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CHARLES DARWIN'S SHORTER PUBLICATIONS, 1829 – 1883
Charles Darwin's words first appeared in print when he was a student at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1829, and in almost every subsequent year of his life he published essays, articles, letters to editors, or other brief works. These shorter publications contain a wealth of valuable material. They represent an important part of the Darwin visible to the Victorian public. Alongside his ever-present sense of humour, they reveal an even wider variety of his scientific interests and abilities, which continued to his final days. This book brings together all the known shorter publications and printed items Darwin wrote during his lifetime, including his first and last publications, and the first publication, with A. R. Wallace, of the theory of evolution by natural selection. With over 70 newly discovered items, the book is fully edited and annotated, and contains original illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography.
John van Wyhe is a historian of science based at the University of Cambridge. He is co-editing Darwin's Beagle notebooks, also with Cambridge University Press. In 2002 he launched Darwin Online, the aim of which is to make freely available online all of Darwin's publications, unpublished manuscripts and associated materials. Darwin Online is the largest publication on Darwin ever created and is used by millions of readers around the world. Van Wyhe lectures internationally, and appears frequently on TV, radio and in the press, to discuss the life and work of Darwin.
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CHARLES DARWIN'S
SHORTER PUBLICATIONS
1829–1883
Edited by
JOHN VAN WYHE
Christ's College, Cambridge
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Foreword
The significance of Charles Darwin as a maker of present times has never been more evident than in the bicentennial of his birth. On the Origin of Species, first published a century and a half ago and continuously in print ever since, transformed the centuries-old debate about the history and origins of living beings. That book, and his other volumes on evolution by natural selection, were highly significant contributions to the intellectual, biological and theological revolutions of nineteenth-century Britain. And Darwin also became one of the most famous scientists of his day, a Victorian celebrity whose work even in his own lifetime was regarded as a foundation stone for the modern world, not least for the manner in which his writings changed the way human beings thought about themselves and their own place in nature. There can be no doubt about the worldwide significance of his impact. Yet he was also a country gentleman pottering around his garden. He was an invalid plagued by mysterious disorders. He was a traveller, husband, father, friend, and employer, as well as a remarkable thinker. Above all else, however, Darwin was an investigative naturalist. He loved to explore the quietly complex phenomena of living organisms or ponder the effects of geological processes, either in the localities he knew best around his country home in Kent, or ranging widely through the books he read in the evenings. Small details caught his attention. Sometimes he would hurry out to his greenhouse to begin an experiment that might test a statement that had recently come to hand. Or he might turn to friends and relations for verification. Always, his mind was alert to the tiny fact, the unobserved point that might contribute to his larger insight into the living world. This trait was evident in Darwin's character from very early on, and still charms readers today. Just before the Beagle voyage took place, his uncle Josiah Wedgwood called him ‘a man of enlarged curiosity'. The description fitted him well throughout a long and active life.
This comprehensive collection of articles, essays, questions, comments, and printed notes by the great naturalist presents a remarkable record of Darwin's ‘enlarged curiosity'. To be sure, Darwin published a number of lengthy books, which he viewed as the core of his literary output. Yet his shorter publications reflect many of the most significant aspects of his life's work. Among them are some of the letters written during the Beagle voyage – issued by his mentor John Stevens Henslow as a pamphlet for private circulation – that gave the London scientific world a tantalizing glimpse of Darwin's findings of fossil bones and hitherto unknown creatures. Upon his return, Darwin began immediately submitting his
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work to the scrutiny of scientific colleagues, publishing his work in the burgeoning range of monthly and quarterly scientific periodicals. These early articles announced his theory of the formation of coral reefs and made public his ambitious analyses of global uplift and subsidence. His first major paper, in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, was on the much-discussed Parallel Roads of Glen Roy in the Scottish Highlands, a series of linear terraces that had puzzled naturalists for decades. Although Darwin later regarded this paper as ‘great failure', it reveals many aspects of his methods of theorizing during the most creative period of his life. Darwin continued to publish substantial essays and articles, often in later years as precursors to longer books. The most famous of these, also included here, is the joint presentation (with an essay by Alfred Russel Wallace) of the theory of natural selection delivered before the Linnean Society in 1858.
