The place of man in the development of Darwin's …...When during the voyage on the Beagle he turned against the Old Testament on geological and moral grounds 9 and, after the voyage,

The Place of Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation Part I. To Ju ly 1837

SANDRA HERBERT

Department of History University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article forms the first half of an essay on the place of man in Charles Darwin's exploration of the species question. The second half of the essay will appear in a future issue of this journal. The following portion of the essay carries the discussion to the spring of 1837, the date when Darwin first affirmed a transmutationist position. In it I try to show that the subject of man was not one of those lines of inquiry which drew Darwin to transmutationist conclusions, and, conversely, to suggest what sorts of inquiries did lead him to such conclusions. The argument is organized as follows: Part I. Darwin's views on man prior to 1837: (a) orientation toward religion, politics, and career as an undergraduate; (b) observations on man during the voyage of the Beagle; (c) personal change of mind. Part II. Sources of Darwin's conversion to a transmutationist position: (a) evidence of notes dating from the voyage; (b) Darwin's Ornithological Notes and related lists; (c) the role of professional zoologists; and, (d) composition of the Journal o f Researches.

DARWIN's VIEWS ON MAN PRIOR TO 1837

Orientation toward Religion, Politics, and Career as an Undergraduate

As with most people, not much is known about Darwin's youthful philosophical orientation beyond what the subject cared to relate, in this case in an autobiography written in later life. 1 In reviewing the facts of Darwin's early life, however, one is immediately struck by the apparent contradiction between his intellectual heritage as the grandson of the freethinker Erasmus Darwin and his declared intention, as pro- posed to him by his father, of entering Cambridge University in order to become a member of the English clergy. The source of the contra-

1. Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, ed. Nora Balow (New York: Norton, 1958).

Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 7, no. 2 (Fall 1974), pp. 217-258. Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland.

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diction was Charles's father, Robert Waring Darwin, who, though an unbeliever himself, and unlike his brother-in-law Josiah Wedgwood, did not alter child-rearing practices to fit his personal beliefs. Ideolo- gically Charles thus fell heir both to the liberal traditions o f the Darwin- Wedgwood clan and, at least potentially, to the theological tradition represented by the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Yet Charles was very clear in the Autobiography that he was sent by his father to study for the clergy; he did not choose it. Having found himself disinclined toward medicine at Edinburgh University, however, and being entirely dependent on his father for support, he was in no position to object.

Fortunately, there exist a few indications o f Darwin's own attitudes toward his assigned career in a series of letters which Darwin wrote to his cousin William Darwin Fox. Fox was in much the same situation as Darwin, since he too anticipated combining a clerical post with the pursuit o f natural history. Being a year ahead of Darwin in school, Fox faced the final year o f reading theology and the accompanying search for a position before Darwin, and Darwin was eager to learn his cousin's opinions o f the theological matters he was reading and his success at obtaining a post. 2 From letters, however, it would appear that Darwin's interest in these matters was entirely practical; questions of belief simply did not arise. In these early letters the nearest Darwin came to expressing religious interest was on the occasion of the death o f Fox's sister, when, Darwin offered consolation in traditionally religious language. 3

Other indications of Darwin's early taste or distaste for religion are rare, though among the extant materials from the pre-Beagle period there do exist Darwin's notes on William Paley's Evidences o f Chris- tianity. 4 Paley's book, which had been written " to promote the relig-

2. See Darwin to Fox, January 2, 1829, and March 12, 1829, on Fox's reading in divinity, Darwin-Fox Correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge.

3. Darwin to Fox, April 23, 1829, Darwin-Fox Correspondence. "I feel most sincerely & deeply for you & all your family: But at the same time, as far as anyone can, by his own good principles & religion be supported under such a misfortune, you I am assured, well known where to look for such support. And after so pure & holy a comfort as the Bible affords I am equally assured how useless the sympathy of all friends must appear although it be as heartfelt & sincere, as I hope you believe me capable of feeling."

4. Darwin MSS, vol. 9I, University Library, Cambridge (hereafter abbreviated ULC). The chapter headings in Darwin's notes do not correspond to those in the Evidences but the arguments are clearly Paley's. See William Paley, A View of the

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ious part of an academical education," was required reading for Cambridge undergraduates. Pleased with Paley's skill at argument, Darwin also read the more famous Natural Theology on his own. s While overall the Natural Theology is the more important work, there are a few indications that the Evidences made some impression on Darwin. For example, in the Autobiography Darwin referred to his "inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. ''6 According to canons put forward in the Evidences such daydreams, fulfilled, would stand as ideal corroboration of the truth of Chris- tianity.

In a larger perspective, Paley's approach to religion was eighteenth- century in its concern for simple truth or falsity. (Christianity, inciden- tally, was taken as emblematic of religion, for, in Paley's words, "if the Christian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions of any other.") 7 In reading Paley's arguments for the truth of religion, Darwin was seemingly taken with his skill in setting up disjunctions. In his notes Darwin concentrated specifically on Paley's argument that, granted His existence, Jesus was either the son of God as he claimed or "an imposter or an enthusiast & deceived himself. ''8 Darwin's approach to Paley was the appropriate one, since the essential merit in Paley's mode of argument was the identification of all logical possibilities and then the progressive elimination of one after another until only one remained.

This simplicity of judgment with respect to religion remained with Darwin. When during the voyage on the Beagle he turned against the Old Testament on geological and moral grounds 9 and, after the voyage, found the argument from design less than universal, he became as easily

Evidences of Christianity (1974) in The Works of William Paley (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Peter Brown, 1831). Paley's The Prin'tiples of Moral and .Political Philosophy (1801) was also required reading.

5. Autobiography, p. 59. 6. Ibid., p. 86. 7. Paley, Evidences, p. 297. 8. Darwin MSS, vol. 91, ULC. Compare with Evidences, Part 2, Chap. 5, p. 364. 9. Autobiography, p. 85. The "geological" grounds very.likely refer to Darwin's

change of opinion the Beagle voyage concerning the geological significance and historicity of the Noachian flood; the "moral" grounds refer to his dissatisfaction with the Old Testament image of God as a "revengeful tyrant."

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convinced of the falsity of religion as, at one time, at least passively, he had been persuaded of its truth. Thus Darwin's undergraduate education influenced the terms of his response to religion, both while he was for it and when he turned against it.

On the political side, there is nothing to suggest that Darwin forsook the liberalism of the Darwin-Wedgwood families. Indeed, according to Paul H. Barrett, Darwin while a student at Edinburgh University in his teens resigned from the Plinian Society in protest at the reprimand a student received for espousing materialist views, m° This early evidence of Darwin's espousal of the liberal belief in the right of free speech supports the view that it was Darwin's most cherished political belief. Indeed, as his now famous letter to Karl Marx suggested, he seems to have regarded free thought and free speech as the chief political requirement for the gradual enlightenment of mankind, u Another liberal position which Darwin had occasion to defend early in life was that against slavery, which was abolished within the British Empire in 1834. Darwin's antagonist on the slavery issue was Robert Fitzroy, the captain of the Beagle, who was politically conservative and personally contentious. As a conservative Fitzroy defended the institution of slavery, and since the two men frequently conversed aboard ship (Fitzroy treating Darwin as his sole equal), their differences in political opinion periodically threatened the harmony of their relationship. Nevertheless, Darwin's fidelity to the political liberalism of his family traditions apparently did not lead him to more universal philosophical conclusions. One cannot make the case for Charles Darwin which Samuel LiUey has made for his grandfather Erasmus that it was the subject's larger philosophical beliefs, in Erasmus' case a belief in progress, which prompted thoughts on evolution. 1~

To return to the subject of Darwin's career, we can see that his ambitions lay with science even as an undergraduate. This seemingly obvious point requires emphasis because the impression gained from the

10. Paul H. Barrett, "Darwin's Gigantic Blunder,"Z Geological Education, 21 (January 1973), p. 23. Professor Barrett promises more information on this point in his forthcoming book, co-authored with Howard Gruber, to be titled Darwin on Man.

11. Charles Darwin to Karl Marx, October 13, 1880, in Sir Arthur Keith, Darwin Revalued. (London: Watts, 1955), p. 234.

12. Samuel Lilley, "The Origin and Fate of Erasmus Darwin's Theory of Organic Evolution," Actes du Xle 11965] Congr~s InternatT"onal d'Histoire des Sciences (Warsaw: Ossolineum, 1968), Vol. V, pp. 70-75.

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Autobiography is of a young man whose career was transformed by the opportunity of a voyage. 13 This perception is technically correct in that the voyage afforded Darwin a major problem on which to work. How ever, from the Darwin-Fox letters alone one can sense Darwin's scientific ambitions as an undergraduate and the progress he was making toward their fulfillment. The letters reflect his growing competence: they show him drawing even with Fox in entomology, Fox's specialty; 14 they give a glimpse of his competitiveness (he rejoiced that he bested Leonard Jenyns on a point); and they display the ease of.his entry while visiting London into "places where naturalists are gregar- ious. ''15 The appearance of the names of other naturalists in the letters, such as William Hope the entomologist and George Waterhouse, who later worked on the Beagle collections, further suggests the good company Darwin was keeping in natural history. Of course much of the ease of Darwin's entry into scientific society was owing to J. S. Henslow, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, but even that relationship was apparently initiated by Charles, who sought out Henslow on his brother Erasmus' recommendation. 16 More could be added from other sources to illustrate the direction of Darwin's early ambition but enough has been said to make the point.

In this context Darwin's projected clerical career was a convenience. It satisfied his father and seemed the appropriate choice since a number of men eminent in science at Cambridge were also clerics. Among these one thinks most immediately of Henslow and, at further remove, Adam Sedgwick, Professor of Geology, and William Whewell, then Professor of Mineralogy. However, Henslow, Sedgwick, and Whewell all possessed genuine religious interests to a degree which Darwin did not. If we take Darwin's scientific ambitions as a given, the question then becomes when Darwin abandoned his clerical intentions. The Autobiography states that they "died a natural death" when he boarded the Beagle. 17 Yet at the time Darwin did not admit as much to

13. Autobiography, pp. 76-77. 14. Darwin to Fox, July 29, 18291 Darwin-Fox Correspondence: "1 do hope

that when you are in Yorkshire you will redeem your character in Entomology. It is a long time since you mentioned taking any good insects. - I think you would be surprised ff you were to see all my insects."

15. Darwin to Fox, February 26, 1829, Darwin-Fox Correspondence. 16. Autobiography, p. 64. 17. Ibid, p. 570.

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his father or to himself. In a remarkable letter which his brother Erasmus wrote to him during the first year of the Beagle voyage, Charles was chided for his constancy: "I am sorry to see in your last letter that you still look forward to the horrid little parsonage in the desert. I was beginning to hope I should have you set up in London in lodgings somewhere near the British Museum or some other learned place. My only chance is the Established Church being abolished. . . , , is The letter is particularly important because Erasmus was ahead of Charles on two counts: first, he had abandoned all pretense of prac- tieing medicine as had been his father's will; and, second, he had already arranged lodgings for himself in London, complete with labo- ratory. It took Charles another four and a half years to take those two steps. Even without formally breaking with his father, however, Charles had done little or nothing to bring himself closer to a career in the church.

