-265. When Dr. Darwin died, an obituary in a Shrewsbury newspaper stated: "The kindness and active philanthropy of Dr. Darwin were extensive but unostentatious. He erected the first Infants school in Shrewsbury at an expense of £300, and by the sedulous attention of his family it has become an example and a great blessing in the vicinity. This was indeed visible on the morning of Dr. Darwin's death; for, in the streets leading to his mansion the lowest cottager had darkened his windows and the children who every morning had left the mansion (never empty handed), stood at their own doors weeping." Shrewsbury Chronicle, 17 November 1848. 117. Memoir of Henslow, pp. 54-55. Henslow's work in advancing the education and well-being of his parishioners took different forms (lectures and demonstrations on scientific subjects, founding "Museums for the People," and the like) and had a national impact. Jean Russell-Gebbett, Henslow of Hitcham: Botanist, Educationalist and Clergyman (Lavenham, Suffolk; Lavenham Press, 1977). 387

RALPH COLP, JR. "Henslow's benevolence was unbounded, as proved b y his many excellent schemes for his p a r i s i o n e r s . . . My intimacy with such a man ought to have been and I hope was an inestimable benefit" (A, 6 6 67). He enjoyed remembering Henstow, because o f the latter's kindness to him, and because in again delineating Henslow's remarkable moral attributes he was (probably unconsciously) delineating an idealized part o f himself. He observed that neither his father nor Henslow had made original discoveries in medicine or science. And he suggested that there was a conflict between doing original work in science and being truly effective in aiding others. In his recollections o f Thomas Huxley, who had devoted considerable energy to educating English workers about science, a18 Darwin commented, "Much splendid work as he [Huxley] has done in Zoology, he would have done far more, if his time had not been so largely consumed by official and literary work, and b y his efforts to improve the education o f the c o u n t r y " (A, 106). Darwin revealed the above conflict in comments on his career. First he stated, "As for myself I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to science." But he added that he had "often and often regretted that I have not done more direct good to m y fellow creatures. My sole and poor excuse is much ill-health and m y mental constitution, which makes it extremely difficult for me to turn from one subject to another." He concluded with a startling comment on his career: "I can imagine with high satisfaction giving up m y whole time to philanthropy, but not a portion of it; though this would have been a far better line o f c o n d u c t " (A, 96). It is unlikely that he ever seriously "imagined" giving up work in science so that he could devote himself to philanthropy. Yet his comment touches not only on his concern with philanthropy, but on a side o f his personality that only recently has come to be appreciated. During his years at Down he developed the identity o f a "squarson": a combination o f a squire and a country clergyman, who was intent on repeatedly doing acts of "direct good" for others. 119 His 118. At the end of his life Huxley told an acquaintance, "Posthumous fame is not particularly attractive to me, but, if I am to be remembered at all, I would rather it should be as 'a man who did his best to help the people' than by any other title." Cyril Bibby, T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist and Educator (London: Watts, 1959), p. 259. 119. Darwin's many different philanthropic activities - and his complex motivations for them - are discussed by James R. Moore in "Darwin of Down: 388

N o t e s o n Charles D a r w i n ' s Autobiography activities i n c l u d e d

f o u n d i n g t h e D o w n e F r i e n d l y Club ( a n d serving

for t h i r t y years as its t r e a s u r e r ) , c o n t r i b u t i n g t o D o w n e schools a n d charities, 120 a n d giving sums o f m o n e y t o d i f f e r e n t causes ( s u c h as antislavery organizations, the South American Missionary Society, a n d B u l g a r i a n v i c t i m s o f T u r k i s h o p p r e s s i o n ) 121 a n d t o n e e d y scientific friends a n d r e l a t i v e s J 22 In his Autobiography D a r w i n was silent o n t h e a b o v e activities; o n l y o n c e did h e h i n t at o n e o f his c h a r i t a b l e a c t i o n s . A f t e r d e s c r i b i n g

his post-Beagle e s t r a n g e m e n t f r o m F i t z R o y a n d F i t z R o y ' s b i t t e r o p p o s i t i o n t o t h e Origin, h e w r o t e , " T o w a r d s t h e close o f his [FitzRoy's]

life he was as I fear, m u c h i m p o v e r i s h e d , a n d t h i s was largely

