THE PREPARATION OF “THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES” (1858–59).
Almost immediately after the Linnean Society meeting, and evidently
earlier than September, the time mentioned in his “Autobiography,”
Darwin began to prepare a longer and more complete account of his work
on evolution and natural selection. This account was at first intended
for the Linnean Society, but it was soon found to be too long, and he
then decided to publish it as an independent volume. In thus preparing
the manuscript for what afterwards became the “Origin of Species,”
Darwin tells us (“Autobiography”) he acted under “the strong advice of
Lyell and Hooker,” and his letters also show the great interest that
they were taking in the work.
Darwin seems to have found the “Origin”--or his “Abstract,” as he
always calls it--very hard work, and he ends his letter to Wallace
(January 25th, 1859) with the words:
“I look at my own career as nearly run out. If I can publish my
Abstract and perhaps my greater work on the same subject, I shall
look at my course as done.”
At the same time, so great was his enthusiasm and interest, in spite
of the hard work and ill-health, that all through this period he was
making fresh observations whenever an opportunity occurred. Thus we
find him writing to Hooker about the thistle-down blown out to sea and
then back to shore again; about the migrations of slave-making ants
which he had been watching; about the bending of the pistil into the
line of the gangway leading to the honey when this latter “is secreted
at one point of the circle of the corolla,” etc. And on March 2nd,
1859, he writes about “an odd, though very little, fact”:--Large nuts
had been found in the crops of some nestling Petrels at St. Kilda,
which he suspected the parent birds had picked up from the Gulf Stream.
He arranged for one of these to be sent, and asked Hooker for the name
and country. He asks forgiveness for the trouble, “for it is a funny
little fact after my own heart.” The nuts turned out to be West Indian.
When the proposal for publication had been accepted by Murray and the
manuscript was assuming its final form, the letters to Hooker were more
frequent than ever. Writing on May 11th, 1859, Darwin again raises the
question of the relative importance of variation and selection.
“I imagine from some expressions ... that you look at variability
as some necessary contingency with organisms, and further that
there is some necessary tendency in the variability to go on
diverging in character or degree. _If you do_, I do not agree.”
Darwin’s splendid confidence in the future appears in a letter written
about this time (September 2, 1859) in which he begs Lyell not to
commit himself “to go a certain length and no further; for,” he says,
“I am deeply convinced that it is absolutely necessary to go the whole
vast length, or stick to the creation of each separate species.” He
asks Lyell to remember that his verdict will probably be of more
importance than the book itself in influencing the present acceptance
or rejection of the views. “In the future,” he continues, “I cannot
doubt about their admittance, and our posterity will marvel as much
about the current belief as we do about fossil shells having been
thought to have been created as we now see them.” And again writing
to Lyell a few days later (September 20th), he says, “I cannot too
strongly express my conviction of the general truth of my doctrines,
and God knows I have never shirked a difficulty.”
I have thought it well to bring strong evidence of Darwin’s entire
confidence in his conclusions, because his writings were so
extraordinarily balanced and judicial, and the weight he gives to
opposing considerations so great, that a superficial student might
imagine that he wrote and argued without any very strong convictions.
The letters to Mr. John Murray, the publisher, are eminently
characteristic, in the expressions of regret for trouble given, and
of pleasure at the work done, in the scrupulous care to prevent the
publisher from feeling committed, if on further acquaintance with the
manuscript he did not wish to accept it, and in the offer to contribute
towards the cost of corrections.
[Sidenote: THE “ORIGIN” PUBLISHED.]
The first edition of “The Origin of Species” was published November
24th, 1859. The edition consisted of 1,250 copies, all of which were
sold on the day of issue.
The full title of this volume, of which Darwin justly says
(“Autobiography”), “It is no doubt the chief work of my life,” is
reproduced below.
ON
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION,
OR THE
PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE
FOR LIFE.
BY CHARLES DARWIN, M.A.,
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL, GEOLOGICAL, LINNEAN, ETC., SOCIETIES;
AUTHOR OF “JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES DURING H.M.S. ‘BEAGLE’S’ VOYAGE
ROUND THE WORLD.”
This title is of interest, as has been pointed out by Professor E. Ray
Lankester, in relation to the controversy upon the exact meaning of the
word “Darwinism.” Some writers have argued that the term “Darwinism”
includes the whole of the causes of evolution accepted by Darwin--the
supposed inherited effects of use and disuse and the direct influence
of environment, which find a subordinate place in the “Origin,” as
well as natural selection, which is the real subject of the book and
which is fully defined in the title. It would seem appropriate to
use the term “Darwinism,” as Wallace uses it, to indicate the causes
of evolution which were suggested by Darwin himself, excluding these
supposed causes which had been previously brought forward by earlier
writers, and especially by Lamarck. The causes of evolution proposed
by Lamarck are seriously disputed, and it is possible that they may
be ultimately abandoned. If so, the integrity of “Darwinism,” as
interpreted by some controversialists, would be impaired; and this, it
will be generally admitted, would be most unfortunate, as well as most
unfair to the memory of Darwin.