In contrast, in pursuit of his interests in natural history he had already done a great deal by the time of his graduation from university. He was then, for example, in the process of arranging passage for himself and several friends to the Canary Islands for the purposes of observation and collection, a project taken on in emulation of Humboldt. It is very likely that he would have successfully made his way there had the Beagle opportunity not arisen. In the meantime, however, Henslow had arranged for him to accompany Adam Sedgwick on a geological excursion in Wales, Henslow intenionally turning his student toward geology at this point, i9 As Adam Sedgwick, in company with Roderick Murchison, was then engaged in his most important work - the identification of the earliest fossil-bearing strata - it requires no great leap of the imagination to speculate that Darwin might easily have been recruited by the stream of British geology which they represented had not the Beagle offer intervened. 2° A remark which Erasmus made to

18. Erasmus to Charles Darwin, postmarked August 20, 1832, Darwin MSS (Robin Darwin deposit), ULC.

19. Autobiography, p. 68. 20. For a brief account of the Sedgwick-Murchison achievement during this

period see M.J.S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils (New York: American Elsevier, 1972), pp. 191-200. Two recent papers which suggest the style as well as the content of the Sedgwick-Murchison endeavors, and thereby the geological world Darwin might have entered, are M. J. S. Rudwick, "Levels of Disagreement in the Sedgwick-Murchison Controversy," and its companion piece by J. C. Thackray, "The Murchison-Sedgwick Controversy," Geological Society of London (in press).

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Charles in the letter quoted above bears this out: "You would have had a very pleasant summer in Shropshire this year. Sedgwick and Murchison were both geologizing there. Murchison went to examine all the country about the Ponsford Hills which even I should liked to have joined him in. ''21

As it happened, Erasmus continued to make his way in London's hterary and political circles (he was an intimate of such people as Thomas Carlyle and Harriet Martinueau) while Charles was already as of the date of this letter a partisan of Lyetl's Principles, which represented a rather different stream in British geology from that of Sedgwick and Murchison. These circumstances are all parts of other stories - t h e history of geology in England, the organization of London's literary as opposed to its scientific world - but for the moment they may serve to support the assertion that Charles Darwin was in pursuit of a full- time scientific career at the point of his graduating from university at the age of twenty-two. Thus it is clear that his declared intention of entering the English clergy had behind it neither personal desire nor interest in philosophical subjects beyond that characteristic of his family.

Observations on Man during the Voyage o f the "Beagle"

The course of the development of Darwin's ideas on species is a matter which has received considerable attention from his own day to the present. 22 We will touch on it at this point only to the extent

21. Erasmus to Charles Darwin, August 20, 1832, Darwin MSS (Robin Darwin deposit), ULC

22. See Howard E. Gruber and Valmai Gruber, "The Eye of Reson: Darwin's Development during the Beagle Voyage," 1sis, 53, (June 1962), 186-200; and Sydney Smith, "The Origin of 'The Origin'," Advance. Sci., 16 (1960), 391-400. On the Malthus question see Frank Egerton, "Humboldt, Darwin and Popula- tion," J. Hist. Biol., 3 (Fall 1970), 325-360; Sandra Herbert, "Darwin, Malthus, and Selection," J. Hist. Biol., 4 (Spring 1971), 209-217; and Peter Vorzimmer, "Darwin, Malthus, and the Theory of Natural Selection," J. Hist. ldeas, 30 (1969), 527-542. More general works covering the period include Gavin de Beer, Charles Darwin: A Scientific Biography (New York: Doubleday, 1965); Loren Eisetey, Darwin's Century (New York: Doubleday, 1958); Michael Ghise- lin, The Triumph o f the Darwinian Method (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1959); and Camille Limoges, La s3lection naturelle (Paris: Presses Universitalres de France, 1970). For Darwin's relationship to Lyell, see Leonard G. Wilson, Charles Lyell: The Years to 1841 (New Haven: Yale Univer- sity Press, 1972). On the interesting subject of the growth in Darwin's self-

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necessary to determine whether anything Darwin learned about man in the course of the voyage led him to entertain the notion of transmutation. While the materials available for answering this question have not yet been exhaustively explored and, if the past is any guide, new Darwin manuscripts will continue to come to light, a provisional judgment can now be made. Fortunately, for the Beagle period itself, there are a variety of sources to draw on. Of particular value in approaching this period are Darwin's record of major dates in his life, which he began in August 1838, 23 and his Autobiography, which contains a brief recapitulation of his thought during the voyage (December 27, 1831 - October 2, 1836). With respect to manuscript material from the voyage, it is the major collections at University Library, Cambridge, and at Down House, the Darwin Memorial in Kent, which are most useful.

One very striking aspect of the manuscript material from the voyage period is the grouping of notes according to subject matter. The geological notes represent the greatest portion of the collection, followed by the zoological notes. ~ Botanical subjects are rarely covered, and there are no separate notes devoted to human subjects. In part this distribution of labor represents what Darwin felt to be his areas of competence (he was relatively ignorant about botanical classification for example), but it also reflects his judgment of the expectations of the collections desired by various professional groups within British science. Hence, at the outset of the voyage he had decided to concentrate on geology rather than zoology, with which he was at that time more familiar, as the geology of the areas being visited by the Beagle was less well known

than the zoology. He knew that a good survey of the geological aspects of South America would do more to establish his reputation than a

confidence during the voyage see Frank Sulloway III, "Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle," Unpub. thesis, Harvard University, chap. 1. Its interpretation rests on a content analysis of the important Darwin-Henslow correspondence from the voyage published by Nora Barlow. See Nora Balow, ed., Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of an Idea. Letters, 1831-1860 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).

23. "Darwin's Journal," ed. Sir Gavin de Beer, Bulletin o f the British Museum (Natural History] Historieal Series, 2 (1959). The cover of the original notebook is labeled "Journal/Charles Darwin/August 1838."

24. For the priority of geological subjects during the voyage see Grnber and Grnber, "Eye of Reason," p. 189. An illustration of the preponderance of geology over zoology in Darwin's efforts is the fact, which Gruber and Gruber point out, that the formal' geological notes from the voyage constitute 1,383 pages while the zoological notes only 368 pages.

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reworking of South American zoology. On the botanical side, Darwin's major effort was expended in an exhaustive collection of Gal~pagos species. In this case, however, his own interest in island species was primary, rather than the needs of a professional community numbering more than one (Henslow) at home.

In the scheme of contemporary British science, however, there was no similar call for anthropological collections (the Ethnological Society of London was not formed until 1843), and Darwin simply did not collect human artifacts or remains, As one historian of anthropology has remarked, " the study of non-European man [in England] still lacked an adequate insti tutional embodiment in the mid-1830's. ' '2s Possibly for that reason Darwin did not establish a professionally oriented series of notes on man during the voyage, and, outside of parenthetical remarks on man in his geological or zoological notes or in his field notebooks, 26 only his Diary 27 contains a large number o f observations on man.

The Diary is a good representation of Darwin's views on man during

the voyage, though limited by the purpose for which Darwin wrote it, namely, as a log of daily events useful to himself, potent ial ly publish- able, and descriptive of his adventures to his family, to whom he sent

sections of the Diary as it was written. There is an abundance of material on man in the Diary, as it was entirely within the t radi t ion of

25. George W. Stocking, Jr., "What's in a name? The Origins of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1837-71)," Man, n.s., 5 (1971), 371. The Aborigines Protection Society was founded in 1837; out of this humanitarian enterprise came the Ethnological Society. From the point of view of voyaging naturalists, however, perhaps the most interesting element in the institutional development of anthropology in the British Isles was the ethnographical questionnaire prepared by James Pritchard at the behest of the British Association following his 1839 paper before the Association titled "On the Extinction of Human Races." The questionnaire, which became the B.A.A.S.'s still continuing Notes and Queries on Addressed to Travellers and Others (London: R. & J.E. Taylor, 18397). Had such an authoritative questionnaire been available to Darwin in 1831, it is very possible that he would have taken the Fuegians and other natives more seriously, perhaps devoting a separate set of notes to the topic of man. Certainly he was open to this method of information gathering, as he used it himself in his 1839 "Questions about the Breeding of Animals" and in his 1867 "Queries about Expression for Anthrophological Inquiry."

26. Selections from all the extant field notebooks have been published in Nora Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946). The originals of the notebooks are stored at Down House, Kent.

27. Charles Darwin's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. "'Beagle," ed. Nora Balow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933).

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travel literature that the author should comment on foreign habits, foods, language, religion, government, and so on. Before proceeding to use the Diary as a source for the reconstruction of Darwin's ideas, however, it must be acknowledged that at least one scholar has suggested in its published form as the Journal o f Researches 2s the Diary is "not strictly a scientific work" but essentially a "popular account of [Darwin's] travels" which thus must be used "with great caution. ' ' :9 If these judgments are true for any portions of the Journal o f Researches, they are true for the sections on man, for the reasons previously cited, that the observations were not backed up by a collection or by critical pressure brought to bear by the existence of an audience of professionals. These deficiences are most apparent in the transfer of material from the Diary to the Journal, for the sections on man remained relatively unaltered while sections of the Diary dealing with zoological and geological matters were altered and expanded 3° following Darwin's contacts with professional communities of geologists and zoologists on his return to London. Given these qualifications, however, Darwin's remarks on man in the Diary are otherwise of the same quality as his observations on other areas of natural history and can be taken to represent his views. It would be taking a misleadingly narrow view of what constitutes a scientific account to denigrate the Diary or the Journal o f Researches on the grounds that they are popular works. Travel narrative was, of course, an established genre which appealed to a wide public, but in the hands of a Humboldt or a Darwin it became an instrument for awakening the public to the excitement o f science as well as an instrument that provided the author with a convenient vehicle for announcing a great variety of finds in more specialized fields, aa It was for the latter reason that Darwin's title for the Journal o f Researches made sense: it was

28. Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle (London: Henry Colburn, 1839).

29. Ghiselin, The Triumph of the Darwinian Method, 9. 30. While the Diary contained 189,000 words, the first edition of the Journat.of

Researches had 224,000 words, an increase of 19 percent. Charles Darwin's Diary, p. viii.

31. See Alexander yon Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoc- tial Regions of the New Continent, 1799-1804, trans. Helen Maria Williams (London: Longman, 1814-1829). On board the Beagle Darwin had access to a good collection of standard accounts of voyages such as those written or including sections by F. W. Beechey, George Bennett, George A. Byron, Adelbert yon Chamisso, William Ellis, J. R. Forster, P. P. King, and Otto yon Kotzebue.

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literally a record of the various researches which had grown out of his travels. This record was not a popularization, for few of these researches had yet been published in any form. On the other hand, it was not a monograoh. It was a scientific work, but one modeled on the idea of nature present in Humbolt's Personal Narrative rather than on the idea of science inherent in, say, one of Cuvier's monographs. It is not a model which Darwin himself preferred in most cases, but, as should be clear by the end of this paper, it served him exceedingly well with respect to the species question.