The Evolutionist as Squarson-Naturalist," in press. Moore offers new facts about Darwin's activities and a new view of his "squarson" identity. 120. In 1850 Darwin helped to found a Downe Friendly Club, in which members subscribed a sum of money and in return received financial assistance "when ill or when permanently invalidated, and to be decently buried when dead." During his thirty years as club treasurer Darwin kept the club's accounts and rejoiced in its "rich and . . . perfectly sound condition." Letter "To the Members of the Down Friendly Club" by "Your Faithful Treasurer, Charles Darwin" (19 February 1877) DAR 138: 5. This was a single-page letter, printed for Darwin, to dissuade members of the Friendly Club from disbanding. Francis Darwin recollects how every Whitmonday the members of the club would "march round with band and banner" and parade on the lawn in front of Down House. There Darwin met them "and explained to them their financial position in a little speech seasoned with a few well worn jokes." Darwin also served as treasurer of the Downe Coal Club and contributed to Downe schools and charities. Life and Letters, I, 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 . 121. More Letters of Charles Darwin, I, 46; Life and Letters, II, 3 0 7 - 3 0 8 ; Ralph Colp, Jr., "Notes on William Gladstone, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Kliment Timiriazev, and the 'Eastern Question' of 1 8 7 6 - 7 8 , " J. Hist. Med., 38 (1983), 1 8 0 - 1 8 1 . The full list of Charities to which Darwin made financial contributions is still not known. 122. The scientific friends to whom Darwin gave money included the botanist John Scott, the German naturalist Fritz Muller, and Alfred Wallace and Thomas Huxley. More Letters of Charles Darwin, II, 327, 331, 369; Gavin de Beer, ed., "Further Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," Ann. ScL, 14 (1958), 90; Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 2 vols., ed. Leonard Huxley (New York: D. Appleton, 1913), I, 3 9 4 - 3 9 5 . In the course of thinking about how to secure financial aid for Wallace, Darwin wrote some perceptive biographical notes about Wallace's failures to secure positions that would pay him an adequate salary. Joel S. Schwartz, "Charles Darwin's Biographical Sketch of Alfred Russel Wallace," Arch. Int. Hist. ScL, 26 (1976), 106-107. "My father," Francis Darwin recollected, "was wonderfully liberal and generous to all his children in the matter of m o n e y . . . In his later years he had the kind and generous plan of dividing his surplus at the year's end among his children." Life and Letters, I, 99. 389

RALPH COLP, JR. due

to his g e n e r o s i t y . A n y h o w

a f t e r his d e a t h a s u b s c r i p t i o n was

raised t o p a y his d e b t s " (A, 76). A l t h o u g h t h e Autobiography reader is left in t h e d a r k a b o u t w h e t h e r D a r w i n c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e subscript i o n , a s t u d y o f D a r w i n ' s c o r r e s p o n d e n c e a n d a c c o u n t s solves this m y s t e r y . His letters s h o w t h a t h e l e a r n e d a b o u t t h e s u b s c r i p t i o n for F i t z R o y early in O c t o b e r 1865123 ( a b o u t five m o n t h s a f t e r F i t z R o y ' s d e a t h b y suicide), a n d t h a t h e w r o t e t o t h e s u b s c r i p t i o n s e c r e t a r y requesting further information. The secretary informed him that t h e t w o c h i l d r e n b y F i t z R o y ' s first m a r r i a g e were " l i t e r a l l y w i t h o u t m e a n s , " a n d t h a t t h e largest c o n t r i b u t i o n t o t h e s u b s c r i p t i o n h a d b e e n £100.124 D a r w i n ' s a c c o u n t b o o k shows t h a t o n t h e d a y a f t e r h e a r i n g f r o m t h e s e c r e t a r y h e sent t h e l a t t e r a c h e c k for £ 1 0 0 . His Autobiography r e c o l l e c t i o n suggests t h a t h e was h a p p y t h a t aid h a d b e e n given to F i t z R o y ' s i m p o v e r i s h e d c h i l d r e n . His silence a b o u t his d o n a t i o n (also w h e n h e w r o t e t o his f r i e n d Hooker)125 m a y have b e e n c a u s e d b y his a m b i v a l e n t feelings t o w a r d F i t z R o y . A n d p e r h a p s also b y his q u a l m s t h a t (since h e h a d n o t t r i e d t o surpass t h e largest d o n a t i o n ) his d o n a t i o n h a d n o t b e e n g e n e r o u s e n o u g h . 123. Charles Shaw to Darwin, London, 3 October 1865, DAR 177. Shaw was secretary of the "Admiral FitzRoy Testimonial Fund." 124. Ibid. Darwin was already conditioned to appreciate the plight of FitzRoy's surviving family because five months previously he had received a letter describing FitzRoy's funeral from Bartholomew J. Sulivan (who in 1831 had been a lieutenant on the Beagle and who had continued to be a friend to both himself and FitzRoy). After reporting that the funeral was held on 6 May 1865 at Norwood Church, close to FitzRoy's home, and that it was attended by FitzRoy's widow, daughters, relatives, and by himself, Arthur Meltersh (another 1831 Beagle officer), a French naval captain, and T. H. Babbington (FitzRoy's meteorological assistant), Sulivan wrote: "It was a very quiet and plain funeral, just what I think all funerals should be. Poor Mrs. FitzRoy would go - & the two daughters were with her - we all waited outside and walked after her carriage - & again the same back the brothers only going into the house. It was a trying scene at the grave. Poor Mrs. F. and the girls looked dreadfully ill & Mrs. F. gave way very much. The coffin was plain black wood with 'Robert FitzRoy born - died - ' on a brass plate. You may suppose what a trial it was for me and the thoughts of old times and scenes that would be mixed up with it all." Sulivan to Darwin, 8 May 1865, DAR 177. Darwin's reply to this letter is not known. 125. "I heard only lately of the Subscription for FitzRoy & wrote to the Hon. Secretary to enquire purpose of subscription & was glad to hear it was money for his family. The Sec. told me that the £3000 granted by the Government w ld. nearly all go to pay debts & his children were left penniless by his first marriage! Yet poor FitzRoy started with £20,000 as he told me. What a melancholy career he has run with all his splendid qualities." Darwin to Hooker, 22 and 28 October 1865, DAR 115: 277. 390

