FOOTNOTES:
[221] The Historical Sketch had already appeared in the first German edition (1860) and the American edition. Bronn states in the German edition (footnote, p. 1) that it was his critique in the N. Jahrbuch für Mineralogie that suggested to my father the idea of such a sketch.
[222] Hugh Falconer, born 1809, died 1865. Chiefly known as a palæontologist, although employed as a botanist during his whole career in India, where he was a medical officer in the H.E.I.C. Service.
[223] In his letters to Gray there are also numerous references to the American war. I give a single passage. "I never knew the newspapers so profoundly interesting. North America does not do England justice; I have not seen or heard of a soul who is not with the North. Some few, and I am one of them, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against slavery. In the long-run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. What wonderful times we live in! Massachusetts seems to show noble enthusiasm. Great God! how I should like to see the greatest curse on earth—slavery—abolished!"
[224] This refers to the remarkable fact that many introduced European weeds have spread over large parts of the United States.
[225] Geologist, 1861, p. 132.
[226] The letter is published in a lecture by Professor Hutton given before the Philosoph. Institute, Canterbury, N.Z., Sept 12th, 1887.
[227] Mr. Bates is perhaps most widely known through his delightful The Naturalist on the Amazons. It was with regard to this book that my father wrote (April 1863) to the author:—"I have finished vol. i. My criticisms may be condensed into a single sentence, namely, that it is the best work of Natural History Travels ever published in England. Your style seems to me admirable. Nothing can be better than the discussion on the struggle for existence, and nothing better than the description of the Forest scenery. It is a grand book, and whether or not it sells quickly, it will last. You have spoken out boldly on Species; and boldness on the subject seems to get rarer and rarer. How beautifully illustrated it is."
[228] Mr. Bates' paper, 'Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazons Valley' (Linn. Soc. Trans. xxiii. 1862), in which the now familiar subject of mimicry was founded. My father wrote a short review of it in the Natural History Review, 1863, p. 219, parts of which occur almost verbatim in the later editions of the Origin of Species. A striking passage occurs in the review, showing the difficulties of the case from a creationist's point of view:—
"By what means, it may be asked, have so many butterflies of the Amazonian region acquired their deceptive dress? Most naturalists will answer that they were thus clothed from the hour of their creation—an answer which will generally be so far triumphant that it can be met only by long-drawn arguments; but it is made at the expense of putting an effectual bar to all further inquiry. In this particular case, moreover, the creationist will meet with special difficulties; for many of the mimicking forms of Leptalis can be shown by a graduated series to be merely varieties of one species; other mimickers are undoubtedly distinct species, or even distinct genera. So again, some of the mimicked forms can be shown to be merely varieties; but the greater number must be ranked as distinct species. Hence the creationist will have to admit that some of these forms have become imitators, by means of the laws of variation, whilst others he must look at as separately created under their present guise; he will further have to admit that some have been created in imitation of forms not themselves created as we now see them, but due to the laws of variation! Professor Agassiz, indeed, would think nothing of this difficulty; for he believes that not only each species and each variety, but that groups of individuals, though identically the same, when inhabiting distinct countries, have been all separately created in due proportional numbers to the wants of each land. Not many naturalists will be content thus to believe that varieties and individuals have been turned out all ready made, almost as a manufacturer turns out toys according to the temporary demand of the market."
[229] Mr. Huxley was as usual active in guiding and stimulating the growing tendency to tolerate or accept the views set forth in the Origin of Species. He gave a series of lectures to working men at the School of Mines in November, 1862. These were printed in 1863 from the shorthand notes of Mr. May, as six little blue books, price 4d. each, under the title, Our Knowledge of the Causes of Organic Nature.
[230] Kingsley's Life, vol. ii. p. 171.
[231] In the Antiquity of Man, first edition, p. 480, Lyell criticised somewhat severely Owen's account of the difference between the Human and Simian brains. The number of the Athenæum here referred to (1863, p. 262) contains a reply by Professor Owen to Lyell's strictures. The surprise expressed by my father was at the revival of a controversy which every one believed to be closed. Professor Huxley (Medical Times, Oct. 25th, 1862, quoted in Man's Place in Nature, p. 117) spoke of the "two years during which this preposterous controversy has dragged its weary length." And this no doubt expressed a very general feeling.
[232] The italics are not Lyell's.
[233] The Antiquity of Man.
[234] "Falconer, whom I [Lyell] referred to oftener than to any other author, says I have not done justice to the part he took in resuscitating the cave question, and says he shall come out with a separate paper to prove it. I offered to alter anything in the new edition, but this he declined."—C. Lyell to C. Darwin, March 11, 1863; Lyell's Life, vol ii. p. 364.
[235] Man's Place in Nature, 1863.