To return to the subject of man in the Diary, two themes stand out as

likely candidates for roles in the development of a theory of transmutation. The first was the sharp distinction drawn between savage and civilized man and the second the attention paid to the geographical distribution and presumed place of origin of the various human groups encountered during the course of the Beagle's voyage. The first interest was the simpler one, being frornits first appearance almost a response rather than an indication of original thought. This interest was stimu- lated by the fact that an extracurricular mission of the voyage had been to return to their homeland three natives of Tierro del Fuego who had been taken to England by Robert Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle, in 1830 following the ship's first voyage, a2 The Beagle deposited the Fuegians according to plan in January 1833 and paid a return call on them thirteen months later in March 1834. The return of the Fueglans thus provided Darwin with the unexpected opportunity of observing what was, in a sense, an experiment in acculturation.

It seems likely from the scant notice Darwin gave to the three Fuegians aboard ship before reaching Tierra del Fuego that he had not anticipated the extent of his own interest, which was, from the inten- sity of his description, apparently aroused on the occasion of his first sighting Fuegians on their native soil. " I t was," he wrote, "without exception the most curious and interesting spectacle I ever beheld. ''aa In the course of his description Darwin invoked a parallel between savage and civilized man, on the one hand, and wild and domesticated

32. For the interesting story of the circumstances of the Fuegians' journey and of Fitzroy's hopes from them see Robert Fitzroy, Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Mafesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), II, 1-16. The transported Fueglans would appear to have been members of the coastal'Yaghan tribe rather than of the inland-dwelling Ona tribe.

33. Char[es Darwin's Diary, p. 119.

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animals, on the other, which went far toward explaining how he under- stood the Fuegians. By citing the relationship of a wild animal to its domestic cousin, Darwin was claiming identity in an original progenitor for savage and civilized man (indeed on almost every occasion he made clear that he believed all beings of human form to be of a single species) while claiming differences of a sort which would enable various groups to be ranked on a scale ranging from savage to civilized. The comparison between wild-domestic and savage-civilized failed, however, on one important point, which was of immediate interest with respect to the success of the Fuegian experiment. Darwin had no reason to think that wild animals became domesticated within a single generation. Such was not at all apparent with respect to the civilizing of supposed savages. In his initial contact with Fuegians he took the liberal position that their three years with Englishmen had sufficed "in contradiction of what has often been stated . . . to change savages into as far as habits go, complete & voluntary Europeans. ''a4 He was so far convinced of their transformation into good Englishmen that he feared they had been made unfit to return to their families.

Upon the Beagle's return to Tierra del Fuego in March 1834, however, Darwin observed that Jemmy Button, the ship's favorite of the three surviving Fuegians, seemed "as happy as if he had never left his mother country; which is much more than I had formerly thought. ''3s Darwin thus claimed to have witnessed the passage in a single generation of a savage into a civilized man and, with allowances, of the adjust- ment of the same man once again to his former state. The only new element in the discussion of 1834 on the subject is an invocation of the force of habit fitting the Fuegian for his life, though this particular reference is so slight that it is hard to know whether or not it represents a change in opinion, a6

Two years later, at the end of the voyage, Darwin in general retained the opinion formed in 1833 that the differences separating men in a savage and civilized state were externally caused, though there was now a trace of doubt about whether the savage lacked reason or only "the arts consequent on human reason. ''37 However, despite what may have been a new uncertainty over the hereditary nature of certain accom- plishments, Darwin continued to speak of the difference between what

34. Ibid., p. 136. 35. Ibid., p. 216. 36. Ibid., p. 213. 37. Ibid., p. 428.

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he termed savage man and what he termed civilized man as though it

were a difference between potential and actual states of being. For that reason the opposi t ion he set up between savage and civilized did not consti tute a step in the direction of an espousal of the notion of the mutabi l i ty of species. Whatever the strength of the psychological effect on Darwin of " the first sight in his native haunt, of a real barbarian," the terms he used during the voyage to describe the passage between savage and civilized were not transmutationist.38

The second theme developed with respect to man which offered transmutationist possibilities was that of the relation of various peoples to one another geographically and consequently genetically. This theme seems to have been developed casually with respect to man, even after it became important for describing other aspects of natural history. This was true in spite of the numerous possibilities for the study of geographical distr ibution and variation afforded by the distr ibution of

Indian tribes in South America and by the encroachments on their territories being made by the decendants of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors and their African slaves. While there is an occasional spark of brilliance in Darwin's remarks (as, for example, in the suggestion that the parasites inhabiting mankind might be used to study the affinities of its various subdivisions), 39 the majori ty of the observations are less systematic with respect to the human species than were those of Humboldt . It was Fi tzroy, and not Darwin, for example, who first

38. Ibid. 39. Darwin routinely studied the contents of the intestines of the animals he

dissected as well as examining fecal matter, both of which procedures familiarized him with the uniqueness of parasite-host relationships. While he suggested the utility of such studies with respect to man as early as 1833, I do not know that he ever made such studies. In 1833 he suggested in his notation for specimen 646 in his "Catalogue for Animals in Spirits of Wine" that a comparison of the parasites of a wild South American guinea pig with those of its European cousin would show "whether they have been altered by transportation and domestication" and that "it would be curious to make analogous observation with respect to various tribes of man." (Quoted in Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage o f the Beagle, p. 265.) In a comment in his zoological notes made a year later the emphasis was shifted from the study of the parasite to the study of the host and specifically to the utility of the study of human parasites for discovering the genetic relationships between subdivisions of the human species: "Man springing from one stock according to his varieties having different species of parasites." (Quoted by Gruber and Gruber, "Eye of Reason," p. 193.)

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published a brief table of vocabulary for the Fuegians and the inhabitants of the Chonos Archipelago. 4°

The most complicated puzzle in human geography which Darwin attempted to solve concerned the identity of the Indian tribes inhabiting the islands of Chiloe off the coast of Chili at 43 ° south latitude and the Chonos Archipelago a degree farther south. In his "enquiries concerning the history of the Indians of Chiloe, ''41 he relied on the affinities of language and, to a lesser extent, on affinities of custom. He supposed that the remnants of original tribes inhabiting the area had been displaced b y two tribes thought to be from the north, but which he believed unrelated linguistically to the northern neighbors of the Indians of Chiloe, the famous Araucanians. A modern authority has come independently to a similar judgment. 42

In addition, on several occasions Darwin made use of the distribution of Indians to demonstrate his primary hypothesis at that time, the recent date of the elevation of the South American continent. What is striking to the present-day reader about these examples is Darwin's conception of substantial amounts of elevation having occurred during historical times, that is, since the period of the great Indian empires. This is an estimation not presently shared by geologists or Latin- American archeologists. He suggested, for example, that the existence of uninhabited houses high in the Andes indicated that the land had stood at a lower level (and hence there was a more temperate climate) when the houses were constructed:

If the mountains rose slowly, the change of climate would also deteriorate slowly. I know of no reason for denying that a large part of this may have taken place since S. America was peopled. 43

More striking still, he used the present inhabitation of Tierra del Fuego,

40. Fitzroy, Voyage, vol. II, Appendix (a separate volume), 135-142. 41. Charles Darwin's Diary, p.- 269. 42. See John M. Cooper, "The Chono," Srnithsonian Institution Bureau of

American Ethnology Bulletin 143: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. Julian H. Steward (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946), p. 49. Cooper believes the language was distinct, unrelated to the Araueanian, and more likely a dialect of the Alaealauf language spoken by natives of the islands below 48 Q South Latitude."

43. Charles Darwin's Diary, p. 303.

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whose dreary climate was unattractive on its own merits, to support his general argument that large parts of the continent had but very recently risen from the sea:

Conversing with Capt. Fitz Roy concerning the recent elevation of the continent he suggested the following bold hypothesis: The number of distinct languages in T. del Fuego & the similarity in physical structure suggests an high antiquity to the race of these Indians: It seems a most strange fact,~that any power could have induced a set of men to leave the immense & [fertile? ] regions of temperate America & inhabit the miserable country of the South. - May we conjecture that this migration took place anterior to the last 2 or 3000 ft. elevation; when the greater part of America being covered with the sea want of food might well compel small tribes to follow to the extremity the ridge of mountains? May we venture to extend this idea - the lofty plains of Mexico & Peru probably existed as dry land at an immensely remote epoch. - H e n c e did they not become the two centres of aboriginal civilization? ~

This technique of inferring past crustal movements from ranges of species was an important one and recurs in the transmutation notebooks. It is interesting that Darwin never hesitated to use it with respect to the human species, but aside from their ready naturalism, his discussions of the geographical distribution of the human species do not seem to have been the critical examples which moved him closer to a belief in the transmutation of species.

Before leaving the period of the voyage proper, we should perhaps also credit Darwin's ready naturalism with a certain amount of anthropological acuity. For example, almost intuitively, he assigned dual functions to native customs. A sacred tree might serve, on the one hand, as a religious center and, on the other hand, as a direction marker. 4s Also, the Diary contains numerous general comments on human nature ( "How universal is the desire of man to show he has

44. Darwin MSS, vol. 34, i, ULC. This passage was part of a long essay on the elevation of Patagonia and was probably written in 1834, a dating on which Professor Sydney Smith and Peter J. Gautrey concur. The passage in the Diary re- laying the same thought and also composed in 1834 was more cautious, as was the fmal version of the Journal. Compare Diary, p. 213 and Journal o f Researches, p. 237.

45. Charles Darwin's Diary, pp. 159-160.

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ascended the highest points in every country") 46 and several suggestions of the ways human artifacts provid e keys to the past. For example, knowing the association of horses and hunting with bolas and finding arrowheads on the Patagonian plains led him to the conclusion not only that the Patagonian Indians had not hunted with horses but also that "the horse was not an original inhabitant" of the continent. 47 But, considering the wealth of speculation on similar topics within the tradition of voyaging naturalists, and the outstanding work of Humboldt, to which Darwin referred as a model, his observations fall well within the bounds of the remarks expected of an observant and informed naturalist.

Personal Change of Mind

If Darwin's direct observations on man during the voyage do not seem to have initiated any large changes in his notions of species, what of his attitude? Were there more subtle changes in his opinion of the position of man with respect to the rest of the natural world? Had his religious beliefs altered? The chief document useful for answering such questions is Darwin's o w n account of his changes of heart in a section from his Autobiography devoted to the subject of "Religious Belief. ''48 Al- though the Autobiography is suspect for having been written some forty years after the events, it is an indispensable source because no- where else did Darwin describe the course of his change of mind so directly.

The essential feature for our purposes in Darwin's description of his own loss of faith is his periodization of his state of mind into the time before and the time after the voyage. Although he described his loss of belief as occurring "at a very slow rate," thus causing him "no distress," by his own account this process began only after his return to Eng- land. 49 This may be a somewhat simplified periodization as it is an un- usual person who would be possessed of an identical religious and philosophical outlook at age twenty-seven as at age twenty-two. Certainly his disavowal during the course of the voyage of the geological meaningful- ness of the biblical deluge was significant, ff only for the reason that it

46. Ibid., p. 152. 47. Ibid., p. 174. 48. Autobiography, pp. 85-96. 49. Ibid., pp. 87, 86.

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served to emphasize to Darwin the many possible issues separating his own Whiggish views from those of Fitzroy. Nonetheless, Darwin's change of heart on religious and philosophical matters does seem on all other major points to postdate the voyage. For example, in a passage written a year and a half before the end of the voyage, Darwin defended the notion that extinct species must logically be replaced by the introduction of new species since otherwise - if the number of species had varied greatly - the "fitness" which the "Author of Nature" had established would have been altered, s° This reference to the "fitness" required by the "Author of Nature" as more than a defense of natural law; it was a remark which stood within the tradition of natural theology as well as natural history. Later, Darwin, even while associating the rule of natural law with the existence of a divine lawmaker, would not so freely attribute such specific characteristics as "fitness" to the operation of the lawmaker. On other religious and philosophical topics, such as the relation of the mental to the physical, the nature of the soul, and the existence of free will, Darwin makes no comment in the material dating from the period of the voyage. In sum, then, neither Darwin's observations on man during the voyage nor a change in his overall religious or philosophical attitude during the same period seems to have precipitated his interest in the species question.

