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Title: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
       From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin

Author: Charles Darwin

Editor: [Charles Darwin’s son] Francis Darwin

Release Date: December, 1999 [eBook #2010]
[Most recently updated: April 26, 2022]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Sue Asscher

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DARWIN ***




THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
CHARLES DARWIN

From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin

By Charles Darwin

Edited by his Son Francis Darwin


CONTENTS

CAMBRIDGE 1828-1831.
 “VOYAGE OF THE ‘BEAGLE’ FROM DECEMBER 27, 1831, TO OCTOBER 2, 1836.”
 FROM MY RETURN TO ENGLAND (OCTOBER 2, 1836) TO MY MARRIAGE (JANUARY 29, 1839.)
 FROM MY MARRIAGE, JANUARY 29, 1839, AND RESIDENCE IN UPPER GOWER STREET, TO OUR LEAVING LONDON AND SETTLING AT DOWN, SEPTEMBER 14, 1842.
 RESIDENCE AT DOWN FROM SEPTEMBER 14, 1842, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1876.
 MY SEVERAL PUBLICATIONS.
 WRITTEN MAY 1ST, 1881.




[My father’s autobiographical recollections, given in the present
chapter, were written for his children,—and written without any thought
that they would ever be published. To many this may seem an
impossibility; but those who knew my father will understand how it was
not only possible, but natural. The autobiography bears the heading,
‘Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character,’ and end
with the following note:—“Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch of my life was
begun about May 28th at Hopedene (Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood’s house in
Surrey.), and since then I have written for nearly an hour on most
afternoons.” It will easily be understood that, in a narrative of a
personal and intimate kind written for his wife and children, passages
should occur which must here be omitted; and I have not thought it
necessary to indicate where such omissions are made. It has been found
necessary to make a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but the
number of such alterations has been kept down to the minimum.—F.D.]


A German Editor having written to me for an account of the development
of my mind and character with some sketch of my autobiography, I have
thought that the attempt would amuse me, and might possibly interest my
children or their children. I know that it would have interested me
greatly to have read even so short and dull a sketch of the mind of my
grandfather, written by himself, and what he thought and did, and how
he worked. I have attempted to write the following account of myself,
as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at my own life.
Nor have I found this difficult, for life is nearly over with me. I
have taken no pains about my style of writing.

I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809, and my earliest
recollection goes back only to when I was a few months over four years
old, when we went to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect
some events and places there with some little distinctness.

My mother died in July 1817, when I was a little over eight years old,
and it is odd that I can remember hardly anything about her except her
death-bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed
work-table. In the spring of this same year I was sent to a day-school
in Shrewsbury, where I stayed a year. I have been told that I was much
slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that
I was in many ways a naughty boy.

By the time I went to this day-school (Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister
of the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street. Mrs. Darwin was a Unitarian
and attended Mr. Case’s chapel, and my father as a little boy went
there with his elder sisters. But both he and his brother were
christened and intended to belong to the Church of England; and after
his early boyhood he seems usually to have gone to church and not to
Mr. Case’s. It appears (“St. James’ Gazette”, Dec. 15, 1883) that a
mural tablet has been erected to his memory in the chapel, which is now
known as the ‘Free Christian Church.’) my taste for natural history,
and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make
out the names of plants (Rev. W.A. Leighton, who was a schoolfellow of
my father’s at Mr. Case’s school, remembers his bringing a flower to
school and saying that his mother had taught him how by looking at the
inside of the blossom the name of the plant could be discovered. Mr.
Leighton goes on, “This greatly roused my attention and curiosity, and
I enquired of him repeatedly how this could be done?”—but his lesson
was naturally enough not transmissible.—F.D.), and collected all sorts
of things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for
collecting which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso,
or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of
my sisters or brother ever had this taste.

One little event during this year has fixed itself very firmly in my
mind, and I hope that it has done so from my conscience having been
afterwards sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing that
apparently I was interested at this early age in the variability of
plants! I told another little boy (I believe it was Leighton, who
afterwards became a well-known lichenologist and botanist), that I
could produce variously coloured polyanthuses and primroses by watering
them with certain coloured fluids, which was of course a monstrous
fable, and had never been tried by me. I may here also confess that as
a little boy I was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and
this was always done for the sake of causing excitement. For instance,
I once gathered much valuable fruit from my father’s trees and hid it
in the shrubbery, and then ran in breathless haste to spread the news
that I had discovered a hoard of stolen fruit.

