by Janet Browne
In Britain, comments were muted. Assuredly, reviewers shrank from closing the obvious gap between animals and mankind and objected to descent from “tadpoles.” How could mankind become “more crafty than the fox, more constructive than the beaver, more organized in society than the ant or bee?” inquired Sir Alexander Grant frostily in the Contemporary Review. Since primitive humans showed no discernible signs of progress it was inconceivable to him that there might be any links between “the backwaters and swamps of the stream of humanity” and cultivated English gentlemen. Harper’s Weekly complained that “Mr. Darwin insists on presenting Jocko as almost one of ourselves.” The Times was more emphatic still. “The earliest known examples of Man’s most essential characteristics exhibit his faculties in the greatest perfection ever attained. No poetry surpasses Homer.”75
Other reviewers in other journals picked on the same points. If Darwin’s ideas were accepted, said the geologist William Boyd Dawkins in the Edinburgh Review, “the constitution of society would be destroyed.… Never perhaps in the history of philosophy have such wide generalisations been derived from such a small basis of fact.”76 An anonymous reviewer in the World, a New York literary magazine, passed much the same opinion: “Mr. Darwin, like the rest of his atheistic school, evidently rejects with contempt the idea of a spiritual God who creates and sustains the universe.”77 The Truth Seeker called the book “hasty” and “fanciful.” Another anonymous writer in the Catholic Tablet ponderously explained that human beings possessed rationality, a “perfectly distinct faculty from anything to be found in the brutes.” The Spectator’s reviewer said that “Mr. Darwin has shocked the deepest prejudices and presuppositions” of the English people. A correspondent in the Guardian summed them all up by appealing to the direct evidence of the Bible. “Holy Scripture plainly regards man’s creation as a totally distinct class of operations from that of lower beings.”78 A columnist in the San Francisco Newsletter stooped to a poor joke about Darwin’s imaginary son being “not exactly quadrumanous,” but “just as handy with his feet as he is footy with his hands.”79
Few among these countenanced descent from animals. Yet the authors were exceedingly polite about Darwin himself. A reviewer in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review praised Darwin’s depth of learning. The Daily Telegraph referred to his “graceful and conciliatory” prose and “dignified” tone of voice. The English Independent suggested that “no loyal servant of the truth will fear the issue of such an appeal.” The New York Express noted the author’s “unassailable integrity and candour,” while the Field described his “wonderful thoroughness and honest truthfulness.” The remarks showed that Darwin’s position as a respected man of letters was high. Unknown reviewers in newspapers and periodicals clearly felt that his opinions were worth careful consideration. And the evolutionary debate had by now moved away from the blood-spattered warfare of the early 1860s. Darwin’s reputation as an honest man was enhancing the way his volume was being received. Even a widely distributed newspaper like the Liverpool Leader could close its eyes and think of England, proposing that The Descent of Man was “perfectly consistent with the belief in God the Creator.”80 With a reckless wave, the religious journal the Nonconformist wished Darwin “god-speed in his inquiries.”
Darwin noted all this in amused surprise. “I think you will be glad to hear, as a proof of the increasing liberality of England, that my book has sold wonderfully,” he told Ray Lankester, “and as yet no abuse (though some, no doubt, will come, strong enough), and only contempt even in the poor old Athenaeum.” Darwin rather regretted that the Athenaeum was losing its anti-Darwinian nerve. An anonymous versifier in the Tory periodical Blackwood’s Magazine gave up the attack completely and offered a poem about apes to be sung to the traditional country air of Greensleeves.81
Almost on cue, the Rev. Francis Orpen Morris burst into the open in an offensive little book called All the Articles of the Darwin Faith (1875). Morris parodied the Anglican creed by beginning every sentence with the phrase “I believe …” and following it with some remark ostensibly drawn from Darwin’s Descent of Man. Each remark became progressively more insulting.
I believe that although the Mosaic account of creation is borne out by the testimony of the rocks in a most wonderful manner, yet as it does not suit the theory I have taken into my head, it cannot possibly be true, and I do not believe a word of it.