SOURCES OF DARWIN'S CONVERSION TO A TRANSMUTATIONIST POSITION

Thus far in examining what Darwin had to say about man during the voyage we have avoided naming a date for Darwin's adoption of a transmutationist hypothesis for the good reason that the exact date is not universally agreed on. Writing in 1838, Darwin himself dated the moment of decision as March 1837:

In July opened first note book on "transmutation of Species" - Had been greatly struck from about month of previous March on character

50. Darwin MSS, vol. 42, ULC. The entire sentence reads, "If the existence of species is allowed each according to its kind we must suppose deaths to follow at different epochs & then successive births must repeople the globe or the number of its inhabitants has varied exceedingly at different periods. - A supposition in contradiction to the fitness which the Author of Nature has now established." The folio in which this sentence appears was dated February 1835.

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of S. American foss i ls - & species on Galapagos Archipelago. These facts origin (especially latter) of all my views, sl

Claims, however, have been made by Nora Barlow, who has published a number of important manuscripts from this period, that Darwin was already approaching the question of species from a transmutationist view by mid-1835, that is, during the Beagle voyage, sz Given the disagreement over dating Darwin's transmutationist moment and our purpose of seeing where the question of human origins entered his speculations, it is necessary at this point to review the sources on the basis of which authors have confirmed or altered Darwin's testimony. The four items which have figured most prominently in the setting of dates for Darwin's conversion to a transmutationist thesis have been: the notes from the voyage taken as a whole; the Ornithological Notes, to which Lady Barlow has assigned a relatively early date; Beagle notebook 1.2, s3 which Lady Barlow has treated together with the Ornitho- logical Notes; and Darwin's marginalia in the fifth edition of Lyelrs Pn'nciples of Geology, to which Professor Sydney Smith has called attention.S4

Until now authors have reconstructed the development of Darwin's thought on species prior to July 1837 by using some or all of these documents. Rather than following this tack, I would like instead to block out the period in terms of Darwin's activities during the years or months preceeding July 1837. This approach has the advantage of ordering the period prior to July 1837 with respect to the development of Darwin's views on species without requiring an exhaustive discussion of all the issues involved. It is also particularly appropriate for the period from the end of the voyage to the opening of the first notebook on transmutation because during that time Darwin did not, so far as is

51. "Darwin's Journal," p. 7. This entry was presumably written shortly after Darwin opened his "Journal" in August 1838. The "previous March" is thus March 1837.

52. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," ed., Nora Barlow, Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Historical Series 2, no. 7 (1963), 204. The Notes represent vol. 29, ii, of the Darwin MSS. at ULC.

53. Beagle notebook 1.2, labeled "R.N.," Darwin MSS, Down House, Kent. Lady Barlow has published the portions of the notebook dealing with species in an appendix to "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," pp. 267-277. Peter Gautrey of the Univer- sity Library and I are atpresent preparing an edition of the complete notebook.

54. Smith, "Origin of the 'Origin'," pp. 397-398. The original Lyell volumes form part of the Darwin Library held at ULC.

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known, keep a diary or a single set of notes which would enable one to identify the state of his views on a subject at any given date. And, finally, this approach makes more obvious the role played by external circumstances in the progress of Darwin's theoretical work on species. The four separate projects which served in turn as the" center for his speculations on species are: (1) the geological and zoological note taking during the voyage; (2) the listing of separate zoological collections, including the Ornithological Notes, done for the most part during the last months of the voyage; (3) the identification of numerous parts of his collection by members of the Zoological Society o f London during the first three months of 1837; and (4) the composition of the Journal o f Researches, in the spring and summer of 1837. Darwin's marginalia in the fifth edition of Lyell's Principles are of various date and will be treated in closing.

Evidence o f Notes Dating from the Voyage

The geological and zoological notes from the voyage were written for Darwin's own use and include theoretical and speculative passages on many subjects. For that reason they may be accepted as representing his opinion on species during the period. This is important, as the notes do not contain any explicitly transmutationist statements which would allow one to say that Darwin was converted to the position during the voyage. Even so, enormous progress had been made. As part of his more general conversion to a LyeUian program of geological research, Darwin had accepted Lyell's setting of the species question, s5 This is illustrated in his belief that the extinction and birth of species should be treated as

55. LyeU's program on the species question was most succintly expressed ha his letter to John Herschel of June 1, 1836, in Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. (London: John Murray, 1881), I, 467-469. His detailed presentation is contained in the second volume of his Principles of Geology (London: John Murray, 1830o33). For a summary of it see William Coleman, "Lyell and the 'Reality' of Species: 1830-1833." 1sis, 53 (September 1962), 325-338. For a more methodologically oriented view see M. J. S. Rudwick, "The Strategy of LyeU's Principles of Geology," Isis, 61 (Spring 1970), 5-33. An excellent new account of certain aspects of the subject is Michael Bartholomew, "Lyell and Evolution: An Account of LyeU's Response to the Prospect of an Evolutionary Ancestry for Man," BrL J. Hist. ScL, 6 (1973), 261-303. Bartho- lomew is particularly right in crediting LyeU with setting the species question in a manner in which it could be solved, even though, as Waiter Cannon and Martin Rudwick have argued, Lyell's view was fundamentally ahistorical.

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occurring singly rather than en masse, s6 Also, and again as part of his response to Lyell, Darwin maintained a special interest in the study of

emergent land masses as being the l ikely platforms for new life. For example, in his "Reflect ion on reading my geological notes," probably writ ten in 1835-36 , he. speculated " tha t rocks from seas too deep for life were rapidly elevated & that immediately when within a proper depth life commenced. ''sT In addi t ion to progress at the theoretical

level, there was also enormous progress at the level of observation. Indeed the factual basis for a transmutationist view often appears complete in the notes. For example, Darwin could describe a Gal~pagos mockingbird as "a singular form existing as varieties o f distinct species in the different Isds. ' ' ss Yet judgments of fact presumed professionally drawn distinctions between taxonomic groupings (the boundary

between species and variety being particularly t roublesome) which made Darwin's store o f observations less immediately assimilable to other lines of speculation than might appear at first reading. Thus it was only after the voyage that these separate lines o f speculation and observation could draw together.

Darwin's Ornithological Notes and Related Lists

Lady Barlow's publicat ion of the Ornithological Notes in 1963 naturally brought at tent ion to this manuscript and to the important passage she first singled out in 1935:

When I see these Islands in sight of each other & (but del.) possessed o f but a scanty stock of animals, tenanted by these birds, but slightly

56. E.g., a passage bearing a February 1835 date from Darwin MSS, vol. 42, ULC. "With respect then to the death of species of Terrestrial mammalia in the S. Part of S. America I am strongly inclined to reject the action of any sudden debacle. - Indeed the very numbers of the remains render it to me more probable that they are owing to a succession of deaths after the ordinary course of nature. - As Mr. LyeU supposes Species may perish as well as individuals; to the arguments he adduces I hope the Caria of B. Blanca will be one more small instance of at least a relation of certain genera with certain districts of the earth. This co-relation to my mind renders the gradual birth & death of species more probable."

57. Darwin MSS, vol. 42, ULC. Peter Gautrey has suggested a date of 1835 for this passage.

58. Darwin MSS, vol. 31, ii, ULC. Contrary to the impression created in the Journal of Researches (p. 474), many of the descriptions of Gal~pagos specimens do note the island of origin.

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differing in structure & filling the same place in Nature, I must suspect they are only v a r i e t i e s . . . I f there is the slightest foundat ion for these remarks the zoology of A r c h i p e l a g o e s - will be well worth examining; for such facts [would inserted] undermine the stability of Species. s9

Two obvious questions posed by this passage are those o f its date and of its relation to the issue of transmutation. Before taking up these questions directly, I should like to place the Ornithological Notes in the context of what I take to be the purpose for which they were

written, that is, as guides to individual portions of Darwin's zoological collections in tended for professional taxonomists .

The first point to be made with respect to the interpretat ion of the Ornithological Notes is that they form but one part of a series of manuscript notes on various port ions of Darwin's zoological coUec- tions. 6° When all o f these notes are examined together, it becomes clear

that they are not so much fresh notes on various groups of specimens as

comparatively simple lists taken in the main from two of Darwin's three specimen catalogs. 6x Given the simplicity of these lists the probable reason for their existence was the practical one of providing a separate catalog of each large grouping of specimens for individual taxonomists. Indeed at least two of the lists (Reptiles and Fish) bear annotations in

59. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 362. Lady Barlow first published this passage in a letter to Nature, 136 (July-December 1935), 391. That the date of this passage is not obvious at first glance is evidenced by the fact that in her letter to Nature Lady Barlow took its composition to be contemporary with the visit of the Beagle to the Gal~pagos Islands in September and October 1835. Since then she has made a thorough study of the entire text and her "Introduction, Notes, and Appendix" to the "Notes" should be consulted on all technical points.

60. Darwin MSS, vol. 29, ULC, contains, among other things, lists of animals, fish, insects, and shells like and including that on birds which has been published as "Darwin's Ornithological Notes." The complementary list for reptiles is housed at the British Museum (Natural History) where it came by way of Thomas Bell, who examined these specimens. All of the above notes were written on paper bearing the watermark "J. Whatman 1834," which was originally identified with respect to the ornithological list by Professor Sydney Smith. See "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 208.

61. The three master specimen catalogs were divided according to specimens stored in spirits, specimens stored dry, and geological specimens and fossils. The first two catalogs are housed at Down House, the third, mentioned in the Journal of Researches (p. 600), is missing.

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the handwriting of the specialist who handled that portion of the collection. 62

The mode of procedure seems to have been this: toward the end of the voyage Darwin went through his specimen catalogs initialing entries according to a simple key which appears at the beginning of each of the two extant catalogs. The initials used were "A," "B," "I," "S," and "P" for animal, bird, insect, shell, and plant, respectively. (Occasionally other initials were used which do not appear in the key, such as "C" for crustacea.) Having initialed the entries in this manner, Darwin then turned his catalogs over to his assistant, Syms Covington, who copied out a separate list for each category. Hence most of the lists are in Covington's hand and follow the original entries in the master catalogs word for word except for the addition of the date and place of collection where needed. For example, item 153 in the Catalog for Animals in Spirits of Wine is listed in ink as "Lacerta" with a penciled "R" added beside it; in the list rifled "Reptiles in Spirits of Wine" the entry reads "153 Lacerta: March, Bahia," the required date and place of collection having been added by Covington from information appearing in the margin of the master catalog. For some entries Covington was also instructed by Darwin's notation in the master catalogs to add information from the general zoological notes (Darwin MSS, vols. 30 and 31), and this Covington did.

