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LIV. — Charles Darwin. By M. DE QUATREFAGES*.

At the last meeting our honourable President was good enough to give me notice that he would call upon me to-day to say a few words with reference to the scientific labours of Darwin. I could only answer that he was imposing upon me a very difficult task, and that it is not in a short note that one can

* Translated from the 'Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences,' 1st May, 1882, pp. 1216-1222. We have thought that a translation of this memoir, although it contains little that has not appeared in many notices of the great English naturalist, might be of interest to our readers for several reasons. It is not only an expression of opinion upon Darwin's character and work by a distinguished foreign zoologist: but it was prepared at the special request of the President of the French Academy of Sciences; and some parts of it are of particular interest in connexion with the fact of Darwin having been rejected as a Correspondent of the Institute, although subsequently elected. Further, M. de Quatrefages, with many French naturalists, stood in opposition to the theory of the origin of species by descent with modification, as enunciated by Darwin; and we have here a brief exposition of his views upon this subject, and side by side with this a statement of those considerations which seem to him to establish the preeminent merit of the great philosopher whose loss is here commemorated, quite independently of the acceptance or rejection of his theory.

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appreciate and render intelligible a very considerable mass of researches, bearing upon a multitude of the most diverse subjects, and especially a doctrine the profound influence of which has made itself felt, not only in the domain assigned to the natural sciences, but, it may be said, in almost the entire field of human thought. Nevertheless I would not draw back from an appeal by which I considered myself honoured.

My own past in a manner made it a duty for me to answer. I have openly combated the doctrines of Darwin, which have been so popular; but I have always as openly rendered justice to the man and to the philosopher. The Academy knows that from the first to the last candidature of our regretted correspondent, neither my vote nor my words have been wanting in his support. Incited by our President, I cannot be silent today. I shall therefore endeavour to summarize, in as few words as possible, the general impression which is left upon my mind by a career, few like which are to be found in the annals of science.

There were two men in Charles Darwin —a naturalist, observer, and experimenter when necessary, and a theoretical thinker. The naturalist is exact, sagacious, and patient; the thinker is original, often correct, but also often too rash. It is this rashness that led Darwin into paths where many less adventurous naturalists could not follow him. But are we, on this account, to forget that before he strayed in this manner, and, indeed, in the midst of his most imprudent wanderings, he discovered and opened out daily some new course, in which the most circumspect of men now march after him?

Darwin never specialized himself. To judge of his entire scientific work one must be a geologist and a botanist quite as much as a zoologist. Being unable by myself to give a detailed (motivé) judgment upon a great part of his works, I shall limit myself to recalling the proofs of high estimation which have been accorded to them by the most competent authorities. These indisputable testimonies will not fail me.

On the 27th December, 1831, Darwin (then twenty-two years old) embarked on board the 'Beagle,' which, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, was starting upon a voyage round the world. He returned to England after a five-years' expedition, and immediately commenced a series of publications, which very quickly secured him a special place among the naturalists, his compatriots.

We must first say a word about his "Journal" of the voyage. One hears too little of this book, in which we can already see traces of some of the ideas which the author was afterwards to develop, and which contains a multitude of details, some of

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which are very important. Whether the question is of man, of animals, or of plants, Darwin shows himself a careful and sagacious observer, capable of rapidly seizing upon relations, even though they may be distant, and to bring out their consequences. He also appears as a man of generous thoughts. The extermination of the Tasmanians calls from him a cry of indignation, which, it may be said to the honour of English men, was repeated by many of his compatriots.

Our Correspondent was charged with the conduct of the publication of the scientific results obtained by the expedition of the 'Beagle.' His co-labourers were Owen, who described the fossil Mammalia; Waterhouse, who published the recent Mammals. Gould undertook the birds; but, being sent into Australia, he left this work to Darwin, who obtained the aid of Gray, as it is hardly necessary to say. However, two great memoirs, called "Introductions," one upon geology considered in its relations with the extinct mammalogical species, the other on the geographical distribution of the recent Mammalia, attest the knowledge he possessed of these groups and his aptitude for the treatment of general questions.

