269 He did, though, still firmly believe—Autobiography, p. 93.
269 When he returned to the theme—James Moore, “Of love and death: Why Darwin ‘gave up Christianity,’ ” in History, Humanity and Evolution, ed. James Moore (Cambridge, 1989), p. 222; David Kohn, “The aesthetic construction of Darwin’s theory,” in The Elusive Synthesis: Aesthetics and Science, ed. A. Tauber (Boston, 1996), pp. 13-48.
269 “The indecency of the process,” “What a book a Devil’s Chaplain might write”—CCD, 6.178.
270 “Can the instinct, which leads the female spider”—Natural Selection, p. 526.
270 “She cares not for mere external appearance”—Natural Selection, pp. 224-5.
271 “very small parts of one general law”—Natural Selection, p. 527.
271 “Next to the greatness of these cosmic forces”—John Stuart Mill, “Nature,” in Essays on Ethics, Religion and Society by John Stuart Mill, ed. J. M. Robson (Toronto, 1969), pp. 384, 385.
272 Charles saw that the range of breeds—James Secord, “Darwin and the breeders,” in The Darwinian Heritage, ed. David Kohn (Princeton, 1985), gives the background and history of Charles and Etty’s experiments with pigeons. Etty’s comments are in CUL DAR 246.
273 “He was small for his age”—CCD, 7.521.
273 I showed it recently to a consultant paediatrician—My thanks to Martin Gardiner, Professor of Paediatrics at University College London Medical School, for his opinion.
274 Dr. John Langdon Down—Conor Ward, John Langdon Down: A Caring Pioneer (London, 1998), gives a full account of Down’s approach to his patients and his achievements. Down first described the syndrome in his paper, “Observations on an ethnic classification of idiots,” in London Hospital Reports (London, 1866).
274 “to rescue the feeble one”—John Langdon Down, On the Education and Training of the Feeble in Mind (London, 1876), p. 8.
275 “the contented face of Nature”—“Essay” p. 116, Notebooks, p. 429 (E 114).
275 “All Nature . . . is at war”—Natural Selection, pp. 175-6.
276 “Nothing is easier than to admit”—Origin, pp. 115-16.
276 “There is a force like a hundred thousand wedges”—Notebooks, p. 375 (D 135e).
276 each creature “lives by a struggle”—Origin, p. 119.
277 we must “keep steadily in mind”—Origin, p. 129.
277 “It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank”—Origin, p. 459.
Chapter Thirteen: Going the Whole Orang
279 “the habit of looking at man as an animal”—Etty’s notes on Charles’s Autobiography, CUL DAR 199.1:2.
279 the “highest and most interesting problem”—CCD, 6.515.
280 Wombwell’s Menagerie had a male orang—BL 1889.b.10, vol. 8, folio 85v.
280 the living ape “exhibits an intelligence”—Samuel Phillips, Official General Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park (London, 1856), p. 97.
280 the first complete gorilla skeleton—Descriptive Catalogue of the Osteological Series Contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, vol. 2, Mammalia Placentalia (London, 1853), pp. 782-802.
280 another was displayed—Roger Fenton, Photographer of the 1850s (London, 1988), p. 12 and Cat. 29 and 30. It has been presumed that the display and Fenton’s photograph reflected interest in the link between man and ape after the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859. The Minute Book of the Trustees of the British Museum records that they paid Fenton for an “additional negative photograph of the gorilla skeleton” on 26 June 1858.
280 the evident close links—Richard Owen, “On the characters, principles of division, and primary groups of the class mammalia,” Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, vol. 2, no. 5 (1858), pp. 1-37.
281 “I wonder what a chimpanzee would say”—CCD, 6.419.
281 Huxley suggested in a lecture—Adrian Desmond, Huxley, p. 241.
282 a corpse of a young adult male—Richard Owen, “On the external characters of the gorilla,” Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, vol. 5, part 4 (1866), pp. 243-82. Charles’s copy of the issue is in Cambridge University Library.
