Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 bookOn the Origin of Species.[17][18] By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated public had acceptedevolution as a fact. However, many initially favouredcompeting explanations that gave only a minor role to natural selection. It was not until the emergence of themodern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.[16][19] Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of thelife sciences, explaining thediversity of life.
Darwin was born inShrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his family's home,The Mount.[20][21] He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financierRobert Darwin andSusannah Darwin (née Wedgwood). His grandfathersErasmus Darwin andJosiah Wedgwood were both prominentabolitionists. Erasmus Darwin had praised general concepts of evolution andcommon descent in hisZoonomia (1794), a poetic fantasy of gradual creation including undeveloped ideas anticipating concepts his grandson expanded.[22]
A chalk drawing of the seven-year-old Darwin in 1816, with a potted plant, byEllen Sharples. Part ofa double portrait showing him together with his sister Catherine.
Both families were largelyUnitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adoptingAnglicanism. Robert Darwin, afreethinker, had baby Charlesbaptised in November 1809 in the AnglicanSt Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, but Charles and his siblings attended thelocal Unitarian Church with their mother. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for natural history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. That July, his mother died. From September 1818, he joined his older brotherErasmus in attending the nearby AnglicanShrewsbury School as aboarder.[23]
Darwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat impoverished people in Shropshire, before going to the well-regardedUniversity of Edinburgh Medical School with his brother Erasmus in October 1825. Darwin found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so he neglected his studies.[24] He learnedtaxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions fromJohn Edmonstone, aBlack Briton fromDemerara in the South Americanrainforest, who had been taught there byCharles Waterton, and when brought to Scotland was freed from slavery.[25][26]
One day, Grant praisedLamarck'sevolutionary ideas. Darwin was astonished by Grant's audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus' journals.[29] Darwin was rather bored byRobert Jameson's natural-history course, which covered geology – including the debate betweenneptunism andplutonism. He learned theclassification of plants. He assisted with work on the collections of theUniversity Museum, one of the largest museums in Europe at the time.[30]
Darwin's neglect of medical studies annoyed his father, who sent him toChrist's College, Cambridge in January 1828 to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican countryparson. Darwin was unqualified for Cambridge'sTripos exams and was required instead to join the ordinary degree course.[31] He preferredriding andshooting to studying.[32]
During the first few months of Darwin's enrolment at Christ's College, his second cousinWilliam Darwin Fox was still studying there. Fox impressed him with his butterfly collection, introducing Darwin toentomology and influencing him to pursuebeetle collecting.[34][35] He did this zealously and had some of his finds published inJames Francis Stephens'Illustrations of British entomology (1829–1932).[35][36]
Through Fox, Darwin became a close friend and follower of botany professorJohn Stevens Henslow.[34] He met other leadingparson-naturalists who saw scientific work as religiousnatural theology, becoming known to thesedons as "the man who walks with Henslow". When his own exams drew near, Darwin applied himself to his studies and was delighted by the language and logic ofWilliam Paley'sEvidences of Christianity (1795).[37] In his final examination in January 1831, Darwin did well, coming tenth out of 178 candidates for theordinary degree.[38]
The round-the-world voyage of theBeagle, 1831–1836
After leaving Sedgwick in Wales, Darwin spent a few days with student friends atBarmouth. He returned home on 29 August to find a letter from Henslow proposing him as a suitable (if unfinished) naturalist for a self-fundedsupernumerary place onHMS Beagle with captainRobert FitzRoy, a position for agentleman rather than "a mere collector". The ship was to leave in four weeks on an expedition to chart the coastline of South America.[43][44] Robert Darwin objected to his son's planned two-year voyage, regarding it as a waste of time, but was persuaded by his brother-in-law,Josiah Wedgwood II, to agree to (and fund) his son's participation.[45] Darwin took care to remain in a private capacity to retain control over his collection, intending it for a major scientific institution.[46]
After delays, the voyage began on 27 December 1831; it lasted almost five years. As FitzRoy had intended, Darwin spent most of that time on land investigating geology and making natural history collections, while HMSBeaglesurveyed and charted coasts.[16][47] He kept careful notes of his observations and theoretical speculations. At intervals during the voyage, his specimens were sent to Cambridge together with letters including a copy ofhis journal for his family.[48] He had some expertise in geology, beetle collecting and dissecting marine invertebrates, but in all other areas, was a novice and ably collected specimens for expert appraisal.[49] Despite suffering badly from seasickness, Darwin wrote copious notes while on board the ship. Most of his zoology notes are about marine invertebrates, starting withplankton collected during a calm spell.[47][50]
Darwin (right) on theBeagle's deck atBahía Blanca in Argentina, with fossils; caricature byAugustus Earle, the initial ship's artist
On their first stop ashore atSt Jago in Cape Verde, Darwin found that a white band high in thevolcanic rock cliffs included seashells. FitzRoy had given him the first volume ofCharles Lyell'sPrinciples of Geology, which set outuniformitarian concepts of land slowly rising or falling over immense periods,[II] and Darwin saw things Lyell's way, theorising and thinking of writing a book on geology.[51] When they reached Brazil, Darwin was delighted by thetropical forest,[52] but detested the sight ofslavery there, and disputed this issue with FitzRoy.[53]
The survey continued to the south inPatagonia. They stopped atBahía Blanca, and in cliffs nearPunta Alta, Darwin made a significant find of fossil bones of hugeextinct mammals beside modern seashells, indicating recentextinction with no signs of change in climate or catastrophe. He found bony plates like a giant version of the armour on localarmadillos. From a jaw and tooth, he identified the giganticMegatherium, then fromCuvier's description thought the armour was from this animal. The finds were shipped to England, and scientists found the fossils of great interest.[54][55]
On rides withgauchos into the interior to explore geology and collect more fossils, Darwin gained social, political, andanthropological insights into both native and colonial people at a time of revolution, and learnt that two types ofrhea had separate but overlapping territories.[56][57] Further south, he saw stepped plains of shingle and seashells asraised beaches at a series of elevations. He read Lyell's second volume and accepted its description of "centres of creation" of species, but his discoveries and theorising challenged Lyell's ideas of smooth continuity and of extinction of species.[58][59] InTierra del Fuego, Darwin formed the incorrect belief that the archipelago was devoid of reptiles.[60]
ThreeFuegians on board, who had been seized during thefirstBeagle voyage and then given Christian education in England, were returning with a missionary. Darwin found them friendly and civilised, yet at Tierra del Fuego he met "miserable, degraded savages", as different as wild from domesticated animals.[61] He remained convinced that, despite this diversity, all humans were interrelated witha shared origin and potential for improvement towards civilisation. Unlike his scientist friends, he now thought there was no unbridgeable gap between humans and animals.[62] A year on, the mission had been abandoned. The Fuegian they had namedJemmy Button lived like the other natives, had a wife, and had no wish to return to England.[63]
AsHMSBeagle surveyed the coasts of South America, Darwin theorised about geology and the extinction of giant mammals. Watercolour by the ship's artistConrad Martens, who replaced Augustus Earle, inTierra del Fuego.
