THE BEATIFIC VISION
[Dante, having been brought by Beatrice to Paradise in the
Empyrean, is left by her in charge of St. Bernard, while she takes
her place among the blessed.--Prayer of St. Bernard to the
Virgin.--Her intercession.--The vision of God.--The end of desire.]
"Virgin Mother, daughter of thine own Son, humble and exalted more than
any creature, fixed term of the eternal counsel, thou art she who didst
so ennoble human nature that its own Maker disdained not to become His
own making. Within thy womb was rekindled the love through whose warmth
this flower has thus blossomed in the eternal peace. Here thou art to us
the noonday torch of charity, and below, among mortals, thou art the
living fount of hope. Lady, thou art so great, and so availest, that
whoso wishes grace, and has not recourse to thee, wishes his desire to
fly without wings. Thy benignity not only succors him who asks, but
oftentimes freely foreruns the asking. In thee mercy, in thee pity, in
thee magnificence, in thee whatever of goodness is in any creature, are
united. Now doth this man, who, from the lowest abyss of the universe,
far even as here, has seen one by one the lives of spirits, supplicate
thee, through grace, for virtue such that he may be able with his eyes
to uplift himself higher toward the Ultimate Salvation. And I, who never
for my own vision burned more than I do for his, proffer to thee all my
prayers, and pray that they be not scant, that with thy prayers thou
wouldst dissipate for him every cloud of his mortality, so that the
Supreme Pleasure may be displayed to him. Further I pray thee, Queen,
who canst what so thou wilt, that, after so great a vision, thou wouldst
preserve his affections sound. May thy guardianship vanquish human
impulses. Behold Beatrice with all the blessed for my prayers clasp
their hands to thee."
The eyes beloved and revered by God, fixed on the speaker, showed to us
how pleasing unto her are devout prayers. Then to the Eternal Light were
they directed, on which it is not to be believed that eye so clear is
turned by any creature.
And I, who to the end of all desires was approaching, even as I ought,
ended within myself the ardor of my longings. Bernard was beckoning to
me, and was smiling, that I should look upward; but I was already, of my
own accord, such as he wished; for my sight, becoming pure, was entering
more and more through the radiance of the lofty Light which of itself is
true.[44]
Thenceforward my vision was greater than our speech, which yields to
such a sight, and the memory yields to such excess.
As is he who dreaming sees, and after the dream the passion remains
imprinted, and the rest returns not to the mind, such am I; for my
vision almost wholly fails, while the sweetness that was born of it yet
distills within my heart. Thus the snow is by the sun unsealed; thus on
the wind, in the light leaves, was lost the saying of the Sibyl.
O Supreme Light, that so high upliftest Thyself from mortal conceptions,
re-lend a little to my mind of what Thou didst appear, and make my
tongue so powerful that it may be able to leave one single spark of Thy
glory for the future people; for by returning somewhat to my memory and
by sounding a little in these verses, more of Thy victory shall be
conceived.
I think that by the keenness of the living ray which I endured, I should
have been dazzled if my eyes had been averted from it. And it comes to
my mind that for this reason I was the more hardy to sustain so much,
that I joined my look unto the Infinite Goodness.
O abundant Grace, whereby I presumed to fix my eyes through the Eternal
Light so far that there I consummated my vision!
In its depth I saw that whatsoever is dispersed through the universe is
there included, bound with love in one volume; substance and accidents
and their modes, fused together, as it were, in such wise, that that of
which I speak is one simple Light. The universal form of this knot[45] I
believe that I saw, because in saying this I feel that I more abundantly
rejoice. One instant only is greater oblivion for me than
five-and-twenty centuries to the emprise which made Neptune wonder at
the shadow of Argo.[46]
Thus my mind, wholly rapt, was gazing fixed, motionless, and intent, and
ever with gazing grew enkindled. In that Light one becomes such that it
is impossible he should ever consent to turn himself from it for other
sight; because the Good which is the object of the will is all collected
in it, and outside of it that is defective which is perfect there.
Now will my speech be shorter even in respect to that which I remember,
than an infant's who still bathes his tongue at the breast. Not because
more than one simple semblance was in the Living Light wherein I was
gazing, which is always such as it was before; but through my sight,
which was growing strong in me as I looked, one sole appearance, as I
myself changed, was altering itself to me.
Within the profound and clear subsistence of the lofty Light appeared to
me three circles of three colors and of one dimension; and one appeared
reflected by the other, as Iris by Iris, and the third appeared fire
which from the one and from the other is equally breathed forth.
O how short is the telling, and how feeble toward my conception! and
this toward what I saw is such that it suffices not to call it little.
O Light Eternal, that sole dwellest in Thyself, sole understandest
Thyself, and, by Thyself understood and understanding, lovest and
smilest on Thyself! That circle, which, thus conceived, appeared in Thee
as a reflected light, being somewhile regarded by my eyes, seemed to me
depicted within itself, of its own very color, by our effigy, wherefore
my sight was wholly set upon it. As is the geometer who wholly applies
himself to measure the circle, and finds not by thinking that principle
of which he is in need, such was I at that new sight. I wished to see
how the image accorded with the circle, and how it has its place
therein; but my own wings were not for this, had it not been that my
mind was smitten by a flash in which its wish came.[47]
To my high fantasy here power failed; but now my desire and my will,
like a wheel which evenly is moved, the Love was turning which moves the
Sun and the other stars.[48]
JAMES DARMESTETER
(1849-1894)
A good example of the latter-day enlightened savant is the French Jew,
James Darmesteter, whose premature death robbed the modern world of
scholarship of one of its most distinguished figures. Scholars who do
noble service in adding to the sum total of human knowledge often are
specialists, the nature of whose work excludes them from general
interest and appreciation. It was not so with this man,--not alone an
Oriental philologist of more than national repute, but a broadly
cultured, original mind, an enlightened spirit, and a master of literary
expression. Darmesteter calls for recognition as a maker of literature
as well as a scientist.
The son of a humble Jewish bookbinder, subjected to the disadvantages
and hardships of poverty, James Darmesteter was born at Chateau-Salins
in Lorraine in 1849, but got his education in Paris, early imbibing the
Jewish traditions, familiar from youth with the Bible and the Talmud. At
the public school, whence he was graduated at eighteen, he showed his
remarkable intellectual powers and attracted the attention of scholars
like Breal and Burnouf, who, noting his aptitude for languages, advised
devotion to Oriental linguistics. After several years of uncertainty,
years spent with books and in travel, and in the desultory production of
poetry and fiction, philological study was undertaken as his life work,
with remarkable results. For twenty years he labored in this field, and
his appointment in 1882 to succeed Renan as Secretary of the Asiatic
Society of France speaks volumes for the position he won. In 1885 he
became professor of Iranian languages and literature in the College of
France. Other scholastic honors fell to him in due course and good
measure.
As a scholar Darmesteter's most important labors were the exposition of
Zoroastrianism, the national faith of ancient Persia, which he made a
specialty; and his French translation of and commentary on the Avesta,
the Bible of that religion. As an interpreter of Zoroaster he sought to
unite synthetically two opposing modern schools: that which relied
solely upon native traditions, and that which, regarding these as
untrustworthy, drew its conclusions from an examination of the text,
supplemented by the aid of Sanskrit on the side of language and of the
Vedas on the side of religion. Darmesteter's work was thus boldly
comprehensive. He found in the Avesta the influence of such discordant
elements as the Bible, Buddha, and Greek philosophy, and believed that
in its present form it was composed at a later time than has been
supposed. These technical questions are still mooted points with the
critics. The translation of the Avesta will perhaps stand as his
greatest achievement. A herculean labor of four years, it was rewarded
by the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres with the 20,000-franc
prize given but once in a decade for the work which, in the Academy's
opinion, had best served or brought most honor to the country.
But the technical accomplishments of learning represent but a fragment
of Darmesteter's amazing mental activity. He wrote a striking book on
the Mahdi, the tenacious belief in the Mohammedan Messiah taking hold on
his imagination. He was versed in English literature, edited
Shakespeare, and introduced his countrymen to Browning. While in
Afghanistan on a philological mission he gathered, merely as a side
pursuit, a unique collection of Afghan folk-songs, and the result was a
fascinating and valuable paper in a new field. He helped to found a
leading French review. Articles of travel, critiques on subjects
political, religious, literary, and social, fell fast from his pen. In
his general essays on these broader, more vital aspects of thought and
life, he is an artist in literary expression, a writer with a distinct
and great gift for form. Here his vigorous mind, ample training, his
humanistic tastes and humanitarian aspirations, are all finely in
evidence.
The English reader who seeks an introduction to Darmesteter is directed
to his 'Selected Essays,' translated by Helen B. Jastrow, edited with a
memoir by Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr. (Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
Boston). There is a translation by Ada S. Ballin of his 'The Mahdi'
(Harper and Brothers, New York); and in the Contemporary Review for
January, 1895, is a noble appreciation of Darmesteter by his friend
Gaston Paris. In the 'Sacred Books of the East' will be found an English
rendering of the Avesta by Darmesteter and Mills.
As a thinker in the philosophical sense Darmesteter was remarkable.
Early breaking away from orthodox Judaism, his philological and
historical researches led him to accept the conclusions of destructive
criticism with regard to the Bible; and a disciple of Renan, he became
enrolled among those scholars who see in science the one explanation of
the universe. But possessing, along with his keen analytic powers, a
nature dominantly ethical, he made humanity his idol. His patriotism for
France was intense; and, a Jew always sympathetic to the wonderful
history of his people,--in his later years by a brilliant, poetical,
almost audacious interpretation of the Old Testament,--he found a
solution of the riddle of life in the Hebrew prophets. What he deemed
their essential faith--Judaism stripped of ritual and legend--he
declared to be in harmony with the scientific creed of the present:
belief in the unity of moral law,--the Old Testament Jehovah; and belief
in the eventual triumph of justice upon this earth,--the modern
substitute for the New Testament heaven. This doctrine, which in most
hands would be cold and comfortless enough, he makes vital, engaging,
through the passionate presentation of an eloquent lover of his
fellow-man. In a word, Darmesteter was a Positivist, dowered, like that
other noble Positivist George Eliot, with a nature sensitive to
spiritual issues.