Darwin did not recoil from the minute investigations which are required for the knowledge and discrimination of species. This he has well proved by the manner in which he has monographically treated the history of the Cirripedes. Before his time there existed upon this class scarcely any thing but scattered materials, and the characterization of the groups was not sufficiently advanced to permit geologists to take advantage of the fossils of this kind buried in various strata. Darwin devoted three volumes, representing more than 1200 pages, to the investigation of the recent and fossil Cirripedes. These works were printed at the cost of the Ray and Palaeontographical Societies. This is enough to prove their value; for Darwin was as yet only the Naturalist of the 'Beagle' and it was not to his future reputation, which there was nothing at that time to foretell, that so significant a homage could be paid. However, at first, it is towards the history of our globe that Darwin's thoughts appear to have been directed in preference. At the time of the publication of the scientific results of the 'Beagle's' voyage, he undertook single-handed the geological part, which includes several volumes. He inserted in these or published elsewhere a great number of memoirs or notes, among others upon coral islands, on the formation of volcanic islands, on the geology of the Falkland Islands, on the various geological phenomena which were manifested in South America, &c. These diverse publica-

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tions procured him, from the Geological Society of London, the Wollaston Medal, the highest recompense at the disposal of that Society*.

Subsequently botany especially attracted Darwin's attention — not descriptive botany, but rather that part of the science which deals with obscure and little-known phenomena, belonging especially to physiology. We know what importance the most highly-qualified naturalists attach to his observations and experiments upon polymorphism, on the inter crossing of different forms of the same species, on climbing plants, on the fertilization of orchids, &c. The eminent botanist Hooker, in a public discourse, declared that the physiological discoveries of Darwin were the finest that had been made for ten years. Our illustrious fellow-member M. de Candolle has never hidden his admiration for the English naturalist; and in a letter, which I could find if necessary, he wrote to me, with that extreme modesty which we all know him to possess, nearly in the following words:— "It is not I, it is Darwin that the Academy should have named as its foreign associate."

And yet it is not this group of works, all precise, all correct, all bringing to science results thenceforward acquired, which have gained for Darwin his immense reputation and his widespread popularity. It was his theory of the Origin of Species that taught the whole world, the ignorant as well as the learned, the name of the illustrious Englishman. It is because this theory seemed to respond to one of the most vivid aspirations, and, 1 do not hesitate to say, one of the noblest desires of the human mind; it is because it seemed to explain the world of organized beings, just as mathematics, astronomy, geology, and physics have explained the world of inorganic bodies. What Darwin attempted was to refer to the action of second causes alone the marvellous group of phenomena studied by the botanists and the zoologists; he endeavoured to explain their genesis and evolution, just as the astronomers and geologists have taught us how our globe originated, and how its surface has become what we see it.

There is nothing but what is perfectly legitimate in this great effort of a great mind; and it cannot be but that Darwin's conception has in it something serious as well as seductive to enable it to carry away not only the multitude who take things on credit, and too often under the influence of their passions, but also such men as Hooker, Huxley, Vogt, Lubbock, Brandt, Philippi, Häckel, Lyell, and so many others. The fact is that Darwin's starting-point is unassailable. No

 

* (It was, at the time, not merely the highest, but the only honour the Society had to bestow.]

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one nowadays, I fancy, would dream of denying the perfect truth of what the English naturalist has said about the struggle for existence and natural selection. Up to this point he remained upon the solid ground of observation and experiment. Afterwards these two guides of modern science suddenly fail him. Seeking to explain the origin of species, he does not ask himself what is to be understood by that word. I am not going to inquire here what is the true notion that we ought to form of this fundamental group. But it was necessary that, having to speak of it, Darwin should form some precise idea of it. This he has not done; and this is how he has fallen into the course which led him into error. It is as if a traveller following a safe though arid road, should quit it, seduced by the mirage, and lose himself in the open desert.

But such a traveller, however he may go astray, may discover, in the midst of the sandy wastes, rich oases the existence of which he will reveal. And this has been Darwin's destiny. It is precisely under the influence of ideas that I cannot accept, that he undertook and brought to an end some of his most curious and most important works —works of which, no doubt, he would never have thought, if he had followed a more regular course.

The question which pressed itself most imperiously upon Darwin is one of those which have occupied the greatest minds, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, as well as Buffon; I mean the variability of the species. It constitutes the basis of the doctrine of the English naturalist; he is incessantly occupied by it, and seeks it always and everywhere in the two organic kingdoms. It is by virtue of this special point of view that he was enabled to notice many facts which had escaped his predecessors; that he made experiments of which no one else had dreamt; and that he attained unexpected but very positive results, which physiology, botany, and zoology will hence forward have to take into account. It is here that we find the original work of Darwin — the work that assures him a position apart, and in the highest rank, among naturalists; and, what is remarkable, there is in this work instruction for everybody. Nowhere shall we find graver arguments to combat the transformist doctrines which have themselves given rise to these very investigations. On the other hand, nowhere shall we meet with more solid arguments to oppose to exaggerated morphologists. It will be understood that I cannot here develop all my thoughts; but I do not think that I exaggerate in saying that, for a long time and perhaps always, whoever shall take up those general questions to which I allude, must, in the first place, study the writings of Darwin.