I believe that no one who believes in the Bible has any sense or wisdom compared with me.82
Priced at one shilling, and attractively packaged in illustrated covers, this tract affirmed the vitality of the evolutionary controversy in Britain’s popular marketplace. “Keep as a curiosity of abuse,” wrote Darwin across the top of his copy.
By contrast, Wallace was generous to a fault. “Darwin’s book on the whole is wonderful!” he told a friend. “There are plenty of points open to criticism, but it is a marvellous contribution to the history of the development of the forms of life.”83 He reviewed it, in a signed article, in the Academy. True, he pointed out the places where he disagreed with Darwin, especially their differences over the reasons for protective coloration. He never agreed with sexual selection either. Yet he commented gracefully on Darwin’s view of human evolution. Darwin responded appreciatively. “If I had offended you, it would have grieved me more than you would readily believe.”
Your note has given me very great pleasure, chiefly because I was so anxious not to treat you with the least disrespect, and it is so difficult to speak fairly when differing from any one.… I care now very little what others say. As for our not quite agreeing, really in such complex subjects, it is almost impossible for two men who arrive independently at their conclusions to agree fully, it would be unnatural for them to do so.84
It was probably around this time that Erasmus Darwin wrote to his niece Henrietta, “I think the way he [Wallace] carries on controversy is perfectly beautiful and in future histories of science the Wallace-Darwin episode will form one of the few bright points among rival claimants.”85 To the public, however, evolution usually meant Darwin’s theory, not Wallace’s. When Wallace went to the British Association meeting in Edinburgh that year he heard Lord Neaves, a well-known wit and song-writer, recite satirical verses on the “Origin of species à la Darwin.”86
As for himself, Darwin considered that the Saturday Review and Pall Mall Gazette delivered the most perceptive reviews. He never discovered who was the author of the first, but the second was by John Morley, the literary writer and Liberal politician. All in all, he was “much impressed by the general assent with which my views have been received.… everybody is talking about it without being shocked.”87 To a large degree this was surely due to his watchful style of writing and high personal status within British cultural life, a status that he had carefully nursed during the previous decade. There may have been a sense of déjà vu for reviewers in rehearsing yet again the controversies that had sprung up when the Origin of Species was first published. Apes and angels had been dealt with ten or twelve years before. Faced with a new book about descent in 1871, journalists seemed to find little more to say. They and their readers had become accustomed to the idea of evolution, although not necessarily comfortable with it. Darwin even alluded to the fact in the introduction to Descent.
In other areas, too, the times were loosening up. The readership for science was noticeably shifting in focus. In 1872, in an early article written in response to the Descent of Man, “Darwinism and Divinity,” Leslie Stephen spoke for many of the coming generation by asking, “What possible difference can it make to me whether I am sprung from an ape or an angel?”88 Stephen proceeded to “give up Noah’s Ark,” abandoned holy orders, and opted for the genteel life of a well-heeled agnostic, friends with Henry Fawcett, George Meredith, James Russell Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton.89 These men were rationalists who advocated religious liberty. As Darwin reflected, “on the whole, the reviewers have been highly favourable.”90
Al
l except St. George Mivart. Mivart wrote a fierce article for the Quarterly Review in 1871 (“a most cutting Review of me”), highlighting the hazards of considering any form of human evolution. This review was one of the most important in Darwin’s later career, certainly equal in impact to Wilberforce’s attack on the Origin of Species that had also been published in the Quarterly Review some ten years before. Whitwell Elwin, the Quarterly Review’s former editor, was once again the operative force. He had commissioned Mivart to write with the theological difficulties foremost in mind. Although he never met Darwin, and never wanted to, Elwin’s effect on Darwin’s life through these two reviews was substantial.
Mivart did the job with deadly efficiency. In response, Darwin rolled out his big guns. First, he indulged in a brief but nasty pamphlet war, which satisfied his urge for immediate retaliation. He arranged for the reprinting of an article by Chauncey Wright (already issued in America) that had severely criticised Mivart’s 1870 book Genesis of Species. This indirect defensive technique had served Darwin well in the past and conveniently allowed him to attack with the words of others while maintaining a reputation for nonconfrontation. But in this case only the Darwinians appreciated the esoteric points Chauncey Wright put forward. Under Darwin’s direction, Wright clarified precisely what was, and was not, “Darwinism.” The pamphlet was left unread by those people who would be most swayed by Mivart.