Darwin experiencedan earthquake in Chile in 1835 and saw signs that the land had just been raised, includingmussel beds stranded above high tide. High in theAndes, he saw seashells and several fossil trees that had grown on a sand beach. He theorised that as the land rose,oceanic islands sank, andcoral reefs around them grew to formatolls.[64][65]
On the geologically newGalápagos Islands, Darwin looked for evidence attaching wildlife to an older "centre of creation". He foundmockingbirds allied to those in Chile but differing from island to island. He heard that slight variations in the shape oftortoise shells showed which island they came from, but failed to collect them, even after eating tortoises taken on board as food.[66][67] In Australia, themarsupialrat-kangaroo and theplatypus seemed so unusual that Darwin thought it was almost as though two distinct Creators had been at work.[68] He found theAboriginal Australians "good-humoured & pleasant", their numbers depleted by European settlement.[69]
FitzRoy investigated how the atolls of theCocos (Keeling) Islands had formed. The survey supported Darwin's theorising.[65] FitzRoy began writing the officialNarrative of theBeagle voyages, and after reading Darwin's diary, he proposed incorporating it into the account.[70] Darwin'sJournal was eventually rewritten as a separate third volume, on geology and natural history.[71][72]
InCape Town, South Africa, Darwin and FitzRoy met John Herschel, who had recently written to Lyell praising hisuniformitarianism as opening bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct species by others" as "a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process".[73]When organising his notes as the ship sailed home, Darwin wrote that, if his growing suspicions about the mockingbirds, the tortoises and theFalkland Islands fox were correct, "such facts undermine the stability of Species", then cautiously added "would" before "undermine".[74] He later wrote that such facts "seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species".[75]
While still a young man, Darwin joined the scientific elite; portrait byGeorge Richmond.
On 2 October 1836,Beagle anchored atFalmouth, Cornwall. Darwin promptly made the long coach journey to Shrewsbury to visit his home and see relatives. He then hurried toCambridge to see Henslow, who advised him on finding available naturalists to catalogue Darwin's animal collections and to take on the botanical specimens. Darwin's father organised investments, enabling his son to be a self-fundedgentleman scientist, and an excited Darwin went around the London institutions being fêted and seeking experts to describe the collections. British zoologists at the time had a huge backlog of work, due to the encouragement of natural history collecting throughout the British Empire, and there was a danger of specimens being left in storage.[81]
Charles Lyell eagerly met Darwin for the first time on 29 October and soon introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomistRichard Owen, who had the facilities of theRoyal College of Surgeons to work on the fossil bones collected by Darwin. Owen's surprising results included other gigantic extinctground sloths as well as theMegatherium Darwin had identified, a near complete skeleton of the unknownScelidotherium and ahippopotamus-sizedrodent-like skull namedToxodon resembling a giantcapybara. The armour fragments were actually fromGlyptodon, a huge armadillo-like creature, as Darwin had initially thought.[55][82] These extinct creatures were related to living species in South America.[83]
In mid-December, Darwin took lodgings in Cambridge to arrange expert classification of his collections and prepare his own research for publication. Questions of how to combine his diary into theNarrative were resolved at the end of the month when FitzRoy acceptedBroderip's advice to make it a separate volume, and Darwin began work on hisJournal and Remarks.[84][85]
Darwin's first paper showed that the South American landmass was slowly rising. With Lyell's enthusiastic backing, he read it to theGeological Society of London on 4 January 1837. On the same day, he presented his mammal and bird specimens to theZoological Society. The ornithologistJohn Gould soon announced that the Galápagos birds that Darwin had thought a mixture ofblackbirds, "gros-beaks" andfinches, were, in fact, twelveseparate species of finches. On 17 February, Darwin was elected to the Council of the Geological Society, and Lyell's presidential address presented Owen's findings on Darwin's fossils, stressing the geographical continuity of species as supporting his uniformitarian ideas.[86]
In mid-July 1837 Darwin started his "B" notebook onTransmutation of Species, and on page 36 wrote "I think" above his firstevolutionary tree.
