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[Volume 1]

[…]

"My father came home one evening in 1841, quite excited, and said he had a great piece of news for me. He made us guess what it was, and I suggested that he was going to give me a pony. 'Oh,' he said, 'it is much better than that. Mr. Darwin is coming to live at Down.' I confess I was much disappointed, though I came afterwards to see how right he was."

[…]

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[…]

In 1850 I gave my first lecture. It was at Down, on the Wireworm, and was well attended by the villagers. Now I began to realise how right my father was in saying that Mr. Darwin's coming to live at Down was an immense advantage to me. He induced my father to give me a microscope, he let me do drawings for some of his books, and I greatly enjoyed my talks and walks with him. […]

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[…]

It is worth a moment's pause to realise what it all meant — the boy leaving school at fourteen to go straight into the banking business, and only a year later sharing with his father the responsible position of a working partner — either he or his father bound to be there — as if on his fifteen-years-old shoulders might all the burden be borne on the days when his father, engrossed in the higher mathematics, gave finance a holiday! And the twenty miles or more of drive! It is rather a pathetic picture. Perhaps it is no wonder that, with his zeal for acquiring various knowledge,

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especially his zest for natural history, so fostered by the kind help of Darwin, he adopted a strenuous mode of life, early rising and economizing the long hours thus gained to the very best advantage. […]

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[…] Visited Kit's Coty House, which first roused my interest in Archaeology. I did some drawings for Mr. Darwin.

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[…]

His first published paper was a Monograph in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, for January 1853. It was a description of a new free-swimming species from the Atlantic belonging to the family Calanidae, and forming the type of a new Genus. The specimens belonged to Mr. Darwin's collection. The paper was illustrated by an excellent plate, and he named the Crustacean Labidocera Darwinii. This paper was followed in 1853 and 1854 by three others describing several more new species belonging to the same family, partly from Mr. Darwin's collection, and partly from that of the College of Surgeons. The plates for these papers were all illustrated by himself, and he also made for Mr. Darwin some of the drawings which appeared in his great work on Barnacles. […]

[Lubbock, John. 1853. Description of a new genus of Calanidae. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 25-29, pl. 1. A309    A309 ]

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[…]

Down, 19th July 1855.

Dear Lubbock—I had a note from Lyell this morning, in which he says you have found the first Ovibos moschatus ever discovered fossil in England! I must congratulate you on such a capital discovery. Considering the habits of Ovibos, and the nature of the drift-beds, I declare I think it one of the most interesting discoveries in fossils made for some years. ... I  congratulate you, and may this be the first of many interesting geological observations.—Yours very truly, Ch. Darwin.

I wish you could have come here on Tuesday. Adios!

With such encouragement as this from the great men of science, it is no wonder that his young enthusiasm was fostered and grew keener than ever.

[…]

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[…]

He was, indeed, singularly fortunate in his friends, and had a generous capacity for recognising that great good fortune. A brother of Lord Avebury, one of the nearest to himself in age, assured me that Lord Avebury owed to the great Charles Darwin even a larger debt in the respect of character formation than in the encouragement and direction of his mental gifts. […]

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While revering the learning and the wisdom, young Lubbock no doubt unconsciously assimilated the goodness the fortitude with which pain and illness were borne, the patience with which was endured the scarcely less grievous misconstruction which many persons of the best intentions, but of the most narrow minds, placed on Mr. Darwin's; great services to science, and above all the singular humility which deprecated all credit to self for any exceptional mental faculty or achievement.

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[…] There has been some little discussion about the time of his life at which he really did begin visiting Mr. Darwin. It will be remembered that he was still so much of a child when Mr. Darwin came to Down that when his father bade him guess what good thing had come for him, he guessed "a pony." But the regular visits began when he was no longer, indeed, a school-boy, but of an age when most boys now, and even then, would be at school. In a word, he saw much of Mr. Darwin at the time of his life when a lad is perhaps the most readily and, at the same time, the most permanently influenced, for good or for ill, by an example that makes strong appeal to him.