What, then, of the date of these notes? The earliest possible date is that of the watermark of the paper, 1834, and in the judgment of Lady Barlow, the Ornithological Notes were probably begun at that time. 6a But since these lists contain information which Darwin already possessed in other forms and do not suggest that he was perusing the physical specimens once again it is hard to imagine why the lists would have been begun at such an early date. Rather it would seem likely that they were ordered (and here I am speaking of the lists done primarily in Covington's hand) late in the voyage when Darwin was anticipating the distribution of various portions of his collection to professional taxono-

62. The reptiles list bears what I believe to be the handwriting of Leonard Jenyns. I am grateful to Professor Sydney Smith for showing me a notebook belonging to Jenyns which allowed this identification.

63. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 205. There is some ambiguity in her presentation, however, as she also explains references to specimens out of sequence by saying that "this is wholly in keeping with the belief that they were written during the last year of voyage with his 'rough notes' before him," (Ibid). See also p. 259, n. 1.

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mists. As is generally known, Darwin collected very few specimens after

visiting the Gal~pagos because the ports visited later in the voyage had been well collected by other naturalists 64 and instead used the remaining year primarily for writing. 6s Therefore it would seem plausible to

assign the compilation of these species lists to the post-Gal~pagos period, and, in all likelihood, to a time well into 1836.

The date by which time the lists were completed is somewhat easier

to assign. At least one of the lists, the "Shells in Spirits of Wine," does not contain entries for specimens which Darwin recorded in the master catalog in December 1836; 66 this particular list was therefore completed

prior to Decemher 1836. The more general evidence that the lists represent a project of the voyage is the fact that proper scientific names

for specimens assigned from January 1837 on appear in the lists only as

later additions. Lady Barlow has pointed this out with respect to the

Ornithological Notes, 67 and it is true for the other lists as well. 6~ One

can therefore conclude that the lists were in existence prior to January

1837 when the zoologists began to assign new names to Darwin's specimens. 69

64. See Darvdn's letter of January 1836, Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, p. 114

65. See Darwin's letter of April 29, 1836, Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, p. 138.

66. Darwin MSS, vol- 29, i, ULC. The numbers listed in sequence go up to 1469. In the master catalog of specimens in spirits there is a final series of specimens, numbered from 1474 to 1529 (not inclusive), listed in pencil under the date "Decemb 1836."

67. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 216. 68. E.g.: The first thirty-two folios of "Animals" do not contain notation of

species names assigned to the specimens in the winter of 1837 other than those, such as Mus elegans (fol. 1), which were clearly later additions. Darwin MSS, voL 32, i, ULC.

69. There is one fact which could be used against this conclusion. The ornitho- logist John Gould remarked upon his first presentation of Darwin's birds to the Zoology Society on January 10, 1837, that he "deferred entering into any further details respecting the species under consideration until Mr. Darwin had furnished him with some information relating to their habits and manners." Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 5 "(1837), 7. Since information on habits and ranges was contained in the Ornithological Notes, Gould certainly did not have a copy of the Notes as of January 10. He apparently did have some information on habits and ranges by the next meeting of the Society on January 24 since he referred to assurances from Darwin "that the habits of this bird Polyborus Galapagoensis strictly coincide with those of the Caracara (Polyborus Brasiliensis)" (Ibid., p. 9). A similar change

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If the interpretat ion of the ornithological and related notes given above is accepted, how would it affect a reading of the passage quoted at the outset o f this section on the "stabil i ty o f Species"? As has been mentioned, the observations themselves were not new. 7° But there was a new urgency to their expression. The underlying problem in the paragraph on the "stabil i ty o f Species" was the demarcation between mere varieties and good species. This question was by definit ion the province of professional taxonimists, the presumed audience to which the various lists were directed. (The pointedness o f this question is revealed even more sharply in the "Animals" list which Darwin dosed by asking himself, "Are the various specimens of mice, which I have collected varieties or s p e c i e s ? - Their geographical distr ibution often causes me to doubt . ''71 Also, i f the lists were writ ten for the use o f

other as well as himself, the ambivalent abruptness o f the sentences where Darwin referred to "facts which would undermine the stability

of Species" may have been intentional. This means, then, whatever the interest inherent in individual passages from the Ornithological Notes and its counterparts , the entire work, or set o f works, should be seen in terms of the audience to which it was addressed. Holding the audience to mind can aid in interpreting particular passages and in identifying the subjects that necessarily demanded at tent ion while a particular project was under way. In this case the subject was the boundary separating varieties from species, and the audience was the professional zoological communi ty

occurred with the animals - James Reid mentioning his lack of information on habits and ranges on January 10 and William Martin using information of the same sort on January 24 (ibid., pp. 4, 11.) As Darwin probably did not com- municate in person with the zoologists from January 10 to 24 since he was in Cambridge, it is conceivable that the lists were sent to them during these two weeks or even that the two lists were written during this period.

It must be allowed, that it is also possible (though again inconsistent with this interpretation) that Darwin kept the Birds and Animals lists entirely within his own possession and imparted information only on request. For example, in his one long presentation to the Society, Darwin was apparently reading directly from the Ornithological Notes; cf. Proc. ZooL Soc. Lond. 5 (1837), 35-36, on the two rheas with "Darwin's ornithological Notes," pp. 268-275. Even if Gould did have a copy of the Notes, however, he may not have had this final section on the two rheas, as the extant copy does not have the instruction "cop" (copy) in the margin.

70. E.g., compare the remark on the same specimen of mockingbirds made in the zoological notes (see note 58) and on the Ornithological Notes (see note 59).

71. Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i, "Animals," fol. 32, ULC.

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The Role o f Professional Zoologists

In discussing Darwin's dealings with zoologists from October 1836 to March 1837 a cautionary judgment must be made at the outset that Darwin's own professional identification was with geology. This was of his own choosing. Even as measured in externalities, Darwin's effort to establish himself as a member of the Geological Society of London was considerable: he requested Henslow to put him forward for membership in the Society even before the voyage was over so that no time would be lost "before being balloted for"; 72 upon his return he immediately accepted the offer of Lyell's tutelage; 73 and, once elected to the Council of the Society, he did not miss a single meeting from March 8, 1837, to March 7, 1838. 74 In contrast, Darwin kept himself at some remove from the Zoological Society of London, becoming only a corresponding member. The result of his relatively distant relationship with the Zoological Society was that it left him free to negotiate the receipt of his zoological collections with individual zoologists on a piece-work basis.

Darwin began these negotiations immediately upon his return to England in October 1836, the months of October and November being largely taken up with this task. His frankest discussions of his efforts to place his collections are contained in several of the letters to Henslow which have been published by Lady Barlow. 7s During this time Darwin had to steer a fine course between not offering his collections to those important men who, by past example, had shown themselves unlikely to produce speedy results and not, by withholding his collections from them, giving offense. For example, he made a decision to offer his fossil mammalia to Richard Owen at the Royal Co!leg_e of Surgeons, where Owen was assistant to William Clift, rather than to William Buckland at Oxford. He also prevented the possibility that Robert Brown at the British Museum would lay a dead hand upon the flora. (As Brown was one of Darwin's frequent advisers, this must have required

72. Darwin to Henslow, July.9, 1836, Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, p. 115. 73. See Wilson, Charles Lyell, chap. 13. 74. Attendance record tallied from the Minute Books of the Council, Geological

Society of London, Burlington House. 75. See particularly Darwin's letter of October 30, 1836, Barlow, ed., in Darwin

and Henslow, pp. 118-123.

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all of Darwin's considerable tact.) One circumstance which of course strengthened Darwin's hand in negotiation was his lack of interest in being paid for his specimens and his complete title to them.

A few decisions were made early. Darwin had collected the Gal~ipagos flowering plants as a present for Henslow as well as a matter of interest to himself, v6 The disposition of the most spectacular specimens, the large fossil mammalia, was decided very soon after Darwin was introduced to Richard Owen by Lyell on October 29, 1836 - less than a month after Darwin had stepped ashore. 77 Owen, then thirty-two years old, confirmed Darwin's judgment that the specimens were important by having a preliminary list of them ready on January 1837. 7s Not surprisingly, Owen's was the first portion of the Zoology ready for publication, the first unit of Part I on Fossil Mammalia appearing in February 1838. 79 Equally efficient was John Gould, also thirty-two years old, who was apparently offered the ornological specimens in the fall of 1836 as the first presentation of specimens, the Gal~pagos finches, was made at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London on January 10, 1837. Although he was not a man of formal education and had come to the Society originally as a paid taxidermist, Gould had, through ambition, competence, and industry, become one of the group's central figuresfl ° Although involved in many other projects, Gould worked rapidly on Darwin's collection and made five separate presentations on various specimens to the meetings of the Society in the first seven months of 1837. 81 Later he collaborated with Darwin on the ornithological sections of the Zoology, a work to which his wife Elizabeth Coxen Gould, the artist, also contributed, producing fifty plates for the series before departing for Australia in May 1838. The

76. Darwin to Henslow, January 1836 and May 18, 1837, Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, pp. 113, 129.

77. Wilson, Charles Lyell, p. 434. 78. Ibid., pp. 436-437. 79. Charles Darwin, ed., The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M,S. Beagle...:

Part 1, Fossil Mammalia, by Richard Owen (1838-40); Part 2, Mammalia, by George R. Waterhouse (1838-39); Part 3, Birds, by John Gould (1838-41), Part 4, Fish, by Leonard Jenyns (1840-42); Part 5, Reptiles, by Thomas Bell (1842-43), (London: Smith Elder, 1838-43).

80. On Gould's appetite for new specimens see C. E. Bryant, "Gould Miscel- lanea and Some Anecdotes," Emu, 38, (October 1838), 227.

81. John Gould, "Remarks on a Group of Ground Finches from Mr. Darwin's Collection, with Characters of the New Species," Proe. Zool. Soc. LoncL, 5

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only disappointment the Goulds ever provided Darwin resulted from the circumstance that they did not describe the entire collection before their departure, leaving Darwin to tie up a great number of loose ends.

The other persons Darwin solicited to describe his collections proved nearly as efficient. George Waterhouse, Darwin's old acquaintance and curator at the Zoological Society, began publishing immediately on the important specimens of mice and rats, and ultimately did the volume on the mammalia for the Zoology. The fish were eventually given to Leonard Jenyns, Henslow's brother-in-law, in the fall of 1837. In November 1836 Thomas Bell, a leading figure in the Zoological Society, expressed interest in doing the reptiles and was apparently promised them forthwith, though this portion of the Zoology was the last to emerge. Remaining portions of the collection were also described by professionals (W. H. Miller, the minerals; G. B. Sowerby, the shells; J. Martin, some of the mammals, and so on), with Darwin reserving some of the invertebrates for himself. In short, although experiencing some setbacks, Darwin was succesful in placing his collections into competent hands.