An idyllic passage in Darmesteter's toilful scholar life was his tender
friendship with the gifted English woman, A. Mary F. Robinson. Attracted
by her lovely verse, the intellectual companionship ripened into love,
and for his half-dozen final years he enjoyed her wifely aid and
sympathy in what seems to have been an ideal union. The end, when it
came, was quick and painless. Always of a frail constitution, stunted in
body from childhood, he died in harness, October 19th, 1894, his head
falling forward on his desk as he wrote. The tributes that followed make
plain the enthusiastic admiration James Darmesteter awakened in those
who knew him best. The leading Orientalist of his generation, he added
to the permanent acquisitions of scholarship, and made his impress as
one of the remarkable personalities of France in the late nineteenth
century. In the language of a friend, "a Jew by race, a Greek by
culture, a Frenchman in heart," he furnishes another illustration of
that strain of genius which seems like a compensatory gift to the Jewish
folk for its manifold buffetings at the hand of Fate.
ERNEST RENAN
From 'Selected Essays': copyrighted 1895 by Houghton, Mifflin and
Company
The mistaken judgments passed upon M. Renan are due to the fact that in
his work he did not place the emphasis upon the Good, but upon the True.
Men concluded that for him, therefore, science was the whole of life.
The environment in which he was formed was forgotten,--an environment in
which the moral sense was exquisite and perfect, while the scientific
sense was _nil_. He did not need to discover the moral sense,--it was
the very atmosphere in which he lived. When the scientific sense awoke
in him, and he beheld the world and history transfigured by it, he was
dazzled, and the influence lasted throughout his life. He dreamed of
making France understand this new revelation; he was the apostle of
this gospel of truth and science, but in heart and mind he never
attacked what is permanent and divine in the other gospel. Thus he was a
complete man, and deserved the disdain of dilettantes morally dead, and
of mystics scientifically atonic.
What heritage has M. Renan left to posterity? As a scholar he created
religious criticism in France, and prepared for universal science that
incomparable instrument, the Corpus. As an author he bequeathed to
universal art, pages which will endure, and to him may be applied what
he said of George Sand:--"He had the divine faculty of giving wings to
his subject, of producing under the form of fine art the idea which in
other hands remained crude and formless." As a philosopher he left
behind a mass of ideas which he did not care to collect in doctrinal
shape, but which nevertheless constitute a coherent whole. One thing
only in this world is certain,--duty. One truth is plain in the course
of the world as science reveals it: the world is advancing to a higher,
more perfect form of being. The supreme happiness of man is to draw
nearer to this God to come, contemplating him in science, and preparing,
by action, the advent of a humanity nobler, better endowed, and more
akin to the ideal Being.
JUDAISM
From 'Selected Essays': copyrighted 1895 by Houghton, Mifflin and
Company
Judaism has not made the miraculous the basis of its dogma, nor
installed the supernatural as a permanent factor in the progress of
events. Its miracles, from the time of the Middle Ages, are but a poetic
detail, a legendary recital, a picturesque decoration; and its
cosmogony, borrowed in haste from Babylon by the last compiler of the
Bible, with the stories of the apple and the serpent, over which so many
Christian generations have labored, never greatly disturbed the
imagination of the rabbis, nor weighed very heavily upon the thought of
the Jewish philosophers. Its rites were never "an instrument of faith,"
an expedient to "lull" rebellious thought into faith; they are merely
cherished customs, a symbol of the family, of transitory value, and
destined to disappear when there shall be but _one_ family in a world
converted to the _one_ truth. Set aside all these miracles, all these
rites, and behind them will be found the two great dogmas which, ever
since the prophets, constitute the whole of Judaism--the Divine unity
and Messianism; unity of law throughout the world, and the terrestrial
triumph of justice in humanity. These are the two dogmas which at the
present time illuminate humanity in its progress, both in the scientific
and social order of things, and which are termed in modern parlance
_unity of forces_ and _belief in progress_.
For this reason, Judaism is the only religion that has never entered
into conflict, and never can, with either science or social progress,
and that has witnessed, and still witnesses, all their conquests without
a sense of fear. These are not hostile forces that it accepts or submits
to merely from a spirit of toleration or policy, in order to save the
remains of its power by a compromise. They are old friendly voices,
which it recognizes and salutes with joy; for it has heard them resound
for centuries already, in the axioms of free thought and in the cry of
the suffering heart. For this reason the Jews, in all the countries
which have entered upon the new path, have begun to take a share in all
the great works of civilization, in the triple field of science, of art,
and of action; and that share, far from being an insignificant one, is
out of all proportion to the brief time that has elapsed since their
enfranchisement.
Does this mean that Judaism should nurse dreams of ambition, and think
of realizing one day that "invisible church of the future" invoked by
some in prayer? This would be an illusion, whether on the part of a
narrow sectarian, or on that of an enlightened individual. The truth
however remains, that the Jewish spirit can still be a factor in this
world, making for the highest science, for unending progress; and that
the mission of the Bible is not yet complete. The Bible is not
responsible for the partial miscarriage of Christianity, due to the
compromises made by its organizers, who, in their too great zeal to
conquer and convert Paganism, were themselves converted by it. But
everything in Christianity which comes in a direct line from Judaism
lives, and will live; and it is Judaism which through Christianity has
cast into the old polytheistic world, to ferment there until the end of
time, the sentiment of unity, and an impatience to bring about charity
and justice. The reign of the Bible, and also of the Evangelists in so
far as they were inspired by the Bible, can become established only in
proportion as the positive religions connected with it lose their
power. Great religions outlive their altars and their priests.
Hellenism, abolished, counts less skeptics to-day than in the days of
Socrates and Anaxagoras. The gods of Homer died when Phidias carved them
in marble, and now they are immortally enthroned in the thought and
heart of Europe. The Cross may crumble into dust, but there were words
spoken under its shadow in Galilee, the echo of which will forever
vibrate in the human conscience. And when the nation who made the Bible
shall have disappeared,--the race and the cult,--though leaving no
visible trace of its passage upon earth, its imprint will remain in the
depth of the heart of generations, who will, unconsciously perhaps, live
upon what has thus been implanted in their breasts. Humanity, as it is
fashioned in the dreams of those who desire to be called freethinkers,
may with the lips deny the Bible and its work; but humanity can never
deny it in its heart, without the sacrifice of the best that it
contains, faith in unity and hope for justice, and without a relapse
into the mythology and the "might makes right" of thirty centuries ago.
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN
(1809-1882)
BY E. RAY LANKESTER
[Illustration: CHAS. R. DARWIN]
Charles Robert Darwin, the great naturalist and author of the "Darwinian
theory," was the son of Dr. Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848) and
grandson of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). He was born at Shrewsbury on
February 12th, 1809. W. E. Gladstone, Alfred Tennyson, and Abraham
Lincoln were born in the same year. Charles Darwin was the youngest of a
family of four, having an elder brother and two sisters. He was sent to
a day school at Shrewsbury in the year of his mother's death, 1817. At
this age he tells us that the passion for "collecting" which leads a man
to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong
in him, and was clearly innate, as none of his brothers or sisters had
this taste. A year later he was removed to the Shrewsbury grammar
school, where he profited little by the education in the dead languages
administered, and incurred (as even to-day would be the case in English
schools) the rebukes of the head-master Butler for "wasting his time"
upon such unprofitable subjects as natural history and chemistry, which
he pursued "out of school."
When Charles was sixteen his father sent him to Edinburgh to study
medicine, but after two sessions there he was removed and sent to
Cambridge (1828) with the intention that he should become a clergyman.
In 1831 he took his B. A. degree as what is called a "pass-man." In
those days the injurious system of competitive examinations had not laid
hold of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge as it has since, and
Darwin quietly took a pass degree whilst studying a variety of subjects
of interest to him, without a thought of excelling in an examination. He
was fond of all field sports, of dogs and horses, and also spent much
time in excursions, collecting and observing with Henslow the professor
of botany, and Sedgwick the celebrated geologist. An undergraduate
friend of those days has declared that "he was the most genial,
warm-hearted, generous and affectionate of friends; his sympathies were
with all that was good and true; he had a cordial hatred for everything
false, or vile, or cruel, or mean, or dishonorable. He was not only
great but pre-eminently good, and just and lovable."
Through Henslow and the sound advice of his uncle Josiah Wedgwood (the
son of the potter of Etruria) he accepted an offer to accompany Captain
Fitzroy as naturalist on H. M. S. Beagle, which was to make an extensive
surveying expedition. The voyage lasted from December 27th, 1831, to
October 2d, 1836. It was, Darwin himself says, "by far the most
important event in my life, and has determined my whole career." He had
great opportunities of making explorations on land whilst the ship was
engaged in her surveying work in various parts of the southern
hemisphere, and made extensive collections of plants and animals, fossil
as well as living forms, terrestrial as well as marine. On his return he
was busy with the description of these results, and took up his
residence in London. His 'Journal of Researches' was published in 1839,
and is now familiar to many readers in its third edition, published in
1860 under the title 'A Naturalist's Voyage; Journal of Researches into
the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the
Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle round the World, under the command of Captain
Fitzroy, R.N.'