I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first went to the
school. A boy of the name of Garnett took me into a cake shop one day,
and bought some cakes for which he did not pay, as the shopman trusted
him. When we came out I asked him why he did not pay for them, and he
instantly answered, “Why, do you not know that my uncle left a great
sum of money to the town on condition that every tradesman should give
whatever was wanted without payment to any one who wore his old hat and
moved [it] in a particular manner?” and he then showed me how it was
moved. He then went into another shop where he was trusted, and asked
for some small article, moving his hat in the proper manner, and of
course obtained it without payment. When we came out he said, “Now if
you like to go by yourself into that cake-shop (how well I remember its
exact position) I will lend you my hat, and you can get whatever you
like if you move the hat on your head properly.” I gladly accepted the
generous offer, and went in and asked for some cakes, moved the old hat
and was walking out of the shop, when the shopman made a rush at me, so
I dropped the cakes and ran for dear life, and was astonished by being
greeted with shouts of laughter by my false friend Garnett.

I can say in my own favour that I was as a boy humane, but I owed this
entirely to the instruction and example of my sisters. I doubt indeed
whether humanity is a natural or innate quality. I was very fond of
collecting eggs, but I never took more than a single egg out of a
bird’s nest, except on one single occasion, when I took all, not for
their value, but from a sort of bravado.

I had a strong taste for angling, and would sit for any number of hours
on the bank of a river or pond watching the float; when at Maer (The
house of his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood.) I was told that I could kill the
worms with salt and water, and from that day I never spitted a living
worm, though at the expense probably of some loss of success.

Once as a very little boy whilst at the day school, or before that
time, I acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from
enjoying the sense of power; but the beating could not have been
severe, for the puppy did not howl, of which I feel sure, as the spot
was near the house. This act lay heavily on my conscience, as is shown
by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was committed. It
probably lay all the heavier from my love of dogs being then, and for a
long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs seemed to know this, for I was an
adept in robbing their love from their masters.

I remember clearly only one other incident during this year whilst at
Mr. Case’s daily school,—namely, the burial of a dragoon soldier; and
it is surprising how clearly I can still see the horse with the man’s
empty boots and carbine suspended to the saddle, and the firing over
the grave. This scene deeply stirred whatever poetic fancy there was in
me.

In the summer of 1818 I went to Dr. Butler’s great school in
Shrewsbury, and remained there for seven years till Midsummer 1825,
when I was sixteen years old. I boarded at this school, so that I had
the great advantage of living the life of a true schoolboy; but as the
distance was hardly more than a mile to my home, I very often ran there
in the longer intervals between the callings over and before locking up
at night. This, I think, was in many ways advantageous to me by keeping
up home affections and interests. I remember in the early part of my
school life that I often had to run very quickly to be in time, and
from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt I
prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I
attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and
marvelled how generally I was aided.

I have heard my father and elder sister say that I had, as a very young
boy, a strong taste for long solitary walks; but what I thought about I
know not. I often became quite absorbed, and once, whilst returning to
school on the summit of the old fortifications round Shrewsbury, which
had been converted into a public foot-path with no parapet on one side,
I walked off and fell to the ground, but the height was only seven or
eight feet. Nevertheless the number of thoughts which passed through my
mind during this very short, but sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was
astonishing, and seem hardly compatible with what physiologists have, I
believe, proved about each thought requiring quite an appreciable
amount of time.

Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr.
Butler’s school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being
taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a
means of education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I
have been singularly incapable of mastering any language. Especial
attention was paid to verse-making, and this I could never do well. I
had many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses,
which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could work
into any subject. Much attention was paid to learning by heart the
lessons of the previous day; this I could effect with great facility,
learning forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer, whilst I was in
morning chapel; but this exercise was utterly useless, for every verse
was forgotten in forty-eight hours. I was not idle, and with the
exception of versification, generally worked conscientiously at my
classics, not using cribs. The sole pleasure I ever received from such
studies, was from some of the odes of Horace, which I admired greatly.

When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low in it; and
I believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my father as a
very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my
deep mortification my father once said to me, “You care for nothing but
shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to
yourself and all your family.” But my father, who was the kindest man I
ever knew and whose memory I love with all my heart, must have been
angry and somewhat unjust when he used such words.

Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life,
the only qualities which at this period promised well for the future,
were, that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for whatever
interested me, and a keen pleasure in understanding any complex subject
or thing. I was taught Euclid by a private tutor, and I distinctly
remember the intense satisfaction which the clear geometrical proofs
gave me. I remember, with equal distinctness, the delight which my
uncle gave me (the father of Francis Galton) by explaining the
principle of the vernier of a barometer with respect to diversified
tastes, independently of science, I was fond of reading various books,
and I used to sit for hours reading the historical plays of
Shakespeare, generally in an old window in the thick walls of the
school. I read also other poetry, such as Thomson’s ‘Seasons,’ and the
recently published poems of Byron and Scott. I mention this because
later in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from
poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. In connection with pleasure
from poetry, I may add that in 1822 a vivid delight in scenery was
first awakened in my mind, during a riding tour on the borders of
Wales, and this has lasted longer than any other aesthetic pleasure.