The greatest revelation of this volume, however, is in bringing together all of Darwin's known short notes, queries, commentaries, and other occasional contributions to Victorian periodicals, newspapers and other ephemeral publications. These range from incidental comments in Victorian gardening magazines to questionnaires issued to willing friends and relatives. They include notes on microscopes, hedgehogs, honeybees, dogs' feet, lizard's eggs, cherry blossoms, and an edible fungus found in Tierra del Fuego. Anyone interested in Darwin owes John van Wyhe a large debt of gratitude for providing authoritative texts of this diverse material. Building on and correcting the work of previous scholars, this volume contains some eighty items unknown or overlooked when Darwin's papers were last brought together by Paul Barrett in 1977, including over thirty discovered by van Wyhe himself. It is remarkable, in any field, to have so much material for a major author made freshly available.
In these occasional writings, it could be said, Darwin shows us himself. At one level, they display his mind at work. Here we can see the individual problems that preoccupied him, on the one hand ranging over an extraordinary variety of topics and on the other providing sustained evidence of genuine intellectual penetration. We can see Darwin catching hold of a problem and reformulating it in new ways, either as a question that might be answered by the observations of some other naturalist or presenting the results of some recent work that open up further questions for research. In a larger sense, these notes can also tell us about the making of a scientific fact – the processes of research and observation, the questions and experiments, the validation and authentication through further inquiry. Indeed, seeing Darwin's smaller publications en masse in such a fashion opens the door for a re-evaluation of the way that science was made in the years before large laboratories existed. Darwin's shorter publications show us the heart of the scientific process at a time that is often characterized as the starting point for its modern consolidation.
At another level, too, these shorter publications are true to the man behind the theories. Much of the rationale in drawing these publications together is that they show how varied and regular a contributor Darwin was to Victorian periodicals. It is a revelation to see how persistently he used the format of minor publication to elicit comment and feedback, how he cultivated a wide range of contacts, many of whom he did not know except through the columns of natural history magazines. This again speaks to the way that natural history was pursued in Victorian Britain. Few such contributors to journals became as famous
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as Darwin. Many were academic naturalists, established experts, landowners, well-known animal or plant breeders, or knowledgeable amateurs who vigorously pursued topics of mutual concern in an increasingly wide variety of illustrated magazines, journals and popular books. Here Darwin comes among them as an equal, as a reader intrigued by bees' combs, the tendrils on climbing plants, or the transmission of wing markings in domesticated pigeons. Here he could broadcast his inquiries to a community of knowledgeable experts. More than this, the geographical reach of the nineteenth-century natural history community was startlingly broad. The international scope of these shorter publications stretches beyond Britain to Europe and the wider world, for Darwin's intentions were global in scale. He eagerly made use of the extended domain of British colonial institutional structures and sought out personal links in key locations. From the closely packed columns of popular natural history magazines to the short pamphlets that he had printed up at his own cost for circulation, Darwin appears as a regular and spirited contributor to Victorian natural history. All these features reveal him as the man we have always suspected, but never fully seen in print.
Janet Browne
Jim Secord
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Introduction
Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882), the great English naturalist and geologist, changed forever our understanding of the world and our place within it. Many of his contemporaries regarded him as the greatest living man of science of their own and perhaps of any age. Some used the word ‘revolution' to describe the profound alteration they believed Darwin effected in scientific knowledge. He synthesized many of the already sophisticated sciences of his day from geology, palaeontology, zoology, embryology, physiology, taxonomy, anthropology, botany, psychology and more. After Darwin's death countless obituaries and biographical accounts continued to laud him as the one figure who had solved the greatest puzzles of life on earth.