This was Darwin's first book, and is universally held to be one of the
most delightful records of a naturalist's travels ever produced. It is
to be placed alongside of Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative,' and is the
model followed by the authors of other delightful books of travel of a
later date, such as Wallace's 'Malay Archipelago,' Moseley's 'Naturalist
on the Challenger,' and Belt's 'Naturalist in Nicaragua.' We have given
in our selections from Darwin's writings the final pages of 'A
Naturalist's Voyage' as an example of the style which characterizes the
book. In it Darwin shows himself an ardent and profound lover of the
luxuriant beauty of nature in the tropics, a kindly observer of men,
whether missionaries or savages; an incessant student of natural
things--rocks, plants, and animals; and one with a mind so keenly set
upon explaining these things and assigning them to their causes, that
none of his observations are trivial, but all of value and many of
first-rate importance. The book is addressed, as are all of Darwin's
books, to the general reader. It seemed to be natural to him to try and
explain his observations and reasonings which led to them and followed
from them to a wide circle of his fellow-men. The reader at once feels
that Darwin is an honest and modest man, who desires his sympathy and
seeks for his companionship in the enjoyment of his voyage and the
interesting facts and theories gathered by him in distant lands. The
quiet unassuming style of the narrative, and the careful explanation of
details in such a way as to appeal to those who have little or no
knowledge of natural history, gives a charm to the 'Naturalist's Voyage'
which is possessed in no less a degree by his later books. A writer in
the Quarterly Review in 1839 wrote, in reviewing the 'Naturalist's
Voyage,' of the "charm arising from the freshness of heart which is
thrown over these pages of a strong intellectual man and an acute and
deep observer." The places visited in the course of the Beagle's voyage,
concerning each of which Darwin has something to say, were the Cape Verd
Islands, St. Paul's Rocks, Fernando Noronha, parts of South America,
Tierra del Fuego, the Galapagos Islands, the Falkland Islands, Tahiti,
New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, Keeling Island, the Maldives,
Mauritius, St. Helena, Ascension. The most important discoveries
recorded in the book--also treated at greater length in special
scientific memoirs--are the explanation of the ring-like form of coral
islands, the geological structure of St. Helena and other islands, and
the relation of the living inhabitants--great tortoises, lizards, birds,
and various plants--of the various islands of the Galapagos Archipelago
to those of South America.
In 1839 (shortly before the publication of his journal) Darwin married
his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, daughter of Josiah Wedgwood of Maer,
and in 1842 they took the country-house and little property of Down near
Orpington in Kent, which remained his home and the seat of his labors
for forty years; that is, until his death on April 19th, 1882. In a
letter to his friend Captain Fitzroy of the Beagle, written in 1846,
Darwin says, "My life goes on like clockwork, and I am fixed on the spot
where I shall end it." Happily, he was possessed of ample private
fortune, and never undertook any teaching work nor gave any of his
strength to the making of money. He was able to devote himself entirely
to the studies in which he took delight; and though suffering from weak
health due to a hereditary form of dyspepsia, he presented the rare
spectacle of a man of leisure more fully occupied, more absorbed in
constant and exhausting labors, than many a lawyer, doctor, professor,
or man of letters. His voyage seems to have satisfied once for all his
need for traveling, and his absences from Down were but few and brief
during the rest of his life. Here most of his children were born, five
sons and three daughters. One little girl died in childhood; the rest
grew up around him and remained throughout his life in the closest terms
of intimacy and affection with him and their mother. Here he carried on
his experiments in greenhouse, garden, and paddock; here he collected
his library and wrote his great books. He became a man of
well-considered habits and method, carefully arranging his day's
occupation so as to give so many hours to noting the results of
experiments, so many to writing and reading, and an hour or two to
exercise in his grounds or a ride, and playing with his children.
Frequently he was stopped for days and even weeks from all intellectual
labor by attacks of vomiting and giddiness. Great, as were his
sufferings on account of ill health, it is not improbable that the
retirement of life which was thus forced on him, to a very large extent
determined his wonderful assiduity in study and led to the production by
him of so many great works.
In later years these attacks were liable to ensue upon prolonged
conversation with visitors, if a subject of scientific interest were
discussed. His wife, who throughout their long and happy union devoted
herself to the care of her husband so as to enable him to do a maximum
amount of work with least suffering in health, would come and fetch him
away after half an hour's talk, that he might lie down alone in a quiet
room. Then after an hour or so he would return with a smile, like a boy
released from punishment, and launch again with a merry laugh into talk.
Never was there an invalid who bore his maladies so cheerfully, or who
made so light of a terrible burden. Although he was frequently seasick
during the voyage of the Beagle, he did not attribute his condition in
later life in any way to that experience, but to inherited weakness.
During the hours passed in his study he found it necessary to rest at
intervals, and adopted regularly the plan of writing for an hour and of
then lying down for half an hour, whilst his wife or daughter read to
him a novel! After half an hour he would again resume his work, and
again after an hour return to the novel. In this way he got through the
greater part of the circulating libraries' contents. He declared that he
had no taste for literature, but liked a story, especially about a
pretty girl; and he would only read those in which all ended well.
Authors of stories ending in death and failure ought, he declared, to be
hung!
He rarely went to London, on account of his health, and consequently
kept up a very large correspondence with scientific friends, especially
with Lyell, Hooker, and Huxley. He made it a rule to preserve every
letter he received, and his friends were careful to preserve his; so
that in the 'Life and Letters' published after his death by his son
Frank--who in later years lived with his father and assisted him in his
work--we have a most interesting record of the progress of his
speculations, as well as a delightful revelation of his beautiful
character. His house was large enough to accommodate several guests at a
time; and it was his delight to receive here for a week's end not only
his old friends and companions, but younger naturalists, and others, the
companions of his sons and daughters. Over six feet in height, with a
slight stoop of his high shoulders, with a brow of unparalleled
development overshadowing his merry blue eyes, and a long gray beard and
mustache,--he presented the ideal picture of a natural philosopher. His
bearing was, however, free from all pose of superior wisdom or
authority. The most charming and unaffected gayety, and an eager innate
courtesy and goodness of heart, were its dominant notes. His personality
was no less fascinating and rare in quality than are the immortal
products of his intellect.
The history of the great works which Darwin produced, and especially of
his theory of the Origin of Species, is best given in his own words. The
passage which is here referred to is a portion of an autobiographical
sketch written by him in 1876, not for publication but for the use of
his family, and is printed in the 'Life and Letters.' Taken together
with the statement as to his views on religion, it gives a great insight
both into the character and mental quality of the writer. It is
especially remarkable as the attempt of a truly honest and modest man to
account for the wonderful height of celebrity and intellectual eminence
to which he was no less astonished than pleased to find himself raised.
But it also furnishes the reader with an admirable _catalogue raisonne_
of his books, arranged in chronological order.
A few more notes as to Darwin's character will help the reader to
appreciate his work. His friendships were remarkable, characterized on
his side by the warmest and most generous feeling. Henslow, Fitzroy,
Lyell, Hooker, and Huxley stand out as his chief friends and
correspondents. Henslow was professor of botany at Cambridge, and took
Darwin with him when a student there for walks, collecting plants and
insects. His admiration for Henslow's character, and his tribute to his
fine simplicity and warmth of feeling in matters involving the wrongs of
a down-trodden class or cruelty to an individual, are evidence of deep
sympathy between the natures of Darwin and his first teacher. Of
Fitzroy, the captain of H.M.S. Beagle--with whom he quarreled for a day
because Fitzroy defended slavery--Darwin says that he was in many ways
the noblest character he ever knew. His love and admiration for Lyell
were unbounded. Lyell was the man who taught him the method--the
application of the causes at present discoverable in nature to the past
history of the earth--by which he was led to the solution of the
question as to the origin of organic forms on the earth's surface. He
regarded Lyell, who with Mrs. Lyell often visited him at Down, more than
any other man as his master and teacher. Hooker--still happily surviving
from among this noble group of men--was his "dear old friend"; his most
constant and unwearied correspondent; he from whom Darwin could always
extract the most valuable facts and opinions in the field of botanical
science, and the one upon whose help he always relied. Huxley was for
Darwin not merely a delightful and charming friend, but a "wonderful
man,"--a most daring, skillful champion, whose feats of literary
swordsmanship made Darwin both tremble and rejoice. Samples of his
correspondence with these fellow-workers are given below. The letter to
Hooker (September 26th, 1862) is particularly interesting, as recording
one of the most important discoveries of his later years,--confirmed by
the subsequent researches of Gardiner and others,--and as containing a
pretty confession of his jealous desire to exalt the _status_ of plants.
Often he spoke and wrote in his letters of individual plants with which
he was experimenting as "little rascals."
Darwin shared with other great men whose natures approach perfection, an
unusual sympathy with and power over dogs, and a love for children. The
latter trait is most beautifully expressed in a note which was found
amongst his papers, giving an account of his little girl, who died at
the age of ten years. Written for his own eyes only, it is a most
delicate and tender composition, and should be pondered side by side
with his frank and--necessarily to some readers--almost terrifying
statement of his thoughts on religion.
Darwin's only self-indulgence was snuff-taking. In later years he smoked
an occasional cigarette, but his real "little weakness" was snuff. It is
difficult to suppose that he did not benefit by the habit, careful as he
was to keep it in check. He kept his snuff-box in the hall of his house,
so that he should have to take the trouble of a walk in order to get a
pinch, and not have too easy an access to the magic powder.
The impression made on him by his own success and the overwhelming
praise and even reverence which he received from all parts of the world,
was characteristic of his charming nature. Darwin did not receive these
proofs of the triumphs of his views with the solemnity of an inflated
reformer who has laid his law upon the whole world of thought. Quite
otherwise. He was simply delighted. He chuckled gayly over the spread of
his views, almost as a sportsman--and we must remember that in his young
days he _was_ a sportsman--may rejoice in the triumphs of his own
favorite "racer," or even as a schoolboy may be proud and happy in the
success of "the eleven" of which he is captain. He delighted to count up
the sale of his books, not specially for the money value it represented,
though he was too sensible to be indifferent to that, but because it
proved to him that his long and arduous life of thought, experiment, and
literary work was not in vain. To have been or to have posed as being
indifferent to popular success, would have required a man of less vivid
sympathy with his fellow-men: to have been puffed up and pretentious
would have needed one less gifted with a sense of humor, less conscious
of the littleness of one man, however talented, in the vast procession
of life on the earth's surface. His delight in his work and its success
was of the perfect and natural kind, which he could communicate to his
wife and daughters, and might have been shared by a child.