282 Abraham Bartlett—Abraham Bartlett, Bartlett’s Life Among Wild Beasts in the “Zoo” (London, 1900), pp. 3-4.
282 a terrifying monster—Illustrated London News, 9 April 1859.
283 declared his belief twice—Origin, pp. 451, 458; Autobiography, p. 130.
283 “To show how minds graduate”—CCD, 7.345.
284 a “villainous shifty fox of an argument”—CCD, 7.379.
284 “he applies his scheme”—Quarterly Review, vol. 108, no. 215 (1860), pp. 257-8.
284 the notorious debate on evolution—Adrian Desmond, Huxley (Harmondsworth, 1998), pp. 277-81.
284 Explorations—Paul Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa (London, 1861), pp. 60, 352.
285 “One thing we may as well state”—Bromley Record, 1 November 1863.
286 “a grand and almost awful question”—CCD, 10.71.
286 “no one is more strongly convinced than I”—Thomas Huxley, Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature (London, 1863), p. 112.
287 The dignity of man was Lyell’s worry—Charles Lyell, Sir Charles Lyell’s Scientific Journals on the Species Question, ed. Leonard Wilson (New Haven, 1970), pp. 335-6, 332.
287 “the whole orang”—CCD, 11.230-31.
287 The Geological Evidences—Charles Lyell, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (London, 1863), pp. 504-5.
288 “vomiting preceded by shivering”—Ralph Colp, To be an Invalid (Chicago, 1977), p. 83.
288 “She asked me a good deal about the Darwinian theory”—K. M. Lyell, Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell (London, 1881), 2.369.
288 The Spectator wrote: “The purpose of this tale”—Quoted in Arthur Johnston, “ ‘The Water-Babies’: Kingsley’s debt to Darwin,” English, vol. 12, no. 72 (Autumn 1959).
289 “a poor, lean, seedy, hard-worked old giant”—Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies (Harmondsworth, 1995), pp. 293-9.
290 He read a paper—Alfred Russel Wallace, “The origin of human races and the antiquity of man deduced from the theory of ‘Natural Selection,’ ” Anthropological Review, May 1864.
291 George Eliot had made sympathy—Thomas Noble, George Eliot’s Scenes of Clerical Life (New Haven, 1965), Chapter 3, “The doctrine of sympathy.”
291 He read Adam Bede—CCD, 7.300. Charles judged it “excellent” in his reading notebook (CCD, 4.496). In 1861, Emma wrote to William: “We have just finished reading aloud Silas Marner to our great sorrow. We like it better than Mill on the Floss, though not so well as Adam Bede” (CUL DAR 219.43).
291 an example for a scientific point—Chad Cranage’s daughter in George Eliot, Adam Bede, ed. Stephen Gill (Harmondsworth, 1980), p. 240; Expression, p. 354.
292 “I have collected a few notes on man”—MLCD, 2.33-4.
292 a review of a new edition—Review of the tenth edition of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, Quarterly Review, April 1869, p. 391.
292 “I hope you have not murdered”—MLCD, 2.39-40.
292 Professor W. B. Carpenter—William Carpenter, Principles of Human Physiology (London, 1855), covered “the mind and its operations” on pp. 546-633. He wrote: “It is much to be desired that a systematic study should be made . . . of that wide and almost unexplored domain, which comprehends the whole range, not only of what may be termed Mental Physiology, but also of Mental Pathology, and, in addition, the Comparative Psychology of the lower animals, and the History of the Development of [the human mind], from the earliest manifestation of its powers” (p. 547). He dealt with memory and recollection on pp. 600-03, and unconscious cerebration on pp. 608-10. He removed the sections on the human mind from later editions of the work, and in 1874 published an expanded version of them in Principles of Mental Physiology. He drew the distinction between memory and recollection on pp. 369 and 3
70. Jonathan Miller deals with Carpenter’s treatment of unconscious cerebration in his essay, “Going unconscious,” in Hidden Histories of Science, ed. Robert Silvers (London, 1997), pp. 1-35.
