In the early part of 1844, my observations on the volcanic islands
visited during the voyage of the “Beagle” were published. In 1845, I
took much pains in correcting a new edition of my ‘Journal of
Researches,’ which was originally published in 1839 as part of
Fitz-Roy’s work. The success of this, my first literary child, always
tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books. Even to this
day it sells steadily in England and the United States, and has been
translated for the second time into German, and into French and other
languages. This success of a book of travels, especially of a
scientific one, so many years after its first publication, is
surprising. Ten thousand copies have been sold in England of the second
edition. In 1846 my ‘Geological Observations on South America’ were
published. I record in a little diary, which I have always kept, that
my three geological books (‘Coral Reefs’ included) consumed four and a
half years’ steady work; “and now it is ten years since my return to
England. How much time have I lost by illness?” I have nothing to say
about these three books except that to my surprise new editions have
lately been called for. (‘Geological Observations,’ 2nd Edit.1876.
‘Coral Reefs,’ 2nd Edit. 1874.)
In October, 1846, I began to work on ‘Cirripedia.’ When on the coast of
Chile, I found a most curious form, which burrowed into the shells of
Concholepas, and which differed so much from all other Cirripedes that
I had to form a new sub-order for its sole reception. Lately an allied
burrowing genus has been found on the shores of Portugal. To understand
the structure of my new Cirripede I had to examine and dissect many of
the common forms; and this gradually led me on to take up the whole
group. I worked steadily on this subject for the next eight years, and
ultimately published two thick volumes (Published by the Ray Society.),
describing all the known living species, and two thin quartos on the
extinct species. I do not doubt that Sir E. Lytton Bulwer had me in his
mind when he introduced in one of his novels a Professor Long, who had
written two huge volumes on limpets.
Although I was employed during eight years on this work, yet I record
in my diary that about two years out of this time was lost by illness.
On this account I went in 1848 for some months to Malvern for
hydropathic treatment, which did me much good, so that on my return
home I was able to resume work. So much was I out of health that when
my dear father died on November 13th, 1848, I was unable to attend his
funeral or to act as one of his executors.
My work on the Cirripedia possesses, I think, considerable value, as
besides describing several new and remarkable forms, I made out the
homologies of the various parts—I discovered the cementing apparatus,
though I blundered dreadfully about the cement glands—and lastly I
proved the existence in certain genera of minute males complemental to
and parasitic on the hermaphrodites. This latter discovery has at last
been fully confirmed; though at one time a German writer was pleased to
attribute the whole account to my fertile imagination. The Cirripedes
form a highly varying and difficult group of species to class; and my
work was of considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the
‘Origin of Species’ the principles of a natural classification.
Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so
much time.
From September 1854 I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile
of notes, to observing, and to experimenting in relation to the
transmutation of species. During the voyage of the “Beagle” I had been
deeply impressed by discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil
animals covered with armour 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 endeavour 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 enquiries, by conversation with skilful 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 enquiry, 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 favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and
unfavourable 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 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the
summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and
still possess.
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 sent 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 5, 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.
In September 1858 I set to work by the strong advice of Lyell and
Hooker to prepare a volume on the transmutation of species, but was
often interrupted by ill-health, and short visits to Dr. Lane’s
delightful hydropathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the MS.
begun on a much larger scale in 1856, and completed the volume on the
same reduced scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten days’ hard
labour. It was published under the title of the ‘Origin of Species,’ in
November 1859. Though considerably added to and corrected in the later
editions, it has remained substantially the same book.
It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly
successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies was sold on the day
of publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies soon afterwards.
Sixteen thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in England; and
considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large sale. It has been
translated into almost every European tongue, even into such languages
as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has also, according to
Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese (Miss Bird is mistaken, as I
learn from Prof. Mitsukuri.—F.D.), and is there much studied. Even an
essay in Hebrew has appeared on it, showing that the theory is
contained in the Old Testament! The reviews were very numerous; for
some time I collected all that appeared on the ‘Origin’ and on my
related books, and these amount (excluding newspaper reviews) to 265;
but after a time I gave up the attempt in despair. Many separate essays
and books on the subject have appeared; and in Germany a catalogue or
bibliography on “Darwinismus” has appeared every year or two.
The success of the ‘Origin’ may, I think, be attributed in large part
to my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my
having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an
abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts
and conclusions. I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule,
namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought
came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a
memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by
experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape
from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few
objections were raised against my views which I had not at least
noticed and attempted to answer.