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography Behind Darwin the philanthropist was Darwin the financier. He recollects that w h e n he was a y o u t h he had learned that his father w o u l d leave him e n o u g h m o n e y to subsist on, that he had b e e n extravagant w i t h the allowance his father had given him at Cambridge, and that during his life he had e n o u g h m o n e y and did n o t have to earn his living (A, 46, 72, 144). This is largely a recollection o f his early attitude t o w a r d m o n e y , During his m a t u r i t y and later life he developed special business talents, w h i c h (as he told G a l t o n ) consisted in " k e e p i n g a c c o u n t s " and "investing m o n e y very well. ''126 Because o f his skill as an investor he became w e a l t h y . 127 His ability to curb his earlier extravagances and control his expenditures, t h e n to keep meticulous accounts, aided h i m in carrying out his various charitable actions. In the Autobiography he recollected h o w at an early age he experienced t w o e m o t i o n s : "a vivid delight in s c e n e r y " (A, 44); 128 and "a sense o f s u b l i m i t y " on seeing a painting o f Sebastiano del P i o m b o ( p r o b a b l y the Resurrection o f Lazarus) in the National Gallery in L o n d o n (A, 61). 129 During the Begale cruise these t w o e m o t i o n s 126. Darwin's 28 May 1873 replies to Galton's questions, Life and Letters, II, 357. 127. Keith, Darwin Revalued, pp. 221-232. 128. In the Autobiography Darwin dates his first delight in scenery to a "riding tour on the borders of Wales" in the year 1822. This agrees with his "Journal" recollection for the year 1822: "June. Tour with Caroline to Downton. My first recollection of having some pleasure in scenery dates as far back as this. 13 years old." 129. Darwin probably visited the National Gallery in 1828-1831, when he was a Cambridge student and especially interested in pictures (he also certainly visited the Gallery in August 1838; see Gruber and Barrett, Darwin on Man, pp. 280-281). Del Piombo's Resurrection of Lazarus is reproduced in Edward Manier, The Young Darwin and His Cultural Circle (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1978), p. 165. The picture shows a strong and kindly Christ resurrecting Lazarus with a movement of his arm. Christ is surrounded by an animated crowed of men and women, who gaze at him with intense feelings of love, awe, and reverence. Darwin's feelings for this picture may have been influenced by his feelings for Henslow. In 1828-1831 Henslow was thirty-two to thirty-five years old, close in age to Christ. Darwin was impressed by Henslow's great and varied knowledge, his strong faith in Christianity, and (as has been noted in this essay) by the many acts of charity Henslow performed for others. On 12 May 1831 Darwin wrote Fox: "1 . . . see a great deal of Henslow, whom I do not know whether I love or respect most." The figure of Christ, and the attitudes toward Christ of the people in the crowd, may have been seen by Darwin as a vivid depiction of the feelings of love and respect that he was experiencing for Henslow. 391

RALPH COLP, JR. fused i n t o o n e i n t e n s e s e n s a t i o n , w h i c h he called " t h e sense o f subl i m i t y , " w h i c h he associated w i t h a b e l i e f in G o d , and w h i c h he exp e r i e n c e d o n seeing certain scenes o f n a t u r e (A, 80, 9 1 - 9 2 ) . A l t h o u g h he s o m e t i m e s b e c a m e u n c e r t a i n a b o u t w h i c h scenes caused h i m t o feel " m o s t s u b l i m e , " 130 he r e c o l l e c t e d t h a t h e e x p e r i e n c e d " t h e sense o f s u b l i m i t y " in the deserts o f Patagonia, t h e forests o f Tierra del F u e g o , and t h e tropical forest o f Brazil (A, 80, 91). His feelings for t h e Brazilian forest were especially d e e p , p e r h a p s the m o s t i n t e n s e feelings he ever e x p e r i e n c e d . (His Autobiography q u o t a t i o n s f r o m his Diary a c c o u n t s o f t h e Brazilian f o r e s t , h o w e v e r , are c o n f u s e d and imprecise.)131 He r e c o l l e c t e d t h a t during his later life his sense