Early in my school days a boy had a copy of the ‘Wonders of the World,’
which I often read, and disputed with other boys about the veracity of
some of the statements; and I believe that this book first gave me a
wish to travel in remote countries, which was ultimately fulfilled by
the voyage of the “Beagle”. In the latter part of my school life I
became passionately fond of shooting; I do not believe that any one
could have shown more zeal for the most holy cause than I did for
shooting birds. How well I remember killing my first snipe, and my
excitement was so great that I had much difficulty in reloading my gun
from the trembling of my hands. This taste long continued, and I became
a very good shot. When at Cambridge I used to practise throwing up my
gun to my shoulder before a looking-glass to see that I threw it up
straight. Another and better plan was to get a friend to wave about a
lighted candle, and then to fire at it with a cap on the nipple, and if
the aim was accurate the little puff of air would blow out the candle.
The explosion of the cap caused a sharp crack, and I was told that the
tutor of the college remarked, “What an extraordinary thing it is, Mr.
Darwin seems to spend hours in cracking a horse-whip in his room, for I
often hear the crack when I pass under his windows.”

I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I
think that my disposition was then very affectionate.

With respect to science, I continued collecting minerals with much
zeal, but quite unscientifically—all that I cared about was a
new-_named_ mineral, and I hardly attempted to classify them. I must
have observed insects with some little care, for when ten years old
(1819) I went for three weeks to Plas Edwards on the sea-coast in
Wales, I was very much interested and surprised at seeing a large black
and scarlet Hemipterous insect, many moths (Zygaena), and a Cicindela
which are not found in Shropshire. I almost made up my mind to begin
collecting all the insects which I could find dead, for on consulting
my sister I concluded that it was not right to kill insects for the
sake of making a collection. From reading White’s ‘Selborne,’ I took
much pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and even made notes on
the subject. In my simplicity I remember wondering why every gentleman
did not become an ornithologist.

Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at
chemistry, and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in the
tool-house in the garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in
most of his experiments. He made all the gases and many compounds, and
I read with great care several books on chemistry, such as Henry and
Parkes’ ‘Chemical Catechism.’ The subject interested me greatly, and we
often used to go on working till rather late at night. This was the
best part of my education at school, for it showed me practically the
meaning of experimental science. The fact that we worked at chemistry
somehow got known at school, and as it was an unprecedented fact, I was
nicknamed “Gas.” I was also once publicly rebuked by the head-master,
Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time on such useless subjects; and he
called me very unjustly a “poco curante,” and as I did not understand
what he meant, it seemed to me a fearful reproach.

As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took me away at a
rather earlier age than usual, and sent me (Oct. 1825) to Edinburgh
University with my brother, where I stayed for two years or sessions.
My brother was completing his medical studies, though I do not believe
he ever really intended to practise, and I was sent there to commence
them. But soon after this period I became convinced from various small
circumstances that my father would leave me property enough to subsist
on with some comfort, though I never imagined that I should be so rich
a man as I am; but my belief was sufficient to check any strenuous
efforts to learn medicine.

The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were
intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry by Hope; but
to my mind there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures
compared with reading. Dr. Duncan’s lectures on Materia Medica at 8
o’clock on a winter’s morning are something fearful to remember. Dr.——
made his lectures on human anatomy as dull as he was himself, and the
subject disgusted me. It has proved one of the greatest evils in my
life that I was not urged to practise dissection, for I should soon
have got over my disgust; and the practice would have been invaluable
for all my future work. This has been an irremediable evil, as well as
my incapacity to draw. I also attended regularly the clinical wards in
the hospital. Some of the cases distressed me a good deal, and I still
have vivid pictures before me of some of them; but I was not so foolish
as to allow this to lessen my attendance. I cannot understand why this
part of my medical course did not interest me in a greater degree; for
during the summer before coming to Edinburgh I began attending some of
the poor people, chiefly children and women in Shrewsbury: I wrote down
as full an account as I could of the case with all the symptoms, and
read them aloud to my father, who suggested further inquiries and
advised me what medicines to give, which I made up myself. At one time
I had at least a dozen patients, and I felt a keen interest in the
work. My father, who was by far the best judge of character whom I ever
knew, declared that I should make a successful physician,—meaning by
this one who would get many patients. He maintained that the chief
element of success was exciting confidence; but what he saw in me which
convinced him that I should create confidence I know not. I also
attended on two occasions the operating theatre in the hospital at
Edinburgh, and saw two very bad operations, one on a child, but I
rushed away before they were completed. Nor did I ever attend again,
for hardly any inducement would have been strong enough to make me do
so; this being long before the blessed days of chloroform. The two
cases fairly haunted me for many a long year.