Darwin's activity on behalf of his collections did not end there. He engaged the support of the heads of the highest scientific societies in gaining financial support from the government, himself dealing per- sonaUy with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to enable publication of the Zoology. 82 He also appears to have exercised some control over the order in which his specimens were examined. The report on the Gal~ipagos finches, for instance, was made on January 10, 1837, the first meeting of the Zoological Society at which any of the Beagle specimens was treated. A month thereafter, on February 14, Gould described the Gal~pagos mockingbird, and Waterhouse began his extended presentation on the mice. While Darwin was not always so successful in generating speedy answers to his questions (he pleaded

(January 10, 1837), 4-7; "Observations on the Raptorial Birds in Mr.Darwin's Collection, with Characters of the New Species," 5 (January 24, 1837), 9-11; "Exhibition of the Fissirostral Birds from Mr. Darwin's Collection, and Characters of the New Species,"5 (February 14, 1837), 22; "On a New Rhea (Rhea Darwinii) from Mr. Darwin's Collection," 5 (March 14, 1837), 35-36; and "Ex- hibition of Mr. Darwin's Birds (Pyrgita Iagoensis)," 5 (July 25, 1837), 77-78.

82. On the progress of the negotiations see Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, pp. 127, 134.

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with Henslow for each answer on the Gal~pagos fauna), sa it is an impressive testimony to his energy and single-mindedness that six months after the Beagle's return the most important species had been

described. The results of the professional examination of Darwin's collections

were decisive. In the test cases his specimens were declared to represent new species rather than, in Darwin's phrase, "only varieties" o f known species. Gould, for example, established a new genus, Geospiza, along with three subgenera for the Gal~pagos ground finches and named four- teen new species in all from the group. 84 The geographically isolated forms of the Gal~pagos mockingbird were also declared to be distinct species, as In a similar case, Darwin's smaller rhea was given official recognition as a new species. ~ As for the mammals, there had been some gaps in the collection asDarwin did not possess specimens of the Gal~pagos tortoises or the Falkland foxes (the East Falkland fox eventually described in the Zoology was from Fitzroy's collection). 87 Disappointments such as these were, however, balanced in part by the fme array of rodents in the collection. In the restricted genus Mus alone Waterhouse described nineteen new species at the meetings of the Zoological Society o n February 14 and 28 and set up a new genus, Reithrodon, for two other specimens, ss Clearly Waterhouse had an- swered Darwin's questions, expressed at the close of the "Animals" list, as to whether the majority of his mice were varieties or species. It is therefore not difficult to see that the decisions of the professional taxonomists represented a rite of passage for Darwin in his approach to the species question. And, later, not surprisingly, having received their judgment and used it as the basis for speculation, he was determined to see it acknowledged universally. Perhaps recalling his own initial un-

83. On October 29, 1836, Darwin removed the box of Gal~pagos plants from the Beagle, which was then docked at Greenwich. He sent the box at once to Henslow along with questions to which he wanted immediate answers. Letters 44-49 of the Darwin and Henslow collection reflect the increasing urgency with which Darwin put the questions to Henslow and his frustration at not being able to obtain immediate answers. The collection was eventually described by Joseph Hooker in the 1840's.

84. Prec. ZooL Soc. Lend., 5 (1837), 4-7. 85. Ibid., p. 27. 86. Ibid., p. 35 87 Zoology of the Beagle, Part 2, pp. 8-10. 88. Prec. ZooL Soc. Lend., 5 (1837), 15-21, 27-32.

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certainty on the variety-species distinction, and knowing that his still unpublished theory rested on its proper resolution, he wrote in the Zoology of the Galfipagos mockingbirds:

I may observe, that [if] some naturalists may be inclined to attribute these differences to local var ie t ies . . , then the experience of all the best ornithologists must be given up, and whole genera must be blended into species. 89

Composition o f the "Journal o f Researches'"

During the period October 1836 - J u l y 1837 Darwin probably spent more time on the Journal o f Researches than on any other single project. Most of the circumstances surrounding the composition of this work are well known and need only be alluded to: Fitzroy's favorable impression of Darwin's Diary and the consequent invitation to publish jointly; Henry Holland's negative opinion of the originality of the Diary and the brief family worry over its publishability; Darwin's haste in writing to meet a mid-1837 deadline; and Fitzroy's tardiness in completing his volume, which postponed publication of the Beagle series until 1839. To this may be added a general knowledge of Darwin's procedure in transforming the Diary into the Journal by the addition of several different sorts of material. 9° In the process of rewriting, Darwin added full descriptions of the specimens to the text of the Diary. As Lady Barlow has suggested, these were often taken from the Ornitholo- gical Notes 91 and, we may add, from the "Animals" list as well. Where available, new taxonomic designations were also given a prominent place in the description of specimens. A second kind of material added to the Diary was geological, a number of important theories and observations appearing for the first time publicly in the Journal. Finally, Darwin's personal narrative was broadened in outlook by the addition

89. Zoology of the Beagle, part 3, pp. 63-64. In a common sort of redefinition, the Gal,lpagos mockingbird is presently ranked as a single species, Nesomimus trifasciatus, with the forms recognized by Gould as distinct species being regarded as geographical races. See James Peters, Checklist of Birds of the World, ed. Ernst Mayr and James C. Greenway, Jr., (Cambridge, Mass.: Museum of Comparitive Zoology, 1960), vol. 9 Mimiclae, pp. 440-458, N. trifasciatus, pp. 447-448.

90. See the preface by Lady Barlow to Charles Darwin's Diary, pp. vii-xx. 91. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 33.

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of references to the experiences of other voyagers as well as to various contemporary works of science.

It is to this last body of material that a new point may be addressed. It would appear that in adding references from his reading to the Diary Darwin was working from a notebook numbered in the Beagle series as notebook 1.2 and bearing the label "R.N." on its cover. In this light the initials "ILN." may be read as standing for "Reading Notes" or, perhaps, "Rough Notes. ''92 An example of the use of the notebook in

this manner is the entry on page 126 of the notebook where Darwin wrote "1826.27.28 grt drought at Sydney which caused Capt. Sturt ex- pedition." and incorporated the fact into the text of the Journal o f Researches on page 157 of the first edition. 93 Although the frequent correspondence between entries in the notebook and the Journal does not allow us to say that one was begun with the other in mind, clearly the notebook was used in the composition of the Journal.

Overall, Beagle notebook 1.2 ("R.N.")s tands midway between the field notebooks of the voyage and the later transmutation notebooks. Although, chronologically speaking, certain portions date from the voyage itself, the time during which the field notebooks were written, its content reflects the bold speculation characteristic of the later transmutation notebooks. It was in this notebook that Darwin began to consider what might be expected "if one species altered. ''94 The tenor of Darwin's remarks on species in this notebook is new, as this phrase alone suggests. Where previously the problem and been phrased in terms of the introduction of new species, now the words "change" and "altered" are used. Of course, as one might expect, the majority of the themes brought forward were familiar ones, but old themes were set alongside the newly considered possibility that one species might change into another: reflection on the birth and death of species had given way to reflection on the transmutation of species.

The date of the transmutationist passage in notebook R.N. is important because in these passages the change in view on species alluded

92. I am grateful to Peter Gautrey for suggesting "Rough Notes" to me, out of which "Reading Notes" evolved.

93. The work referred to was Charles Sturt, Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia during the years 1828-1831 (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1833). The information mentioned by Darwin appears in Sturt, I, pp. 1-2, the full citation not being given in either notebook R.N. or the Journal o f Researches.

94. Quoted in Charles Darwin and the Voyage o f the Beagle, p. 263. Lady Barlow.published the important passages from notebook R.N. nearly thirty years

246

Man in the Deve lopment o f Darwin 's Theory o f Transmuta t ion

to in the Orni thological Notes is given real substance. Lady Barlow, the

single person to c o m m e n t in pr in t on these passages, assigned t h e m the

date o f no la ter than Apri l 1836. As she is an au thor i ty on these early

texts , a few c o m m e n t s on her arguments for this date may be helpful .

She chose this date for two reasons, one general, the o ther more

specific. The looser jus t i f ica t ion for assigning the passages, indeed the

entire no tebook , to an early per iod is a le t ter Darwin wrote to one o f

his sisters in Apri l 1836 describing h imsel f at w o r k "rearranging old

geological notes: the rearranging general ly consists in to ta l ly rewri t ing

them. ' 'gs However , the notes Darwin was very l ikely referring to in the

let ter are the formal wel l-ordered geological notes conta ined in

volumes 32 and 33 of the Darwin manuscr ipt col lec t ion rather than the

entries in n o t e b o o k R.N., which are scraps - bril l iant scraps, bu t scraps

nonetheless . It is there fore unsafe to presume f rom Darwin 's le t ter o f

Apri l 1836 to his sister tha t n o t e b o o k R.N. represented the effor ts at

rewrit ing indicated in that let ter .

ago in this work; they are reprinted in "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," pp. 276-277. The following is the longest single train of thought on species developed in the notebook (pp. 127-130): "Speculate on neutral ground for 2 Ostriches: bigger one encroaches on smaller. - change not progressive: produced at one blow if one species altered: Mem: my idea of volc. islands elevated, then peculiar plants created, if for such mere points; then any mountain, one is falsely less surprised at new creation for large. - Australia, = if for volc. isld then for any spot of land. = Yet new creation affected by Halo of neighbouring continent. ~ as if any creation taking place over certain area must have peculiar character : . . . Great contrast of two sides of Cordillera, where climate similar. - I do not know botanicaUy = but picturesquely Both N & S. great contrast from nature of climate. = . . . Go steadily through all the limits of birds and animals in S. America. ZoriUa [skunk]: wide limit of waders: Ascension. Keeling: at sea so commonly seen at long distances: generally first arrives. - . . . Tempted to believe animals created for definite time: - not extinguished by change of circumstances: The same kind of relation that common ostrich bears to (Petisse [Avestruz petise, the smaller rhea] - & diff kinds of Fourmiller: [Galfipagus mockingbirds] extinct Guanaco to recent: in former case position, in latter time (or changes consequent on lapse) being the relation. - As in first cases distinct cases inosculate so must we believe ancient ones: not gradual change or degeneration from circumstances: if one species does change into another it must be per saltum - or species may perish. - This representation of species important, each its own limit, & represented. - Chiloe creeper: Furnarius. Calandrla. inosculation alone shows not gradation: - " I am grateful to Professor Smith for reading the word "Fourmiller". "Fourmiller" or ant thrush is listed in Dict. Classy, VII, 22. Also see Zoology o f the Beagle, part 3, pp. 59-63.

95. Charles to Caroline Darwin, April 29, 1836, in Charles Darwin and the Voyage o f the Beagle, p. 138.

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In addition to dating the notebook by this general means, Lady Barlow also put forward an argument based on the date of Darwin's recognition of the existence of two independent species of the South American rhea. She demonstrated by a careful use of Darwin's zoological notes that Darwin was satisfied as of April 1836 that the "Avestruz petise," the southernmost rhea, differed sufficiently from the "Petise," the common rhea, to be ranked as a separate :species.96'Yet, even though the appreciation of the existence of two species of the South American rhea is an element common to the portion of Darwin's zoological notes written prior to April 1836 and to notebook R.N., that fact alone is insufficient to assign to both works the same date. Also, since page 32 of the notebook refers to the opinions of John Hershel and Andrew Smith, whom Darwin did not meet until the end of May 1836, it would seem that only the opening portion of the notebook could conceivably be assigned a date as early as April 1836.