Frustrated, Darwin let off steam with a few sharp ripostes in the next edition of the Origin. To this sixth edition of the Origin, published in 1872, he defiantly added a new chapter expressly directed against Mivart. Here, he seemed to be coming to the end of his tether. He compromised. He defended pangenesis and neutralised natural selection in a manner that allowed considerably more adaptive change in organisms according to use and disuse and the effects of the environment, the most Lamarckian he ever became. It was a cheap edition, intended for mass sales. Darwin had been told how a group of Lancashire workmen were clubbing together to buy a single copy.91 Impressed, he realised there were more markets to penetrate, more audiences to reach. Yet he felt hemmed in, edgy, and forced to stretch a point. Making these changes bothered him more than usual, and he asked his son William to read the proofs for him. Mivart loomed unpleasantly large in his imagination.
Mostly he watched agog as Huxley savaged Mivart in the Contemporary Review. All Huxley’s bulldog propensities poured out, and in “Mr. Darwin’s Critics” he ruthlessly corrected both Mivart’s biology and his interpretation of Catholic doctrine, locating old theological tracts in the university town of St. Andrews (where he was on holiday) to support his cannonade. “How you do smash Mivart’s theology: it is almost equal to your article versus Comte,” Darwin exclaimed.92 “The dogs have been barking at [Darwin’s] heels too much of late,” Huxley explained. Hooker thought Huxley’s attack was too cruel and told Darwin so. Darwin replied that he was obviously not so good a Christian as Hooker, “for I did enjoy my revenge.” Hooker found it slightly surprising to hear Darwin sneer against Mivart’s “bigotry, arrogance, illiberality & many other nice qualities.” Even Huxley and Hooker thought better of Mivart than that.
Perhaps the argument might have ended there—distasteful, unpleasant, but final—if Mivart had not then gone on to criticise one of Darwin’s sons. In 1873, George Darwin published a short article in the Contemporary Review suggesting that divorce should be made easier in cases where cruelty, abuse, or mental disorder became evident. In this George was exploring his developing views on heredity, feeling that quicker and simpler divorce, or easier access to contraception, could prevent traits like criminality or mental deficiency being passed on through the family line. A score of similar papers were published every year in Britain. Yet because it was by a Darwin, George’s paper attracted Mivart’s attention.
Mivart read the article with undisguised horror. He responded violently, accusing George of ignoring all decency (“hideous sexual criminality … unrestrained licentiousness”), and veered close to libel, as Darwin indignantly noted. If Mivart’s statements were accepted by readers as true, then George’s reputation as a gentleman would be in tatters, Darwin huffed. Father and son consulted desperately together, with the result that George called for a public apology. Mivart reiterated his charge.
Shaken, Darwin looked into the possibility of a lawsuit. “I care little about myself, but Mr. Mivart … accused my son George of encouraging profligacy, and this without the least foundation.” He slapped Mivart’s article in front of all his friends demanding their opinion; and declared to Wallace that “the accusation was a deliberate falsification.” Huxley loyally counter-attacked in the Academy, ignoring Hooker’s warning that it would be much better to send Mivart a private reprimand. The business had, however, gone too far for an apology, even if one was offered, to make any difference. Huxley cut all connections with Mivart, telling Darwin that he was prepared to defend Darwin’s son as if he were his own. “I do not think I shall resist telling him how base a man I think him,” fulminated Darwin. “You have been, my dear Huxley, most generous in this whole affair.”93
Cross and powerful, the two united in dislike of a common enemy. A trivial, spiteful incident sealed the sorry episode. When Mivart tried to join the Athenaeum Club under the rule that permitted men of excellence to avoid the usual waiting period, his election was prevented by the Darwinians, X Clubbers to a man. Huxley cast the harshest blow possible by declaring that Mivart’s scientific work was not “up to the mark of a Committee election,” not as excellent as the rules required. Mivart and his proposer were damned as “brother Jesuits to the backbone.”94
In fact, the Mivart episode has long fascinated historians for the way it exposed unseen cracks in the Darwinian movement and the heavy emotional investment channelled into it by leading figures like Darwin and Huxley. It seems more than probable that Darwin was personally wounded by Mivart’s defection. For Mivart to reject Darwin’s theory, in this regard, was to reject Darwin himself. Darwin never forgave him. On his part, Huxley reacted as if Mivart were criticising the whole of modern science and digging himself ever more deeply into the church’s foundations. Both these men felt betrayed. Mivart did not emerge unscathed from the exchange either. Not only was he excommunicated by the Darwinians as a traitor, he was also excommunicated by his own church for his belief in evolution, a sacrificial lamb for each unforgiving camp. Of all the casualties of the Darwinian movement, his was the most pitiable.