My brother stayed only one year at the University, so that during the
second year I was left to my own resources; and this was an advantage,
for I became well acquainted with several young men fond of natural
science. One of these was Ainsworth, who afterwards published his
travels in Assyria; he was a Wernerian geologist, and knew a little
about many subjects. Dr. Coldstream was a very different young man,
prim, formal, highly religious, and most kind-hearted; he afterwards
published some good zoological articles. A third young man was Hardie,
who would, I think, have made a good botanist, but died early in India.
Lastly, Dr. Grant, my senior by several years, but how I became
acquainted with him I cannot remember; he published some first-rate
zoological papers, but after coming to London as Professor in
University College, he did nothing more in science, a fact which has
always been inexplicable to me. I knew him well; he was dry and formal
in manner, with much enthusiasm beneath this outer crust. He one day,
when we were walking together, burst forth in high admiration of
Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent astonishment,
and as far as I can judge without any effect on my mind. I had
previously read the ‘Zoonomia’ of my grandfather, in which similar
views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me.
Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such
views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under
a different form in my ‘Origin of Species.’ At this time I admired
greatly the ‘Zoonomia;’ but on reading it a second time after an
interval of ten or fifteen years, I was much disappointed; the
proportion of speculation being so large to the facts given.

Drs. Grant and Coldstream attended much to marine Zoology, and I often
accompanied the former to collect animals in the tidal pools, which I
dissected as well as I could. I also became friends with some of the
Newhaven fishermen, and sometimes accompanied them when they trawled
for oysters, and thus got many specimens. But from not having had any
regular practice in dissection, and from possessing only a wretched
microscope, my attempts were very poor. Nevertheless I made one
interesting little discovery, and read, about the beginning of the year
1826, a short paper on the subject before the Plinian Society. This was
that the so-called ova of Flustra had the power of independent movement
by means of cilia, and were in fact larvae. In another short paper I
showed that the little globular bodies which had been supposed to be
the young state of Fucus loreus were the egg-cases of the wormlike
Pontobdella muricata.

The Plinian Society was encouraged and, I believe, founded by Professor
Jameson: it consisted of students and met in an underground room in the
University for the sake of reading papers on natural science and
discussing them. I used regularly to attend, and the meetings had a
good effect on me in stimulating my zeal and giving me new congenial
acquaintances. One evening a poor young man got up, and after
stammering for a prodigious length of time, blushing crimson, he at
last slowly got out the words, “Mr. President, I have forgotten what I
was going to say.” The poor fellow looked quite overwhelmed, and all
the members were so surprised that no one could think of a word to say
to cover his confusion. The papers which were read to our little
society were not printed, so that I had not the satisfaction of seeing
my paper in print; but I believe Dr. Grant noticed my small discovery
in his excellent memoir on Flustra.

I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and attended pretty
regularly; but as the subjects were exclusively medical, I did not much
care about them. Much rubbish was talked there, but there were some
good speakers, of whom the best was the present Sir J.
Kay-Shuttleworth. Dr. Grant took me occasionally to the meetings of the
Wernerian Society, where various papers on natural history were read,
discussed, and afterwards published in the ‘Transactions.’ I heard
Audubon deliver there some interesting discourses on the habits of N.
American birds, sneering somewhat unjustly at Waterton. By the way, a
negro lived in Edinburgh, who had travelled with Waterton, and gained
his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did excellently: he gave me
lessons for payment, and I used often to sit with him, for he was a
very pleasant and intelligent man.

Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh, where I saw Sir Walter Scott in the chair as President,
and he apologised to the meeting as not feeling fitted for such a
position. I looked at him and at the whole scene with some awe and
reverence, and I think it was owing to this visit during my youth, and
to my having attended the Royal Medical Society, that I felt the honour
of being elected a few years ago an honorary member of both these
Societies, more than any other similar honour. If I had been told at
that time that I should one day have been thus honoured, I declare that
I should have thought it as ridiculous and improbable, as if I had been
told that I should be elected King of England.

During my second year at Edinburgh I attended ——’s lectures on Geology
and Zoology, but they were incredibly dull. The sole effect they
produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a
book on Geology, or in any way to study the science. Yet I feel sure
that I was prepared for a philosophical treatment of the subject; for
an old Mr. Cotton in Shropshire, who knew a good deal about rocks, had
pointed out to me two or three years previously a well-known large
erratic boulder in the town of Shrewsbury, called the “bell-stone”; he
told me that there was no rock of the same kind nearer than Cumberland
or Scotland, and he solemnly assured me that the world would come to an
end before any one would be able to explain how this stone came where
it now lay. This produced a deep impression on me, and I meditated over
this wonderful stone. So that I felt the keenest delight when I first
read of the action of icebergs in transporting boulders, and I gloried
in the progress of Geology. Equally striking is the fact that I, though
now only sixty-seven years old, heard the Professor, in a field lecture
at Salisbury Craigs, discoursing on a trapdyke, with amygdaloidal
margins and the strata indurated on each side, with volcanic rocks all
around us, say that it was a fissure filled with sediment from above,
adding with a sneer that there were men who maintained that it had been
injected from beneath in a molten condition. When I think of this
lecture, I do not wonder that I determined never to attend to Geology.