Against this it seems hardly relevant that many of them did not, or did not fully, accept Darwin's stress on natural selection as the primary mechanism for evolution or ‘descent with modification'. What Darwin did achieve was to convince the international scientific community and their descendants for the succeeding century and more that all the kinds of living things on earth are derived from common ancestors. The single branching genealogical tree of life is Darwin's vision.1 This explanation unlocked the basic pattern of past and present life on earth, and was consistently attributed to Darwin. It took until the ‘new synthesis' in the 1930s to fully seal the role of natural selection.2
Yet we must always strive to envisage Darwin not as a timeless ideal genius but as a real person living in his own time and context. This is all the more difficult because his world has largely vanished with the lapse of time. Sometimes particular facts can help to imaginatively reconstruct the richness of his world. Darwin was a wealthy and respected member of the nineteenth-century English gentry. He belonged to gentlemans' clubs, scientific societies and was treasurer of the local village savings society. He read The Times, cheap romantic novels, especially if they had beautiful heroines and the works of George Eliot and Charles Dickens. He interacted with a wide range of his contemporaries from fellow Cambridge undergraduates (many of them noblemen), other elite men of science and their families, South American Indians, pigeon fanciers, as well as servants in the home, labourers in the field and local villagers and clergymen. He invested in the new railways and played with his children and dogs. He went for daily walks in the countryside near his rural home, Down House, in Downe, Kent, about fifteen miles from the centre of London. He corresponded with thousands of individuals about his scientific interests. Many of his letters appeared
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in newspapers and magazines. Darwin was only one man amongst a large international scientific community. This meant that in addition to profiting from the reference works and publications of other naturalists, his science was also a dialogue with his peers.
Darwin's views are most widely known from his books. The Origin of Species is often referred to as one of the most important and famous books ever written. Similarly his Journal of Researches (now commonly known as Voyage of the Beagle) and Descent of Man are very well known. Darwin's adult life revolved around a series of researches that culminated in scientific publications. He published sixteen books, or twenty depending on how we count them. All have been reprinted, some many times, and are still in print; consequently, they are widely available.
Yet there were at least 244 unique shorter publications of Darwin's writings during his lifetime. These are scattered amongst many now rare newspapers, magazines, journals, offprints and books and pamphlets by other authors. No library possesses all of them. This book brings these scattered productions of Darwin's pen together between the covers of a single volume for the first time.
It is impossible to understand Darwin's life and work from his books alone. They are the milestones,3 but there is much valuable material in the stepping stones dotted between them. After his first words appeared in print as a student at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1829, more appeared in an essay, article, letter to an editor, or other brief publication every following year of his life except 1833–4 and 1854. The shorter publications represent an important part of the Darwin visible to the Victorian public. They reveal, if possible, an even wider variety of his scientific interests and abilities. They also reveal his ever present sense of humour. Darwin was not a frightened recluse, but a well-liked family man of independent means obsessed with scientific puzzles. The shorter publications show how his curiosity to understand the natural world continued to his final days. In his very last publications he cited the latest international scientific works of 1882.
Contributions by Darwin appeared in dozens of periodicals, not just scientific journals but newspapers, gardening, horticultural and country sporting magazines. A basic analysis of the shorter publications shows an early mixture of geological and zoological publications until the mid-1850s. From the mid-1840s botanical items became more numerous although they are absent from the 1846–1854 barnacle research period. The zoological items appeared more or less continuously throughout his life. Many deal with Darwin's interests in the natural means by which species may become distributed about the globe. Both before and after the publication of Origin of Species Darwin tended not to discuss the ultimate aims behind his queries. There are roughly 30 geological, 100 zoological and 100 botanical items. Another extremely loose category might be called social items such as the letter defending missionaries, signed memorials on the British Museum's collections, domestic gardening issues, donations to charities and opposition to cruelty to animals. Later, after the Origin of Species and Descent of Man, items answering critics became more numerous. The second paragraph of Darwin's 1863 letter in the respectable Athenaeum (p. 334 below) gives one of his best concise summaries of the evidence for his theory of evolution. The shorter publications are almost silent on politics and religion.
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The first collection of Darwin's papers was published by Paul Barrett in 1977. Although it has performed valuable service for thirty years, a more complete collection is long overdue. Many new shorter publications have been discovered since 1977. The editors of the Correspondence have uncovered most of these and new items are still occasionally found. Thirty-three items were discovered during the preparation of this book and in the course of creating and editing The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwinonline. org.uk/) [hereafter Darwin Online] – some shortly before this volume went to press. With the increasing range of historical publications available electronically, many more previously unrecorded Darwin publications will no doubt be found. These can be added to Darwin Online if their discoverers will send me copies or references.