Where then can the notebook be placed? The question is particularly important for the last third of the notebook, which contains the speculations on species. Fortunately there are several clues within the text. For example, immediately preceding the selection cited above (note 95) there is a reference to a "Mr. Owen," that very likely being Richard Owen, whom Darwin did not meet until October 1836. 97 Then too, the lists of geographical distribution of species which Darwin suggested making in the notebook ("Go steadily through all the limits of birds and animals in S. America") appear to be those presently bound with other Darwin MSS in vol. 29, i. 9s These lists are of post- Beagle date, since some groups (such as the new genus Reithrodon) are referred to by names assigned them in January and February of 1837. Similarly, the comparison of "extinct Guanaco to recent" (see note 95) rested on Owen's identification in January 1837 of a set of fossil bones collected by Darwin as being related, like the guanaco, to the family Camelidae. 99 The transmutationist portions of notebook R.N. must

96. Darwin's "Ornithological Notes," p. 274. In my opinion Darwin believed in the existence of a second species of rhea much earlier. The specimen catalogs suggest that he went out of his way to collect the southern rhea soon after hearing it described by local Indians. A Darwin letter of 1834 recently published by Lady Baxlow loads to the same conclusion. See Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, p. 86.

97. Notebook 1LN., p. 127, Darwin MSS, Down House, 98. Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i, ULC. 99. See the Journal of Researches, pp. 208-209, and Wilson, Charles Lyell, pp.

436-442. As Professor Wilson suggests, Darwin may not have received Owen's word until after returning to London in March 1837. This is, however, an excep- tionally cautious judgment given the letter-writing propensities of the group.

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therefore be assigned a date no earlier than January or February 1837.

Very probably, taken together they represent the insights which Darwin recollected as occuring in March 1837. Whatever month they are referred to, however, they clearly date from the year 1837, most probably the first half of that y e a r ) °°

Such a dating would of course tally nicely with the use of the notebook in the composit ion of the Journal of Researches from March to June 1837.1°1 The question then arises how the project itself, the composit ion of the Journal of Researches, related to the no tebook passages that were to prove crucial to Darwin's development of a theory of transmutation. In a trivial sense, the correspondence between the two is dear , since the various thoughts expressed on species in the no tebook found their way directly into the Journal, as shown in the guanaco instance cited above. The more important question, however, is whether there is a deeper sense in which the composit ion o f the Journal of Researches generated the no tebook remarks On transmutat ion. The danger in answering this question too readily in the affirmative is that of confounding the benefits derived from the voyage itself with those derived from writing a book on the experience. Still, some account should be made o f the circumstance that it was while working on the Jourhal that Darwin came to a belief in the mutabi l i ty of species. An ' intermediate posit ion might be this: problems inherent in the occupa-

tion of the voyaging naturahst required reflection on the geographical definition of species. I~ is therefore understandable that the project of writing the naturalist 's report on such a voyage should have brought the subject to the forefront of Darwin's at tention.

100. As a whole notebook R.N. was probably finished by May 1837, since on 178 (of 181) of the notebook Darwin referred to samples of silicified wood which he was discussing with Robert Brown in that month. See Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, p. 127. Portions of the notebook on species were clearly in existence by the writing of page 153 of notebook B, the first transmutation notebook, which quotes directly from notebook R.N. In a general way that quotation suggests that Darwin was using R.N. as a predecessor to B without allowing much in the way of more exact dating for R.N.

101. Darwin apparently wrote the first draft of the Journal of Researches from March to June and then revised and made additions up to the typesetting of the main text in September 1837. This explains the discrepancy between his letter to Fox (quoted in "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 203) where he referred to completing the draft in June and his entry in his datebook ("Darwin's Journal," p.,7) where he observed "from March 13th to end of September entirely employed in my journaL" The preface and addenda to the Journal of Researches were not added until much nearer the date of actual pubhcation.

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This interpretation was suggested to me in the process of editing notebook R.N. As the majority of references in the notebook were to works of travel, numerous similarities between Darwin's experience and those of his predecessors are apparent. The narrative of one particular voyager cited in the notebook stands out, however, in summarizing several features of the work of the voyaging English naturalist. The author was W. H. B. Webster, a career man and surgeon in the British navy, and the work was his Narrative o f a voyage to the Southern Atlantic Ocean in the year 1828, 29, 30 performed in 1-1.. 11£ Sloop Chanticleer. 1~ The voyage itself was a significant one, being undertaken by the Admiralty under the guidance of the Royal Society solely for the purpose of ascertaining "the true figure of the earth, and the law of variation of gravity in different points of its surface. ' 'l°a The importance of this official governmental effort on behalf of science is reflected in the membership of the Committee which set its goals: the three presidents of the Royal, Geological, and Astronomical Societies - Davies Gilbert, William Fitton, and William Herschel, respectively- Robert Brown, and the ever present Francis Beaufort. Compared to the voyage of the Chanticleer, the Beagle voyage was a very modest affair indeed in its scientific pretensions.l°4 As with the Beagle, however, and apparently with more design, the Committee setting the agenda for the Chanticleer arranged for the collection of specimens in the various branches of natural history. To its own disappointment, however, the Committee was unable to gain room aboard ship for the professional personnel it desired and was forced to rely entirely on the services of "Mr. Webster, the surgeon of the s h i p . . , to attend to the collection and preservation of specimens in zoology, mineralogy, and geology united. ' 'l°s

In being called to serve as a surgeon-naturalist William Webster was filling a traditional role in the British navy. The pertinence of this role

102. w. H. B. Webster, Narrative of a Voyage to the Southern Atlantic Ocean in the Years 1838, 29, 30, Performed in H.M. Sloop Chanticleer, under the Command of the Late Captain Henry Foster, R.R.S. &c. by Order of the Lords Commisioners of the Admiralty (London: Richard Bentley, 1834).

103. From the "Report of the Committee on which the foregoing voyage was ordered," in Webster, Narrative, II, 370.

104. For a survey of the voyages including that of the Chanticleer and those of the Beagle, see G. S. Ritchie, The Admiralty Chart: British Naval Hydrography in the Nineteenth-Century (London: Hollis & Sydney, 1967).

105. "Report of the Committee," in Webster, Narrative, II, 380-381. The Com- mittee seems to have held out, presumably under Brown's influence, for a professional botanist, though the text of Webster's narrative does not suggest that it was successful

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to the social setting of Darwin's work has been illustrated to great effect by Jacob Gruber, who has shown by a careful marshaling of rather elusive evidence that the original naturalist to the Beagle was a surgeon by the name of Robert McCormick. 1°6 It is Gruber's contention that despite the low estate of the British surgeon such men as Mc- Cormick (and, by extension, Webster) in taking on the responsibilities of naturalists, were "acting within a developing tradition of govern- mentally sponsored scientific research. ''x°7 The growth, and even the continuation, of this tradition, however, was threatened by the parallel growth of the class of professional naturalists who were more qualified for the position by virtue of training and professional association. Yet not every advantage favored the professional for, as happened on the Chanticleer, perennial scarcity of room aboard ship favored the surgeon, who could serve two functions.

In the competition between surgeon and professional for the position of naturalist aboard ship, Webster and Darwin represented opposing sides. The contrast between them is marked at many points - owner- ship of collections, freedom to leave the ship, and so on; most simply it appears in the uneven state of our knowledge of the two men, for whereas virtually every detail of Darwin's hfe is familiar, not even Webster's birth and death dates are known, and this despite the fact that he wrote two books. ~°s

Despite the social distance separating Webster from Darwin, however, there was a notably common interest in fundamental questions about species apparent in their reports of their respective voyages. Darwin's interest is, of course, well known, but Webster's requires documen- tation. While there are several passages in Webster's Narrative which reflect this interest, none is more pointed than the following:

106. Jacob W. Gruber, "Who was the Beagle's Naturalist? "Brit. J. Hist. Sc~, 4, (1969), 266-282.

107. Ibid., p. 266. 108. In addition to the volumes on the Chanticleer's voyage, Webster also

published a book on meteorology in later life. See W. H. B. Webster, Atmospheric Periods, Or The Recurring Monthly Periods and Periodic System of the Atmo- spheric Actions, with Evidences of the Transfer o f Heat and Electricity, and General Observations on Meteorology, (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1857). The preface to this work displays how close yet how far Webster and Darwin were from each other in the spectrum of British science: each was somehow involved with the Admiralty during this period but while Darwin was contributing to the Admiralty's Manual o f Scientific Enquiry Webster was barely: gaining entry to the Hydrographic Office's meteorological records. Ironically it was Robert Fitzroy that Webster credited with serving as his patron within the Admiralty.

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It has always struck me, that naturalists have been somewhat at variance with the geologists. They have found on, or given peculiar species o f plants, &c. to remote islandsl when these islands have been thought to be of a later origin than the continents themselves; while species have been limited to the first periods of creation. For example; if St. Helena is o f subsequent formation to the great continents, then its possessing a distinct and new species of plant, or animated being whatsoever, must either be a conclusive proof that a successive creation of species goes forward, or that the naturalists are wrong in their definition or discrimination of species: most probably the latter. But I have no confidence in the vagueness and blindness of geological speculation; but abide rather by the wisdom of the Apostle, who says, " through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, and the things which are seen were not made of things which appear." lo9

The existence of such a paragraph in a work such as Webster's Narrative in itself suggests that the occupation o f voyaging naturalists was conducive to reflection on the origin of species. At this point the discontinuties between Webster and Darwin in matters of rank, training, and, presumably, talent yielded in the face of a deeper continuity based on the common nature of the tasks facing them as naturalists.

While this argument does not depend on Darwin's having been influenced by Webster, it is only fair to note that the reference to Webster in notebook R.N. immediately precedes the transmutationist passages.a l° As Darwin was already beyond Webster's formulation of the

109. Webster, Narrative, II, 312. 110. The first transmutationist passage occuxs on p. 127 of the notebook, two

pages after the entry "Earthquakes at St. Helena. 1756. June 1780, Sept 21st 1817. - p. 371 Webster Antartic veg." The page reference is to Webster's Nar- rative, I, 371. The reference to Antarctic vegetation pertains to Webster's description of change in types of vegetation among islands with similar climates. Darwin returned to this theme on p. 128 of the notebook, where he wrote, "Contrast low limit of Palms, evergreen trees, arborescent grasses, parasitic plants, Cacti: & with limits of no vegetation at So Shetland: /Great contrast of two sides of Cordillera where climate similar. - I do not know botanically but picturesquely Both N. & S. great contrast from nature of climate." Darwin also apparently sought other reports from the Chanticleer, as the finding of an undecomposed corpse during the voyage is recorded further along in the notebook (p. 139) according to an account given of it by another member of the ship's company. See Lieu. Kendal (sic), "Account of the Island of Deception, One of the New Shetland Isles," J. Geogr. Soe., 1, (1832), 62-66.

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issues, the bond between them could not have been one of simple borrowing. Perhaps, however, reading Webster and finding speculation on familiar topics from an author inferior in so many respects urged Darwin to tackle the species question again, this time, with the added knowledge he had gained from his experience with professional taxonomists.