293 the power of deep-rooted prejudices—William Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe (London, 1870), pp. 94-5.
293 Henry Maudsley—Michael Collie, Henry Maudsley: Victorian Psychiatrist (Winchester, 1988).
294 “a wondrous entity”—Henry Maudsley, The Physiology and Pathology of Mind (London, 1867), pp. 67, 57.
294 “The beatings of the heart”—Marginalia, pp. 572-3.
Chapter Fourteen: God’s Sharp Knife
295 “This is always painful to me.”—Letter to Asa Gray of 22 May 1860, Life and Letters, 2.310-12.
296 She set out the problem—Julia Wedgwood, “The boundaries of science: A second dialogue,” Macmillan’s Magazine, July 1861, pp. 237-47.
297 Charles wrote to Snow—CCD, 9.200.
298 a wild cucumber plant—CCD, 11.506.
299 “Twiners entwining twiners”—Nora Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle (London, 1945), p. 162.
301 a wax flower from Queensland—CUL DAR 157.1:39.
302 “I shall be glad to hear sometime about your boy”—CCD, 11.682.
302 “Nothing is so dreadful in this life as fear”—CCD, 11.687.
304 “It has always appeared to me more satisfactory”—Life and Letters, 3.64.
305 “My heart has often been too full”—CCD, 9.155-6.
305 “The Lord of all”—William Cowper, Poetry and Prose, ed. Brian Spiller (London, 1968), p. 520.
306 “The groans of nature”—Cowper, Poetry and Prose, pp. 534-5, 537.
306 Words of Peace—Ashton Oxenden, Words of Peace; or the Blessings and Trials of Sickness with Meditations, Prayers and Hymns (London, 1863), pp. 2-3, 5.
307 Fervent Prayer—Ashton Oxenden, Fervent Prayer (London, 1860), pp. 115-16.
307 “As years went by”—CFL (1915), 2.175.
308 Henry James, then a young American visitor—Letter of 1 April 1869 in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, published in Ralph Colp, “ ‘The perfect counterpart of our Cambridge luminary’: Henry James meets Charles Darwin,” Clio’s Psyche, Psychohistory Forum, vol. 2, no. 3 (December 1995).
308 The Index—Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin (London, 1991), p. 591.
308 pressed the newspaper’s claims—Note by Francis Darwin, CUL DAR 140.3.
308 “the question whether there exists a Creator”—Descent, 1.143-6.
308 He made occasional tongue-in-cheek comments—Another passage in which he may not have been entirely serious is the paragraph in The Expression of the Emotions in which he noted the advice of “a lady who is a great blusher” that awareness of a fault before God never excites a blush. Expression, p. 331.
309 “There is said to be ‘gnashing of teeth’ in hell”—Expression, p. 73.
309 spiritual forces and life beyond death—Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914 (Cambridge, 1985).
310 Robert Chambers—Milton Millhauser, Just Before Darwin: Robert Chambers and Vestiges (Middletown, 1959), pp. 174-86; Oppenheim, The Other World, pp. 272-8; Daniel Dunglas Home, Incidents in my Life (London, 1872), pp. 140-43.
311 “My idea is that the term ‘supernatural’ ”—Alfred Russel Wallace, My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions (London, 1905), 1.286.
311 Home held a séance for Crookes—R. G. Medhurst, Crookes and the Spirit World (London, 1972), p. 158.
312 a séance with a paid medium—Life and Letters, 3.186-8; CFL (1915), 2.216-17.
312 Charles had “quite made up his mind”—Letter from Snow Wedgwood to Emily Gurney of 9 July 1874,Wedgwood/Mosley Collection 438 (IV).