I, who write of him here, had the great privilege of staying with him
from time to time at Down, and I find it difficult to record the
strangely mixed feeling of reverential admiration and extreme personal
attachment and affection with which I came to regard him. I have never
known or heard of a man who combined with such exceptional intellectual
power so much cheeriness and love of humor, and such ideal kindness,
courtesy, and modesty. Owing to the fact that my father was a naturalist
and man of letters, I as a boy knew Henslow and Lyell, Darwin's
teachers, and have myself enjoyed a naturalist's walk with the one and
the geological discussions of the other. I first saw Darwin himself in
1853, when he was recommended to my boyish imagination as "a man who had
ridden up a mountain on the back of a tortoise" (in the Galapagos
Islands)! When I began to work at and write on zoology he showed his
kindness of heart by writing to me in praise of my first book: he wrote
to me later in answer to my appeal for guidance, that "physiological
experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation; but not for
mere damnable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me
sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it, else I shall
not sleep to-night." When I prosecuted Slade the spiritualistic
impostor, and obtained his conviction at Bow Street as a common rogue,
Darwin was much interested, and after the affair was over wrote to say
that he was sure that I had been at great expense in effecting what he
considered to be a public benefit, and that he should like to be allowed
to contribute ten pounds to the cost of the prosecution. He was ever
ready in this way to help by timely gifts of money what he thought to be
a good cause, as for instance in the erection of the Zoological Station
of Naples by Dr. Anton Dohrn, to which he gave a hundred pounds. His
most characteristic minor trait which I remember, was his sitting in his
drawing-room at Down in his high-seated arm-chair, and whilst laughing
at some story or joke, slapping his thigh with his right hand and
exclaiming, with a quite innocent and French freedom of speech, "O my
God! That's very good. That's capital." Perhaps one of the most
interesting things that I ever heard him say was when, after describing
to me an experiment in which he had placed under a bell-jar some pollen
from a male flower, together with an unfertilized female flower, in
order to see whether, when kept at a distance but under the same jar,
the one would act in any way on the other, he remarked:--"That's a
fool's experiment. But I love fools' experiments. I am always making
them." A great deal might be written as comment on that statement.
Perhaps the thoughts which it suggests may be summed up by the
proposition that even a wise experiment when made by a fool generally
leads to a false conclusion, but that fools' experiments conducted by a
genius often prove to be leaps through the dark into great discoveries.
As examples of Darwin's writings I have chosen, in addition to those
already mentioned, certain passages from his great book on the 'Origin
of Species,' in which he explains what he understands by the terms
"Natural Selection" and the "Struggle for Existence." These terms
invented by Darwin--but specially the latter--have become "household
words." The history of his thoughts on the subject of the Origin of
Species is given in the account of his books, written by himself and
already referred to. His letter to Professor Asa Gray (September 5th,
1857) is a most valuable brief exposition of his theory and an admirable
sample of his correspondence. The distinguished American botanist was
one of his most constant correspondents and a dear personal friend.
I have also given as an extract the final pages of the 'Origin of
Species,' in which Darwin eloquently defends the view of nature to which
his theory leads. A similar and important passage on the subject of
'Creative Design' is also given: it is taken from that wonderful
collection of facts and arguments published by Darwin under the title of
'The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication.' It cannot be
too definitely stated, as Darwin himself insisted, that his theory of
the Origin of Species is essentially an extension of the argument used
by Lyell in his 'Principles of Geology.' Just as Lyell accounted for the
huge masses of stratified rocks, the upheaved mountain chains, the deep
valleys, and the shifting seas of the earth's surface, by adducing the
long-continued cumulative action of causes which are at this present
moment in operation and can be observed and measured at the present day:
so Darwin demonstrates that natural variation, and consequent selection
by "breeders" and "fanciers" at the present day, give rise to new forms
of plants and animals; and that the cumulative, long-continued action of
_Natural_ Selection in the Struggle for Existence, or the survival of
favorable variations, can and must have effected changes, the magnitude
of which is only limited by the length of time during which the process
has been going on.
The style of Darwin's writings is remarkable for the absence of all
affectation, of all attempt at epigram, literary allusion, or rhetoric.
In this it is admirably suited to its subject. At the same time there is
no sacrifice of clearness to brevity, nor are technical terms used in
place of ordinary language. The greatest pains are obviously given by
the author to enable his reader to thoroughly understand the matter in
hand. Further, the reader is treated not only with this courtesy of full
explanation, but with extreme fairness and modesty. Darwin never slurs
over a difficulty nor minimizes it. He states objections and awkward
facts prominently, and without shirking proceeds to deal with them by
citation of experiment or observation carried out by him for the
purpose. His modesty towards his reader is a delightful characteristic.
He simply desires to persuade you as one reasonable friend may persuade
another. He never thrusts a conclusion nor even a step towards a
conclusion upon you, by a demand for your confidence in him as an
authority, or by an unfair weighting of the arguments which he balances,
or by a juggle of word-play. The consequence is that though Darwin
himself thought he had no literary ability, and labored over and
re-wrote his sentences, we have in his works a model of clear exposition
of a great argument, and the most remarkable example of persuasive style
in the English language--persuasive because of its transparent honesty
and scrupulous moderation.
Darwin enjoyed rather better health in the last ten years of his life
than before, and was able to work and write constantly. For some four
months before his death, but not until then, it was evident that his
heart was seriously diseased. He died on April 19th, 1882, at the age of
seventy-three. Almost his last words were, "I am not the least afraid to
die." In 1879 he added to the manuscript of his autobiography already
referred to, these words:--"As for myself, I believe that I have acted
rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to Science. I feel no
remorse from having committed any great sin, but have often and often
regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow-creatures."
From his early manhood to old age, the desire to do what was right
determined the employment of his powers. He has done to his
fellow-creatures an imperishable good, in leaving to them his writings
and the example of his noble life.
[Illustration: signature of E. Ray Lankester]
IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL
From 'A Naturalist's Voyage'
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in
sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether
those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of
Tierra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail. Both are temples filled
with the varied productions of the God of Nature; no one can stand in
these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the
mere breath of his body. In calling up images of the past, I find that
the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes; yet these
plains are pronounced by all wretched and useless. They can be described
only by negative characters: without habitations, without water, without
trees, without mountains, they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why
then--and the case is not peculiar to myself--have these arid wastes
taken so firm a hold on my memory? Why have not the still more level,
the greener and more fertile pampas, which are serviceable to mankind,
produced an equal impression? I can scarcely analyze these feelings; but
it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the imagination. The
plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they are scarcely passable, and
hence unknown; they bear the stamp of having lasted, as they are now,
for ages, and there appears no limit to their duration through future
time. If, as the ancients supposed, the flat earth was surrounded by an
impassable breadth of water, or by deserts heated to an intolerable
excess, who would not look at these last boundaries to man's knowledge
with deep but ill-defined sensations?
Lastly, of natural scenery, the views from lofty mountains, though
certainly in one sense not beautiful, are very memorable. When looking
down from the highest crest of the Cordillera, the mind, undisturbed by
minute details, was filled with the stupendous dimensions of the
surrounding masses.
Of individual objects, perhaps nothing is more certain to create
astonishment than the first sight in his native haunt of a barbarian--of
man in his lowest and most savage state. One's mind hurries back over
past centuries, and then asks: Could our progenitors have been men like
these? men whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible to us
than those of the domesticated animals; men who do not possess the
instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or
at least of arts consequent on that reason. I do not believe it is
possible to describe or paint the difference between savage and
civilized man. It is the difference between a wild and tame animal; and
part of the interest in beholding a savage is the same which would lead
every one to desire to see the lion in his desert, the tiger tearing his
prey in the jungle, or the rhinoceros wandering over the wild plains of
Africa.
Among the other most remarkable spectacles which we have beheld may be
ranked the Southern Cross, the cloud of Magellan, and the other
constellations of the southern hemisphere--the water-spout--the glacier
leading its blue stream of ice, overhanging the sea in a bold
precipice--a lagoon island raised by the reef-building corals--an active
volcano--and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake. These
latter phenomena perhaps possess for me a peculiar interest, from their
intimate connection with the geological structure of the world. The
earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the
earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity,
has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the
labored works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance
of his boasted power.
It has been said that the love of the chase is an inherent delight in
man--a relic of an instinctive passion. If so, I am sure the pleasure of
living in the open air, with the sky for a roof and the ground for a
table, is part of the same feeling; it is the savage returning to his
wild and native habits. I always look back to our boat cruises and my
land journeys, when through unfrequented countries, with an extreme
delight, which no scenes of civilization could have created. I do not
doubt that every traveler must remember the glowing sense of happiness
which he experienced when he first breathed in a foreign clime, where
the civilized man had seldom or never trod.
There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage which are
of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank;
it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures. Each
part assumes its proper dimensions; continents are not looked at in the
light of islands, or islands considered as mere specks, which are in
truth larger than many kingdoms of Europe. Africa, or North and South
America, are well-sounding names, and easily pronounced; but it is not
until having sailed for weeks along small portions of their shores that
one is thoroughly convinced what vast spaces on our immense world these
names imply.
From seeing the present state, it is impossible not to look forward with
high expectations to the future progress of nearly an entire hemisphere.
The march of improvement consequent on the introduction of Christianity
throughout the South Sea probably stands by itself in the records of
history. It is the more striking when we remember that only sixty years
since, Cook, whose excellent judgment none will dispute, could foresee
no prospect of a change. Yet these changes have now been effected by the
philanthropic spirit of the British nation.
In the same quarter of the globe Australia is rising, or indeed may be
said to have risen, into a grand centre of civilization, which at some
not very remote period will rule as empress over the southern
hemisphere. It is impossible for an Englishman to behold these distant
colonies without a high pride and satisfaction. To hoist the British
flag seems to draw with it, as a certain consequence, wealth,
prosperity, and civilization.