Barrett's Collected Papers included only 153 items and omitted parts of the original publications such as the exact titles, Darwin's salutation, valediction and dates of letters. There were also several errors such as incorrect publication dates, missing words and incomplete bibliographical details.
The present work brings together all known Darwin publications and shorter than book-length printed items during his lifetime, minus nine omitted for lack of space. The single item from 1883 is included because it is both short and Darwin intended it for publication. This volume therefore contains the majority of Darwin's publications, in terms of number, including his first and his last publications.
The year 2009, the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species, seems an appropriate time to publish the shorter publications in print. These documents are all available in Darwin Online. There are a number of reasons to publish them as a book. Many people prefer to read and study a physical volume rather than reading from a screen or printouts. With an unforeseeable future of ever shifting technological landscapes before us, a printed volume remains reassuringly permanent. And print still reaches different audiences who cannot, or do not, use the internet.
A publication, following the criteria of Darwin's great bibliographer R.B. Freeman, is anything printed during his lifetime that was: written by Darwin, signed by Darwin, or a quotation of his unpublished words. Although a few items were privately printed, and therefore not technically published, they have traditionally been counted amongst Darwin's publications and are also included here. Reprints, quotations from his published works and foreign translations are not included.
Lack of space has forced me to omit a few of Darwin's longer essays but in most cases these later appeared in some of his books and therefore may be treated differently. These, and several other associated passages such as lists of co-signatories on memorials signed by Darwin, or very lengthy items only signed by Darwin are omitted for lack of space. The omitted text amounts to 107 000 words. All omitted items are available on Darwin Online. The shorter publications included here total about 240 000 words, which, together with the notes and 11 000 word bibliography, are as much as could be included within a single volume.
Barrett's collection was largely un-annotated. This volume, for the first time, identifies, where possible, all persons and publications cited or mentioned by Darwin. Most of these
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have remained unidentified since Darwin's day. Others remained elusive and as every editor knows there comes a time when further fruitless searching must be given up in the interest of completing the whole. The bibliography is therefore a supplement to works read and referred to by Darwin. Combined with the bibliographies of the Correspondence, Natural Selection and the Marginalia a complete bibliography of the works cited and used by Darwin is approached.
Darwin's shorter publications have been arranged chronologically according to their given publication dates. Items dated no more specifically than by year are listed at the beginning of that year. The omitted items are given a full reference at the appropriate point to avoid obscuring their place altogether.
Editorial policy
I have endeavoured to reproduce the original documents faithfully. Spelling, punctuation, even apparent misprints have been preserved. Original editorial comments in Darwin's publications are retained when space permits.
The original pagination has been preserved between vertical lines, e.g. |195|. Darwin's or original editorial notes are given as footnotes. New bibliographical references are cited in author–date format; complete references can be found in the bibliography. Multiple items by the same author in the same year are distinguished with the addition of letters, e.g. 1850a, 1850b, etc. Darwin's publications are indicated in a different and somewhat unconventional, but hopefully more useful, system than a series of arbitrary abcs – which would have to be changed when any new interceding items are discovered. Instead Darwin's shorter publications are cited as author–date followed by the Freeman or ‘F' number (e.g. Darwin 1840, F1656) according to the standard bibliography begun by R. B. Freeman. These numbers are unique identifiers associated with each publication. The definitive edition of the bibliography of Darwin's writings is published on Darwin Online. Freeman assigned new numbers in his second edition (1977). When preparing the new online edition based on his work I decided to freeze Freeman's numbers which had stood for so long and which are so widely cited. Additions to the bibliography are assigned new numbers consecutively from F1806 onwards. The numbers, though often running continuously and chronologically, should be regarded as arbitrary. For items included in this book, the page number is provided in parentheses after the ‘F' number.
I have taken no notice of items at some point recorded as Darwin publications but which do not meet the above criteria. I have retained a few exceptions, as, for example, the report of Darwin's remarks on Gould's description of the Galapagos finches, which are brief and of particular significance.