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[…]

For some time young Lubbock had been preparing a paper on the Daphnia, the so-called Freshwater Flea, though it is really a crustacean, which was eventually published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and led to his election as an F.R.S. in 1858. […]

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[…] The following portion of a letter from Charles Darwin refers to the same paper:

Down, Sunday Morning, 1857.

Dear Lubbock—At the Philosophical Club last Thursday, I overheard Dr. Sharpey speaking to Huxley in such high and warm praise of your paper, and Huxley answering in the same tone that it did me good to hear it. And I thought I would tell you, for if you still wish to join the Royal Society, I should think (Sharpey being influential in Council and Secretary) there would be no doubt of your admission. Even if you were not admitted the first year it cannot be thought the least disgraceful. I am not aware, but perhaps you have been already proposed. —Believe me, dear Lubbock, yours sincerely, C. Darwin.

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[…]

The following letter from Charles Darwin is worthy of quotation, as showing both how highly the famous evolutionist already appreciated the works and gifts of Lubbock, who was still, it is to be remembered, only in his twenty-sixth year, and also as indicating the astonishment, which we must all share, that with such various calls on his time he was able to accomplish so much.

Down, Feb. 15, 1860.

My dear Lubbock—Many thanks for Anthropological Review returned. Thanks also about buds and ovary. I wish I had remembered your discussion. I have now alluded to it in 2nd Edition. Taking the whole sense of Müller's pages, especially one passage further on, I still think he meant to say that buds and germs were essentially the same, but it is far more doubtful than I supposed. I have been reading your address to Ent. Soc.; and the number of first rate papers to which you refer is quite appalling. How do you find time to search up so much matter? I have nothing else to do, and do not hear of half so many papers. It is very unfair of you! Do you take in the Zeitschaft fur Wissen. Zoolog.; if so, can you lend me vol. xvii. p. 1, with Landois' "On Noises of Insects"? Also can you lend me Desmarest on "Crustacea,"—a thick pinkish volume, if you have it. I want to look at sexual differences. I have been looking at your papers and figures in March and May, and have been fairly astonished (for I had nearly forgotten) at the wonderful structure of the geniculated antenna of male; but I wish you had figured both antennae, i.e. the pair, in their proper position: I should have liked to have given a copy in a wood cut.

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If you ever arrive at any definite conclusion, either wholly or partially for or against Pangenesis, I should very much like to hear; for I settled some time ago, that I should think more of Huxley's and your opinion, from the course of your studies and clearness of mind, than of that of any other man in England. H. Spencer's views, I hear from him, are quite different from mine: he says he shall think over the subject, but apparently he does not yet quite understand what I mean. There is a rather nice Review of you in last Athenaeum and a very unnice one of my book; I suspect, from two or three little points, by Owen.—Ever yours very truly, C. Darwin.

This year (1860) was remarkable in the annals of science for the publication of Darwin's great work on the Origin of Species. Writing to Dr. (Sir J.) Hooker on March 3, 1860, he gives the following table [Life and letters 2:293.] of those who went with him in his conclusions: [table]

The Origin of Species raised a storm of controversy, and even of obloquy, on the head of an author so greatly daring as to disturb the ideas of the creation story in which mankind had hitherto —or at all events until the slightly earlier publication of Lyell's Geology —been brought up. Lubbock was, of course, on the

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side of those who supported Darwin, and his advocacy of the evolutionist cause at the meeting that year of the British Association at Oxford is thus referred to, long afterwards, in Science and the Human Mind:)

The famous scene between Bishop Wilberforce and Huxley at the Oxford Meeting of the British Association in 1860 has often been described. Wilberforce had obtained a first class in the Oxford Mathematical Schools in his youth, and therefore, being regarded by his University as a master of all branches of natural knowledge, had been selected to uphold the cause of orthodoxy. The Bishop endeavoured to kill the notion of evolution with ridicule and sarcasm —ridicule for Darwin and his labours, sarcasm for Huxley and his courage. It seems strange now to think that a majority of the hearers were probably on the side of the Bishop, and were totally unable, from preconceived ideas, to weigh the value of the facts laid before them on behalf of Darwin's theory, or to appreciate the embryological evidence for evolution on which Sir John Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, insisted.1