From attending ——’s lectures, I became acquainted with the curator of
the museum, Mr. Macgillivray, who afterwards published a large and
excellent book on the birds of Scotland. I had much interesting
natural-history talk with him, and he was very kind to me. He gave me
some rare shells, for I at that time collected marine mollusca, but
with no great zeal.

My summer vacations during these two years were wholly given up to
amusements, though I always had some book in hand, which I read with
interest. During the summer of 1826 I took a long walking tour with two
friends with knapsacks on our backs through North Wales. We walked
thirty miles most days, including one day the ascent of Snowdon. I also
went with my sister a riding tour in North Wales, a servant with
saddle-bags carrying our clothes. The autumns were devoted to shooting
chiefly at Mr. Owen’s, at Woodhouse, and at my Uncle Jos’s (Josiah
Wedgwood, the son of the founder of the Etruria Works.) at Maer. My
zeal was so great that I used to place my shooting-boots open by my
bed-side when I went to bed, so as not to lose half a minute in putting
them on in the morning; and on one occasion I reached a distant part of
the Maer estate, on the 20th of August for black-game shooting, before
I could see: I then toiled on with the game-keeper the whole day
through thick heath and young Scotch firs.

I kept an exact record of every bird which I shot throughout the whole
season. One day when shooting at Woodhouse with Captain Owen, the
eldest son, and Major Hill, his cousin, afterwards Lord Berwick, both
of whom I liked very much, I thought myself shamefully used, for every
time after I had fired and thought that I had killed a bird, one of the
two acted as if loading his gun, and cried out, “You must not count
that bird, for I fired at the same time,” and the gamekeeper,
perceiving the joke, backed them up. After some hours they told me the
joke, but it was no joke to me, for I had shot a large number of birds,
but did not know how many, and could not add them to my list, which I
used to do by making a knot in a piece of string tied to a button-hole.
This my wicked friends had perceived.

How I did enjoy shooting! But I think that I must have been
half-consciously ashamed of my zeal, for I tried to persuade myself
that shooting was almost an intellectual employment; it required so
much skill to judge where to find most game and to hunt the dogs well.

One of my autumnal visits to Maer in 1827 was memorable from meeting
there Sir J. Mackintosh, who was the best converser I ever listened to.
I heard afterwards with a glow of pride that he had said, “There is
something in that young man that interests me.” This must have been
chiefly due to his perceiving that I listened with much interest to
everything which he said, for I was as ignorant as a pig about his
subjects of history, politics, and moral philosophy. To hear of praise
from an eminent person, though no doubt apt or certain to excite
vanity, is, I think, good for a young man, as it helps to keep him in
the right course.

My visits to Maer during these two or three succeeding years were quite
delightful, independently of the autumnal shooting. Life there was
perfectly free; the country was very pleasant for walking or riding;
and in the evening there was much very agreeable conversation, not so
personal as it generally is in large family parties, together with
music. In the summer the whole family used often to sit on the steps of
the old portico, with the flower-garden in front, and with the steep
wooded bank opposite the house reflected in the lake, with here and
there a fish rising or a water-bird paddling about. Nothing has left a
more vivid picture on my mind than these evenings at Maer. I was also
attached to and greatly revered my Uncle Jos; he was silent and
reserved, so as to be a rather awful man; but he sometimes talked
openly with me. He was the very type of an upright man, with the
clearest judgment. I do not believe that any power on earth could have
made him swerve an inch from what he considered the right course. I
used to apply to him in my mind the well-known ode of Horace, now
forgotten by me, in which the words “nec vultus tyranni,* etc.,” come
in.

* Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium
Non vultus instantis tyranni
Mente quatit solida.




CAMBRIDGE 1828-1831.


After having spent two sessions in Edinburgh, my father perceived, or
he heard from my sisters, that I did not like the thought of being a
physician, so he proposed that I should become a clergyman. He was very
properly vehement against my turning into an idle sporting man, which
then seemed my probable destination. I asked for some time to consider,
as from what little I had heard or thought on the subject I had
scruples about declaring my belief in all the dogmas of the Church of
England; though otherwise I liked the thought of being a country
clergyman. Accordingly I read with care ‘Pearson on the Creed,’ and a
few other books on divinity; and as I did not then in the least doubt
the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible, I soon
persuaded myself that our Creed must be fully accepted.