Sympathetically, Darwin’s friends rallied round. “I am very sorry you are so unwell, & that you allow criticisms to worry you so,” wrote Wallace in the summer of 1871. “Remember the noble army of converts you have made! & the hosts of the most talented men living who support you wholly.”95
“Oh Lord, how difficult accuracy is!” Darwin said as letter after letter arrived at Down House disputing his statements.
X
The main turning point for Darwin and Emma that year was their daughter’s marriage in August 1871. Henrietta was the first child of theirs to marry, and the only daughter to do so. Bessy remained a spinster. Henrietta’s parents viewed the event with mixed emotions, apprehensive about the rapidity of her courtship. They depended on Erasmus, much closer to the scene of action in London, to tell them whether Richard Litchfield was suitable. It “feels very odd that Hen shd be so intimate with a person of whom I know so little,” worried Emma. “I feel quite at ease with him & that he is very nice, but I really have not seen much of him.”96 Erasmus assured them that Litchfield, though penniless, was not a “gold-hunter.” The remark was not wasted on her father, who, with George Darwin, was arranging the marriage settlement. George reported that their solicitor recommended a settlement of “£5000 of something of the nature of Debenture stock,” and that Darwin should “make the yearly income up to 400£ or 350£, as Litchfield is not a grasping sort of man.”97
Litchfield was ten years older than Henrietta, trained as a barrister but not practising, who took a minor post in the Ecclesias
tical Commission essentially for the pay packet. From 1860 or so he had dedicated his energies to the Working Men’s College in London, a philanthropic educational venture of which he was singing master and then principal. The college promoted a sub-socialist, utopian, self-improving vision in which the men were taught by progressive thinkers such as John Ruskin, F. D. Maurice, Thomas Hughes, and Vernon Lushington, another friend of the Darwins. Henrietta’s brothers considered Litchfield a “cool beast,” yet they came to like him for all that and ultimately respected his opinion. Henrietta tartly informed George that “you must try to like him for my sake.… he seems to be friends with all our sort of people, Spottiswoode, Vincent Thompsons, Lushingtons etc.”98
She met him while staying with Erasmus Darwin and the Wedgwoods and was primarily drawn by his musical ability. Litchfield was no flag-waving political reformer, but he held liberal views, especially on education in its widest sense. He organised Sunday-afternoon excursions for his working men, during which a group of thirty or forty people, men and women, would walk out of London for a healthy day in the country, returning by train after tea, often singing madrigals and glees. Henrietta was smitten. With his large brown beard, high moral principles, and dedication to duty, he may have seemed like another version of her father. A new life beckoned. She met him in June, became engaged in July, and was married in August.
Before then she indicated a few hesitations in her diary. She regretted that Litchfield did not sweep her up in his arms. “What exquisite joy” she would feel, she wrote, if he had spontaneously appeared at Down House to seek her out one Sunday. She briefly wondered—as all Darwin’s children must have wondered—whether he loved her for herself. “I think he must care—it can’t be only that he thinks I shd. be a nice sort of person to marry.” She regretted that the conventions of the day required that she must not make the first loving advances, a point rammed home by her father’s Descent of Man as well as the required delicacy of the times. And she recorded her discussions about faith with Hope Wedgwood. She was not very religious, she thought. She said she felt none of Hope’s “transcendental emotions.”
