comments in the notebook about “my theory”: Ibid.
“Study the wars of organic being”: Ibid., 262.
“a most laborious, & painful effort”: Ibid., 263.
the “whole fabric totters & falls”: Ibid.
“But Man—wonderful Man”: Ibid.
concluding firmly that, no, “he is no exception”: Ibid.
“I have not been very well of late”: Correspondence 2: 47.
“anything which flurries me completely knocks me up”: Ibid., 2: 51–52.
he repeated to his old friend W. D. Fox: Ibid., 2: 91.
“If not marry,” he wrote: Ibid., 2: 443.
“If marry,” he wrote: Ibid.
this time “Marry” headed the longer column: Ibid., 2: 444.
“It being proved necessary”: Ibid.
“Mine is a bold theory”: CD’s Notebooks, 340.
“There must be some law”: Ibid., 347.
he “thought much upon religion”: Correspondence 2: 432.
“their crowding and interfering with each other’s”: Wrigley and Souden, eds. (1986), 7.
prevented what Malthus called “checks”: Ibid., 14.
“moral restraint, vice, and misery”: Ibid., 16.
“the warring of the species as inference”: CD’s Notebooks, 375.
“One may say there is a force”: Ibid., 375–76.
a burst of comments on the “differences”: Ibid., 391.
increasingly confident references to “my theory”: Ibid., 397–98.
labeled “N,” which was devoted to “metaphysical enquiries”: Ibid., 561.
whether “love of the deity” might result: Ibid., 291.
“Having proved mens & brutes bodies”: Ibid., 409.
He wanted to illuminate those “laws of life”: Ibid., 411.
Emma felt “bewildered” rather than giddy: Quoted in Browne (1996), 391.
she called it “a painful void between us”: Correspondence 2: 123.
his “most sincere love & hearty gratitude”: Ibid., 2: 114.
“Three principles, will account for all”: CD’s Notebooks, 412–13.
“Wasted entirely the last week of November”: Correspondence 2: 432.
“stupid & comfortable”: Ibid., 2: 156.
The Kiwi’s Egg
a multi-part paper titled “On the Anatomy of the Apteryx”: Owen (1838).
referred to it in his notebook “D”: CD’s Notebooks, 340–41.
“Sometimes the egg-bearing female”: Grzelewski (2000), 83.
“while you are acting conscientiously”: Autobiography, 235–37.
This “sketch,” as he called it: Correspondence 2: 435.
what he called here “the natural means of selection”: F. Darwin, ed. (1909), 4.
would be to “alter forms”: Ibid., 9.
with their “deceptive appearance”: Ibid., 49.
“not from one law of gravity”: Ibid.
“death, famine, rapine, and the concealed war”: Ibid., 52.
“There is a simple grandeur”: Ibid.
“impious doctrines” such as atheism and socialism: Desmond and Moore (1991), 297, quoting The Times in August 1842.
to his “dear old Titty” or his “dear Mammy”: Correspondence 2: 398; Ibid., 4: 146.
“classification consists in grouping beings”: Ibid., 2: 376.
“a most strange fact”: Ibid., 3: 421.
asking Hooker’s help with “one little fact”: Ibid., 3: 2.
“I have been now ever since my return”: Ibid.
“Heaven forfend me from Lamarck”: Ibid.
with its casual suggestion about “one living filament”: CD’s Notebooks, 170, note 1.5.
Lamarck thought, by “the supreme author of all things”: Quoted in Mayr (1982), 353.
certain “subtle fluids” somehow: Burkhardt, ed. (1977), 155–56; Bowler (1989), 84.
Lamarck’s sentiment intérieur: Burkhardt, ed. (1977), 169.
a sort of “feeling of existence”: Packard (1901), 325.
one particular organism, the “sea mat”: Desmond and Moore (1991), 37; Autobiography, 50.
“I listened in silent astonishment”: Autobiography, 49.
it “has met with some degree of favour”: Lyell (1989), 2: 18.
“& also a gradual change of species”: Correspondence 3: 7.
intended for reading “in case of my sudden death”: Ibid., 3: 43.
“it will be a considerable step in science”: Ibid.
somehow leads to the “creation or production”: Ibid., 3: 61.
“I have continued steadily reading”: Ibid., 3: 67.
