RECORD: Darwin, C. R. [1838]. Notebook D: 53, 54, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64 (excised pages). CUL-DAR208.37. Edited by John van Wyhe (The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Text prepared and edited by John van Wyhe 6.2025. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volume CUL-DAR208 contains notebook leaves excised by Darwin.

Notebook D: Transmutation. Text & image CUL-DAR123.-


53

will come from common stock. — all genera common stock — so that values can only be judged if in each separate line of descent. — & here limits of varieties being constant it would be exceedingly wrong to call one group genus & other subgenus. — Propagation best rule for genera, & so mount upwards, judged by analogy. — Consider all this.

N.B. How can local species as in Galapagos, be distinguished from temporal species as in two formations? by no way.? —

54

"Natura nihil agit frustra" as Sir Thomas Browne1 says "is the only indisputable axiom in Philosophy Religio Medici Vol. II Sir T. Browne's works p. 20.

"There are no grotesques in nature; not anything framed to fill up empty contours, & unnecessary spaces" p. 23 "for Nature is the act of God" —

10

after Decandolles idea

Septemb 1. It has been argued man first civilized add this in note. ?mere conjecture? — Australians. — Americans &c.

1 Sir Thomas Browne, Works, edited by S. Wilkin, London, 1835–6.

55

Septemb. 1. Macleay1 & Broderip2 when talking of some Crustacean, like Trilobite (Polirus??) female blind & quite different form from male with eyes! — (are not these differences in sex confined to annulosa?) remarked that young of Cirrhipedes can move & see, parents fixed, — young of sponges move. — young of Cochineal insects move about & see, parent female fixed & blind: — Macleay observed all these facts proves that perfection of organs have nothing to do with perfection of individual, though such relation seems common, but the perfection consists in being able to reproduce.

11

1 William Sharp MacLeay.
2 William John Broderip (cf. Life & Letters of Darwin, 1887 1: 274).

56

Here there is some error — Observed, nature does nothing in vain, therefore organs fitted to animals place in creation. — thus senses, especially sight connected with locomotion. (Mem. Dr. Blackwell (Abercrombie)1 comparison of sight to threads.) — Hence the Pecten which moves imperfectly has eye-point, but Brodrip added it has been stated that stationary Spondylus has eye-points — Macleay then answered, because nature leaves vestiges of what she does — does not move per saltum — yet does nothing in vain!!

1 John Abercrombie, Inquiries concerning the intellectual powers and the Investigation of Truth, London, 1838.

61

Waterhouse knows three species of Paradoxurus1 common to Van Diemen's land & Australia.
Well developed tits mammae in male ourang-outang other point of resemblance with man.

September 3d Magazine of Natural History2 1838 II p. 492. Mr Gould3 on Australian birds, all Eagles of Australia characterized by wedge tails, many of the hawks are analogous to European birds. also do. p. 403 & 404.

19

Vol. II do. (p. 71) allusion to Eyton's discovery of different number of vertebrae in Irish4 & English hare. good case these hares compared to South American hares, many species separated by mountains &c &c &c

1 By "Paradoxurus" Darwin meant Ornithorhynchus paradoxus; personal communication from George Robert Waterhouse.
2 Under the abbreviation "Magazine of Natural History", Darwin has confused two different publications which, unfortunately, both published a volume 2 in 1838: they were, Annals of Natural History or Magazine of Zoology, Botany and Geology, and, Magazine of Natural History.
3 John Gould, Birds of Australia and the adjacent islands, London, 1827–8. Neither journal mentioned in the previous footnote in vol. 2, p. 402 has a paper by Gould, but Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. 2, 1838, has, beginning on p. 399, a paper by Brehm, "Observations on some of the domestic instincts of Birds"; on pp. 402–4 there are references to birds of prey.
4 William Thompson, "On the Irish hare", Ann. Nat. Hist. or Mag. Zool. Bot. & Geol., vol. 2, 1838, p. 70; on p. 71 there is an allusion to Thomas Campbell Eyton's discovery that the tail of the Irish hare is shorter and has 3 less vertebrae than the tail of the English hare.

62

do. p. 69, a Dr Macdonald1 believes the Quaternary arrangement & not the Quinary. anyone may believe anything in such rigmarole about analogies & numbers.
L'Institut p. 275 (1838) Mr Blainville2 has written paper to show Stonesfield Didelphis not Didelphis. answered satisfactorily by Valenciennes.
The change from caterpillar to butterfly is not more wonderful than the body of a man undergoing a constant round, each particle is placed in place of last by the ordering of the nerves, but in different parts according to age of individuals (see mammae of women) in different parts when age

1 Ann. Nat. Hist. or Mag. Zool. Bot. & Geol., vol. 2, 1838, p. 69 reports a verbal communication to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 9 April 1838 by Dr Macdonald.
2 Henri-Marie de Blainville, "Doutes sur le prétendu Didelphe fossile de Stonefield", L'Institut, tome 6, 1838, p. 275.

63e

changes caterpillars into Butterfly.

When two varieties of dog cross, Erasmus says it looks like

64e

Institut 1837 P. 351 Paradoxurus Philippensis. Philypines…1

19

1 l'Institut 1837. p. 351 "…Zoologie: Mammifères nouveaux. — M. Jourdan présente un mémoire dans lequel il décrit cinq Mammifères … 5° Paradoxure des Philippines (Paradoxurus Philippinensis J.)…"


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Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

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