Early in March, Darwin moved to London to be near this work, joining Lyell's social circle of scientists and experts such asCharles Babbage,[87] who described God as a programmer of laws. Darwin stayed with hisfreethinking brother Erasmus, part of thisWhig circle and a close friend of the writerHarriet Martineau, who promoted theMalthusianism that underpinned the controversial WhigPoor Law reforms to stop welfare from causing overpopulation and more poverty. As a Unitarian, she welcomed theradical implications oftransmutation of species, promoted by Grant and younger surgeons influenced byGeoffroy. Transmutation was anathema to Anglicans defending social order,[88] but reputable scientists openly discussed the subject. There was broad interest in John Herschel's letter praising Lyell's approach as a way to find anatural cause of the origin of new species.[73]
Gould met Darwin and told him that the Galápagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and what Darwin had thought was a "wren" wasin the finch group. Darwin had not labelled the finches by island, but from the notes of others on the ship, including FitzRoy, he allocated species to islands.[89] The two rheas were distinct species, and on 14 March Darwin announced how their distribution changed going southwards.[90]
By mid-March 1837, barely six months after his return to England, Darwin was speculating in hisRed Notebook on the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain the geographical distribution of living species such as the rheas, and extinct ones such as the strange extinct mammalMacrauchenia, which resembled a giantguanaco, a llama relative. Around mid-July, he recorded in his "B" notebook his thoughts on lifespan and variation across generations – explaining the variations he had observed inGalápagos tortoises, mockingbirds, and rheas. He sketched branching descent, and then agenealogical branching of a singleevolutionary tree, in which "It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another", thereby discarding Lamarck's idea of independentlineages progressing to higher forms.[91]
While developing this intensive study of transmutation, Darwin became mired in more work. Still rewriting hisJournal, he took on editing and publishing the expert reports on his collections, and with Henslow's help obtained a Treasury grant of £1,000 to sponsor this multi-volumeZoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, a sum equivalent to about £115,000 in 2021.[92] He stretched the funding to include his planned books on geology, and agreed to unrealistic dates with the publisher.[93] As theVictorian era began, Darwin pressed on with writing hisJournal, and in August 1837 began correctingprinter's proofs.[94]
As Darwin worked under pressure, his health suffered. On 20 September, he had "an uncomfortablepalpitation of the heart", so his doctors urged him to "knock off all work" and live in the country for a few weeks. After visiting Shrewsbury, he joined his Wedgwood relatives atMaer Hall, Staffordshire, but found them too eager for tales of his travels to give him much rest. His charming, intelligent, and cultured cousinEmma Wedgwood, nine months older than Darwin, was nursing his invalid aunt. His uncle Josiah pointed out an area of ground where cinders had disappeared underloam. Darwin suggested that this might have been the work ofearthworms, inspiring "a new & important theory" on their role insoil formation, which he presented at the Geological Society on 1 November 1837.[95] HisJournal was printed and ready for publication by the end of February 1838, as was the first volume of theNarrative, but FitzRoy was still working hard to finish his own volume.[94]
William Whewell pushed Darwin to take on the duties of Secretary of the Geological Society. After initially declining the work, he accepted the post in March 1838.[96] Despite the grind of writing and editing theBeagle reports, Darwin made remarkable progress on transmutation, taking every opportunity to question expert naturalists and, unconventionally, people with practical experience inselective breeding such as farmers andpigeon fanciers.[16][97] Over time, his research drew on information from his relatives and children, the family butler, neighbours, colonists, and former shipmates.[98] He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing anorangutan in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its childlike behaviour.[99]
The strain took a toll, and by June, he was being laid up for days on end with stomach problems, headaches, and heart symptoms. For the rest of his life, he was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach pains, vomiting, severeboils, palpitations, trembling, and other symptoms, particularly during times of stress, such as attending meetings or making social visits. The cause ofDarwin's illness remained unknown, and attempts at treatment had only ephemeral success.[100]
On 23 June, he took a break and went "geologising" in Scotland. He visitedGlen Roy in glorious weather to see the parallel "roads" cut into the hillsides at three heights. He later published his view that these were marine-raised beaches, but then had to accept that they were shorelines of aproglacial lake.[101]
Fully recuperated, he returned to Shrewsbury in July 1838. Used to jotting down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts about marriage, career, and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns headed"Marry" and"Not Marry". Advantages under "Marry" included "constant companion and a friend in old age ... better than a dog anyhow", against points such as "less money for books" and "terrible loss of time".[102] Having decided in favour of marriage, he discussed it with his father, then went to visit his cousin Emma on 29 July. At this time, he did not get around to proposing, but against his father's advice, he mentioned his ideas on transmutation.[103]He married Emma on 29 January 1839, and they were the parents of ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.
Malthus and natural selection
Continuing his research in London, Darwin's wide reading now included the sixth edition ofMalthus'sAn Essay on the Principle of Population. On 28 September 1838, he noted its assertion that human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", ageometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply in what is known as aMalthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well-prepared to compare this toAugustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how the numbers of a species remained roughly stable.[16][104]
As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying [to] force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."[16][104] This would result in the formation of new species.[16][105] As he later wrote in hisAutobiography:
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...[106]
By mid-December, Darwin saw a similarity between farmers picking the best stock in selective breeding, and a Malthusian Nature selecting from chance variants so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical and perfected",[107] thinking this comparison "a beautiful part of my theory".[108] He later called his theorynatural selection, an analogy with what he termed the "artificial selection" of selective breeding.[16]
On 11 November, he returned to Maer and proposed to Emma, once more telling her his ideas. She accepted, then, in exchanges of loving letters, showed how she valued his openness in sharing their differences, while expressing her strong Unitarian beliefs and concerns that his honest doubts might separate them in the afterlife.[109] While he was house-hunting in London, bouts of illness continued and Emma wrote urging him to get some rest, almost prophetically remarking "So don't be ill any more my dear Charley till I can be with you to nurse you." He found what they called "Macaw Cottage" (because of its gaudy interiors) inGower Street, then moved his "museum" in over Christmas. On 24 January 1839, Darwin waselected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).[3][110]
On 29 January, Darwin and Emma Wedgwood were married at Maer in an Anglican ceremony arranged to suit the Unitarians, then immediately caught the train to London and their new home.[111]