In conclusion, it appears to me that nothing can be more improving to a
young naturalist than a journey in distant countries. It both sharpens
and partly allays that want and craving which, as Sir J. Herschel
remarks, a man experiences although every corporeal sense be fully
satisfied. The excitement from the novelty of objects, and the chance of
success, stimulate him to increased activity. Moreover, as a number of
isolated facts soon become uninteresting, the habit of comparison leads
to generalization. On the other hand, as the traveler stays but a short
time in each place, his descriptions must generally consist of mere
sketches instead of detailed observations. Hence arises, as I have found
to my cost, a constant tendency to fill up the wide gaps of knowledge by
inaccurate and superficial hypotheses.
But I have too deeply enjoyed the voyage not to recommend any
naturalist,--although he must not expect to be so fortunate in his
companions as I have been,--to take all chances, and to start, on
travels by land if possible, if otherwise on a long voyage. He may feel
assured he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare
cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of
view the effect ought to be to teach him good-humored patience, freedom
from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the
best of every occurrence. In short, he ought to partake of the
characteristic qualities of most sailors. Traveling ought also to teach
him distrust; but at the same time he will discover how many truly
kind-hearted people there are with whom he never before had, or ever
again will have, any further communication, who yet are ready to offer
him the most disinterested assistance.
THE GENESIS OF 'THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES'
From 'Life and Letters'
After several fruitless searches in Surrey and elsewhere, we found this
house and purchased it. I was pleased with the diversified appearance of
vegetation proper to a chalk district, and so unlike what I had been
accustomed to in the Midland counties; and still more pleased with the
extreme quietness and rusticity of the place. It is not however quite so
retired a place as a writer in a German periodical makes it, who says
that my house can be approached only by a mule-track! Our fixing
ourselves here has answered admirably in one way which we did not
anticipate,--namely, by being very convenient for frequent visits from
our children.
Few persons can have lived a more retired life than we have done.
Besides short visits to the houses of relations, and occasionally to the
seaside or elsewhere, we have gone nowhere. During the first part of our
residence we went a little into society, and received a few friends
here; but my health almost always suffered from the excitement, violent
shivering and vomiting attacks being thus brought on. I have therefore
been compelled for many years to give up all dinner parties; and this
has been somewhat of a deprivation to me, as such parties always put me
into high spirits. From the same cause I have been able to invite here
very few scientific acquaintances....
During the voyage of the Beagle I had been deeply impressed by
discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals, covered with
armor like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the manner in
which closely allied animals replace one another in proceeding
southwards over the Continent; and thirdly, by the South-American
character of most of the productions of the Galapagos Archipelago, and
more especially by the manner in which they differ slightly on each
island of the group; none of the islands appearing to be very ancient in
a geological sense.
It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could
only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become
modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that
neither the action of the surrounding conditions, nor the will of the
organisms (especially in the case of plants), could account for the
innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully
adapted to their habits of life; for instance, a woodpecker or a
tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I
had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until these could
be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavor to prove by
indirect evidence that species have been modified.
After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the
example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in
any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and
nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My
first note-book was opened in July 1837. I worked on true Baconian
principles; and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale,
more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed
inquiries, by conversation with skillful breeders and gardeners, and by
extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I
read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and
Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that
selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of
animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms
living in a state of nature, remained for some time a mystery to me.
In October 1838--that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic
inquiry--I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus on Population'; and
being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of
animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances
favorable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to
be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species.
Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so
anxious to avoid prejudice that I determined not for some time to write
even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed myself the
satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in
thirty-five pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into
one of two hundred and thirty pages, which I had fairly copied out and
still possess.
[Illustration: _THE APE-MAN_
Photogravure from a painting by Gabriel Max.
Professor Max has long been known to the greater public through those
wonderful pictures in which some tragic fate, some heart-break of
mankind, has found expression; but only an inner circle of intimates has
known the artist as an able student of nature. He has thought much and
deeply upon the existence and origin of things; and his studies in
comparative anatomy have given him unusual preparation for the treatment
of the present subject. The entire picture is made up of yellowish and
brownish-gray tones, expressive of the twilight of the forest. The skin
of the female is about the shade of that of the Southern European of
to-day; that of the male is darker. The most interesting of the three
figures is the young ape-mother, who reclines against a tree-trunk and
offers her breast to her first-born. The expression of the face is
remarkable; happiness at the possession of the child mingles with
misgiving for its future. The tear which trembles upon her cheek seems
indicative of the flood of tears which is to run down the history of her
descendants. The father has less of this feeling, and stands upright
beside his wife and child and looks down upon them with an air of pride
and paternal joy. The original painting is owned by the celebrated
Darwinian philosopher Ernest Haeckel of Jena.]
But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is
astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg, how
I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the
tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in
character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is
obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed
under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders, and so
forth: and I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my
carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long
after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the
modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become
adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.
Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I
began at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as
that which was afterwards followed in my 'Origin of Species'; yet it was
only an abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I got
through about half the work on this scale. But my plans were overthrown,
for early in the summer of 1858 Mr. Wallace, who was then in the Malay
Archipelago, sent me an essay 'On the Tendency of Varieties to depart
Indefinitely from the Original Type'; and this essay contained exactly
the same theory as mine. Mr. Wallace expressed the wish that if I
thought well of his essay, I should send it to Lyell for perusal.
The circumstances under which I consented, at the request of Lyell and
Hooker, to allow of an abstract from my MS., together with a letter to
Asa Gray dated September 5th 1857, to be published at the same time with
Wallace's essay, are given in the 'Journal of the Proceedings of the
Linnean Society,' 1858, page 45. I was at first very unwilling to
consent, as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so
unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble was his
disposition. The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa Gray had
neither been intended for publication, and were badly written. Mr.
Wallace's essay, on the other hand, was admirably expressed and quite
clear. Nevertheless, our joint productions excited very little
attention, and the only published notice of them which I can remember
was by Professor Haughton of Dublin, whose verdict was that all that was
new in them was false, and what was true was old. This shows how
necessary it is that any new view should be explained at considerable
length in order to arouse public attention....
My habits are methodical, and this has been of not a little use for my
particular line of work. Lastly, I have had ample leisure from not
having to earn my own bread. Even ill health, though it has annihilated
several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society
and amusement.
Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have
amounted to, has been determined as far as I can judge by complex and
diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most
important have been the love of science, unbounded patience in long
reflecting over any subject, industry in observing and collecting facts,
and a fair share of invention as well as of common-sense. With such
moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should
have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on
some important points.
CURIOUS ATROPHY OF AESTHETIC TASTE
From 'Life and Letters'
There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind, leading me to put at
first my statement or proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I
used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for
several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand
whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words;
and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often
better ones than I could have written deliberately.
Having said thus much about my manner of writing, I will add that with
my large books I spend a good deal of time over the general arrangement
of the matter. I first make the rudest outline in two or three pages,
and then a larger one in several pages, a few words or one word standing
for a whole discussion or a series of facts. Each one of these headings
is again enlarged and often transferred before I begin to write _in
extenso_. As in several of my books facts observed by others have been
very extensively used, and as I have always had several quite distinct
subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention that I keep from thirty
to forty large portfolios in cabinets with labeled shelves, into which I
can at once put a detached reference or memorandum. I have bought many
books, and at their ends I make an index of all the facts that concern
my work; or if the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract,
and of such abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before beginning on
any subject I look to all the short indexes and make a general and
classified index, and by taking the one or more proper portfolios, I
have all the information collected during my life ready for use.
I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last
twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of
many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure; and even as a schoolboy
I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical
plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and
music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read
a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it
so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my
taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too
energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me
pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me
the exquisite delight which it formerly did. On the other hand, novels
which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high order,
have been for years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often
bless all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, and
I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily--against
which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to my taste, does not
come into the first class unless it contains some person whom one can
thoroughly love, and if a pretty woman, all the better.
This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all
the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels (independently
of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts
of subjects, interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have
become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large
collections of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of
that part of the brain alone on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot
conceive. A man with a mind more highly organized or better constituted
than mine would not, I suppose, have thus suffered: and if I had to
live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and
listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of
my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The
loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be
injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by
enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
PRIVATE MEMORANDUM CONCERNING HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER
From 'Life and Letters'
Our poor child Annie was born in Gower Street on March 2d, 1841, and
expired at Malvern at midday on the 23d of April, 1851.
I write these few pages, as I think in after years, if we live, the
impressions now put down will recall more vividly her chief
characteristics. From whatever point I look back at her, the main
feature in her disposition which at once rises before me is her buoyant
joyousness, tempered by two other characteristics; namely, her
sensitiveness, which might easily have been overlooked by a stranger,
and her strong affection. Her joyousness and animal spirits radiated
from her whole countenance, and rendered every movement elastic and full
of life and vigor. It was delightful and cheerful to behold her. Her
dear face now rises before me, as she used sometimes to come running
down-stairs with a stolen pinch of snuff for me, her whole form radiant
with the pleasure of giving pleasure. Even when playing with her
cousins, when her joyousness almost passed into boisterousness, a single
glance of my eye, not of displeasure (for I thank God I hardly ever cast
one on her), but of want of sympathy, would for some minutes alter her
whole countenance.
The other point in her character, which made her joyousness and spirits
so delightful, was her strong affection, which was of a most clinging,
fondling nature. When quite a baby this showed itself in never being
easy without touching her mother when in bed with her; and quite lately
she would, when poorly, fondle for any length of time one of her
mother's arms. When very unwell, her mother lying down beside her seemed
to soothe her in a manner quite different from what it would have done
to any of our other children. So again she would at almost any time
spend half an hour in arranging my hair, "making it," as she called it,
"beautiful," or in smoothing, the poor dear darling! my collar or
cuffs--in short, in fondling me.
Besides her joyousness thus tempered, she was in her manners remarkably
cordial, frank, open, straightforward, natural, and without any shade of
reserve. Her whole mind was pure and transparent. One felt one knew her
thoroughly and could trust her. I always thought that come what might,
we should have had in our old age at least one loving soul which nothing
could have changed. All her movements were vigorous, active, and usually
graceful. When going round the Sand-walk with me, although I walked
fast, yet she often used to go before, pirouetting in the most elegant
way, her dear face bright all the time with the sweetest smiles.