“The general conclusion at which I have slowly”: Ibid.
“It has pleased Providence to arrange”: Chambers (1994), 234.
he seemed to be…a “funny fellow”: Correspondence 3: 103.
he’d been “somewhat less amused”: Ibid., 3: 108.
Darwin realized that “Mr. Vestiges”: Ibid., 3: 253.
Point of Attachment
“Darwin’s Delay”: Gould (1977), 21.
“Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure”: Journal of Researches (1845), reprinted as The Voyage of the Beagle (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 339.
about how “the creative power”: Journal of Researches (1839), facsimile reprint (New York: Hafner, 1952), 474. See also pp. 461–62 for Darwin’s cursory 1839 comments on diversity of beak shape among the finches.
marveling at “the amount of creative force”: Journal of Researches (1845, 2001), 355.
he admitted feeling “astonished”: Ibid., 337.
“Hence, both in space and time”: Ibid.
“the replacement of extinct species by others”: CD’s Notebooks, 413, note 59.2.
made him a landlord, “a Lincolnshire squire”: Correspondence 3: 181.
“My life goes on like Clockwork”: Ibid., 3: 345.
“How much time lost by illness!”: Ibid., 3: 397.
“Where does your father do his barnacles?”: Browne (1996), 473.
“I am not inclined to take much for granted”: Correspondence 3: 250.
“How painfully (to me) true”: Ibid., 3: 253.
mentioning it fondly as “Mr. Arthrobalanus”: Ibid., 3: 356.
Geoffroy discerned “unity of plan”: Desmond (1992), 47; Mayr (1982), 362.
“lies in our ignorance of what”: Correspondence 2: 375.
that classification should reflect “consanguinity”: Ibid., 2: 376.
that Gray “intended to anticipate” Darwin’s work: Ibid., 4: 162.
or as Charles sometimes called him, “the Governor”: See, e.g., ibid., 2: 86, 118.
“the kindest man I ever knew”: Autobiography, 28.
“unusually unwell, with swimming of head”: Correspondence 4: 384.
“My own ever dear Mammy”: Ibid., 4: 183.
rationalized that it was “only a ceremony”: Ibid., 5: 9.
rudimentary or “abortive” structures: Ibid., 3: 365.
“I have been struck”: Ibid., 4: 344.
“Systematic work wd be easy were it not”: Ibid.
“My cirripedial task is an eternal one”: Ibid., 4: 319.
“a small, poor first fruit”: Ibid., 4: 344.
“of which creatures I am wonderfully tired”: Ibid., 5: 100.
“a shout of paeans for the Barnacles”: Ibid., 4: 406.
The Royal Medal was “quite a nugget”: Ibid., 6: 55.
“Health very bad with much sickness”: Ibid., 4: 385.
caused “nervous dyspepsia”: Ibid., 4: 225, note 1.
“sugar, butter, spices tea bacon”: Ibid., 4: 224.
“I am turned into a mere walking”: Ibid., 4: 234.
“that it induces in most people”: Ibid., 4: 235–36.
he’d gotten to like his own “aquatic life”: Ibid., 4: 344.
“Her whole mind was pure & transparent”: Ibid., 5: 541.
worried that she had inherite
d his “wretched digestion”: Ibid., 5:9.
A modern scholar named Randal Keynes: See Keynes (2002), 241–45.
“her face lighted up”: Correspondence 5: 13.
she vomited badly, and “from hour to hour”: Ibid., 5: 14.
Annie’s “hard, sharp pinched features”: Ibid., 5: 16.
“I quite thank you”: Ibid., 5: 19.
The governess immediately had “one of her attacks”: Keynes (2002), 216.
“I am in bed not very well with my stomach”: Correspondence 5: 24.
“She went to her final sleep most tranquilly”: Ibid., 5: 24.
“We shall be much less miserable together”: Ibid., 5: 25.
“Sometime,” he added, he would like to know: Ibid., 5: 28.
“I never gave up Christianity until I was”: Desmond and Moore (1991), 658.
Christianity was “not supported by evidence”: Browne (2002), 484.
“disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate”: Autobiography, 87.
“Everything in nature,” he concluded coldly: Ibid.