In any case, Webster's setting of the issues must have prickled. While Webster was unfamiliar with the current state of geological opinion in the 1830's (being, for example, ignorant of LyeU), his identification of the tension between geologists and naturalists was on target, as was his interest in volcanic islands. Less obviously, Webster's reluctance to carry his speculations forward was also important, since it stemmed from the complex of his religious beliefs. As might be expected, Webster wrote from within the English tradition of natural theology and, like Darwin, was altogether familiar with the argument from design. Whereas Darwin only occasionally drew on the argument, as in his observation on the anflion, in Webster found evidences of design everywhere: St. Helena was positioned for the convenience of ships by the beneficence of the Creator, and so on, n~ Darwin was not inherently more modest in his use of the argument from design, only superficially more palatable. Like Lyell, he had come to believe that the extinction of species required the introduction of new species if "the fitness which the author of Nature has now established ' 'n3 were to be preserved. This hne of argument depended on knowledge of divine attributes as much as did Webster's, "fitness" being substituted for "beneficence." But for Darwin, unlike Webster, belief in the universality of natural law triumphed over any other elements within the scope of natural theology. What seemed a blasphemous transgression of jurisdiction to Webster ("I have no confidence i n . . . geological speculation; but abide rather by the wisdom of the Apostle") seemed a necessary, if un-

111. Charles Darwin's Diary, p. 383; also see p. 439 n.54. 112. Webster, Narrative, I, 343. Webster was quick to proceed from discussion

of the arguments for the existence of God as drawn from evidence of design to discussion of divine attributes as they were revealed by the evidence: the beneficence of the Creator, the chasteness of his work, etc. This lent an easily ridiculed panglossian tone to Webster's book, which, however, was not, at least in principle, inconsistent with Paley's Natural Theology which was subtitled Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature.

113. See note 50.

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popular, development of science to Darwin. Here, again, of course, Webster and Darwin stood for opposing sides in a disagreement whose lines were already drawn. 114 :The point to be made in this context is

simply that, once again, Darwin and Webster appear as parties to dis-

cussions which were appropriately raised, or alluded to, in the pages of a travel narrative written by an English naturalist in the 1830's. us

Moreover, the act of composing the Journal o f Researches was highly instrumental in the development of Darwin's thought on species. Some

years later, in describing the series of insights which led him to his

theory, Darwin recalled that it was understanding the character of the

South American fossils, the geographical replacement of closely allied species by one another, and the nature of the Gal~pagos species which brought him to consider the mutabili ty of species, u6 While each of

114. See Walter F. Cannon, "The Problem of Miracles in the 1830's," Victorian Studies, September 1960, pp. 5-32. In defending the search for intermediate causes on the issue of the extinction and introduction of species Lyell spoke of the larger conception of God afforded by such a view. (Lyell, Life, I, 467-468.) Darwin took this tack repeatedly in the transmutation notebooks. The general argument against limiting the jurisdiction of science on religious grounds went back at least as far as Francis Bacon, whom Darwin quoted to this end in the frontispiece of the Origin.

115. The c6mmunalities between Darwin and Webster are, of course, of interest only in retrospect. To either man they would have appeared too obvious for words and more than canceled by their differences. Had Darwin been called on to express his opinion of Webster's Narrative he might easily have said of it what he did of Captain P. P. King's volume in the Beagle series, that it "abounds with Natural History of a very trashy nature" (Charles to Susan Darwin, April 1839, in Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, p. 147). Whatever Darwin's opinion of Webster might have been, the fact is that he never referred to him in print or, apparently, met him but went straight to Robert Brown for information on questions of geographical distribution in the southern hemisphere similar to those raised in Webster's work. For his part Webster, who would have abhorred the doctrine of transmutation on religious grounds, did on occasion express his sense of his own inferior status in the scheme of British science, blaming it on his lack of opportunity and, modestly enough, on lack of ability (Webster, Atmospheric Periods, p. xxiv).

116. Autobiography, p. 118. The reconstruction of these insights in "Darwin's Journal" (see note 7) omits mention of the phenomenon of geographical replacement, as does an 1844 letter to Hooker. See Darwin to J.D. Hooker, [January 11, 18441, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1888), II, 23. This is not surprising as the entry in the "Journal" was quite possibly contemporary with the Hooker letter (appearing as

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these insights is present in notebook R.N., it is the second theme which appears as the latecomer in the group. The generalized not ion of a geographical replacement of allied species seems to have crystallized for Darwin during the course of keeping the notebook. Following this realization, Darwin then turned to consider the subject of geographical

distribution in another set of notes. Thus, the character of one project - the composition of the Journal o f Researches - is revealed in its progeny.

The source of this interpretation is the following sentence, which

appears in notebook R.N.: "Go steadily through all the limits of birds & animals in S. America. ''117 Evidence that Darwin heeded this instruc-

t ion is contained in two lists, one for birds and one for animals, which do just that. n s These two lists were concerned with the presence or

absence of allied species on either side of the Cordillera. n9 The two lists

are short, each containing about thirty species. The format for the two

lists is suggested by the opening three entries in the "Birds" list:

it does as a later addition to the text and using nearly the same vocabulary; 1844 was a year when Darwin was going through all his old notes) and as the insight into geographical replacement was in some sense derivative from that into the distribution of the Gal~pagos species.

117. Notebook R.N., p. 128. The relevant entries which include this sentence are quoted in note 95.

118. These lists are contained in the "Animals" notes in Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i, ULC. FoL 1-32 of these notes contain the list of Beagle specimens similar to the list published as "Darwin's Ornithological Notes"; fol. 33-50 contain a variety of different sorts of notes including these two lists. The "Birds" list is numbered as fol. 41, the "Animals" list appears between fols. 46 and 47. Both list were done on paper watermarked "W. Fincher 1836," in contrast to folios 1-32, which were written on paper bearing an 1834 watermark. In general, fols. 33-50 relate to Waterhouse's work on Darwin's specimens and contain a number of remarks suggesting close cooperation between the two men, as, for example, where Darwin remarked that "Mr. Waterhouse cannot make up his mind" concerning the classification of a particular specimen.

119. The Autobiography (p. 118) refers to interest in a north-south pattern of replacement, like that of the two rheas, which because of differences in climate dependent on differences in latitude is the more obvious of the two patterns. Notebook R.N., p. 128, refers to this pattern: "Both N. and S. g~eat contrast from nature of climate." The list discussed were premised on the less obvious east-west distribution resulting from the physical boundary to the expansion of species range presented by the Andes. That it was the east-west distribution being referred to in the instruction "Go steadily through all the limits" is suggested by the fact that after the instruction appeared the word "Zorilla" (skunk) which also appears on the east-west "Animals" list.

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East West Chili Larks (same?) Tinochorus do? [dit to]/a desert bird/ Swallows (? ) different

Following the lists, and indeed at several other points in fols. 33-50 of Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i, are statements of the notion of representative species. These comments, like the lists themselves, hold intrinsic interest, for the notion of representative species was of great moment in Darwin's intellectual progress as well as being an advance for the general scientific understanding of geographical distribution. But for our purposes it is sufficient to associate the notion of representative species with the R.N. notebook and thereby with the composition of the Jour- nal of Researches. 12o

This interpretation has the effect of raising the reputation of the Journal of Researches and, by extension, of this genre of scientific literature. It should not, however, be taken either as an exhaustive summary of the issues involved in Darwin's conversion to a belief in the mutability of species or as a full account of those issues which were touched on. It does not describe the history behind any single theme - t h e favored analogy between the individual and the species, for example. Nor does it tell us why certain issues were so important - Darwin's efforts to show the noncorrelation between climate and size of animal, to take another example. But this interpreatation can suggest how the nature of a particular task may bring forward certain kinds of questions. In the case of the Journal of Researches it was the subject of geographical distribution of species which was, given the objects of in- vestigation, natural focus. This was as true for Webster, with his theological disclaimers and personal isolation, as it was for Darwin with his Lyellianism and his access to the professional community. The questions each man raised were inherent in the endeavor. For Webster the project was not carried to completion and thus, from the point of view of the progress of science, the origin of his questions is a matter

120. This overall interprestation is supported by the letter Darwin wrote to. Henslow in March 1837 describing his mode of attack on the Journal of Researches. Particularly striking with respect to the two fists discussed above is Darwin's stated plan of first going straight through the journal (presumably reworking the narrative) and then "adding what I can by studying.., geographical range" - the very subject of the lists. See Darwin to Henslow, March 28, 1837, Barlow, ed. Darwin and Henslow, pp. 124-125.

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of indifference. For Darwin it was carried past completion with the transmutation insights of March 1837. But in both cases the content of the questions raised was determined by more than individual curiosity.

CONCLUSION

This argument has emphasized the professional character of Darwin's early activities, largely in order to balance the usual portrayal of the amateurishness of his early training and field of study. Arguing this way has revealed the interplay between Darwin's personal interests and his professional obligations, the latter being particularly important for the period from October 1836 to July 1837. In several instances, notably the treatment o f his collections, the progress of his thought followed the professional lead directly. In the absence of such a lead Darwin did not pursue certain issues, if only for lack of time. Thus the subject o f man did not figure in his initial formulation of a transmutationist position. Only after the commitment to the new point o f view had been made did the issues emerge which will be treated in Part II of this article. However, we may close by noting Darwin's inherited disposition on the subject: in the summer of 1837 Darwin responded to Lyell's claim that the change from irrational animal to rational man represented "a phenomenon of a distinct kind from the passage from the more simple to the more perfect forms of animal organization and instinct" with a fanciful doodle in the margin. 121 The thoughts behind the bemused scribbling were to occupy a good portion of Darwin's time for the next two years.

121. Darwin's copy of LyeU, Principle of Geology 5th ed. (London: John Murray, 1837), I, 248 at ULC. The importance of these marginalia was first recognized by Sydney Smith in 1960. See Smith, "Origin of the Origin," pp. 397-398. Since Professor Smith's ground-breaking work, however, his dating of the marginalia to March 1837 has been challenged. (See Limoges, La s~lection naturelle, pp. 28-30). Just when Darwin first read Lyell's fifth edition is still undetermined. Very probably it was not as early as March, as none of the references to thePrinciples in the R.N. notebook are to the fifth edition, though, equally probable it was within the next few months, as the fifth edition was cited in the Journal of Researches (pp. 97, 186, 290-291) and was referred to in the first transmutation notebook (B,59). The date or, more likely, dates of the marginalia are even more arguable. The annotation referred to here was probably made on the earliest reading, as the page number (248) appears in the list of such numbers on the back inside cover of the volume. This would represent the systemmatic note taking which Darwin did

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the Smithsonian Ins t i tu t ion for a

research year in 1 9 7 0 - 7 1 when this work was begun.

pos tdoc tora l

in reading new works. Other marginal criticisms of Lyell's view on man in these volumes are more aggressive, in heavier pencil, and probably represent a later reading. Such a case would be Darwin's comment "when perpetuated more might be gained like the intellect of civilized man" to Lyell's admission that "some more useful and peculiar races" might be formed by careful breeding of individual characters (II 410).

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Documents

The place of man in the development of Darwin's …...When during the voyage on the Beagle he turned against the Old Testament on geological and moral grounds 9 and, after the voyage,