Shortly after the publication of the Origin of Species, Mr. Lowe (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Mr. Busk (President of the College of Surgeons) were at High Elms. On Saturday evening Mrs. Lowe was between young Lubbock and Mr. Busk, and the conversation turned on the great book. Mrs. Lowe asked Mr. Busk "just to explain" why one germ should develop into a man and another into a kangaroo. He suggested that she should read the book, so she took it upstairs. Next day she sat in the drawing-room with it, and finished it about 4.30, shutting it up with a clap, and saying: "Well, I don't see much in your Mr. Darwin after all: if I had had his

1 Science and the Human Mind, Whetham, p. 214.

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facts I should have come to the same conclusion myself." […]

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[…]

Most of Sir John's letters to Darwin, except the very earliest, are signed thus "affectionately," as addressing one who was to him almost a second father. […]

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[…]

The literary and scientific world of London felt that the authors of the book were very unfairly assailed, and a Committee of which Mr. W. Spottiswoode and Mr. Lubbock were secretaries drew up the following address to Dr. Temple as author of the first Essay in the volume.

To the Rev. Dr. Temple

We the undersigned have read with surprise and regret a letter in which the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other English Bishops have severely censured the volume of Articles entitled Essays and Reviews. Without committing ourselves to the conclusions arrived at in the various Essays, we wish to express our sense of the value which is to be attached to enquiries

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conducted in a spirit so earnest and reverential, and our belief that such enquiries must tend to elicit truth, and to foster a spirit of sound religion. Feeling as we do that the discoveries in science, and the general progress of thought, have necessitated some modification of the views generally held on theological matters, we welcome these attempts to establish religious teaching on a firmer and broader foundation. While admitting that each writer in the Essays and Reviews is responsible only for the opinions expressed by himself, we address to you, as author of the first article, this expression of our sympathy and our thanks. The address was very readily and numerously signed by men of science and others, the signatures including those of Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Leonard Horner, George Bentham, Thos. Graham; Airy, the Astronomer - Royal; and Busk, President of the College of Surgeons. […]

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[…]

His ever kind friend, Charles Darwin, had written on the previous day a letter of highest

encomium on his address:

Down, Beckenham, Kent,

February 25, 1865.

My dear Lubbock—Although you will be overwhelmed with congratulations, I must write to say how heartily I rejoice over your success. Your speech at Maidstone struck me as quite excellent, and I fully expect to see you a great man in Parliament, as you are in Science. But even in the moment of triumph, I must let one little groan escape me for poor deserted Science. Anyhow, I know that you will always love your first-born child, and not despise her for the sake of gaudy politicks. I wrote to ask you a question about savages and suicide before I had heard of Maidstone; otherwise,

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of course, I would not have troubled you. If, in the course of a few weeks, you can inform me, I should be glad, but the point is not very important for me. Once again, I do most sincerely congratulate you. —Ever most truly yours, Ch. Darwin.

[…]

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[…]

Under date May 27, 1867, he received the following letter from Charles Kingsley, rather belated, in acknowledgment of Prehistoric Times:

My dear Lubbock — I have just received, from Macmillan, a copy of your excellent book (Prehistoric Times), sent to me on the 20th of May 1865. […]

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[…] I am sure that, side by side with Darwin's true theory of development by natural causes, lies a theory of degradation by the same causes; which I sketched once in serious jest in the Water Babies; and it will be part of our future work to investigate the methods of Natural Degradation. […]

I was deeply moved at meeting, for the first time, Darwin. I trembled before him like a boy, and longed to tell him all I felt for him, but dare not, lest he should think me a flatterer extravagant. But the modesty and simplicity of his genius was charming. Instead of teaching, he only wanted to learn, instead of talking, to listen, till I found him asking me to write papers which he could as yet hardly write himself — ignorant, in his grand simplicity, of my ignorance, and his own wisdom. And yet of that man Owen said to me — "Darwin is just as good a soul as his grandfather — and just as great a goose." — With kind regards to Lady Lubbock, ever yours sincerely, C. Kingsley.