130. Darwin first told a friend that "he was most affected by the emotions of the sublime . . . when he stood upon one of the summits of the Cordillera, and surveyed the magnificent prospect all around. It seemed . . . as if his nerves had become fiddle-strings, and had all taken to rapidly vibrating." Several hours later Darwin said to the same friend: "It has just occurred to me that I was wrong in telling you that I felt most of the sublime when on top of the Cordillera; I am quite sure that I felt it even more when in the forests of Brazil . . . I am sure now that I felt most sublime in the forests" Life and Letters, II, 238. This conversation took place at an undetermined time during the last eight years of Darwin's life. Also at about this time he wrote in a letter: "possibly the sense of sublimity excited by a grand cathedral, may have some connection with the vague feelings of terror and superstition in our savage ancestors, when they entered a great cavern or gloomy forest. I wish some one could analyse the feeling of sublimity." Darwin to Edmuns Gurney, 8 July 1876, Life and Letters, II, 364. 131. Darwin recollected: "In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, 'it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.' I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body" (14, 91). In April 1832, after a day in the Brazilian forest, he recorded his feelings as follows. First he jotted down in his pocket notebook, "Sublime devotion the prevalent feeling." Charles Darwin and the Voyage, p. 163. He elaborated on this in his Diary: "Thus is it easy to specify individual objects of admiration; but it is nearly impossible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings which are excited; wonder, astonishment & ['dev' crossed out] sublime devotion, fill & elevate the mind." Over four years later, as he was sailing home to England, he reviewed in his Diary what he had seen: "Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests, undefaced by the hand of man. Whether those of Brazil, where the powers of life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where death & decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature: - No one can stand unmoved in these solitudes, without feeling that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body." Charles Darwin, The Journal of a Voyage in H. M. S. Beagle, a facsimile 392

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography of the sublime declined - partly because of his loss of belief in God (A, 9 1 - 9 2 ) - and that scenery did not cause in him "the exquisite delight which it formerly did." He was careful to point out however, that he did retain "some taste for fine scenery" and that he "vividly" remembered "the glories" of the Brazilian forest (A, 80, 138). He would then tell Galton that his capacity to remember scenery was "vivid and distinct, and gives me pleasure." 132 Darwin's observation that during the "last twenty or thirty years" of his life he had suffered "a curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes" (A, 1 3 8 - 1 3 9 ) needs qualification. A study of the list of nonscientific books that he had persued indicates that while his reading of some imaginative authors (Shakespeare and Milton, for instance) fell off, he continued to read biographies of writers of imaginative literature up to 1860133 (the year that the reading list ends). He also recollected that, in addition to biographies, he steadily read "books on history134 . . . and

edition of the original manuscript of Darwin's Beagle Diary (Guildford, Surrey: Genesis Publications, 1979), pp. 150, 773. It is not known if Darwin had his Beagle Diary with him when he was writing his Autobiography at the home of his cousin;and whether he quoted imprecisely or quoted from memory. 132. Darwin's November 1879 replies to Galton's questions on the faculty of visualizing, in Life and Letters, II, 415. 133. Stevens, "Darwin's Humane Reading," p. 57. 134. Darwin read daily about major news events in the Times; he humorously called the Times "meat, drink, and air." Life and Letters, II, 196. He then read a number of books connected with the current history of the American Civil War. These included Olmsted's a Journey in the Seaboard States (Vorzimmer, "The Darwin Reading Notebooks," p. 152); Olmsted's Journey in the Back Country; J. E. Cairnes, The Slave Power: Its Character, Career, and Probable Designs: and Thomas W. Higginson's Army Life in A Black Regiment (Life and Letters, II, 152, 195-196,354); Ralph Colp, Jr., "Charles Darwin: Slavery and the American Civil War," Harvard Lib. Bull., 26 (1978), 471-489. His readings in past history included Hume's History of England; Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; parts of Clarendon's History o f the Great Rebellion and Ovil Wars in England; Arnold's Lectures on History; Motley's History of the Dutch Republic; Guizot's History of Ovilization (Vorzimmer, "The Darwin Reading Notebooks," pp. 129, 131); E. B. Tylor's Researches into the Early History of Mankind; and W. E. H. Lecky's Rise of Rationalism in Europe (Life and Letters, II, 224). After reading the second volume of Henry Buckle's History of Civilization in England - he had been unimpressed after reading the first volume (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, I, 468) - he commented: "It has interested me greatly; I do not care whether his views are right or wrong, but I should think they contained much truth. There is noble love of advancement and truth throughout; and to my taste he is the very best writer of the 393

RALPH COLP, JR. travels 13s ( i n d e p e n d e n t l y o f a n y scientific facts w h i c h t h e y m a y c o n t a i n ) , a n d essays o f all k i n d s " ( A , 139). A l t h o u g h h e s t o p p e d reading p o e t r y (A, 138), h e s o m e t i m e s h a d feelings for a p a r t i c u l a r p o e m . 136 He s t a t e d t h a t h e h a d lost his taste for m u s i c , b u t t h e n a d m i t t e d t h a t m u s i c s t i m u l a t e d h i m to " t h i n k t o o e n e r g e t i c a l l y " a b o u t w h a t h e was w o r k i n g o n (A, 138). He was e n t h u s i a s t i c a b o u t c e r t a i n musical c o m p o s i t i o n s , 137 a n d s o m e songs. 138 He lost his