Considering how fiercely I have been attacked by the orthodox, it seems
ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman. Nor was this
intention and my father’s wish ever formerly given up, but died a
natural death when, on leaving Cambridge, I joined the “Beagle” as
naturalist. If the phrenologists are to be trusted, I was well fitted
in one respect to be a clergyman. A few years ago the secretaries of a
German psychological society asked me earnestly by letter for a
photograph of myself; and some time afterwards I received the
proceedings of one of the meetings, in which it seemed that the shape
of my head had been the subject of a public discussion, and one of the
speakers declared that I had the bump of reverence developed enough for
ten priests.

As it was decided that I should be a clergyman, it was necessary that I
should go to one of the English universities and take a degree; but as
I had never opened a classical book since leaving school, I found to my
dismay, that in the two intervening years I had actually forgotten,
incredible as it may appear, almost everything which I had learnt, even
to some few of the Greek letters. I did not therefore proceed to
Cambridge at the usual time in October, but worked with a private tutor
in Shrewsbury, and went to Cambridge after the Christmas vacation,
early in 1828. I soon recovered my school standard of knowledge, and
could translate easy Greek books, such as Homer and the Greek
Testament, with moderate facility.

During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted,
as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at
Edinburgh and at school. I attempted mathematics, and even went during
the summer of 1828 with a private tutor (a very dull man) to Barmouth,
but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me, chiefly from my
not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra. This
impatience was very foolish, and in after years I have deeply regretted
that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of
the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem
to have an extra sense. But I do not believe that I should ever have
succeeded beyond a very low grade. With respect to Classics I did
nothing except attend a few compulsory college lectures, and the
attendance was almost nominal. In my second year I had to work for a
month or two to pass the Little-Go, which I did easily. Again, in my
last year I worked with some earnestness for my final degree of B.A.,
and brushed up my Classics, together with a little Algebra and Euclid,
which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did at school. In order to
pass the B.A. examination, it was also necessary to get up Paley’s
‘Evidences of Christianity,’ and his ‘Moral Philosophy.’ This was done
in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that I could have written out
the whole of the ‘Evidences’ with perfect correctness, but not of
course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and, as I
may add, of his ‘Natural Theology,’ gave me as much delight as did
Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn
any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course which, as
I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the
education of my mind. I did not at that time trouble myself about
Paley’s premises; and taking these on trust, I was charmed and
convinced by the long line of argumentation. By answering well the
examination questions in Paley, by doing Euclid well, and by not
failing miserably in Classics, I gained a good place among the oi
polloi or crowd of men who do not go in for honours. Oddly enough, I
cannot remember how high I stood, and my memory fluctuates between the
fifth, tenth, or twelfth, name on the list. (Tenth in the list of
January 1831.)

Public lectures on several branches were given in the University,
attendance being quite voluntary; but I was so sickened with lectures
at Edinburgh that I did not even attend Sedgwick’s eloquent and
interesting lectures. Had I done so I should probably have become a
geologist earlier than I did. I attended, however, Henslow’s lectures
on Botany, and liked them much for their extreme clearness, and the
admirable illustrations; but I did not study botany. Henslow used to
take his pupils, including several of the older members of the
University, field excursions, on foot or in coaches, to distant places,
or in a barge down the river, and lectured on the rarer plants and
animals which were observed. These excursions were delightful.

Although, as we shall presently see, there were some redeeming features
in my life at Cambridge, my time was sadly wasted there, and worse than
wasted. From my passion for shooting and for hunting, and, when this
failed, for riding across country, I got into a sporting set, including
some dissipated low-minded young men. We used often to dine together in
the evening, though these dinners often included men of a higher stamp,
and we sometimes drank too much, with jolly singing and playing at
cards afterwards. I know that I ought to feel ashamed of days and
evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very pleasant, and
we were all in the highest spirits, I cannot help looking back to these
times with much pleasure.

But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a widely
different nature. I was very intimate with Whitley (Rev. C. Whitley,
Hon. Canon of Durham, formerly Reader in Natural Philosophy in Durham
University.), who was afterwards Senior Wrangler, and we used
continually to take long walks together. He inoculated me with a taste
for pictures and good engravings, of which I bought some. I frequently
went to the Fitzwilliam Gallery, and my taste must have been fairly
good, for I certainly admired the best pictures, which I discussed with
the old curator. I read also with much interest Sir Joshua Reynolds’
book. This taste, though not natural to me, lasted for several years,
and many of the pictures in the National Gallery in London gave me much
pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of
sublimity.