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These I cannot enumerate here. Moreover, some of them are beyond my range. I shall only refer to the two volumes devoted to the study of variation in animals and plants under the influence of domestication; and in the midst of the mass of facts, observations, and experiments contained in their thousand pages, I shall only dwell for a moment upon the memoir upon pigeons.

This work required of Darwin ten years of investigations. In order to bring together the materials for it he procured specimens of all the known races of pigeons; he even prepared with his own hand their skeletons, which he has described almost bone by bone. From this study of their external and osteological characters he concluded that these domestic birds, called indifferently by the same name, present, at least, 150 more or less distinctly marked forms, all perpetuating themselves by generation, and capable of being taken for so many species if they were met with living in freedom. These forms are, moreover, so different that, if we were to apply to them the rules of classification employed in the distribution of species, we must form for them five distinct genera.

In presence of so great a diversity Darwin asked himself whether all these apparent species can be referred to a common initial form; or whether, as Buffon and Cuvier himself had thought, several wild species had mingled their blood to engender what we call the domestic pigeons. Now, by an entire series of exact facts and rigorous deductions he succeeded in showing that all our pigeons have descended from the rock-doves Columba livia of naturalists. Then he checks by experiment this result deduced from observation. He couples the most dissimilar forms; he accumulates in the same subjects the blood of the representatives of the five supposed genera, of which I spoke above; and he finds that these complex products lose none of their fertility. Finally, as a countercheck, he couples these pigeons with species other than the rock-dove, and demonstrates the disappearance of fecundity.

Nothing can be clearer than the consequences which result from this arduous labour. The species may vary almost indefinitely in the forms of its representatives without losing its fundamental character, namely the faculty of reproducing itself. The physiological separation of species, even when very nearly allied, is just as clearly demonstrated by these experiments. All these facts are in absolute contradiction with the very basis of the theory which assumes the evolution and the transmutation of the species. Does Darwin, therefore, deny or misrepresent them? Certainly not; and it is

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here that is displayed in. the fullest light a trait of character and intellect that I must at least indicate, unless I would leave a serious hiatus in this too rapid sketch.

The enthusiastic disciples of Darwin assert that he has explained every thing in the organic world. The language of the master is quite different. No doubt he allows himself too frequently to be carried away by the vivacity of his thoughts. Nevertheless, also very frequently, he retains sufficient coolness to recognize, even in his own works, the arguments and facts which are in favour of his adversaries. Then he hastens to indicate them with a loyalty which has something chivalrous about it. He is the first to declare that he knows nothing about the appearance of the archetype, the ancestor of all organized beings; he rejects, as being in disagreement with the results of experiment, the belief in spontaneous generation, which would so easily have completed his doctrine; he recognizes that the struggle for existence and natural selection cannot explain the appearance in an organism of anything really new; he makes the same avowal with regard to the unfertility which must at some given moment physiologically separate forms issuing from the same stock and convert them into distinct species. This constant good faith gives to some of Darwin's pages a peculiar charm. We follow with interest, even in his mistakes, this thinker, who is entirely occupied in the endeavour to make us adopt his beliefs, but who nevertheless places in our hands, with true candour, the arms best fitted to combat him. We put down his books with a great increase of our high esteem for the philosopher, of our affectionate sympathy with the man.

In these almost improvised pages, no more than in my other writings, could I pass in silence over what separates me from Darwin. As on all other occasions, I have done it with regret. On the other hand, it is from the bottom of my heart that I have tried to render him a last and just homage.

In acting thus it seems to me that I must find myself in accord with the general sentiment of the Academy. At first the Academy did not favourably receive Darwin's candidature as a Correspondent. It has been reproached for this by some of the adherents of the English naturalist; but unjustly. For them Darwin's merit consisted especially in his theory. By its first hesitation the Academy showed that it could not join in this judgment. Then, by welcoming the author of the book 'On the Origin of Species,' it proved that it had been able to recognize all that was important and durable in the complex work of the illustrious naturalist, and to render justice to his true merits. It has therefore in all particulars

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fulfilled its duties as a scientific tribunal with high impartiality.

Now, Darwin is dead; and most certainly no one within these walls has withheld sincere and cordial regrets from this true and great naturalist, who chose to pass his whole life, solely devoted to study and meditation, in a modest retreat, far from the honours which it would have been so easy for him to attain, and which came to seek him when he could no longer avoid them.