English language that ever lived, let the other be who he may." Darwin to Hooker, spring 1862, Life and Letters, II, 178. It has been observed that in defending Buckle's "love of advancement and truth," Darwin was also "defending himself" and his Origin of Species (Irvine, Apes, Angels, and Victorians, p. 166). 135. Darwin read books by scientific and nonscientific travelers, including accounts of the British Isles, Europe, Russia, Arabia, North and South America, the Arctic and Antaractica, the Caribbean, Atlantic, and Pacific islands, Africa, Turkey, Persia, India, Japan, and China. He rated David Livingstone' narrative of Africa, Missionary Travels, "the best travels I ever read." Vorzimmer, "The Darwin Reading Notebooks," p. 151. Although he read mainly for pleasure, he was also able to make important observations about plants, animals, and different peoples, which he then included in Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, The Descent of Man, and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. In his Descent of Man, discussing the different checks on increasing the human population, he observed that in Japan "licentiousness has been intentionally encouraged as a means of keeping down the population. "Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1871), I, 134. He did not identify the source of this observation or specify what he meant by "licentiousness." For an account of how Darwin drew on information from China, see "Charles Darwin's Chinese Sources", Isis, 75 (1984), 5 3 0 - 5 3 4 . 136. In a 5 November 1864 letter to Huxley, Darwin wrote: "Give my kindest rememberance to Mrs. Huxley, and tell her I was looking at 'Enoch Arden', and as I know how she admires, Tennyson, I must call her attention to two sweetly pretty lines (p. 105) •

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and he meant, he said he meant, Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you well. Such a gem as this is enough to make me young again, and like poetry with pristine fervour." Life and Letters, II, 188-189. 137. In the evening he would often lie on the sofa and listen quietly to his wife as she played the piano. He like some of Handel and parts of Beethoven's symphonies. When the German conductor Hans Richter visited Down in 1881 and played selections from Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Wagner, Darwin was "roused to strong enthusiasm." Life and Letter, I, 101 ; Otto Zacharias, Charles R. Darwin (Berlin, 1882), pp. 4 - 7 . 138. In his later years Darwin would sometimes hum two songs: the Welsh melody "Ar Hyd y Nos" (All through the night) - regarded as a "hymn-tune" 394

N o t e s o n Charles D a r w i n ' s Autobiography earlier t a s t e for p a i n t i n g (A, 6 1 , 138) a n d b e c a m e strikingly i n d i f f e r e n t to t h e value a n d b e a u t y o f W e d g w o o d c e r a m i c s ) 39 T h e b o o k s h e read m o s t f r e q u e n t l y , w h i c h gave h i m t h e g r e a t e s t pleasure, were novels. I n d e s c r i b i n g n o v e l s as " w o r k s o f t h e imagin a t i o n , t h o u g h n o t o f a v e r y h i g h o r d e r " (A, 138), h e m a y have b e e n e x p r e s s i n g a prevailing V i c t o r i a n c o n s e n s u s , r a t h e r t h a n his o w n d e r o g a t o r y view. 14° He recalled t h a t h e especially e n j o y e d novels w i t h a h a p p y e n d i n g , c o n t a i n i n g a lovable h e r o i n e (A, 1 3 8 139). 141 T h u s h e e n j o y e d George E l i o t ' s A d a m Bede ( w h i c h h a d a h a p p y e n d i n g ) ; 142 a n d h e f o u n d h e r Silas Marner " c h a r m i n g " a n d was especially a t t r a c t e d b y t h e c h a r a c t e r o f Dolly. 143 B u t w h e n h e r e a d t h e same a u t h o r ' s Mill on the Floss ( w h i c h h a d a m u r d e r ) , h e disliked it a n d c o m m e n t e d , " I t is c e r t a i n l y m o s t clever: b u t a l m o s t all t h e p e r s o n s are o d i o u s , & t h e r e is n o o n e so c h a r m i n g as D o l l y . " 144 and also a "traditional air" - which he may have learned during one of his youthful sojourns in Wales; and a Tahitian song, probably one of those a group of Tahitian children had sung to him when he visited Tahiti during the Beagle cruise. Life and Letters, I, 101 ; Darwin, Journal of a Voyage, p. 628. 139. In 1859 Darwin sold some beautiful Wedgwood possessions (including a copy of the Barberihi vase and some ceramics by the artist John Flaxman) and with the proceeds bought a billiard table, which he installed in his Down home. Francis Darwin, "Reminiscences of my Father's Everyday Life," DAR 140 (3): 75 Several years later, when Hooker asked him for some Wedgwood objects, Darwin replied: "I had a whole box of small Wedgwood medallions • . . [with] the children everything in this house gets lost & wasted: I can find only about a dozen little things as big as shillings, & I presume worth nothing; but you shall look at them when here & take them if worth pocketing." Darwin to Hooker, 13 January 1863, DAR 115 : 179. 140. "Darwin may be doing nothing more than conceding the notion, fashionable in his day, of the novel as inferior literature." Stevens, "Darwin's Humane Reading," p. 58. 141. His daughter Henrietta recollected that he was "often in love with the heroines of the many novels that were read to him, and used always to maintain both in books and real life that a touch of affectation was necessary to complete the charm of a pretty woman. What he meant is rather difficult to understand . . . I think it was a certain grace of manner combined with an intention to please." Emma Darwin, II, 118-119. 142. "I had . . . great prostration of mind and body, but entire rest, and the douche, and 'Adam Bede,' have together done me a world of good." Darwin to Hooker, 28 May 1859, Life and Letters, I, 514. 143. Darwin to Hooker, Thusday 27th (September 1865) DAR 115 (iv): 275. 144. Darwin to Hooker, 22 and 28 October 1865, DAR 115: 277. Mill on the Floss was controversial. Amy Cruse, The Victorians and Their Reading (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), p. 279. George Eliot met with Darwin in 395