Occasionally she had a pretty coquettish manner towards me, the memory
of which is charming. She often used exaggerated language, and when I
quizzed her by exaggerating what she had said, how clearly can I now see
the little toss of the head, and exclamation of "Oh, papa, what a shame
of you!" In the last short illness, her conduct in simple truth was
angelic. She never once complained; never became fretful; was ever
considerate of others, and was thankful in the most gentle, pathetic
manner for everything done for her. When so exhausted that she could
hardly speak, she praised everything that was given her, and said some
tea "was beautifully good." When I gave her some water she said, "I
quite thank you;" and these I believe were the last precious words ever
addressed by her dear lips to me.
We have lost the joy of the household and the solace of our old age. She
must have known how we loved her. Oh that she could now know how deeply,
how tenderly, we do still and shall ever love her dear joyous face!
Blessings on her!
April 30th, 1851.
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
From 'Life and Letters'
I am much engaged, an old man, and out of health, and I cannot spare
time to answer your questions fully,--nor indeed can they be answered.
Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the habit of
scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For
myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation. As for
a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting
vague probabilities....
During these two years [October 1836 to January 1839] I was led to think
much about religion.
Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being
heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves
orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some
point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that
amused them. But I had gradually come by this time--_i.e._ 1836 to
1839--to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the
sacred books of the Hindoos. The question then continually rose before
my mind and would not be banished,--is it credible that if God were now
to make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected
with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, etc., as Christianity is connected with
the Old Testament? This appeared to me utterly incredible.
By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to
make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is
supported,--and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the
more incredible do miracles become,--that the men at that time were
ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,--that
the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with
the events,--that they differ in many important details, far too
important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies
of eye-witnesses;--by such reflections as these, which I give not as
having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me,--I
gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The
fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the
earth like wild-fire had some weight with me.
But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for
I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters
between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at
Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all
that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult,
with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would
suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow
rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no
distress.
Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God
until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague
conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument from design in
Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive,
fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can
no longer argue that for instance the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell
must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by
man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic
beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which
the wind blows. But I have discussed this subject at the end of my book
on the 'Variations of Domesticated Animals and Plants'; and the argument
there given has never, as far as I can see, been answered.
But passing over the endless beautiful adaptations which we everywhere
meet with, it may be asked, How can the generally beneficent arrangement
of the world be accounted for? Some writers indeed are so much impressed
with the amount of suffering in the world, that they doubt, if we look
to all sentient beings, whether there is more of misery or of happiness;
whether the world as a whole is a good or bad one. According to my
judgment happiness decidedly prevails, though this would be very
difficult to prove. If the truth of this conclusion be granted, it
harmonizes well with the effects which we might expect from natural
selection. If all the individuals of any species were habitually to
suffer to an extreme degree, they would neglect to propagate their kind;
but we have no reason to believe that this has ever, or at least often,
occurred. Some other considerations moreover lead to the belief that all
sentient beings have been formed so as to enjoy, as a general rule,
happiness.
Every one who believes as I do, that all the corporeal and mental organs
(excepting those which are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous to
the possessor) of all beings have been developed through natural
selection, or the survival of the fittest, together with use or habit,
will admit that these organs have been formed so that their possessors
may compete successfully with other beings, and thus increase in number.
Now an animal may be led to pursue that course of action which is most
beneficial to the species by suffering, such as pain, hunger, thirst,
and fear; or by pleasure, as in eating and drinking, and in the
propagation of the species, etc.; or by both means combined, as in the
search for food. But pain or suffering of any kind, if long continued,
causes depression and lessens the power of action, yet is well adapted
to make a creature guard itself against any great or sudden evil.
Pleasurable sensations, on the other hand, may be long continued without
any depressing effect; on the contrary, they stimulate the whole system
to increased action. Hence it has come to pass that most or all sentient
beings have been developed in such a manner, through natural selection,
that pleasurable sensations serve as their habitual guides. We see this
in the pleasure from exertion, even occasionally from great exertion of
the body or mind,--in the pleasure of our daily meals, and especially in
the pleasure derived from sociability, and from loving our families. The
sum of such pleasures as these, which are habitual or frequently
recurrent, give, as I can hardly doubt, to most sentient beings an
excess of happiness over misery, although many occasionally suffer much.
Such suffering is quite compatible with the belief in natural selection,
which is not perfect in its action, but tends only to render each
species as successful as possible in the battle for life with other
species, in wonderfully complex and changing circumstances.
That there is much suffering in the world, no one disputes. Some have
attempted to explain this with reference to man by imagining that it
serves for his moral improvement. But the number of men in the world is
as nothing compared with that of all other sentient beings, and they
often suffer greatly without any moral improvement. This very old
argument from the existence of suffering against the existence of an
intelligent First Cause seems to me a strong one; whereas, as just
remarked, the presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that
all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural
selection.
At the present day, the most usual argument for the existence of an
intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings
which are experienced by most persons.
Formerly I was led by feelings such as those just referred to (although
I do not think that the religious sentiment was ever strongly developed
in me), to the firm conviction of the existence of God and of the
immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in
the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, "it is not possible to
give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and
devotion, which fill and elevate the mind." I well remember my
conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.
But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and
feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man
who has become color-blind, and the universal belief by men of the
existence of redness makes my present loss of perception of not the
least value as evidence. This argument would be a valid one if all men
of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God;
but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I
cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight
as evidence of what really exists. The state of mind which grand scenes
formerly excited in me, and which was intimately connected with a belief
in God, did not essentially differ from that which is often called the
sense of sublimity; and however difficult it may be to explain the
genesis of this sense, it can hardly be advanced as an argument for the
existence of God, any more than the powerful though vague and similar
feelings excited by music.
With respect to immortality, nothing shows me [so clearly] how strong
and almost instinctive a belief it is, as the consideration of the view
now held by most physicists, namely, that the sun with all the planets
will in time grow too cold for life, unless indeed some great body
dashes into the sun, and thus gives it fresh life. Believing as I do
that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than
he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient
beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued
slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human
soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.
Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the
reason, and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more
weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility
of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man, with
his capacity of looking far backward and far into futurity, as the
result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel
compelled to look to a First Cause, having an intelligent mind in some
degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.
This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can
remember, when I wrote the 'Origin of Species'; and it is since that
time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker.
But then arises the doubt: Can the mind of man, which has, as I fully
believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the
lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?
I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The
mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one
must be content to remain an Agnostic.
C. DARWIN TO MISS JULIA WEDGWOOD: ON DESIGN
From 'Life and Letters'
July 11th [1861].
Some one has sent us 'Macmillan,' and I must tell you how much I admire
your article; though at the same time I must confess that I could not
clearly follow you in some parts, which probably is in main part due to
my not being at all accustomed to metaphysical trains of thought. I
think that you understand my book perfectly, and that I find a very rare
event with my critics. The ideas in the last page have several times
vaguely crossed my mind. Owing to several correspondents I have been led
lately to think, or rather to try to think, over some of the chief
points discussed by you. But the result has been with me a
maze--something like thinking on the origin of evil, to which you
allude. The mind refuses to look at this universe, being what it is,
without having been designed; yet where one would most expect
design,--viz., in the structure of a sentient being,--the more I think
on the subject, the less I can see proof of design. Asa Gray and some
others look at each variation, or at least at each beneficial variation
(which A. Gray would compare with the rain-drops which do not fall on
the sea, but on to the land to fertilize it), as having been
providentially designed. Yet when I asked him whether he looks at each
variation in the rock-pigeon, by which man has made by accumulation a
pouter or fantail pigeon, as providentially designed for man's
amusement, he does not know what to answer; and if he or any one admits
[that] these variations are accidental, as far as purpose is concerned
(of course not accidental as to their cause or origin), then I can see
no reason why he should rank the accumulated variations by which the
beautifully adapted woodpecker has been formed, as providentially
designed. For it would be easy to imagine the enlarged crop of the
pouter, or tail of the fantail, as of some use to birds in a state of
nature, having peculiar habits of life. These are the considerations
which perplex me about design; but whether you will care to hear them, I
know not....
[On the subject of design, he wrote (July 1860) to Dr. Gray:--]
One word more on "designed laws" and "undesigned results." I see a bird
which I want for food, take my gun and kill it; I do this _designedly_.
An innocent and good man stands under a tree and is killed by a flash of
lightning. Do you believe (and I really should like to hear) that God
_designedly_ killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this; I
can't and don't. If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow
snaps up a gnat, that God designed that that particular swallow should
snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that
the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of
neither man nor gnat is designed, I see no good reason to believe that
their _first_ birth or production should be necessarily designed.
CORRESPONDENCE
From 'The Life and Letters'
C. DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER
DOWN, February 24th [1863].
_My Dear Hooker:_
I am astonished at your note. I have not seen the Athenaeum, but I have
sent for it, and may get it to-morrow; and will then say what I think.
I have read Lyell's book ['The Antiquity of Man']. The whole certainly
struck me as a compilation, but of the highest class; for when possible
the facts have been verified on the spot, making it almost an original
work. The Glacial chapters seem to me best, and in parts magnificent. I
could hardly judge about Man, as all the gloss of novelty was completely
worn off. But certainly the aggregation of the evidence produced a very
striking effect on my mind. The chapter comparing language and changes
of species seems most ingenious and interesting. He has shown great
skill in picking out salient points in the argument for change of
species; but I am deeply disappointed (I do not mean personally) to find
that his timidity prevents him giving any judgment.... From all my
communications with him, I must ever think that he has really entirely
lost faith in the immutability of species; and yet one of his strongest
sentences is nearly as follows: "If it should _ever_ be rendered highly
probable that species change by variation and natural selection," etc.,
etc. I had hoped he would have guided the public as far as his own
belief went.... One thing does please me on this subject, that he seems
to appreciate your work. No doubt the public or a part may be induced to
think that as he gives to us a larger space than to Lamarck, he must
think there is something in our views. When reading the brain chapter,
it struck me forcibly that if he had said openly that he believed in
change of species, and as a consequence that man was derived from some
quadrumanous animal, it would have been very proper to have discussed by
compilation the differences in the most important organ, viz., the
brain. As it is, the chapter seems to me to come in rather by the head
and shoulders. I do not think (but then I am as prejudiced as Falconer
and Huxley, or more so) that it is too severe. It struck me as given
with judicial force. It might perhaps be said with truth that he had no
business to judge on a subject on which he knows nothing; but compilers
must do this to a certain extent. (You know I value and rank high
compilers, being one myself.) I have taken you at your word, and
scribbled at great length. If I get the Athenaeum to-morrow, I will add
my impression of Owen's letter....