It has sometimes been said that the success of the ‘Origin’ proved
“that the subject was in the air,” or “that men’s minds were prepared
for it.” I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally
sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a
single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. Even
Lyell and Hooker, though they would listen with interest to me, never
seemed to agree. I tried once or twice to explain to able men what I
meant by Natural Selection, but signally failed. What I believe was
strictly true is that innumerable well-observed facts were stored in
the minds of naturalists ready to take their proper places as soon as
any theory which would receive them was sufficiently explained. Another
element in the success of the book was its moderate size; and this I
owe to the appearance of Mr. Wallace’s essay; had I published on the
scale in which I began to write in 1856, the book would have been four
or five times as large as the ‘Origin,’ and very few would have had the
patience to read it.
I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the
theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I
cared very little whether men attributed most originality to me or
Wallace; and his essay no doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I
was forestalled in only one important point, which my vanity has always
made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the Glacial period
of the presence of the same species of plants and of some few animals
on distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions. This view
pleased me so much that I wrote it out in extenso, and I believe that
it was read by Hooker some years before E. Forbes published his
celebrated memoir (‘Geolog. Survey Mem.,’ 1846.) on the subject. In the
very few points in which we differed, I still think that I was in the
right. I have never, of course, alluded in print to my having
independently worked out this view.
Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work on the
‘Origin,’ as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes
between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance
of the embryos within the same class. No notice of this point was
taken, as far as I remember, in the early reviews of the ‘Origin,’ and
I recollect expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa
Gray. Within late years several reviewers have given the whole credit
to Fritz Muller and Hackel, who undoubtedly have worked it out much
more fully, and in some respects more correctly than I did. I had
materials for a whole chapter on the subject, and I ought to have made
the discussion longer; for it is clear that I failed to impress my
readers; and he who succeeds in doing so deserves, in my opinion, all
the credit.
This leads me to remark that I have almost always been treated honestly
by my reviewers, passing over those without scientific knowledge as not
worthy of notice. My views have often been grossly misrepresented,
bitterly opposed and ridiculed, but this has been generally done, as I
believe, in good faith. On the whole I do not doubt that my works have
been over and over again greatly overpraised. I rejoice that I have
avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who many years ago, in
reference to my geological works, strongly advised me never to get
entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a
miserable loss of time and temper.
Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has
been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and
even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it
has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that “I
have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than
this.” I remember when in Good Success Bay, in Tierra del Fuego,
thinking (and, I believe, that I wrote home to the effect) that I could
not employ my life better than in adding a little to Natural Science.
This I have done to the best of my abilities, and critics may say what
they like, but they cannot destroy this conviction.
During the two last months of 1859 I was fully occupied in preparing a
second edition of the ‘Origin,’ and by an enormous correspondence. On
January 1st, 1860, I began arranging my notes for my work on the
‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication;’ but it was not
published until the beginning of 1868; the delay having been caused
partly by frequent illnesses, one of which lasted seven months, and
partly by being tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time
interested me more.
On May 15th, 1862, my little book on the ‘Fertilisation of Orchids,’
which cost me ten months’ work, was published: most of the facts had
been slowly accumulated during several previous years. During the
summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led
to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects,
from having come to the conclusion in my speculations on the origin of
species, that crossing played an important part in keeping specific
forms constant. I attended to the subject more or less during every
subsequent summer; and my interest in it was greatly enhanced by having
procured and read in November 1841, through the advice of Robert Brown,
a copy of C.K. Sprengel’s wonderful book, ‘Das entdeckte Geheimniss der
Natur.’ For some years before 1862 I had specially attended to the
fertilisation of our British orchids; and it seemed to me the best plan
to prepare as complete a treatise on this group of plants as well as I
could, rather than to utilise the great mass of matter which I had
slowly collected with respect to other plants.
My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my book, a
surprising number of papers and separate works on the fertilisation of
all kinds of flowers have appeared: and these are far better done than
I could possibly have effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so
long overlooked, are now fully recognised many years after his death.
During the same year I published in the ‘Journal of the Linnean
Society’ a paper “On the Two Forms, or Dimorphic Condition of Primula,”
and during the next five years, five other papers on dimorphic and
trimorphic plants. I do not think anything in my scientific life has
given me so much satisfaction as making out the meaning of the
structure of these plants. I had noticed in 1838 or 1839 the dimorphism
of Linum flavum, and had at first thought that it was merely a case of
unmeaning variability. But on examining the common species of Primula I
found that the two forms were much too regular and constant to be thus
viewed. I therefore became almost convinced that the common cowslip and
primrose were on the high road to become dioecious;—that the short
pistil in the one form, and the short stamens in the other form were
tending towards abortion. The plants were therefore subjected under
this point of view to trial; but as soon as the flowers with short
pistils fertilised with pollen from the short stamens, were found to
yield more seeds than any other of the four possible unions, the
abortion-theory was knocked on the head. After some additional
experiment, it became evident that the two forms, though both were
perfect hermaphrodites, bore almost the same relation to one another as
do the two sexes of an ordinary animal. With Lythrum we have the still
more wonderful case of three forms standing in a similar relation to
one another. I afterwards found that the offspring from the union of
two plants belonging to the same forms presented a close and curious
analogy with hybrids from the union of two distinct species.