Kingsley's appreciation of Darwin, expressed in this letter, is of no little interest. Sir John Lubbock's letters to that great man always express a spirit of something like filial devotion, and there is no question but that those qualities of "modesty and simplicity," which were equally remarkable in Sir John Lubbock as in Darwin himself, were in part the effect in the younger man of the example of the older.

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The following letter contains Darwin's comments after the perusal of the proof sheets:

Haredene Albury, Guildford,

August 12, 1871.

My dear Lubbock—You will see where we are, and where we remain for 3 weeks more. I hope the proof sheets having been sent here will not inconvenience you. I have read them with infinite satisfaction, and the whole discussion strikes me as admirable. I have no books here, and wish much I could see a plate of Campodea. I never reflected much on the difficulty which you indicate, and on which you throw so much light. I have only a few trifling remarks to make. At p. 44 I wish you had enlarged a little on what you have said of the distinction between developmental and adaptive changes; for I cannot quite remember the point, and others will perhaps be in the same predicament. I think I always saw that the larva and the adult might be separately modified to any extent. Bearing in mind what strange changes of function parts undergo with the intermediate states of use, it seems to me that you speak rather too boldly on the impossibility of a mandibulate insect being converted into a sucking insect; not that I in the least doubt the value of your explanation. Cirripedes, passing through what I have called a pupal state, as far as their mouths are concerned, rather supports what you say at p. 52.

At p. 40 your remarks on the Argus pheasant (tho' I have not the least objection to them) do not seem to me very appropriate as being related to the mental faculties. If you can spare me these proof sheets when done with, I should be obliged, as I am correcting a new Edition of the Origin when I return home, tho' this subject is too large for me to enter into. I thank you sincerely for the great interest which your discussion has given me, and with thanks for your congratulations on an event that gives us great satisfaction.—Believe me, yours very sincerely, Ch. Darwin.

I return by this post the sheets.

[…]

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[…] The comment of the first-named alone on the Prehistoric Times were enough to establish the fame of any man of science. I cannot resist telling you how excellently well, in my opinion, you have done the very interesting chapter on savage life. Though you have necessarily only compiled the materials, the general result is most original. But I ought to keep the term original for your last chapter, which has struck me as an admirable and profound discussion. It has quite delighted me, for now the public will see what kind of man you are, which I am proud to think I discovered a dozen years ago. I do sincerely wish you all success in your election (to Parliament) and in politics; but after reading this last chapter you must let me say: oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!—Yours affectionately, Ch. Darwin.

The above was written in June 1865. There is no doubt that Prehistoric Times did open the public eye to an appreciation of Sir John, as Darwin predicted, but in the wonderful mass of

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to the necessity of its introduction were not a little curious.[…]He also contributed two articles to Nature, on the relation between insects and flowers, of which Mr. Darwin writes as follows:

Down, Beckenham, Kent,

September 26th, 1874.

My dear Sir John—I have read your two articles in Nature and they seem excellently done; but my object in writing is to caution you, unless you have good evidence, about C. K. Sprengel's notion of Bees being deceived by a nectar-lip nectary. As far as my memory goes, Orchids are his best case, and I think I have shown that he is here mistaken, and my conclusion has been supported by subsequent observations. I suppose you do not want more cases of coloured calyx, but our common Polygala is a remarkable case, as the calyx during flowering season is bright-coloured, and then turns green whilst it protects the seed-vessel after the flowering season is over.—Yours very sincerely, Ch. Darwin.

[…]

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[…]. On the Sunday afternoon Sir John Lubbock, our host, took us all up to the hill-top whence in his quiet Kentish village Darwin was shaking the world. The illustrious pair, born in the same year, had never met before. Mr. Gladstone, as soon as seated, took Darwin's interest in lessons of massacre for granted, and launched forth his thunderbolts with unexhausted zest. His great, wise, simple, and truth-loving listener, then, I think, busy on digestive powers of the drosera in his greenhouse, was intensely delighted. When we broke up, watching Mr. Gladstone's erect alert figure as he walked away, Darwin, shading his eyes with his hand against the evening rays, said to me in unaffected satisfaction, 'What an honour that such a great man should come to visit me!' […]

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Probably, however, the encomium which gave Sir John most satisfaction of all was the following from him, whom he ever piously regarded as his father in science, Charles Darwin. We may all echo one sentence of that great man's letter, "How on earth you find time is a mystery."