Darwin now had the framework of his theory of natural selection "by which to work",[106] as his "prime hobby".[112] His research included extensive experimental selective breeding of plants and animals, finding evidence that species were not fixed and investigating many detailed ideas to refine and substantiate his theory.[16] For fifteen years this work was in the background to his main occupation of writing on geology and publishing expert reports on theBeagle collections, in particular, thebarnacles.[113]
The impetus of Darwin's barnacle research came from a collection of a barnacle colony from Chile in 1835, which he dubbedMr. Arthrobalanus. His confusion over the relationship of this species (Cryptophialus minutus) to other barnacles caused him to fixate on the systematics of the taxa. He wrote his first examination of the species in 1846, but did not formally describe it until 1854.[114]
FitzRoy's long-delayedNarrative was published in May 1839. Darwin'sJournal and Remarks got good reviews as the third volume, and on 15 August, it was published on its own. Early in 1842, Darwin wrote about his ideas to Charles Lyell, who noted that his ally "denies seeing a beginning to each crop of species".[72][115]
Darwin's bookThe Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs on his theory of atoll formation was published in May 1842 after more than three years of work, and he then wrote his first "pencil sketch" of his theory of natural selection.[116] To escape the pressures of London, the family moved to ruralDown House in Kent in September.[117] On 11 January 1844, Darwin mentioned his theorising to the botanistJoseph Dalton Hooker, writing with melodramatic humour "it is like confessing a murder".[118][119] Hooker replied, "There may, in my opinion, have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject."[120]
Darwin's "sandwalk" atDown House in Kent was his usual "thinking path".[121]
By July, Darwin had expanded his "sketch" into a 230-page "Essay", to be expanded with his research results if he died prematurely.[122] In November, the anonymously published sensational best-sellerVestiges of the Natural History of Creation brought wide interest in transmutation. Darwin scorned its amateurish geology and zoology, but carefully reviewed his own arguments. Controversy erupted, and it continued to sell well despite contemptuous dismissal by scientists.[123][124]
Darwin completed his third geological book in 1846. He now renewed his interest in marine invertebrates and, using expertise from his student days with Grant, dissected and classified the barnacles he had collected on the voyage. He enjoyed observing their beauty and thought about comparisons with allied structures.[125] In 1847, Hooker read the "Essay" and sent notes that provided Darwin with the calm critical feedback that he needed, but would not commit himself and questioned Darwin's opposition to continuing acts ofcreation.[126]
In an attempt to improve his chronic ill health, Darwin went in 1849 to Dr.James Gully'sMalvern spa and was surprised to find some benefit fromhydrotherapy.[127] Then, in 1851, his treasured daughterAnnie fell ill, reawakening his fears that his illness might be hereditary. She died the same year after a long series of crises.[128]
In eight years of work on barnacles, Darwin's theory helped him to find "homologies" showing that slightly changed body parts served different functions to meet new conditions. In somegenera he found minute malesparasitic onhermaphrodites, showing anintermediate stage in evolution ofdistinct sexes.[129] In 1853, it earned him theRoyal Society's Royal Medal, and it made his reputation as abiologist.[130] Upon the conclusion of his research, Darwin declared, "I hate a barnacle as no man ever did before."[131][132] In 1854, he became a Fellow of theLinnean Society of London, gaining postal access to its library.[133] He began a major reassessment of his theory of species, and in November realised that divergence in the character of descendants could be explained by them becoming adapted to "diversified places in the economy of nature".[134]
Darwin aged 46 in 1855, by then working towards publication of his theory ofnatural selection. He wrote toJoseph Hooker about this portrait, "if I really have as bad an expression, as my photograph gives me, how I can have one single friend is surprising."[135]
By the start of 1856, Darwin was investigating whether eggs andseeds could survive travel across seawater to spread species across oceans. Hooker increasingly doubted the traditional view that species were fixed, but their young friendThomas Henry Huxley was still firmly against the transmutation of species. Lyell was intrigued by Darwin's speculations without realising their extent. When he read a paper byAlfred Russel Wallace, "On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species", he saw similarities with Darwin's thoughts. He urged him to publish to establish precedence.[136]
Though Darwin saw no threat, on 14 May 1856, he began writing a short paper. Finding answers to difficult questions held him up repeatedly, and he expanded his plans to a "big book on species" titledNatural Selection, which was to include his "note on Man". He continued his research,obtaining information and specimens from naturalists worldwide, including Wallace, who was working inBorneo.[136]
In mid-1857, he added a section heading, "Theory applied to Races of Man", but did not add text on this topic. On 5 September 1857, Darwin sent the American botanistAsa Gray a detailed outline of his ideas, including an abstract ofNatural Selection, which omittedhuman origins andsexual selection. In December, Darwin received a letter from Wallace asking if the book would examine human origins. He responded that he would avoid that subject, "so surrounded with prejudices", while encouraging Wallace's theorising and adding that "I go much further than you."[136]
Darwin's book was only partly written when, on 18 June 1858, he received a paper from Wallace describing natural selection. Shocked that he had been "forestalled", Darwin sent it on that day to Lyell, as requested by Wallace.[137][138] Although Wallace had not asked for publication, Darwin suggested he would send it to any journal that Wallace chose. His family was in crisis, with children in the village dying ofscarlet fever, and he put matters in the hands of his friends.[139]
There was little immediate attention to this announcement of the theory; the president of the Linnean Society remarked in May 1859 that the year had not been marked by any revolutionary discoveries.[141] Only one review rankled enough for Darwin to recall it later; ProfessorSamuel Haughton of Dublin claimed that "all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old".[142] Darwin struggled for thirteen months to produce an abstract of his "big book", suffering from ill health but getting constant encouragement from his scientific friends. Lyell arranged to have it published byJohn Murray.[143]
On the Origin of Species proved unexpectedly popular, with the entire stock of 1,250 copies oversubscribed when it went on sale to booksellers on 22 November 1859.[144] In the book, Darwin set out "one long argument" of detailed observations, inferences and consideration of anticipated objections.[145] In making the case for common descent, he included evidence of homologies between humans and other mammals.[146][III] Having outlined sexual selection, he hinted that it could explain differences betweenhuman races.[147][IV] He avoided explicit discussion of human origins, but implied the significance of his work with the sentence; "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."[148][IV] His theory is simply stated in the introduction:
As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus benaturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.[149]
At the end of the book, he concluded that:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.[150]
The last word was the only variant of "evolved" in the first five editions of the book. "Evolutionism" at that time was associated with other concepts, most commonly withembryological development. Darwin first used the wordevolution inThe Descent of Man in 1871, before adding it in 1872 to the 6th edition ofThe Origin of Species.[151]