RALPH COLP, JR. He enjoyed the humorous portions o f the novels o f Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.14s Thus, although Darwin lost his taste for most poetry, painting, and some works o f imagination, he maintained a wide range o f nonscientific interests. He has been accurately described as "enormously well-read in the best traditions o f our [western] literature" and "a man who lived the life of the mind fully and without dissimulation." 146 Yet if Darwin's view o f the loss o f his aesthetic tastes was an exaggeration (an example o f his tendency to self-derogation), it was a view that he firmly believed. And it caused him to feel depressed about one aspect o f himself and his life, and to state, " T h e loss o f these tastes is a loss o f happiness" (A, 139). A t the end o f his Autobiography Darwin attempted to analyze "the mental qualities and conditions" that had contributed to his success. " T h o u g h , " he commented, "I am aware that no man can do this correctly" (A, 1 3 9 - 1 4 0 ) . He first cited some of the mental attributes he felt he lacked. "My power to follow a tong and purely abstract train o f thought is very limited" (A, 140). Here he underrates himself. His 1 8 3 7 - 1 8 3 9 notebooks reveal that in many instances he could effectively participate in "a long and purely abstract train o f thought." Evaluating his capacity for conversation, he wrote, "I have no great quickness o f apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley" (A, 140). His capacity for conversation merits a more detailed evaluation. He was a slower thinker and a less brilliant talker than Huxley, who was experienced in public debate and discourse and lecturing (all of which Darwin avoided). 147 At times his ability to converse was restricted b y his illness. In talking he would sometimes stammer the 1870s and came to "adore" him "because of his humility." The George Eliot Letters, 7 vols., ed. Gordon S. Haight (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), VI, 381. 145. A humorous scene that Darwon several times spoke of as being "splendid" is in Dickens' Martin Chuzzelwit. Martin goes to Scadder, the estate agent, to ask where the town of Eden is located. Scadder, "after wheeling his tooth-pick slowly round and round in the air, as if it were a carrier pigeon just thrown up," suddenly sticks the toothpick at random into a diagram and says "There! That's where it is!" George H. Darwin, Recollections of My Father, pp. 37-38; Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures o f Martin Chuzzelwit (London: Chapman and Hall, 1844), p. 269. 146. Stevens, "Darwin's Humane Reading," p. 62. 147. See note 76. 396

N o t e s o n Charles D a r w i n ' s Autobiography at t h e b e g i n n i n g o f a s e n t e n c e , and s o m e t i m e s r e p e a t e d l y c o n t r a d i c t in a " p a r e n t h e s i s w i t h i n p a r e n t h e s i s " m a n n e r - w h a t he was saying. 148 T h e h i s t o r i a n H e n r y Buckle 149 a n d t h e e d u c a t o r Charles -

Eliot N o r t o n l S ° w e r e d i s a p p o i n t e d in his c o n v e r s a t i o n . O t h e r s w e r e i m p r e s s e d b y hsi p o w e r s o f talking a b o u t science, and b y his c h a r m and verbal a d r o i t n e s s w h e n he first m e t certain visitors. TM He was 148. Life and Letters, I, 117. 149. Buckle, after a meeting with Darwin in which Buckle did most of the talking, commented that "Mr. Darwin's books are much better than his conversation" (A, 110). Darwin would usually remain silentwhen meeting with eloquent and forceful conversationalists such as Buckle. 150. Norton, after meeting several times with Darwin in 1873, noted the latter's modesty, simplicity, geniality, and "pleasant unaffected animation," and then commented, "His talk is not often memorable on account of brilliant or impressive sayings - but it is always the expression of the qualities of mind and heart which combine in such rare excellence in his genius." Letters o f Charles Eliot Norton, 2 vols., ed. Sara Norton and M. A. D. Howe (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), I, 477. 151. When Hooker was eighty-two years old, referring to Darwin's statement "I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit," he commented: "Possibly the 'of' and 'or' are here transposed; whether or no my impression of his conversation has left the opposite as characteristic of him. It is, at any rate, inconsistent with the fact that in arguing he was ever ready with repartee, as I many times experienced to my discomfiture, theough never to my displeasure; it was a physic so thoughtfully and kindly exhibited." Joseph D. Hooker, "Reminisces of Darwin", Nature, 60 (1899), 188. Franics Darwin observed that when his father was "talking to a lady who pleased and amused him, the combination of raillery and deference in his manner was delightful to see." Life and Letters, I, 118. In October 1868 Darwin was visited at Down House by his American friend and supporter, the botanist Asa Gray, and Jane Gray. Mrs. Gray wrote the following vivid description of his appearance and talk: "His hair is grey, and he has a full grey beard cut square across the upper lip, but the sweetest smile, the sweetest voice, the merriest laugh! And so quick, so keen! He never hears a remark, it seemed to me, but he turns it over, he catches every expression that flits over a face and reads it, he is full of his great theories and sees the smallest thing[s] that bear upon them, and laughs more merrily than anyone at any flaw detected or fun made. Full of warmest feelings and quick sympathy, reads or has read to him novels of every kind and yet carries on those profound investigations with the most minute and patient experiments, and the number of topics he has taken up and studied and experimented on! He saluted me merrily on Sunday morning as the lady who 'had ten novels unfinished in her head.' 'Good gracious! What a state your brain must be in!' And we had regular challenges to find something the other had not read, and I triumphed in recommending 'My Lady Ludlow' " (a book by Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1858). Jane Loring Gray to her sister, Susan Loring Jackson, Down, 28 October 1868, in the Library, Gray Herbarium, Harvard University. 397