Down, Beckenham, Kent,

August 2nd, 1881.

My dear Lubbock—I have read with pleasure your Address. You have piled honours high on my head. I have scribbled such thoughts and remarks, as would have occurred to me if I had read your Address when published. I fear that this will be of little or no use to you, except perhaps, in one or two cases, by leading you to make further enquiry. I had put a pamphlet on one side for you, as I think that you would like some time to read it, and it has occurred to me that from this excellent résumé of Dr. Adler's work (which, no doubt, you have read) you might easily make a short abstract for your Address, for I think that parthenogenesis deserves special notice in recent scientific work. I have torn out a page for you to illustrate and strengthen what you say about inoculation. My suggestions and criticisms are poor affairs, but they are the best which I could send. This Address must have cost you much labour, and I congratulate you on its virtual completion. How on earth you find time is a mystery to me. —Yours very sincerely, Ch. Darwin.

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[…]

A very sad note indeed is sounded in the diary's entry of Sunday, March 19: "Arnold Morley for Sunday –went up to Darwin's the last time I saw him." Very shortly afterwards the great teacher of evolution was seized with his last illness and died on April 20. Sir John writes: "For thirty years he has been

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very good to me, and a talk with him was as good as sea air."

Immediately on hearing of the sad news Sir John drew up the following memorial to the Dean of Westminster.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, 21 April 1882.

VERY REVEREND SIR–We hope you will not think we are taking a liberty if we venture to suggest that it would be acceptable to a very large number of our countrymen of all classes and opinions that our illustrious countryman, Mr. Darwin, should be buried in Westminster Abbey. –We remain, your obedient Servants,

This letter was signed by the following:

John Lubbock, N. J. Maskelyne, A. J. Mundella, G. O. Trevelyan, L. Playfair, C. W. Dilke, D. Wedderburn, A. Russell, H. Davey, B. Armitage, R. B. Martin, F. W. Buxton, E. L. Stanley, H. Broadhurst, J. Barran, J. H. Cheetham, H. Holland, Campbell Bannerman, C. Bruce, R. Fort, J. Cropper, E. Marjoribanks, Kensington, T. Burt, T. Brassey, Fawcett, Herschell, Brand.

It is recorded in Sir Francis Darwin's Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, that some of the family would have preferred a quiet interment in the country churchyard at Down, but it seems as if they were led to realise that their father, by reason of his greatness, belonged in some measure to the nation, and that the nation could not feel that proper veneration had been paid him unless his remains were laid among those whom the British people most wish to honour.

The funeral took place on April 26, the pallbearers being the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Derby, Professor Huxley, Sir J. Hooker, Mr. Lowell, Mr. W. Spottiswoode, Mr. Wallace, and Sir John Lubbock.

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Such a friend as Sir John Lubbock had, and lost, in Charles Darwin, is given to few men indeed. We may recall his whimsical disappointment when as a boy his father had said to him, "a very fortunate thing for you has come to Down," and he guessed it might be a "pony," only to be told that it was Mr. Darwin who had come to reside there. How many times he must have remembered that guess and that pang of disappointment as he reflected over all that Darwin's friendship and example had meant to him. That Darwin was his "father in science" he never for a moment disguised, nor the immense debt that he owed him in the way of most profitably directing his scientific energies. Nor is it on the intellectual side alone that the counsel and the example of the great Darwin counted for much with him. He was immensely indebted, too, to the example of his fine and serene character –cheerful, uncomplaining, courageous in the midst of the attacks of ill health, and of enemies who were unable to appreciate his work and who misunderstood its tendency.