In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on ‘Climbing Plants,’ and
sent it to the Linnean Society. The writing of this paper cost me four
months; but I was so unwell when I received the proof-sheets that I was
forced to leave them very badly and often obscurely expressed. The
paper was little noticed, but when in 1875 it was corrected and
published as a separate book it sold well. I was led to take up this
subject by reading a short paper by Asa Gray, published in 1858. He
sent me seeds, and on raising some plants I was so much fascinated and
perplexed by the revolving movements of the tendrils and stems, which
movements are really very simple, though appearing at first sight very
complex, that I procured various other kinds of climbing plants, and
studied the whole subject. I was all the more attracted to it, from not
being at all satisfied with the explanation which Henslow gave us in
his lectures, about twining plants, namely, that they had a natural
tendency to grow up in a spire. This explanation proved quite
erroneous. Some of the adaptations displayed by Climbing Plants are as
beautiful as those of Orchids for ensuring cross-fertilisation.
My ‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’ was begun, as
already stated, in the beginning of 1860, but was not published until
the beginning of 1868. It was a big book, and cost me four years and
two months’ hard labour. It gives all my observations and an immense
number of facts collected from various sources, about our domestic
productions. In the second volume the causes and laws of variation,
inheritance, etc., are discussed as far as our present state of
knowledge permits. Towards the end of the work I give my well-abused
hypothesis of Pangenesis. An unverified hypothesis is of little or no
value; but if anyone should hereafter be led to make observations by
which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have done good
service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus
connected together and rendered intelligible. In 1875 a second and
largely corrected edition, which cost me a good deal of labour, was
brought out.
My ‘Descent of Man’ was published in February, 1871. As soon as I had
become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were mutable
productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the
same law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject for my own
satisfaction, and not for a long time with any intention of publishing.
Although in the ‘Origin of Species’ the derivation of any particular
species is never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order that no
honourable man should accuse me of concealing my views, to add that by
the work “light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”
It would have been useless and injurious to the success of the book to
have paraded, without giving any evidence, my conviction with respect
to his origin.
But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the doctrine of
the evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable to work up such
notes as I possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin
of man. I was the more glad to do so, as it gave me an opportunity of
fully discussing sexual selection—a subject which had always greatly
interested me. This subject, and that of the variation of our domestic
productions, together with the causes and laws of variation,
inheritance, and the intercrossing of plants, are the sole subjects
which I have been able to write about in full, so as to use all the
materials which I have collected. The ‘Descent of Man’ took me three
years to write, but then as usual some of this time was lost by ill
health, and some was consumed by preparing new editions and other minor
works. A second and largely corrected edition of the ‘Descent’ appeared
in 1874.
My book on the ‘Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals’ was
published in the autumn of 1872. I had intended to give only a chapter
on the subject in the ‘Descent of Man,’ but as soon as I began to put
my notes together, I saw that it would require a separate treatise.
My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced
to make notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he
exhibited, for I felt convinced, even at this early period, that the
most complex and fine shades of expression must all have had a gradual
and natural origin. During the summer of the following year, 1840, I
read Sir C. Bell’s admirable work on expression, and this greatly
increased the interest which I felt in the subject, though I could not
at all agree with his belief that various muscles had been specially
created for the sake of expression. From this time forward I
occasionally attended to the subject, both with respect to man and our
domesticated animals. My book sold largely; 5267 copies having been
disposed of on the day of publication.
In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near Hartfield, where
two species of Drosera abound; and I noticed that numerous insects had
been entrapped by the leaves. I carried home some plants, and on giving
them insects saw the movements of the tentacles, and this made me think
it probable that the insects were caught for some special purpose.
Fortunately a crucial test occurred to me, that of placing a large
number of leaves in various nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous fluids of
equal density; and as soon as I found that the former alone excited
energetic movements, it was obvious that here was a fine new field for
investigation.
During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my
experiments, and my book on ‘Insectivorous Plants’ was published in
July 1875—that is, sixteen years after my first observations. The delay
in this case, as with all my other books, has been a great advantage to
me; for a man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost
as well as if it were that of another person. The fact that a plant
should secrete, when properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and
ferment, closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was
certainly a remarkable discovery.
During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the ‘Effects of Cross and
Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom.’ This book will form a
complement to that on the ‘Fertilisation of Orchids,’ in which I showed
how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall
show how important are the results. I was led to make, during eleven
years, the numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere
accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be
repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable
fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in
the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of
cross-fertilised parentage. I hope also to republish a revised edition
of my book on Orchids, and hereafter my papers on dimorphic and
trimorphic plants, together with some additional observations on allied
points which I never have had time to arrange. My strength will then
probably be exhausted, and I shall be ready to exclaim “Nunc dimittis.”