Chapter Fifteen: The Descent of Man
313 “I am thinking of writing a little essay”—Letter to Fritz Muller of 22 February 1869, Life and Letters, 3.112.
313 The Descent of Man—Robert Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (Chicago, 1987).
313 He took up Hume’s suggestion—CUL DAR 80B:117. Charles’s note is headed “D. Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals—edit 1751.” It consists of transcripts of four passages from the book including the one about the social virtues—David Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford, 1979), p. 214. Another of the passages, Enquiries pp. 243-4, Charles quoted in The Descent of Man, 1.166.
314 The subjects are still as bedevilled—Most recent writing on the evolutionary view of human nature has dwelt on instinctive elements which may have developed by natural selection in our recent past. One of the most interesting lines of thought has been the work on altruism in which W. D. Hamilton and others have shown how the “selfish gene” can adapt for cooperative life. Matt Ridley has explained their findings about animal and human behaviour in The Origins of Virtue (Harmondsworth, 1997). Charles saw an element of the problem of altruism in his puzzling over the evolution of neuter insects (Robert Richards, “Instinct and intelligence in British natural theology: Some contributions to Darwin’s theory of the evolution of behavior,” Journal of the History of Biology, Fall 1981, vol. 14, no. 2); he worked out the first part of the answer to the problem with his notion of family selection in The Origin of Species (pp. 258-9), and he mentioned the selective value of “higher” morality in The Descent of Man (1.203). He wrote little, though, about the evolution by natural selection of particular human instincts. In his treatment of humans as social animals, he focused instead on aspects of self-awareness and understanding, on the interplay between thought and feeling and the tangle of conscious and unconscious factors that determine human behaviour. I have set out Charles’s comments on “thinking about feeling” on pp. 57-9, 62-3, 318-322 and 325-6. His suggestions beg many obvious questions, but the philosopher Mary Midgley has drawn intriguing ideas from them in her book The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom and Morality (London, 1994), pp. 139-45 and 177-83.
314 “I think it will be very interesting”—CFL (1915), 2.196.
314 She was to repeat that phrase—Letter to Frances Power Cobbe, CB 390 in the Hunt ington Library, San Marino.
315 “that arrogance which made our forefathers declare”—Descent, 1.36-7.
315 “It is notorious that man is constructed”—Descent, 1.7-8.
315 “As some of my readers may never have seen”—Descent, 1.12-13.
317 “a pedigree of prodigious length”—Descent, 1.255.
317 “self-preservation, sexual love”—Descent, 1.100.
317 “Parental affection, or some feeling which replaces it”—Descent, 1.162.
318 It was Etty who had suggested the point—Note by Charles in CUL DAR 88.
318 “the same senses, intuitions and sensations”—Descent, 1.120.
318 One aspect of his approach—G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, Third Series, The Study of Psychology (London, 1879), pp. 118-58.
319 “Who can say what cows feel”—Descent, 1.156.
319 “A man cannot prevent past impressions”—Descent, 1.173.
319 “Man, from the activity of his mental faculties”—Descent, 1.171.
319 A man’s “early knowledge”—Descent, 1.173.
319 “Even when we are quite alone”—Descent, 1.172.
320 “We recognise the same influence”—Descent, 1.186.
320 “a mother may passionately love”—Descent, 1.162.
321 “by far the most important of all the differences”—Descent, 1.148.
321 Charles believed that “The social instincts”—Descent, 1.190-91. He wrote that the social instincts “no doubt were acquired by man as by the lower animals for the good of the community.” He went on to comment that “As a struggle may sometimes be seen going on between the various instincts of the lower animals, it is not
surprising that there should be a struggle in man between his social instincts, with their derived virtues, and his lower, though momentarily stronger impulses or desires.” He looked forward to a future in which “virtual habits will grow stronger, becoming perhaps fixed by inheritance.”
322 “The moral faculties”—Descent, 2.429.
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