Annotations
Space restrictions permit only minimal notes. I have aimed at making the material as accessible as possible for a wide range of readers. New editorial notes are provided
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as endnotes after each of Darwin's shorter publications and in brackets when in Darwin's footnotes.
All persons mentioned have been identified, when possible, with a note at their first occurrence and only subsequently when clarity required. Surnames can be found at any time via the index. The notes are meant merely to identify the individual and therefore usually provide only dates and a statement of profession or activity and current role or office. Titles are ignored. The Correspondence biographical register, Freeman's Companion or other reference works should be consulted for more detail. Throughout the notes the abbreviation ‘CD' is used for Charles Robert Darwin, ‘DAR' refers to the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library, ‘CCD' refers to The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, and ‘DO' refers to Darwin Online. I have followed the standard abbreviations of Darwin's and other key works used by the Correspondence. These can been found in the bibliography alphabetically according to the abbreviated title, rather than by author name. Editorial comments in the texts are enclosed in square brackets. Any original square brackets have been changed to parentheses.
Publications mentioned or cited by Darwin are identified, when possible, at their first occurrence and only subsequently if clarity seemed to require it. The aim was to make the original text intelligible and useful but not to note every relevant secondary source. In addition to the lack of space this would also lead to the volume perhaps becoming prematurely dated. I have also noted items that were noted by Barrett 1977, even when such points are not otherwise noted in this volume, for readers who do not possess both works. Items only signed by Darwin are more sparsely annotated. Many of the published letters in this volume have already been masterfully edited and published in the Correspondence. It would be futile to attempt to improve on their work, even though such printed items also have a place in this volume. In such cases the first endnote includes a reference to the item's place in the Correspondence which in most instances provides more detailed annotations than have been attempted here.
No doubt some mistakes and inconsistencies remain. The task has been, at times, overwhelming and I am keenly aware of my inadequacies. It ought, perhaps, to have been undertaken by a team of researchers. I would be grateful to be informed of mistakes and any unidentified Darwin publications fitting the above criteria.
1 See Darwin 1863, F1730 (p. 506) and Hodge 2005.
2 Mayr 1982.
3 Autobiography, p. 136.
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Acknowledgements
In preparing this volume I have, to paraphrase Darwin, incurred a heavy, but pleasant load of gratitude to many individuals and institutions. It is a great pleasure to thank them here. The Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Science and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge supported my work during the latter part of the gestation of this volume. Earlier phases were conducted while I was employed by the National University of Singapore, the Correspondence of Alfred Russel Wallace Project at the Open University and the History of Ideas Department at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.
I owe a very great debt to Jim Secord and Janet Browne whose generous support and guidance have made this and so much else possible. Words are not sufficient to express both how indebted I am to them and my great respect and admiration. It is an honour to have their contribution to this volume. Sue Asscher, associate editor for Darwin Online, has (in addition to much other work) proof-read and corrected almost every one of Darwin's shorter publications for the website and thereby made a voluntary contribution that is difficult to exaggerate. Her tireless efforts and painstaking attention to detail made it an honour to work with her. Not only I, but the many readers of Darwin Online, owe her a great deal of gratitude. Kees Rookmaaker, research associate with Darwin Online, made an enormous contribution to this work both in terms of research, checking notes and acquiring many copies of Darwin's shorter publications from around the world. Some of them, I must apologize, more than once when my sometimes out-of-date lists of references were repetitive. He has also been a constant source of advice and encouragement and it has been my privilege to work with him. Gordon Chancellor kindly checked the notes for the many geological and Beagle items and offered many helpful suggestions and composed a few endnotes (always attributed). His enthusiasm and generously shared scholarship were a great benefit for which I am very grateful. There are too few such scholars who combine, as he does, daunting knowledge of the subject, infectious enthusiasm and the greatest possible kindness and readiness to help. Both this book and I owe a very great debt to Duncan Porter who kindly, even courageously, not only checked the endnotes of the many botanical items, but read over all of the botanical shorter publications themselves and provided many suggestions and corrections. His generous assistance
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on many points, unparalleled knowledge and expertise are a very great contribution for which I am particularly grateful. The editors of the Correspondence, especially Shelley Innes and Alison Pearn, provided much important assistance identifying a mistaken letter on the online versions, answering many queries and providing details from the unpublished correspondence. Rosemary Clarkson kindly helped looking into queries and sent photocopies of rare items. Samantha Evans helped with details on preparing the final print volume. I am especially indebted to Jim Secord, Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, for his enormously kind and helpful commitment to promote Darwin scholarship and for making details of the unpublished correspondence available to me, though unfortunately there was not enough time to fully utilize them in this volume.