The Lyells are coming here on Sunday evening to stay till Wednesday. I
dread it, but I must say how much disappointed I am that he has not
spoken out on species, still less on man. And the best of the joke is
that he thinks he has acted with the courage of a martyr of old. I hope
I may have taken an exaggerated view of his timidity, and shall
_particularly_ be glad of your opinion on this head. When I got his book
I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of
species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public
than all of us; and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in
common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven he had said not a word on the
subject.
WEDNESDAY MORNING.--I have read the Athenaeum. I do not think Lyell will
be nearly so much annoyed as you expect. The concluding sentence is no
doubt very stinging. No one but a good anatomist could unravel Owen's
letter; at least it is quite beyond me....
Lyell's memory plays him false when he says all anatomists were
astonished at Owen's paper: it was often quoted with approbation. I
_well_ remember Lyell's admiration at this new classification! (Do not
repeat this.) I remember it because, though I knew nothing whatever
about the brain, I felt a conviction that a classification thus founded
on a single character would break down, and it seemed to me a great
error not to separate more completely the Marsupialia....
What an accursed evil it is that there should be all this quarreling,
within what ought to be the peaceful realms of science.
I will go to my own present subject of inheritance and forget it all for
a time. Farewell, my dear old friend.
C. DARWIN.
C. DARWIN TO T. H. HUXLEY
OCTOBER 3d, 1864.
_My Dear Huxley:_
If I do not pour out my admiration of your article on Koelliker, I shall
explode. I never read anything better done. I had much wished his
article answered, and indeed thought of doing so myself, so that I
considered several points. You have hit on all, and on some in addition,
and oh, by Jove, how well you have done it! As I read on and came to
point after point on which I had thought, I could not help jeering and
scoffing at myself, to see how infinitely better you had done it than I
could have done. Well, if any one who does not understand Natural
Selection will read this, he will be a blockhead if it is not as clear
as daylight. Old Flourens was hardly worth the powder and shot; but how
capitally you bring in about the Academician, and your metaphor of the
sea-sand is _inimitable_.
It is a marvel to me how you can resist becoming a regular reviewer.
Well, I have exploded now, and it has done me a deal of good.
C. DARWIN TO E. RAY LANKESTER
DOWN, March 15th [1870].
_My Dear Sir:_
I do not know whether you will consider me a very troublesome man, but I
have just finished your book, and cannot resist telling you how the
whole has much interested me. No doubt, as you say, there must be much
speculation on such a subject, and certain results cannot be reached;
but all your views are highly suggestive, and to my mind that is high
praise. I have been all the more interested, as I am now writing on
closely allied though not quite identical points. I was pleased to see
you refer to my much despised child, 'Pangenesis,' who I think will some
day, under some better nurse, turn out a fine stripling. It has also
pleased me to see how thoroughly you appreciate (and I do not think that
this is general with the men of science) H. Spencer; I suspect that
hereafter he will be looked at as by far the greatest living philosopher
in England; perhaps equal to any that have lived. But I have no
business to trouble you with my notions. With sincere thanks for the
interest which your work has given me, I remain, yours very faithfully,
CH. DARWIN.
FROM A LETTER TO J.D. HOOKER
CLIFF COTTAGE, BOURNEMOUTH, September 26th, 1862.
_My Dear Hooker:_
Do not read this till you have leisure. If that blessed moment ever
comes, I should be very glad to have your opinion on the subject of this
letter. I am led to the opinion that Drosera must have diffused matter
in organic connection, closely analogous to the nervous matter of
animals. When the glans of one of the papillae or tentacles in its
natural position is supplied with nitrogenized fluid and certain other
stimulants, or when loaded with an extremely slight weight, or when
struck several times with a needle, the pedicel bends near its base in
under one minute. These varied stimulants are conveyed down the pedicel
by some means; it cannot be vibration, for drops of fluid put on quite
quietly cause the movement; it cannot be absorption of the fluid from
cell to cell, for I can see the rate of absorption, which, though quick,
is far slower, and in Dionaea the transmission is instantaneous; analogy
from animals would point to transmission through nervous matter.
Reflecting on the rapid power of absorption in the glans, the extreme
sensibility of the whole organ, and the conspicuous movement caused by
varied stimulants, I have tried a number of substances which are not
caustic or corrosive, ... but most of which are known to have a
remarkable action on the nervous matter of animals. You will see the
results in the inclosed paper. As the nervous matter of different
animals is differently acted on by the same poisons, one would not
expect the same action on plants and animals; only, if plants have
diffused nervous matter, some degree of analogous action. And this is
partially the case. Considering these experiments, together with the
previously made remarks on the functions of the parts, I cannot avoid
the conclusion that Drosera possesses matter at least in some degree
analogous in constitution and function to nervous matter. Now do tell me
what you think, as far as you can judge from my abstract. Of course many
more experiments would have to be tried; but in former years I tried on
the whole leaf, instead of on separate glands, a number of innocuous
substances, such as sugar, gum, starch, etc., and they produced no
effect. Your opinion will aid me in deciding some future year in going
on with this subject. I should not have thought it worth attempting, but
I had nothing on earth to do.
My dear Hooker, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
P.S.--We return home on Monday 28th. Thank Heaven!
THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE
From the 'Origin of Species'
Before entering on the subject of this chapter, I must make a few
preliminary remarks, to show how the struggle for existence bears on
Natural Selection. It has been seen in the last chapter that amongst
organic beings in a state of nature there is some individual
variability; indeed, I am not aware that this has ever been disputed. It
is immaterial for us whether a multitude of doubtful forms be called
species, or sub-species, or varieties; what rank, for instance, the two
or three hundred doubtful forms of British plants are entitled to hold,
if the existence of any well-marked varieties be admitted. But the mere
existence of individual variability and of some few well-marked
varieties, though necessary as the foundation for the work, helps us but
little in understanding how species arise in nature. How have all those
exquisite adaptations of one part of the organization to another part,
and to the conditions of life, and of one organic being to another
being, been perfected? We see these beautiful co-adaptations most
plainly in the woodpecker and the mistletoe; and only a little less
plainly in the humblest parasite which clings to the hairs of a
quadruped or feathers of a bird; in the structure of the beetle which
dives through the water; in the plumed seed which is wafted by the
gentlest breeze: in short, we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and
in every part of the organic world.
Again, it may be asked, how is it that varieties, which I have called
incipient species, become ultimately converted into good and distinct
species, which in most cases obviously differ from each other far more
than do the varieties of the same species? How do those groups of
species, which constitute what are called distinct genera, and which
differ from each other more than do the species of the same genus,
arise? All these results, as we shall more fully see in the next
chapter, follow from the struggle for life. Owing to this struggle,
variations, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if they
be in any degree profitable to the individuals of a species, in their
infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to their
physical conditions of life, will tend to the preservation of such
individuals, and will generally be inherited by the offspring. The
offspring also will thus have a better chance of surviving; for of the
many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small
number can survive. I have called this principle, by which each slight
variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in
order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the
expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the
Fittest, is more accurate and is sometimes equally convenient. We have
seen that man by selection can certainly produce great results, and can
adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the accumulation of slight
but useful variations given to him by the hand of Nature. But Natural
Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for
action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts as the
works of Nature are to those of Art.
We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence.
In my future work this subject will be treated, as it well deserves, at
greater length. The elder De Candolle and Lyell have largely and
philosophically shown that all organic beings are exposed to severe
competition. In regard to plants, no one has treated this subject with
more spirit and ability than W. Herbert, Dean of Manchester, evidently
the result of his great horticultural knowledge. Nothing is easier than
to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more
difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this
conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly ingrained in the mind,
the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity,
abundance, extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite
misunderstood. We behold the face of nature bright with gladness, we
often see superabundance of food; we do not see, or we forget, that the
birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds,
and are thus constantly destroying life; or we forget how largely these
songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, are destroyed by birds and
beasts of prey; we do not always bear in mind that though food may be
now superabundant, it is not so at all seasons of each recurring year.
I should premise that I use this term in a large and metaphorical sense,
including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is
more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in
leaving progeny. Two canine animals, in a time of dearth, may be truly
said to struggle with each other which shall get food and live. But a
plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the
drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent on the
moisture. A plant which annually produces a thousand seeds, of which
only one on an average comes to maturity, may be more truly said to
struggle with the plants of the same and other kinds which already
clothe the ground. The mistletoe is dependent on the apple and a few
other trees, but can only in a far-fetched sense be said to struggle
with these trees, for if too many of these parasites grow on the same
tree, it languishes and dies. But several seedling mistletoes, growing
close together on the same branch, may more truly be said to struggle
with each other. As the mistletoe is disseminated by birds, its
existence depends on them; and it may metaphorically be said to struggle
with other fruit-bearing plants, in tempting the birds to devour and
thus disseminate its seeds. In these several senses, which pass into
each other, I use for convenience's sake the general term of Struggle
for Existence.
THE GEOMETRICAL RATIO OF INCREASE
From 'Origin of Species'
A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which
all organic beings tend to increase. Every being which during its
natural lifetime produces several eggs or seeds must suffer destruction
during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional
year; otherwise, on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers
would quickly become so inordinately great that no country could
support the product. Hence, as more individuals are produced than can
possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence,
either one individual with another of the same species, or with the
individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of
life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the
whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no
artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage.