RALPH COLP, JR. at his conversational and intellectual best when questioning another scientist in an area in w h i c h the latter possessed expert knowledge. His searching and insightful questions - w i t h w h i c h he aimed n o t only to gain facts but to reveal underlying causes - f r e q u e n t l y stim u l a t e d the scientist to rethink his previous view and to see wellk n o w n facts in a n e w light, ls2 He described his m e m o r y as "extensive yet h a z y " (he had told G a l t o n that it was " g o o d in retaining a general or vague recollection o f m a n y facts"), ls3 and he added that he had " n e v e r been able to r e m e m b e r for m o r e than a few days a single d a t e " (A, 140). He did n o t m e n t i o n his remarkable visual m e m o r y - n o t only for scenery, b u t for faces o f people he had k n w o n w h e n young, is4 A n e x a m p l e was given in his Autobiography w h e n he recollected a scene o f m o b violence in Cambridge in the 1830s and Henslow's angry reaction: " N e v e r in m y life have I seen such w r a t h painted on a m a n ' s face, as was shown b y Henslow at this horrid s c e n e " (A, 65). In his Autobiography Darwin listed those o f his o w n attributes that he rated "superior to the c o m m o n run o f m e n " : his acuity in n o t i n g little-noticed things, and his i n d u s t r y in observing and collecting facts; his " a r d e n t " love o f science, which had been e n h a n c e d by his " a m b i t i o n " to be " e s t e e m e d " b y his colleagues; his " p a t i e n c e to

152. Hooker recollected how in the 1840s Darwin plied him with questions about the geographic distribution of species, and how he then "always left with the feeling that I had imparted nothing and carried away more then I could stagger under." Life and Letter, I, 387; Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, 2 vols. ed. Leonard Huxley (London: John Murray, 1918), I, 491. Huxley was probably referring to Darwin's talents as a questioner when he recollected: "One could not converse with Darwin without being retained of Socrates. There was the same desire to find some one wiser than himself." T. H. Huxley, CollectedEssays, 9 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1912), II, 246. 153. Darwin's 28 May 1873 replies to Galton's questions, Life and Letters, II, 357. 154. "I remember the faces of persons formerly well-known vividly, and can make them do anything I like." Darwin's November 1879 replies to Galton's questons on the faculty of visualizing, in Life and Letters, II, 415. When early in 1880 Darwin heard that his old friend William Darwin Fox had died, her wrote to Fox's son; "I have now before my eyes his bright face as a young man, so full of intelligence & I hear his voice as clearly as if he were present 2' Darwin to Charles W. Fox, 10 March 1880, Abinger Hall, Dorking (postmarked 10 April 1880), in the Pearce Collection, Woodward Biomedical Library, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. William Darwin Fox died on 8 April 1880. Darwin dated his letter to Fox's son "March 10, 1880." This error may indicate that Darwin subconsciously thought that his dead friend was still alive. 398