[236] This refers to a passage in which the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter's book speaks of "an operation of force," or "a concurrence of forces which have now no place in nature," as being, "a creative force, in fact, which Darwin could only express in Pentateuchal terms as the primordial form 'into which life was first breathed.'" The conception of expressing a creative force as a primordial form is the reviewer's.
[237] Public Opinion, April 23, 1863, A lively account of a police case, in which the quarrels of scientific men are satirised. Mr. John Bull gives evidence that—
"The whole neighbourhood was unsettled by their disputes; Huxley quarrelled with Owen, Owen with Darwin, Lyell with Owen, Falconer and Prestwich with Lyell, and Gray the menagerie man with everybody. He had pleasure, however, in stating that Darwin was the quietest of the set. They were always picking bones with each other and fighting over their gains. If either of the gravel sifters or stone breakers found anything, he was obliged to conceal it immediately, or one of the old bone collectors would be sure to appropriate it first and deny the theft afterwards, and the consequent wrangling and disputes were as endless as they were wearisome.
"Lord Mayor.—Probably the clergyman of the parish might exert some influence over them?
"The gentleman smiled, shook his head, and stated that he regretted to say that no class of men paid so little attention to the opinions of the clergy as that to which these unhappy men belonged."
[238] No doubt Haeckel, whose monograph on the Radiolaria was published in 1862.
[239] The Marquis de Saporta.
[240] Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l'origine des espèces. Par P. Flourens. 8vo. Paris, 1864.
[241] Lay Sermons, p. 328.
[242] Charles Darwin und sein Verhältniss zu Deutschland, 1885.
[243] An article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edit., reprinted in Science and Culture, 1881, p. 298.
[244] In October, 1867, he wrote to Mr. Wallace:—"Mr. Warrington has lately read an excellent and spirited abstract of the Origin before the Victoria Institute, and as this is a most orthodox body, he has gained the name of the Devil's Advocate. The discussion which followed during three consecutive meetings is very rich from the nonsense talked."
[245] Die natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte, 1868. It was translated and published in 1876, under the title, The History of Creation.
[246] Zoological Record. The volume for 1868, published December, 1869.
[247] Mr. Jenner Weir's observations published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society (1869 and 1870) give strong support to the theory in question.
[248] Contemporary Review, 1871.
[249] In the introduction to the Descent of Man the author wrote:—"This last naturalist [Haeckel] ... has recently ... published his Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte, in which he fully discusses the genealogy of man. If this work had appeared before my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost all the conclusions at which I have arrived, I find confirmed by this naturalist, whose knowledge on many points is much fuller than mine."
[250] April 7 and 8, 1871.
[251] His holiday this year was at Caerdeon, on the north shore of the beautiful Barmouth estuary, and pleasantly placed in being close to wild hill country behind, as well as to the picturesque wooded "hummocks," between the steeper hills and the river. My father was ill and somewhat depressed throughout this visit, and I think felt imprisoned and saddened by his inability to reach the hills over which he had once wandered for days together.
He wrote from Caerdeon to Sir J. D. Hooker (June 22nd):—
"We have been here for ten days, how I wish it was possible for you to pay us a visit here; we have a beautiful house with a terraced garden, and a really magnificent view of Cader, right opposite. Old Cader is a grand fellow, and shows himself off superbly with every changing light. We remain here till the end of July, when the H. Wedgwoods have the house. I have been as yet in a very poor way; it seems as soon as the stimulus of mental work stops, my whole strength gives way. As yet I have hardly crawled half a mile from the house, and then have been fearfully fatigued. It is enough to make one wish oneself quiet in a comfortable tomb."
[252] The late Chauncey Wright, in an article published in the North American Review, vol. cxiii. pp. 83, 84. Wright points out that the words omitted are "essential to the point on which he [Mr. Mivart] cites Mr. Darwin's authority." It should be mentioned that the passage from which words are omitted is not given within inverted commas by Mr. Mivart.
[253] My father, as an Evolutionist, felt that he required more time than Sir W. Thomson's estimate of the age of the world allows.
[254] Chauncey Wright's review was published as a pamphlet in the autumn of 1871.
[255] The learned Jesuit on whom Mr. Mivart mainly relies.
[256] The same words may be applied to Mr. Mivart's treatment of my father. The following extract from a letter to Mr. Wallace (June 17th, 1874) refers to Mr. Mivart's statement (Lessons from Nature, p. 144) that Mr. Darwin at first studiously disguised his views as to the "bestiality of man":—
"I have only just heard of and procured your two articles in the Academy. I thank you most cordially for your generous defence of me against Mr. Mivart. In the Origin I did not discuss the derivation of any one species; but that I might not be accused of concealing my opinion, I went out of my way, and inserted a sentence which seemed to me (and still so seems) to disclose plainly my belief. This was quoted in my Descent of Man. Therefore it is very unjust ... of Mr. Mivart to accuse me of base fraudulent concealment."
[257] They were utilised to some extent in the 2nd edition, edited by me, and published in 1890.—F. D.