I also got into a musical set, I believe by means of my warm-hearted
friend, Herbert (The late John Maurice Herbert, County Court Judge of
Cardiff and the Monmouth Circuit.), who took a high wrangler’s degree.
From associating with these men, and hearing them play, I acquired a
strong taste for music, and used very often to time my walks so as to
hear on week days the anthem in King’s College Chapel. This gave me
intense pleasure, so that my backbone would sometimes shiver. I am sure
that there was no affectation or mere imitation in this taste, for I
used generally to go by myself to King’s College, and I sometimes hired
the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so utterly
destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep time and
hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could possibly have
derived pleasure from music.

My musical friends soon perceived my state, and sometimes amused
themselves by making me pass an examination, which consisted in
ascertaining how many tunes I could recognise when they were played
rather more quickly or slowly than usual. ‘God save the King,’ when
thus played, was a sore puzzle. There was another man with almost as
bad an ear as I had, and strange to say he played a little on the
flute. Once I had the triumph of beating him in one of our musical
examinations.

But no pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness
or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles. It was the mere
passion for collecting, for I did not dissect them, and rarely compared
their external characters with published descriptions, but got them
named anyhow. I will give a proof of my zeal: one day, on tearing off
some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand;
then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so
that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth.
Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so
that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the
third one.

I was very successful in collecting, and invented two new methods; I
employed a labourer to scrape during the winter, moss off old trees and
place it in a large bag, and likewise to collect the rubbish at the
bottom of the barges in which reeds are brought from the fens, and thus
I got some very rare species. No poet ever felt more delighted at
seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing, in Stephens’
‘Illustrations of British Insects,’ the magic words, “captured by C.
Darwin, Esq.” I was introduced to entomology by my second cousin W.
Darwin Fox, a clever and most pleasant man, who was then at Christ’s
College, and with whom I became extremely intimate. Afterwards I became
well acquainted, and went out collecting, with Albert Way of Trinity,
who in after years became a well-known archaeologist; also with H.
Thompson of the same College, afterwards a leading agriculturist,
chairman of a great railway, and Member of Parliament. It seems
therefore that a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of
future success in life!

I am surprised what an indelible impression many of the beetles which I
caught at Cambridge have left on my mind. I can remember the exact
appearance of certain posts, old trees and banks where I made a good
capture. The pretty Panagaeus crux-major was a treasure in those days,
and here at Down I saw a beetle running across a walk, and on picking
it up instantly perceived that it differed slightly from P. crux-major,
and it turned out to be P. quadripunctatus, which is only a variety or
closely allied species, differing from it very slightly in outline. I
had never seen in those old days Licinus alive, which to an uneducated
eye hardly differs from many of the black Carabidous beetles; but my
sons found here a specimen, and I instantly recognised that it was new
to me; yet I had not looked at a British beetle for the last twenty
years.

I have not as yet mentioned a circumstance which influenced my whole
career more than any other. This was my friendship with Professor
Henslow. Before coming up to Cambridge, I had heard of him from my
brother as a man who knew every branch of science, and I was
accordingly prepared to reverence him. He kept open house once every
week when all undergraduates, and some older members of the University,
who were attached to science, used to meet in the evening. I soon got,
through Fox, an invitation, and went there regularly. Before long I
became well acquainted with Henslow, and during the latter half of my
time at Cambridge took long walks with him on most days; so that I was
called by some of the dons “the man who walks with Henslow;” and in the
evening I was very often asked to join his family dinner. His knowledge
was great in botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology.
His strongest taste was to draw conclusions from long-continued minute
observations. His judgment was excellent, and his whole mind well
balanced; but I do not suppose that any one would say that he possessed
much original genius. He was deeply religious, and so orthodox that he
told me one day he should be grieved if a single word of the
Thirty-nine Articles were altered. His moral qualities were in every
way admirable. He was free from every tinge of vanity or other petty
feeling; and I never saw a man who thought so little about himself or
his own concerns. His temper was imperturbably good, with the most
winning and courteous manners; yet, as I have seen, he could be roused
by any bad action to the warmest indignation and prompt action.

I once saw in his company in the streets of Cambridge almost as horrid
a scene as could have been witnessed during the French Revolution. Two
body-snatchers had been arrested, and whilst being taken to prison had
been torn from the constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who
dragged them by their legs along the muddy and stony road. They were
covered from head to foot with mud, and their faces were bleeding
either from having been kicked or from the stones; they looked like
corpses, but the crowd was so dense that I got only a few momentary
glimpses of the wretched creatures. Never in my life have I seen such
wrath painted on a man’s face as was shown by Henslow at this horrid
scene. He tried repeatedly to penetrate the mob; but it was simply
impossible. He then rushed away to the mayor, telling me not to follow
him, but to get more policemen. I forget the issue, except that the two
men were got into the prison without being killed.