In 1862 Darwin began growing his beard, as seen in the 1868 portrait byJulia Margaret Cameron.[152]An 1871 caricature following publication ofThe Descent of Man was typical of many showing Darwin with anape body, identifying him in popular culture as the leading author of evolutionary theory.[152]
The book aroused international interest, with less controversy than had greeted the popular and less scientificVestiges of the Natural History of Creation.[153] Though Darwin's illness kept him away from the public debates, he eagerly scrutinised the scientific response, commenting on press cuttings, reviews, articles, satires and caricatures, and corresponded on it with colleagues worldwide.[154] The book did not explicitly discuss human origins,[148][IV] but included a number of hints about the animal ancestry of humans from which the inference could be made.[155]
The first review asked, "If a monkey has become a man – what may not a man become?" It said this should be left to theologians as being too dangerous for ordinary readers.[156] Among early favourable responses, Huxley's reviews swiped atRichard Owen, leader of the scientific establishment which Huxley was trying to overthrow.[157]
In April, Owen's review attacked Darwin's friends and condescendingly dismissed his ideas, angering Darwin,[158] but Owen and others began to promote ideas of supernaturally guided evolution.Patrick Matthew drew attention to his 1831 book, which had a brief appendix suggesting a concept of natural selection leading to new species, but he had not developed the idea.[159]
TheChurch of England's response was mixed. Darwin's old Cambridge tutors Sedgwick and Henslow dismissed the ideas, butliberal clergymen interpreted natural selection as an instrument of God's design, with the clericCharles Kingsley seeing it as "just as noble a conception of Deity".[160] In 1860, the publication ofEssays and Reviews by seven liberal Anglican theologians divertedclerical attention from Darwin. Its ideas, includinghigher criticism, were attacked by church authorities asheresy. In it,Baden Powell argued thatmiracles broke God's laws, so belief in them wasatheistic, and praised "Mr Darwin's masterly volume [supporting] the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature".[161]
Asa Gray discussedteleology with Darwin, who imported and distributed Gray's pamphlet ontheistic evolution,Natural Selection is not inconsistent with natural theology.[160][162] The most famous confrontation was at the public1860 Oxford evolution debate during a meeting of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science, where theBishop of OxfordSamuel Wilberforce, though not opposed to transmutation of species, argued against Darwin's explanation and human descent from apes. Joseph Hooker argued strongly for Darwin, and Thomas Huxley's legendary retort, that he would rather be descended from an ape than a man who misused his gifts, came to symbolise a triumph of science over religion.[160][163]
Even Darwin's close friends Gray, Hooker, Huxley, and Lyell still expressed various reservations but gave strong support, as did many others, particularly younger naturalists. Gray and Lyell sought reconciliation with faith, while Huxley portrayed a polarisation between religion and science. He campaigned pugnaciously against the authority of the clergy in education,[160] aiming to overturn the dominance of clergymen and aristocratic amateurs under Owen in favour of a new generation of professional scientists. Owen's claim that brain anatomy proved humans to be a separatebiological order from apes was shown to be false by Huxley in a long-running dispute parodied by Kingsley as the "Great Hippocampus Question", and discredited Owen.[164]
In response to objections that theorigin of life was unexplained, Darwin pointed to acceptance ofNewton's law even though the cause of gravity was unknown.[165] Despite criticisms and reservations related to this topic, he nevertheless proposed a prescient idea in an 1871 letter to Hooker in which he suggested the origin of life may have occurred in a "warm little pond".[166]
Lobbying brought Darwin Britain's highest scientific honour, the Royal Society'sCopley Medal, awarded on 3 November 1864.[168] That day, Huxley held the first meeting of what became the influential "X Club" devoted to "science, pure and free, untrammelled by religious dogmas".[169] By the end of the 1860s, most scientists agreed that evolution occurred, but only a minority supported Darwin's view that the chief mechanism was natural selection.[170]
TheOrigin of Species was translated into many languages, becoming a staple scientific text attracting thoughtful attention from all walks of life, including the "working men" who flocked to Huxley's lectures.[171] Darwin's theory resonated with various movements at the time[V] and became a key fixture of popular culture.[VI] Cartoonists parodied animal ancestry in an old tradition of showing humans with animal traits, and in Britain, these droll images served to popularise Darwin's theory in an unthreatening way. While ill in 1862, Darwin began growing a beard, and when he reappeared in public in 1866, caricatures of him as anape helped to identify all forms of evolutionism with Darwinism.[152]
Othniel C. Marsh, America's first palaeontologist, was the first to provide solid fossil evidence to support Darwin's theory of evolution by unearthing the ancestors of the modern horse.[172] In 1877, Marsh delivered a very influential speech before the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, providing a demonstrative argument for evolution. For the first time, Marsh traced the evolution of vertebrates from fish all the way through humans. Sparing no detail, he listed a wealth of fossil examples of past life forms. The significance of this speech was immediately recognized by the scientific community, and it was printed in its entirety in several scientific journals.[173][174]
By 1878, an increasingly famous Darwin had suffered years of illness.
Despite repeated bouts of illness during the last twenty-two years of his life,[175] Darwin's work continued. Having publishedOn the Origin of Species as anabstract of his theory, he pressed on with experiments, research, and writing of his "big book". He covered human descent from earlier animals, including the evolution of society and of mental abilities, as well as explaining decorative beauty inwildlife and diversifying into innovative plant studies.[176]
Enquiries about insectpollination led in 1861 to novel studies of wildorchids, showing adaptation of their flowers toattract specific moths to each species and ensure cross-fertilisation. In 1862,Fertilisation of Orchids gave his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection to explain complex ecological relationships, making testable predictions. As his health declined, he lay on his sickbed in a room filled with inventive experiments to trace the movements ofclimbing plants.[177] Admiring visitors includedErnst Haeckel, a zealous proponent of Darwinism incorporating Lamarckism andGoethe's idealism.[178] Wallace remained supportive, though he increasingly turned toSpiritualism.[179]
Darwin's bookThe Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868) was the first part of his planned "big book", and included his unsuccessful hypothesis ofpangenesis attempting to explainheredity. It sold briskly at first, despite its size, and was translated into many languages. He wrote most of a second part, on natural selection, but it remained unpublished in his lifetime.[180]
Lyell had already popularised human prehistory, and Huxley had shown that anatomically humans are apes.[167] WithThe Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex published in 1871, Darwin set out evidence from numerous sources that humans are animals, showing continuity of physical and mental attributes, and presented sexual selection to explain impractical animal features such as thepeacock's plumage as well as human evolution of culture, differences between sexes, and physical and cultural racial classification, while emphasising that humans are all one species.[181] According to an editorial in Nature journal: "Although Charles Darwin opposed slavery and proposed that humans have a common ancestor, he also advocated a hierarchy of races, with white people higher than others."[182]
Punch'salmanac for 1882, published shortly before Darwin's death, depicts him amidst evolution from chaos to Victorian gentleman with the titleMan Is But A Worm.