Nicholas Jackson translated the Darwin letter in Italian (F1970) at very short notice. David Butterfield and David Sedley kindly translated the surrounding Latin paragraph from Linnaeus (F350). Tori Reeve, the Curator of Down House, helpfully showed me Darwin's copies of the books by Otto Hahn. Daniel Glaser helpfully took the trouble to pass on an unrecorded Darwin publication (F2006). George Beccaloni kindly looked over some of the entomological items and offered helpful advice.
I have received assistance from many others who are no less deserving of thanks here including Cordula van Wyhe; Patrick Zutshi, Adam Perkins and Godfrey Waller of Cambridge University Library; Tim Eggington and Dawn Moutrey of the Whipple Library, Cambridge; Judith Magee and Lorraine Portch of the Natural History Museum, London; Candace Guite, Colin Higgins, and Ann Keith of the Library of Christ's College, Cambridge; Sarah Humbert of the Earth Sciences Library, Cambridge; New College Library, Edinburgh University Library; The University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge; the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, Spiegel Grove, Fremont, Ohio, USA; Alexandra Caccamo, Librarian at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin; Heinz Alfred Gemeinhardt of the Stadtsarchiv Reutlingen; the Library of the National University of Singapore; Martin Rudwick; Tom Glick; Angus Carroll; The Master, Fellows and Scholars of Christ's College, Cambridge; the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge; English Heritage (Darwin Collection at Down House) and the Darwin, Keynes and Barlow families. Gordon Chancellor, Jon Hodge, Jim Secord and Gregory Radick provided helpful suggestions for the introduction. Corrections or suggestions for the online versions of the texts or notes were kindly sent by Andrew Sclater, Marsha Richmond, J. David Archibald, Rebecca Stott, David Allan Feller, Shelley Innes, Randal Keynes, John S. Wilkins, George Beccaloni and David Clifford. I apologize to any whose names I have inadvertently omitted.
I am grateful to the many scholars whose works I have consulted and relied upon in research for this volume even if a specific mention has not been made. My greatest debt is to the Correspondence, their Calendar and database of persons and extended bibliography are indispensable aids. It would have been impossible to complete this work in time without this massive mountain of Darwin scholarship. I am also indebted to the workers behind online text collections such as Google books, The Internet Archive, Making of America, JSTOR, Gallica and many others which made a trip to the library on countless occasions unnecessary
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as a work could be found online or vague references could be identified by electronic searching that would never have been otherwise identified.
I have benefited enormously over the years from conversation and correspondence with James Moore, Randal Keynes, Sandra Herbert, Marsha Richmond, Jim Secord, Janet Browne, Richard Keynes, Fred Burkhardt, Adrian Desmond, Aileen Fyfe, Frank Sulloway, Mario di Gregorio, Nick Gill, Pietro Corsi, Rebecca Stott, Robert Olby, Duncan Porter, Jon Topham, Ludmilla Jordanova, and Peter Kjærgaard.
For permission to reproduce unpublished material in their possession I am grateful to William Huxley Darwin and the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. The ‘appeal' woodcut is reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Christ's College, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press gave permission to reproduce passages from the Correspondence. I would like to repeat my thanks here to The Charles Darwin Trust and Mary Whitear for permission to reproduce Freeman's Bibliographical Handlist on Darwin Online.
Finally I wish to thank my editor at Cambridge University Press, Jacqueline Garget, and the team at the Press who helped with the illustrations and typesetting, two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions and Margot Levy for her superb index.