This moment, when Sir John was still in the first pain of his loss, seems a fitting one for the consideration of his own attitude towards the whole movement of thought with which the name of Darwin is most prominently connected. It was rather a remarkable attitude. We have seen him taking his active part in support of the freedom of the new thought. We have to remember that it was a moment when the new reading of the geological record by Lyell, followed by the more extended inferences of Darwin, had

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[…]

forced men of sober judgment to abandon many of the traditions in which they had been reared. And such abandonment is never without its pain and struggle. […]

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The Duke of Argyll, in March of this year, gave an address on Economic Science, in the course of which he enunciated a view which he believed to be Mr. Darwin's, on the origin of the human race. Sir John Lubbock took exception to it, as being an inexact interpretation of the great master's meaning, and the following friendly little war of words was waged between himself and the Duke:

39 BERKELEY SQUARE, W.,

8th March 1890.

MY DEAR DUKE OF ARGYLL –I have read with much interest your address on Economic Science, but am greatly surprised at the statement that in Darwin's opinion, "Man originated with one parent." This is so much the reverse of what I understood from him to be his opinion that I should be greatly obliged if you would tell me his exact words and the date of his letter.

The subject is one of so much interest, and Darwin's views carry so much just weight, that I hope you will forgive me for making the request.

–I am, yours very sincerely, JOHN LUBBOCK.

His Grace the Duke of Argyll.

March 10/90.

MY DEAR SIR JOHN-You know that it is said of Scotchmen that they always answer a question by asking another! Why does it surprise you that Darwin assumed the Human race to have begun at one spot, and with one pair? Has he anywhere said the contrary? I don't recollect any one passage in which either that, or the opposite theory is distinctly formulated. But I certainly always understood that he assumed with all species that each form had originated at a given place and spread from that.

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It was on this understanding of his underlying assumption, that many years ago I wrote to him asking what was the ground on which he made it. His reply was-what I described –a reference to the Doctrine of Chances. I forget the year, but I am sure I have kept the letter -although I am not sure that I know where to find it. If similar forms, or rather identical varieties, have had separate origins, both as to time and place, a serious hole would be made in his theory: but he may have changed his view in later years. You do not imply that he has distinctly voted in favour of Black, Yellow and White Adams-originating at different places. On the contrary you speak of what "you understood from him to be his opinion" - which seems to refer to conversation. But I should like much to know whether you have any written evidence that he believed in more "Adams" than one. Yours very truly, ARGYLL.

39 BERKELEY SQUARE, W.,

13 March 1890.

MY DEAR DUKE OF ARGYLL –I quite concur with you that in Darwin's opinion each species originated in one centre, but not I think from one pair. As I understood him external circumstances led to changes eventually resulting in a new species, but these circumstances in most cases affected a large number of individuals. I have not his books or letters with me here, but when I go home I will look up his letters. I saw him, however, so frequently that we generally talked on such questions; this being much easier than writing.

–Believe me, yours very truly, JOHN LUBBOCK.

His Grace the Duke of Argyll.

[page] 10 [Volume 2]

[…] Mr. Darwin tells

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a story in one of his books of a man who was about to emigrate. His friends gave him a dinner, and of course he prepared a speech, which he read over and over again to himself. When he eventually got up to deliver it, being very nervous, he forgot to speak out, and merely repeated it to himself as he had done before; his friends were naturally a good deal surprised, but they fell into the joke as we did, applauding him when he seemed to expect it, and especially at the end; so that he felt rather pleased with himself, and told a friend afterwards that he had been very nervous, but got through it better than he expected.

[…]

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[…] "Lord Avebury was elected a member of the Athenaeum on March 9, 1857, at the early age of 23. His proposer was Lord Hotham and his seconder Charles Darwin. His father, the Right Honourable Sir John William Lubbock, Bart., was an original member of the Club, having been among the first elected in 1824. […]

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[…]

The character was formed at an unusually early age, by his almost premature entry into business life, by the parental influences, naturally bearing most strongly on the eldest son, and by the invaluable precept and example of the high-souled and

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simple man of science, Mr. Darwin, whom he had the rare fortune to find at his very gates. […]