His research using images was expanded in his 1872 bookThe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, one of the first books to feature printed photographs, which discussed theevolution of human psychology and its continuity with thebehaviour of animals. Both books proved very popular, and Darwin was impressed by the general assent with which his views had been received, remarking that "everybody is talking about it without being shocked."[183] His conclusion was "that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system – with all these exalted powers – Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."[184]
His evolution-related experiments and investigations led to books onInsectivorous Plants,The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, andThe Power of Movement in Plants. He continued to collect information and exchange views from scientific correspondents all over the world, includingMary Treat, whom he encouraged to persevere in her scientific work.[185] He was the first person to recognise the significance of carnivory in plants.[186] His botanical work[IX] was interpreted and popularised by various writers includingGrant Allen andH. G. Wells, and helped transform plant science in the late 19th century and early 20th century.[187][188]
In 1882, he was diagnosed with what was called "angina pectoris" which then meantcoronary thrombosis and disease of the heart. At the time of his death, the physicians diagnosed "anginal attacks" and "heart-failure"; there has since been scholarly speculation about hislife-long health issues.[189][190]
He died at Down House on 19 April 1882. His last words were to his family, telling Emma, "I am not the least afraid of death—Remember what a good wife you have been to me—Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me". While she rested, he repeatedly told Henrietta and Francis, "It's almost worthwhile to be sick to be nursed by you".[191]
He had expected to be buried in St Mary's churchyard atDowne, but at the request of Darwin's colleagues, after public and parliamentary petitioning,William Spottiswoode (President of the Royal Society) arranged for Darwin to be honoured byburial in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel andIsaac Newton. The funeral, held on Wednesday, 26 April, was attended by thousands of people, including family, friends, scientists, philosophers, and dignitaries.[192][10]
The Darwins had ten children: two died in infancy, and Annie's death at the age of ten had a devastating effect on her parents. Charles was a devoted father and uncommonly attentive to his children.[11] Whenever they fell ill, he feared that they might have inherited weaknesses frominbreeding due to the close family ties he shared with hiswife and cousin, Emma Wedgwood. He examined inbreeding in his writings, contrasting it with the advantages ofoutcrossing in many species.[193]
Emma Darwin with Charles Waring Darwin
Charles Waring Darwin, born in December 1856, was the tenth and last of the children. Emma Darwin was aged 48 at the time of the birth, and the child was mentally subnormal and never learnt to walk or talk. He probably hadDown syndrome, which had not then been medically described. The evidence is a photograph by William Erasmus Darwin of the infant and his mother, showing a characteristic head shape, and the family's observations of the child.[194] Charles Waring died of scarlet fever on 28 June 1858,[195] when Darwin wrote in his journal: "Poor dear Baby died."[196]
Darwin's family tradition wasnonconformistUnitarianism, while his father and grandfather werefreethinkers, and his baptism and boarding school wereChurch of England.[23] When going to Cambridge to become an Anglican clergyman, he did not "in the least doubt the strict andliteral truth of every word in the Bible".[37] He learnedJohn Herschel's science which, likeWilliam Paley'snatural theology, sought explanations in laws of nature rather than miracles and saw adaptation of species as evidence of design.[39][41] On board HMSBeagle, Darwin was quiteorthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority onmorality.[201] He looked for "centres of creation" to explain distribution,[66] and suggested that the very similarantlions found in Australia and England were evidence of a divine hand.[68]
In 1851, Darwin was devastated when his daughterAnnie died; by then his faith in Christianity had dwindled, and he had stopped going to church.[202]
Upon his return, he expressed acritical view of the Bible's historical accuracy and questioned the basis for considering one religion more valid than another.[201] In the next few years, while intensively speculating on geology and the transmutation of species, he gave much thought to religion and openly discussed this with his wife Emma, whose beliefs similarly came from intensive study and questioning.[109]
Thetheodicy of Paley andThomas Malthus vindicated evils such as starvation as a result of a benevolent creator's laws, which had an overall good effect. To Darwin, natural selection produced the good of adaptation but removed the need for design,[203] and he could not see the work of an omnipotent deity in all the pain and suffering, such as theichneumon wasp paralysingcaterpillars as live food for its eggs.[162] Though he thought of religion as atribal survival strategy, Darwin was reluctant to give up the idea ofGod as an ultimate lawgiver. He was increasingly troubled by theproblem of evil.[204][205]
Darwin remained close friends with thevicar of Downe,John Brodie Innes, and continued to play a leading part in the parish work of the church,[206] but fromc. 1849 would go for a walk on Sundays while his family attended church.[202] He considered it "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist"[207][208] and, though reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he wrote that "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind".[109][207]
The "Lady Hope Story", published in 1915, claimed that Darwin had reverted to Christianity on his sickbed. The claims were repudiated by Darwin's children and have been dismissed as false by historians.[209]
Human society
Darwin's views on social and political issues reflected his time and social position. He grew up in a family ofWhig reformers who, like his uncle Josiah Wedgwood, supportedelectoral reform and the emancipation of slaves. Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery, while seeing no problem with the working conditions of English factory workers or servants.[210]
Taking taxidermy lessons in 1826 from the freed slaveJohn Edmonstone, whom Darwin long recalled as "a very pleasant and intelligent man", reinforced his belief that black people shared the same feelings, and could be as intelligent as people of other races. He took the same attitude to native people he met on theBeagle voyage.[211] Though commonplace in Britain at the time,Silliman andBachman noticed the contrast with slave-owning America. Around twenty years later, racism became a feature of British society,[25][212] but Darwin remained strongly against slavery, against "ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species", and against ill-treatment of native people.[213][VII]
Darwin's interaction withYaghans (Fuegians) such as Jemmy Button during the second voyage of HMSBeagle had a profound impact on his view of indigenous peoples. At his arrival in Tierra del Fuego, he made a colourful description of "Fuegian savages".[214] This view changed as he came to know the Yaghan people more in detail. By studying the Yaghans, Darwin concluded that a number of basic emotions by different human groups were the same and that mental capabilities were roughly the same as for Europeans.[214] While interested in Yaghan culture, Darwin failed to appreciate their deep ecological knowledge and elaborate cosmology until the 1850s when he inspected a dictionary ofYaghan detailing 32,000 words.[214] He saw that European colonisation would often lead to the extinction of native civilisations, and "tr[ied] to integrate colonialism into an evolutionary history of civilization analogous to natural history".[215]
Darwin was intrigued by hishalf-cousinFrancis Galton's argument, introduced in 1865, thatstatistical analysis ofheredity showed that moral and mental human traits could be inherited, and principles of animal breeding could apply to humans. InThe Descent of Man, Darwin noted that aiding the weak to survive and have families could lose the benefits of natural selection, but cautioned that withholding such aid would endanger the instinct of sympathy, "the noblest part of our nature", and factors such as education could be more important. When Galton suggested that publishing research could encourage intermarriage within a "caste" of "those who are naturally gifted", Darwin foresaw practical difficulties and thought it "the sole feasible, yet I fearutopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race", preferring to simply publicise the importance of inheritance and leave decisions to individuals.[217] Francis Galton named this field of study "eugenics" in 1883,[VIII] after Darwin's death, and his theories were cited to promote eugenic policies.[215]
Darwin's fame and popularity led to his name being associated with ideas and movements that, at times, had only an indirect relation to his writings, and sometimes went directly against his express comments.