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography reflect . . . for any n u m b e r o f years over any u n e x p l a i n e d p r o b l e m " ; hfs early, very strong "desire to understand or explain w h a t e v e r I o b s e r v e d , " l s s and to group facts under general laws; and his p e n c h a n t to f o r m a hypothesis on different subjects, and t h e n to revise or give it up w h e n facts were s h o w n to contradict it (A, 141). The above list o f attributes explains some o f Darwin's ways o f working, and yet - in that it is a list that can be applied to scientists w h o have n o t m a d e significant discoveries - it does n o t fully explain Darwin's particular success. It omits some o f his i m p o r t a n t attributes: his courage to stand alone, and to oppose prevailing o p i n i o n ; and his competitiveness. He could recollect that he had " a burning zeal to add even the m o s t h u m b l e c o n t r i b u t i o n to the noble structure o f Natural S c i e n c e " (A, 68). But he could n o t admit that he w a n t e d to gain priority over Wallace. He did n o t m e n t i o n that sometimes, w h e n forming a n e w hypothesis, he f o r m e d a new picture o f the world. Thus, w h e n he began to speculates on e v o l u t i o n he soon imagined a " T r e e o f Nature, ''1s6 and about the time he discovered natural selection he p i c t u r e d nature as " a force like a h u n d r e d t h o u s a n d w e d g e s , " 1s7 He was also willing to test ideas that others w o u l d n o t have considered w o r t h the effort. One e x a m p l e o f what he called " f o o l s ' e x p e r i m e n t s " was w h e n he ordered his son Francis to play the bassoon to some seedlings, is8 This did n o t influence their growth, 155. Prior to writing his Autobiography, Darwin had mentioned on two other occasions his early and constant desire to newly explain whatever he observed. "I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it i s . . . As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs. This implies sharp observation, and requires as much knowledge as possible of the subject investigated." Darwin to his son Horace, 15 December 1871, Emma Darwin, II, 207. Two years later Darwin wrote that his "strongly marked mental peculiarities," which had contributed to his success in science, included "steadiness - great curiosity about facts and their meaning. Some love of the new and marvellous." Darwin's 28 May 1873 replies to Galton's questions, Life and Letters, II, 357. 156. Darwin's use of tile "Tree of Nature," and his failure to mention his use of imagery in the Autobiography, are discussed by Gruber in "Darwin's 'Tree of Nature' and Other Images of Wide Scope," in On Aesthetics in Science, ed. Judith Wechsler (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: MIT Press, 1978), pp. 121-140; Gruber and Barrett,Darwin on Man, pp. 117-118,237. 157. For a discussion of Darwin's use of a "wedging force" see Ralph Colp, Jr., "Charles Darwin's Vision of Organic Nature: 'A Force like a Hundred Thousand Wedges,' " N Y S t a t e J. Med., 79 (1979), 1622-29. 158. Life and Letters, I, 126. 399

RALPH COLP, JR. as vibrations on the table had done; however, other such experiments came off. He told his friend the biologist Ray Lankester, "I love fools' experiments, I am always making them. ''1s9 Lankester's comment on this was, "Even a wise experiment when made by a foot generally leads to a false conclusion, but . . . fools' experiments conducted by a genius often prove to be leaps through the dark into great discoveries." 160 After listing his attributes, in the final sentence of the Autobiography Darwin wrote, "With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that thus I should have influenced to a considerable extent the beliefs of scientific men on some important points" (A, 145). His view of himself as possessing "moderate abilities" typifies his tendency to underrate himself. It also typifies what has been described as his sense o f "modest bewilderment" over his success. 161 It seems evident that in his portrayal of himself in the Autobiography, Darwin is sometimes inaccurate and obscure, and at other times accurate and informative. Some of the major shortcomings that he revealed in his Autobiography may be summarized as follows: depreciation of the intellectual influence of his father (and to a lesser extent of his sisters); minimizing of the brilliance, complexity, and passion of his early evolutionary thoughts, and his anxiety over the opposition to these thoughts; denial of his desire for scientific priority; omission of his activities as a financial investor and philanthropist; and underevaluation o f the extent of his nonscientific reading and general culture. These shortcomings were caused in part by his "dead man" view o f his past, and by his tendency to selfdeprecation, also by his determination to write his recollections very rapidly and not look at himself deeply. Thus, at the beginning o f the Autobiography he referred to it as "a sketch," which was "short and dull" (A, 21). If he had been able to revise his Autobiography, he might have corrected some of the shortcomings and written about himself in greater detail. The Autobiography is informative when Darwin depicts the slow burgeoning of some of his intellectual traits: his boyhood "passion for collecting"; his extrauniversity self-education in natural history; 159.

E. Ray Lankester, "Charles Robert Darwin," in The Warner Classics:

Philosophers and Scientists (New York: 1899), pp. 29-30. 160. Ibid. 161. James Olney, Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 184. 400

Notes on Charles Darwin's Autobiography the intellectual transforamtion caused by the voyage of the Beagle; and his mature interest in problems ranging from the origin of expressions in man to the contrivances for fertilization in plants. A particular value of the Autobiography is Darwin's portrayal of his warm and refined emotions, his humor (A, 57), and his occasional deep bursts of horror (A, 48) and anger (A, 87).

Acknowledgments I thank the following individuals for answering my queries, for suggesting sources of information, and sometimes for sending me copies of manuscripts: Paul Barrett, Janet Browne, Frederick Burkhardt, Mary Hill, James Lawson, William Montgomery, James Moore, Nicholas Rupke, Silvan Schweber, L. Robert Stevens, Frank Sutloway, and Leonard Wilson. My special thanks go to Peter Gautrey for supplying me with the latest Cambridge University Library DAR references to documents that he has sent me over the years. I also thank the Syndics of the Cambridge University Library for Permission to quote from documents of Charles Darwin in their possession, and the Masters and Fellows at Christ College, Cambridge, for permission to quote from the Darwin-Fox letters in their Library.

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