We all admit the value of Mr. Darwin’s work as having led to the general acceptance of evolution. No one who remembers average middle-class opinion on this subject before 1860 will deny that it was Mr. Darwin who brought us all round to descent with modification; but Mr. Allen cannot rightly say that evolution had only existed before Mr. Darwin’s time in “a shadowy, undeveloped state,” or as “a mere plausible and happy guess.” It existed in the same form as that in which most people accept it now, and had been carried to its extreme development, before Mr. Darwin’s father had been born. It is idle to talk of Buffon’s work as “a mere plausible and happy guess,” or to imply that the first volume of the “Philosophie Zoologique” of Lamarck was a less full and sufficient demonstration of descent with modification than the “Origin of Species” is. It has its defects, shortcomings, and mistakes, but it is an incomparably sounder work than the “Origin of Species;” and though it contains the deplorable omission of any reference to Buffon, Lamarck does not first grossly misrepresent Buffon, and then tell him to go away, as Mr. Darwin did to the author of the “Vestiges” and to Lamarck. If Mr. Darwin was believed and honoured for saying much the same as Lamarck had said, it was because Lamarck had borne the brunt of the laughing. The “Origin of Species” was possible because the “Vestiges” had prepared the way for it. The “Vestiges” were made possible by Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin, and these two were made possible by Buffon. Here a somewhat sharper line can be drawn than is usually found possible when defining the ground covered by philosophers. No one broke the ground for Buffon to anything like the extent that he broke it for those who followed him, and these broke it for one another.
Mr. Allen says (p. 11) that, “in Charles Darwin’s own words, Lamarck ‘first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic as well as in the inorganic world being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’” Mr. Darwin did indeed use these words, but Mr. Allen omits the pertinent fact that he did not use them till six thousand copies of his work had been issued, and an impression been made as to its scope and claims which the event has shown to be not easily effaced; nor does he say that Mr. Darwin only pays these few words of tribute in a quasi-preface, which, though prefixed to his later editions of the “Origin of Species,” is amply neutralised by the spirit which I have shown to be omnipresent in the body of the work itself. Moreover, Mr. Darwin’s statement is inaccurate to an unpardonable extent; his words would be fairly accurate if applied to Buffon, but they do not apply to Lamarck.
Mr. Darwin continues that Lamarck “seems to attribute all the beautiful adaptations in nature, such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on the branches of trees,” to the effects of habit. Mr. Darwin should not say that Lamarck “seems” to do this. It was his business to tell us what led Lamarck to his conclusions, not what “seemed” to do so. Any one who knows the first volume of the “Philosophie Zoologique” will be aware that there is no “seems” in the matter. Mr. Darwin’s words “seem” to say that it really could not be worth any practical naturalist’s while to devote attention to Lamarck’s argument; the inquiry might be of interest to antiquaries, but Mr. Darwin had more important work in hand than following the vagaries of one who had been so completely exploded as Lamarck had been. “Seem” is to men what “feel” is to women; women who feel, and men who grease every other sentence with a “seem,” are alike to be looked on with distrust.
“Still,” continues Mr. Allen, “Darwin gave no sign. A flaccid, cartilaginous, unphilosophic evolutionism had full possession of the field for the moment, and claimed, as it were, to be the genuine representative of the young and vigorous biological creed, while he himself was in truth the real heir to all the honours of the situation. He was in possession of the master-key which alone could unlock the bars that opposed the progress of evolution, and still he waited. He could afford to wait. He was diligently collecting, amassing, investigating; eagerly reading every new systematic work, every book of travels, every scientific journal, every record of sport, or exploration, or discovery, to extract from the dead mass of undigested fact whatever item of implicit value might swell the definite co-ordinated series of notes in his own commonplace books for the now distinctly contemplated ‘Origin of Species.’ His way was to make all sure behind him, to summon up all his facts in irresistible array, and never to set out upon a public progress until he was secure against all possible attacks of the ever-watchful and alert enemy in the rear,” &c. (p. 73).
It would not be easy to beat this. Mr. Darwin’s worst enemy could wish him no more damaging eulogist.
Of the “Vestiges” Mr. Allen says that Mr. Darwin “felt sadly” the inaccuracy and want of profound technical knowledge everywhere displayed by the anonymous author. Nevertheless, long after, in the “Origin of Species,” the great naturalist wrote with generous appreciation of the “Vestiges of Creation”—“In my opinion it has done excellent service in this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.”
I have already referred to the way in which Mr. Darwin treated the author of the “Vestiges,” and have stated the facts at greater length in “Evolution Old and New,” but it may be as well to give Mr. Darwin’s words in full; he wrote as follows on the third page of the original edition of the “Origin of Species”:—
“The author of the ‘Vestiges of Creation’ would, I presume, say that, after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird had given birth to a woodpecker, and some plant to the mistletoe, and that these had been produced perfect as we now see them; but this assumption seems to me to be no explanation, for it leaves the case of the coadaptation of organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life untouched and unexplained.”
The author of the “Vestiges” did, doubtless, suppose that “some bird” had given birth to a woodpecker, or more strictly, that a couple of birds had done so—and this is all that Mr. Darwin has committed himself to—but no one better knew that these two birds would, according to the author of the “Vestiges,” be just as much woodpeckers, and just as little woodpeckers, as they would be with Mr. Darwin himself. Mr. Chambers did not suppose that a woodpecker became a woodpecker per saltum though born of some widely different bird, but Mr. Darwin’s words have no application unless they convey this impression. The reader will note that though the impression is conveyed, Mr. Darwin avoids conveying it categorically. I suppose this is what Mr. Allen means by saying that he “made all things sure behind him.” Mr. Chambers did indeed believe in occasional sports; so did Mr. Darwin, and we have seen that in the later editions of the “Origin of Species” he found himself constrained to lay greater stress on these than he had originally done. Substantially, Mr. Chambers held much the same opinion as to the suddenness or slowness of modification as Mr. Darwin did, nor can it be doubted that Mr. Darwin knew this perfectly well.
What I have said about the woodpecker applies also to the mistletoe. Besides, it was Mr. Darwin’s business not to presume anything about the matter; his business was to tell us what the author of the “Vestiges” had said, or to refer us to the page of the “Vestiges” on which we should find this. I suppose he was too busy “collecting, amassing, investigating,” &c., to be at much pains not to misrepresent those who had been in the field before him. There is no other reference to the “Vestiges” in the “Origin of Species” than this suave but singularly fraudulent passage.