Thomas Malthus had argued that population growth beyond resources was ordained by God to get humans towork productively and show restraint in getting families; this was used in the 1830s to justifyworkhouses andlaissez-faire economics.[218] Evolution was by then seen as having social implications, andHerbert Spencer's 1851 bookSocial Statics based ideas of human freedom and individual liberties on his Lamarckian evolutionary theory.[219]
Soon after theOrigin was published in 1859, critics derided his description of a struggle for existence as a Malthusian justification for the English industrial capitalism of the time. The termDarwinism was used for the evolutionary ideas of others, including Spencer's "survival of the fittest" as free-market progress, andErnst Haeckel'spolygenistic ideas ofhuman development. Writers used natural selection to argue for various, often contradictory, ideologies such as laissez-faire dog-eat-dog capitalism,colonialism, andimperialism. However, Darwin's holistic view of nature included "dependence of one being on another"; thuspacifists, socialists, liberal social reformers and anarchists such asPeter Kropotkin stressed the value of cooperation over struggle within a species.[220] Darwin himself insisted that social policy should not simply be guided by concepts of struggle and selection in nature.[221]
After the 1880s, the eugenics movement developed on ideas of biological inheritance, and for scientific justification of their ideas appealed to some concepts of Darwinism. In Britain, most shared Darwin's cautious views on voluntary improvement and sought to encourage those with good traits in "positive eugenics". During the "Eclipse of Darwinism", a scientific foundation for eugenics was provided byMendeliangenetics. Negative eugenics to remove the "feebleminded" was widely popular across the political spectrumin the United States, Canada, and Australia. Belief in negative eugenics led to the introduction of compulsory sterilisation laws in the United States, followed by several other countries. Subsequently,Nazi eugenics brought the field into disrepute.[VII]
The term "Social Darwinism" was used infrequently from around the 1890s, but became popular as a derogatory term in the 1940s when used byRichard Hofstadter to attack thelaissez-faire conservatism of those likeWilliam Graham Sumner who opposed reform and socialism. Since then, it has been used as a term of abuse by those opposed to what they think are the moral consequences of evolution.[222][218]
Darwin was a prolific writer. Even without the publication of his works on evolution, he would have had a considerable reputation as the author ofThe Voyage of the Beagle, as a geologist who had published extensively on South America and had solved the puzzle of the formation ofcoral atolls, and as a biologist who had published the definitive work on barnacles. WhileOn the Origin of Species dominates perceptions of his work,The Descent of Man andThe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals had considerable impact, and his books on plants includingThe Power of Movement in Plants were innovative studies of great importance, as was his final work onThe Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.[223][224]
Unveiling in 1897 of the Darwin Statue at the formerShrewsbury School building where he had studied
As Alfred Russel Wallace put it, Darwin had "wrought a greater revolution in human thought within a quarter of a century than any man of our time – or perhaps any time", having "given us a new conception of the world of life, and a theory which is itself a powerful instrument of research; has shown us how to combine into one consistent whole the facts accumulated by all the separate classes of workers, and has thereby revolutionised the whole study of nature".[225] The paleoanthropologistTrenton Holliday states that "Darwin is rightly considered to be the preeminent evolutionary scientist of all time".[226]
In 1908, the Linnean Society of London began awards of theDarwin–Wallace Medal, to mark fifty years from the joint reading on 1 July 1858 of papers by Darwin and Wallace publishing their theory. Further awards were made in 1958 and 2008; since 2010, the awards have been annual.[234]Darwin College, a postgraduate college atCambridge University founded in 1964, is named after the Darwin family.[235] From 2000 to 2017, UK £10 banknotes issued by theBank of England featured Darwin's portrait printed on the reverse,[236][237] along with ahummingbird andHMSBeagle.[238] The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has a bronze statue of Charles Darwin in its Deep Time Hall, which features Darwin seated on a bench with a notebook containing his "tree of life" sketch.[239] The statue was sculpted by David Clendining and was installed as the centerpiece of the hall, which focuses on Darwinian evolution.[240]
I.^Robert FitzRoy was to become known after the voyage forbiblical literalism, but at this time he had considerable interest in Lyell's ideas, and they met before the voyage when Lyell asked for observations to be made in South America. FitzRoy's diary during the ascent of the River Santa Cruz inPatagonia recorded his opinion that the plains wereraised beaches, but on return, newly married to a very religious lady, he recanted these ideas.(Browne 1995, pp. 186, 414)
II.^ In the section"Morphology" of Chapter XIII ofOn the Origin of Species, Darwin commented onhomologous bone patterns between humans and other mammals, writing: "What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include the same bones, in the same relative positions?"[241] and in the concluding chapter: "The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of the porpoise, and leg of the horse … at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with slow and slight successive modifications."[242]
III.123 InOn the Origin of Species Darwin mentionedhuman origins in his concluding remark that "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."[148]
In "Chapter VI: Difficulties on Theory" he referred tosexual selection: "I might have adduced for this same purpose the differences between the races of man, which are so strongly marked; I may add that some little light can apparently be thrown on the origin of these differences, chiefly through sexual selection of a particular kind, but without here entering on copious details my reasoning would appear frivolous."[147]
InThe Descent of Man of 1871, Darwin discussed the first passage:"During many years I collected notes on the origin or descent of man, without any intention of publishing on the subject, but rather with the determination not to publish, as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views. It seemed to me sufficient to indicate, in the first edition of my 'Origin of Species,' that by this work 'light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history;' and this implies that man must be included with other organic beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appearance on this earth."[243] In a preface to the 1874 second edition, he added a reference to the second point: "it has been said by several critics, that when I found that many details of structure in man could not be explained through natural selection, I invented sexual selection; I gave, however, a tolerably clear sketch of this principle in the first edition of the 'Origin of Species,' and I there stated that it was applicable to man."[244]
IV.^ See, for example, WILLA volume 4,Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Feminization of Education by Deborah M. De Simone: "Gilman shared many basic educational ideas with the generation of thinkers who matured during the period of "intellectual chaos" caused by Darwin's Origin of the Species. Marked by the belief that individuals can direct human and social evolution, many progressives came to view education as the panacea for advancing social progress and for solving such problems as urbanisation, poverty, or immigration."