Later, “with many fluctuations”: Ibid., 93.
he simply called himself “muddled”: Correspondence 8: 275.
attacked by Leibniz as “subversive” of natural religion: Ibid., 8: 106, Darwin quoting Brewster’s life of Newton.
Gravity was “an occult quality”: Ibid.
“I cannot believe that there is a bit more”: Ibid., 8: 258.
“I cannot see, as plainly as others do”: Ibid., 8: 224.
“An innocent & good man stands”: Ibid., 8: 275.
“Blessings on her”: Ibid., 5: 542.
A Duck for Mr. Darwin
“the theory of the progressive development”: Wallace (1905) 1: 254.
Wallace found his book “very philosophical”: Ibid.
“shining out like a mass of brilliant flame”: Wallace (1889), 152.
“good resolutions soon fade”: Wallace (1905), 1: 309.
What he termed “closely allied species”: Wallace (1852), reprinted in Camerini, ed. (2002), 101.
“only the announcement of the theory”: Marchant (1975), 54.
He also wrote about the “creation” of new species: Wallace (1969), 8–10.
He used the term “antitype”: Ibid., 6.
“are all explained and illustrated by it”: Ibid., 18.
“Such phenomena as are exhibited by the Galapagos Islands”: Ibid., 8.
“Every species has come into existence coincident”: Ibid., 6.
“began sorting notes for Species Theory”: Correspondence 5: 537.
what he called “accidental means” of plant species dispersal: The Origin of Species, facsimile 1st edn. (1964; cited hereafter as The Origin), 358.
putrid and stinky “in a quite extraordinary degree”: Correspondence 5: 332.
“a wonderful quantity of mucus”: Ibid., 5: 305.
“I have puppies of Bull-dogs & Greyhound in salt”: Ibid., 5: 326.
“I am getting on splendidly”: Ibid., 6: 45.
“Skins,” it began: “Any domestic breed or race”: Ibid., 5: 510.
Halfway down the list appeared an inconspicuous: Ibid.
“What think you of Wallace’s paper”: Ibid., 5: 519.
but offered “nothing very new”: Ibid., 5: 522.
“It seems all creation with him”: Ibid.
“The domestic duck var. is for Mr. Darwin”: Ibid., 6: 290.
“By your letter, & even still more”: Ibid., 6: 387.
“I wish you would publish some small fragment”: Ibid., 6: 89.
“I rather hate the idea of writing”: Ibid., 6: 100.
“I had a good talk with Lyell”: Ibid., 6: 106.
though not necessarily against a “preliminary essay”: Ibid., 6: 109.
“I am working very steadily at my big Book”: Ibid., 6: 265.
“This summer will make the 20th year (!)”: Ibid., 6: 387.
His Abominable Volume
“On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely”: Wallace (1858), reprinted as part of the full Darwin-Wallace presentation to the Linnean Society, in Weigel, ed. (1975). The Wallace paper alone is also reprinted in Wallace (1969).
posited “a general principle in nature”: Weigel, ed. (1975), 28.
“The life of wild animals”: Ibid.
“the weakest & least perfectly organized”: Ibid., 32.
“variations from the typical form of a species”: Ibid., 34.
Those creatures “best adapted” as a result: Ibid., 32.
The result would be “continued divergence”: Ibid., 36.
“successive variations departing further and further”: Ibid., 28.
“all the phenomena presented by organized beings”: Ibid., 42.
“Ternate, February 1858”: Ibid.
“And the answer,” as he recollected long afterward: Wallace (1905), 1: 362.
“The more I thought over it”: Ibid.
“Your words have come true with a vengeance”: Correspondence 7: 107.
“without its full share of intelligence”: Litchfield (1915), 2: 162.
describes baby Charles as “severely retarded”: Desmond and Moore (1991), 467.
“may have been slightly retarded”: Browne (2002), 37, 503.
“It was the most blessed relief”: Correspondence 7: 121.
“after their first sorrow, they could only feel”: Litchfield (1915), 2: 162.
“nice little bubbling noises”: Correspondence 7: 521.
“I shd. be extremely glad now to publish”: Ibid., 7: 117.
“This is a trumpery letter”: Ibid., 7: 118.
“I daresay all is too late”: Ibid., 7: 122.
though Darwin did allude to “the origin of species”: Abstract of Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray, printed in Darwin and Wallace(1858), reprinted in Weigel, ed. (1975), 22.
that Darwin and Wallace’s paper “would not be worthy of notice”: Correspondence 7: 292.
savored it as “a taste of the future”: Ibid., 7: 291.