Although some species may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in
numbers, all cannot do so, for the world would not hold them.
There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally
increases at so high a rate that if not destroyed, the earth would soon
be covered by the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has
doubled in twenty-five years; and at this rate, in less than a thousand
years there would literally not be standing-room for his progeny.
Linnaeus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two
seeds--and there is no plant so unproductive as this--and their
seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there
would be a million plants. The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder
of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its
probable minimum rate of natural increase; it will be safest to assume
that it begins breeding when thirty years old: and goes on breeding till
ninety years old, bringing forth six young in the interval, and
surviving till one hundred years old: if this be so, after a period of
from 740 to 750 years there would be nearly nineteen million elephants
alive, descended from the first pair.
But we have better evidence on this subject than mere theoretical
calculations, namely, the numerous recorded cases of the astonishingly
rapid increase of various animals in a state of nature, when
circumstances have been favorable to them during two or three following
seasons. Still more striking is the evidence from our domestic animals
of many kinds which have run wild in several parts of the world; if the
statements of the rate of increase of slow-breeding cattle and horses in
South America, and latterly in Australia, had not been well
authenticated, they would have been incredible. So it is with plants;
cases could be given of introduced plants which have become common
throughout whole islands in a period of less than ten years. Several of
the plants, such as the cardoon and a tall thistle, which are now the
commonest over the wide plains of La Plata, clothing square leagues of
surface almost to the exclusion of every other plant, have been
introduced from Europe; and there are plants which now range in India,
as I hear from Falconer, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya, which have
been imported from America since its discovery. In such cases--and
endless others could be given--no one supposes that the fertility of the
animals or plants has been suddenly and temporarily increased in any
sensible degree. The obvious explanation is that the conditions of life
have been highly favorable, and that there has consequently been less
destruction of the old and young, and that nearly all the young have
been enabled to breed. Their geometrical ratio of increase, the result
of which never fails to be surprising, simply explains their
extraordinarily rapid increase and wide diffusion in their new homes.
In a state of nature almost every full-grown plant annually produces
seed, and amongst animals there are very few which do not annually pair.
Hence we may confidently assert that all plants and animals are tending
to increase at a geometrical ratio,--that all would rapidly stock every
station in which they could anyhow exist,--and that this geometrical
tendency to increase must be checked by destruction at some period of
life. Our familiarity with the larger domestic animals tends, I think,
to mislead us: we see no great destruction falling on them, but we do
not keep in mind that thousands are annually slaughtered for food, and
that in a state of nature an equal number would have somehow to be
disposed of.
The only difference between organisms which annually produce eggs or
seeds by the thousand, and those which produce extremely few, is that
the slow breeders would require a few more years to people, under
favorable conditions, a whole district, let it be ever so large. The
condor lays a couple of eggs and the ostrich a score, and yet in the
same country the condor may be the more numerous of the two; the Fulmar
petrel lays but one egg, yet it is believed to be the most numerous bird
in the world. One fly deposits hundreds of eggs, and another, like the
hippobosca, a single one; but this difference does not determine how
many individuals of the two species can be supported in a district. A
large number of eggs is of some importance to those species which depend
on a fluctuating amount of food, for it allows them rapidly to increase
in number. But the real importance of a large number of eggs or seeds is
to make up for much destruction at some period of life; and this period
in the great majority of cases is an early one. If an animal can in any
way protect its own eggs or young, a small number may be produced, and
yet the average stock be fully kept up; but if many eggs or young are
destroyed, many must be produced, or the species will become extinct. It
would suffice to keep up the full number of a tree which lived on an
average for a thousand years, if a single seed were produced once in a
thousand years, supposing that this seed were never destroyed, and could
be insured to germinate in a fitting place. So that, in all cases, the
average number of any animal or plant depends only indirectly on the
number of its eggs or seeds.
In looking at nature, it is most necessary to keep the foregoing
considerations always in mind--never to forget that every single organic
being may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;
that each lives by a struggle at some period of its life; that heavy
destruction inevitably falls either on the young or old, during each
generation or at recurrent intervals. Lighten any check, mitigate the
destruction ever so little, and the number of the species will almost
instantaneously increase to any amount.
OF THE NATURE OF THE CHECKS TO INCREASE
From 'The Origin of Species'
The causes which check the natural tendency of each species to increase
are most obscure. Look at the most vigorous species: by as much as it
swarms in numbers, by so much will it tend to increase still further. We
know not exactly what the checks are, even in a single instance. Nor
will this surprise any one who reflects how ignorant we are on this
head, even in regard to mankind, although so incomparably better known
than any other animal. This subject of the checks to increase has been
ably treated by several authors, and I hope in a future work to discuss
it at considerable length, more especially in regard to the feral
animals of South America. Here I will make only a few remarks, just to
recall to the reader's mind some of the chief points. Eggs or very
young animals seem generally to suffer most, but this is not invariably
the case. With plants there is a vast destruction of seeds; but from
some observations which I have made, it appears that the seedlings
suffer most, from germinating in ground already thickly stocked with
other plants. Seedlings also are destroyed in vast numbers by various
enemies: for instance, on a piece of ground three feet long and two
wide, dug and cleared, and where there could be no choking from other
plants, I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they came up,
and out of 357 no less than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs and
insects. If turf which has long been mown--and the case would be the
same with turf closely browsed by quadrupeds--be let to grow, the more
vigorous plants gradually kill the less vigorous though fully grown
plants; thus out of twenty species growing on a little plot of mown turf
(three feet by four) nine species perished, from the other species being
allowed to grow up freely.
The amount of food for each species of course gives the extreme limit to
which each can increase; but very frequently it is not the obtaining
food, but the serving as prey to other animals, which determines the
average numbers of a species. Thus there seems to be little doubt that
the stock of partridges, grouse, and hares in any large estate depends
chiefly on the destruction of vermin. If not one head of game were shot
during the next twenty years in England, and at the same time if no
vermin were destroyed, there would in all probability be less game than
at present, although hundreds of thousands of game animals are now
annually shot. On the other hand, in some cases, as with the elephant,
none are destroyed by beasts of prey; for even the tiger in India most
rarely dares to attack a young elephant protected by its dam.
Climate plays an important part in determining the average numbers of a
species, and periodical seasons of extreme cold or drought seem to be
the most effective of all checks. I estimated (chiefly from the greatly
reduced numbers of nests in the spring) that the winter of 1854-5
destroyed four-fifths of the birds in my own grounds; and this is a
tremendous destruction, when we remember that ten per cent, is an
extraordinarily severe mortality from epidemics with man. The action of
climate seems at first sight to be quite independent of the struggle for
existence; but in so far as climate chiefly acts in reducing food, it
brings on the most severe struggle between the individuals, whether of
the same or of distinct species, which subsist on the same kind of food.
Even when climate,--for instance, extreme cold,--acts directly, it will
be the least vigorous individuals, or those which have got least food
through the advancing winter, which will suffer most.
When we travel from south to north, or from a damp region to a dry, we
invariably see some species gradually getting rarer and rarer, and
finally disappearing; and the change of climate being conspicuous, we
are tempted to attribute the whole effect to its direct action. But this
is a false view; we forget that each species, even where it most
abounds, is constantly suffering enormous destruction at some period of
its life, from enemies or from competitors for the same place and food;
and if these enemies or competitors be in the least degree favored by
any slight change of climate, they will increase in numbers; and as each
area is already fully stocked with inhabitants, the other species must
decrease. When we travel southward and see a species decreasing in
numbers, we may feel sure that the cause lies quite as much in other
species being favored as in this one being hurt. So it is when we travel
northward; but in a somewhat lesser degree, for the number of species of
all kinds, and therefore of competitors, decreases northward; hence in
going northward, or in ascending a mountain, we far oftener meet with
stunted forms, due to the _directly_ injurious action of climate, than
we do in proceeding southward or in descending a mountain. When we reach
the arctic regions, or snow-capped summits, or absolute deserts, the
struggle for life is almost exclusively with the elements.
That climate acts in main part indirectly by favoring other species, we
clearly see in the prodigious number of plants which in our gardens can
perfectly well endure our climate, but which never become naturalized,
for they cannot compete with our native plants nor resist destruction by
our native animals.
When a species, owing to highly favorable circumstances, increases
inordinately in numbers in a small tract, epidemics--at least, this
seems generally to occur with our game animals--often ensue; and here we
have a limiting check independent of the struggle for life. But even
some of these so-called epidemics appear to be due to parasitic worms,
which have from some cause, possibly in part through facility of
diffusion amongst the crowded animals, been disproportionally favored:
and here comes in a sort of struggle between the parasite and its prey.
On the other hand, in many cases, a large stock of individuals of the
same species, relatively to the numbers of its enemies, is absolutely
necessary for its preservation. Thus we can easily raise plenty of corn
and rape-seed, etc., in our fields, because the seeds are in great
excess compared with the number of birds which feed on them; nor can the
birds, though having a superabundance of food at this one season,
increase in number proportionally to the supply of seed, as their
numbers are checked during winter; but any one who has tried, knows how
troublesome it is to get seed from a few wheat or other such plants in a
garden: I have in this case lost every single seed. This view of the
necessity of a large stock of the same species for its preservation,
explains I believe some singular facts in nature, such as that of very
rare plants being sometimes extremely abundant in the few spots where
they do exist; and that of some social plants being social, that is,
abounding in individuals, even on the extreme verge of their range. For
in such cases, we may believe that a plant could exist only where the
conditions of its life were so favorable that many could exist together
and thus save the species from utter destruction. I should add that the
good effects of inter-crossing, and the ill effects of close
inter-breeding, no doubt come into play in many of these cases; but I
will not here enlarge on this subject.
THE COMPLEX RELATIONS OF ALL ANIMALS AND PLANTS TO EACH OTHER IN THE
STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE
From the 'Origin of Species'