V.^ See, for example, the song "A lady fair of lineage high" fromGilbert and Sullivan'sPrincess Ida, which describes the descent of man (but not woman!) from apes.
VI.^ Darwin's belief that black people had the same essential humanity as Europeans, and had many mental similarities, was reinforced by the lessons he had fromJohn Edmonstone in 1826.[25] Early in theBeagle voyage, Darwin nearly lost his position on the ship when he criticised FitzRoy's defence and praise of slavery. (Darwin 1958, p. 74) He wrote home about "how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character." (Darwin 1887, p. 246) RegardingFuegians, he "could not have believed how wide was the difference between savage and civilized man: it is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal, inasmuch as in man there is a greater power of improvement", but he knew and liked civilised Fuegians likeJemmy Button: "It seems yet wonderful to me, when I think over all his many good qualities, that he should have been of the same race, and doubtless partaken of the same character, with the miserable, degraded savages whom we first met here." (Darwin 1845, pp. 205, 207–208)
In theDescent of Man, he mentioned the similarity of Fuegians' and Edmonstone's minds to Europeans' when arguing against "ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species".[245]
He rejected the ill-treatment of native people, and for example wrote of massacres ofPatagonian men, women, and children, "Every one here is fully convinced that this is the most just war, because it is against barbarians. Who would believe in this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian civilized country?"(Darwin 1845, p. 102)
VIII.^David Quammen writes of his "theory that [Darwin] turned to these arcane botanical studies – producing more than one book that was solidly empirical, discreetly evolutionary, yet a 'horrid bore' – at least partly so that the clamorous controversialists, fighting about apes and angels and souls, would leave him... alone".David Quammen, "The Brilliant Plodder" (review of Ken Thompson,Darwin's Most Wonderful Plants: A Tour of His Botanical Legacy,University of Chicago Press, 255 pp.; Elizabeth Hennessy,On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden,Yale University Press, 310 pp.; Bill Jenkins,Evolution Before Darwin: Theories of the Transmutation of Species in Edinburgh, 1804–1834,Edinburgh University Press, 222 pp.),The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVII, no. 7 (23 April 2020), pp. 22–24. Quammen, quoted from p. 24 of his review.
^Coyne, Jerry A. (2009).Why Evolution is True. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 17.ISBN978-0-19-923084-6.InThe Origin, Darwin provided an alternative hypothesis for the development, diversification, and design of life. Much of that book presents evidence that not only supports evolution but at the same time refutes creationism. In Darwin's day, the evidence for his theories was compelling but not completely decisive.
^Glass, Bentley (1959).Forerunners of Darwin. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. iv.ISBN978-0-8018-0222-5.Darwin's solution is a magnificent synthesis of evidence ... a synthesis ... compelling in honesty and comprehensiveness{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help).
^Desmond, Adrian J. (13 September 2002)."Charles Darwin".Encyclopædia Britannica.Archived from the original on 6 February 2018. Retrieved11 February 2018.
^Daum, Andreas W. (2024).Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography. Trans. Robert Savage. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. 137–138.ISBN978-0-691-24736-6.
^Buchanan, Roderick D. (May 2017). "Darwin's "Mr. Arthrobalanus": Sexual Differentiation, Evolutionary Destiny and the Expert Eye of the Beholder".Journal of the History of Biology.50 (2):315–355.doi:10.1007/s10739-016-9444-9.ISSN1573-0387.PMID27098777.
^Ball, P. (2011). Shipping timetables debunk Darwin plagiarism accusations: Evidence challenges claims that Charles Darwin stole ideas from Alfred Russel Wallace. Nature.onlineArchived 22 February 2012 at theWayback Machine
^Plate, Robert.The Dinosaur Hunters: Othniel C. Marsh and Edward D. Cope, pp. 69, 203-5, David McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1964.
^McCarren, Mark J.The Scientific Contributions of Othniel Charles Marsh, pp. 37-9, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1993.ISBN0-912532-32-7
^Plate, Robert.The Dinosaur Hunters: Othniel C. Marsh and Edward D. Cope, pp. 188-9, David McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1964.
^Berra, Tim M.Darwin and His Children: His Other Legacy, (Oxford: 2013, Oxford UP), 101, 129, 168. George became a knight commander of the Order of the Bath in 1905. Francis was knighted in 1912. Horace became a knight commander of the KBE in 1918.
^Edwards, A. W. F. 2004. Darwin, Leonard (1850–1943). In:Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press.
^abBarta, Tony (2 June 2005). "Mr Darwin's shooters: on natural selection and the naturalizing of genocide".Patterns of Prejudice.39 (2):116–137.doi:10.1080/00313220500106170.S2CID159807728.
^"Territory origins". Northern Territory Department of Planning and Infrastructure, Australia. Archived fromthe original on 18 September 2006. Retrieved15 December 2006.
^Heard, Stephen B. (2020).Charles Darwin's barnacle and David Bowie's spider : how scientific names celebrate adventurers, heroes, and even a few scoundrels. Damstra, Emily S. New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-300-25269-9.OCLC1143645266.
Bannister, Robert C. (1989).Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.ISBN978-0-87722-566-9.
Radick, Gregory (2013). "Darwin and Humans". In Ruse, Michael (ed.).The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought. Cambridge University Press. pp. 173–181.
Wilkins, John S. (2008). "Darwin". In Tucker, Aviezer (ed.).A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 405–415.ISBN978-1-4051-4908-2.
van Wyhe, John (2008b).Darwin: The Story of the Man and His Theories of Evolution. London: Andre Deutsch Ltd (published 1 September 2008).ISBN978-0-233-00251-4.
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