“I shall never forget the impression”: Quoted in Browne (2002), 49.
references to the “ingenious and original reasonings”: Quoted in ibid., 50.
“any of those striking discoveries which at once”: Quoted in ibid., 42.
“I am quite prostrated & can do nothing”: Correspondence 7: 121.
he seized the idea of writing a sleek “abstract”: Ibid., 7: 130.
“When we look to the individuals”: The Origin, 7.
suffering “the old severe vomiting”: Correspondence 7: 247.
“My abstract is the cause”: Ibid., 7: 247.
“a comparatively free man”: Ibid.
“I had absolutely nothing whatever to do”: Ibid., 7: 240.
“written in 1839 now just 20 years ago!”: Ibid., 7: 241.
“perfect, quite clear & most courteous”: Ibid., 7: 129.
if Mr. Darwin’s “excess of generosity” had resulted: Ibid., 7: 166.
“strictly just to both parties”: Ibid.
“who thought so highly of it that they immediately”: Marchant (1975), 57.
“This assures me the acquaintance and assistance”: Ibid.
“This insures me the acquaintance of these eminent men”: Wallace (1905), 1: 365.
“incredibly bad, & most difficult”: Correspondence 7: 303.
His proposed title was deadly dull: Ibid., 7: plate facing p. 283.
“So much for my abominable volume”: Ibid., 7: 336.
“no possible means of drawing [a]line”: Ibid., 7: 349.
their skills at “the American game”: Ibid.
“You cannot think how refreshing it is”: Ibid., 7: 350.
“My dear Sir, I have received”: Ibid., 7: 365.
“Your father says he shall never think”: Ibid., 7: 395, note 1.
“If a monkey has become a man”: Peckham (1959), 16.
“the Survival of the Fittest”: Ibid., 22, 164.
&
nbsp; a whole new chapter, “Miscellaneous Objections”: Ibid., 23, 226.
struck the word “On” from his title: Ibid., 23, 71.
“When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle’”: The Origin, 1.
“innumerable species inhabiting this world”: Ibid., 3.
“perfection of structure and coadaptation”: Ibid.
that the mechanism he calls “natural selection”: Ibid., 5. Darwin puts the phrase in initial capitals, “Natural Selection,” at this first mention, but later (e.g., p. 81) he leaves it lowercase.
“have been, and are being, evolved”: Ibid., 490.
talks in these opening pages about “modification and coadaptation”: Ibid., 4.
“descent with modification”: Ibid., 331.
or his “theory of descent”: Ibid., 426.
in his introduction is the “struggle for existence”: Ibid., 4. Again, capitalized as “Struggle for Existence” on first use, but not always later, e.g., p. 5.
“As many more individuals”: Ibid., 5.
“No one supposes that all the individuals”: Ibid., 45.
“much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary”: Ibid., 48.
“Darwin revolutionized our study of nature”: Lewontin (2000), 67.
“all nature is at war”: The allusion to de Candolle is at The Origin, p. 62; the quote is from Darwin’s 1844 essay, in F. Darwin, ed. (1909), 87.
“The face of Nature may be compared to”: The Origin, 67.
“what may not nature effect”: Ibid., 83.
“In such case, every slight modification”: Ibid., 82.
“The more diversified the descendants”: Ibid., 112.
“every species has come into existence coincident”: Ibid., 355, quoted from Wallace (1855).
“We see in these facts some deep organic bond”: The Origin, 350.
“On the theory of descent with modification”: Ibid., 340.
“the animal in its less modified state”: Ibid., 449.
the “very soul” of natural history: Ibid., 434.
And the “same great law” of homologous parts: Ibid.
“that it has so pleased the Creator”: Ibid.
but somehow “natural” and objective: Ibid., 413.
simply “reveals the plan of the Creator”: Ibid.
“all true classification is genealogical”: Ibid., 420.
“the hidden bond which naturalists”: Ibid.
he also calls them “atrophied” or “aborted”: Ibid., 450.
the entire book is essentially “one long argument”: Ibid., 459.
“a considerable revolution in natural history”: Ibid., 484.
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin Page 23