Henslow’s benevolence was unbounded, as he proved by his many excellent
schemes for his poor parishioners, when in after years he held the
living of Hitcham. My intimacy with such a man ought to have been, and
I hope was, an inestimable benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a
trifling incident, which showed his kind consideration. Whilst
examining some pollen-grains on a damp surface, I saw the tubes
exserted, and instantly rushed off to communicate my surprising
discovery to him. Now I do not suppose any other professor of botany
could have helped laughing at my coming in such a hurry to make such a
communication. But he agreed how interesting the phenomenon was, and
explained its meaning, but made me clearly understand how well it was
known; so I left him not in the least mortified, but well pleased at
having discovered for myself so remarkable a fact, but determined not
to be in such a hurry again to communicate my discoveries.

Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men who sometimes
visited Henslow, and on several occasions I walked home with him at
night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh he was the best converser on grave
subjects to whom I ever listened. Leonard Jenyns (The well-known Soame
Jenyns was cousin to Mr. Jenyns’ father.), who afterwards published
some good essays in Natural History (Mr. Jenyns (now Blomefield)
described the fish for the Zoology of the “Beagle”; and is author of a
long series of papers, chiefly Zoological.), often stayed with Henslow,
who was his brother-in-law. I visited him at his parsonage on the
borders of the Fens [Swaffham Bulbeck], and had many a good walk and
talk with him about Natural History. I became also acquainted with
several other men older than me, who did not care much about science,
but were friends of Henslow. One was a Scotchman, brother of Sir
Alexander Ramsay, and tutor of Jesus College: he was a delightful man,
but did not live for many years. Another was Mr. Dawes, afterwards Dean
of Hereford, and famous for his success in the education of the poor.
These men and others of the same standing, together with Henslow, used
sometimes to take distant excursions into the country, which I was
allowed to join, and they were most agreeable.

Looking back, I infer that there must have been something in me a
little superior to the common run of youths, otherwise the
above-mentioned men, so much older than me and higher in academical
position, would never have allowed me to associate with them. Certainly
I was not aware of any such superiority, and I remember one of my
sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my beetles, saying
that I should some day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the notion
seemed to me preposterous.

During my last year at Cambridge, I read with care and profound
interest Humboldt’s ‘Personal Narrative.’ This work, and Sir J.
Herschel’s ‘Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy,’ stirred
up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the
noble structure of Natural Science. No one or a dozen other books
influenced me nearly so much as these two. I copied out from Humboldt
long passages about Teneriffe, and read them aloud on one of the
above-mentioned excursions, to (I think) Henslow, Ramsay, and Dawes,
for on a previous occasion I had talked about the glories of Teneriffe,
and some of the party declared they would endeavour to go there; but I
think that they were only half in earnest. I was, however, quite in
earnest, and got an introduction to a merchant in London to enquire
about ships; but the scheme was, of course, knocked on the head by the
voyage of the “Beagle”.

My summer vacations were given up to collecting beetles, to some
reading, and short tours. In the autumn my whole time was devoted to
shooting, chiefly at Woodhouse and Maer, and sometimes with young Eyton
of Eyton. Upon the whole the three years which I spent at Cambridge
were the most joyful in my happy life; for I was then in excellent
health, and almost always in high spirits.

As I had at first come up to Cambridge at Christmas, I was forced to
keep two terms after passing my final examination, at the commencement
of 1831; and Henslow then persuaded me to begin the study of geology.
Therefore on my return to Shropshire I examined sections, and coloured
a map of parts round Shrewsbury. Professor Sedgwick intended to visit
North Wales in the beginning of August to pursue his famous geological
investigations amongst the older rocks, and Henslow asked him to allow
me to accompany him. (In connection with this tour my father used to
tell a story about Sedgwick: they had started from their inn one
morning, and had walked a mile or two, when Sedgwick suddenly stopped,
and vowed that he would return, being certain “that damned scoundrel”
(the waiter) had not given the chambermaid the sixpence intrusted to
him for the purpose. He was ultimately persuaded to give up the
project, seeing that there was no reason for suspecting the waiter of
especial perfidy.—F.D.) Accordingly he came and slept at my father’s
house.

A short conversation with him during this evening produced a strong
impression on my mind. Whilst examining an old gravel-pit near
Shrewsbury, a labourer told me that he had found in it a large worn
tropical Volute shell, such as may be seen on the chimney-pieces of
cottages; and as he would not sell the shell, I was convinced that he
had really found it in the pit. I told Sedgwick of the fact, and he at
once said (no doubt truly) that it must have been thrown away by some
one into the pit; but then added, if really embedded there it would be
the greatest misfortune to geology, as it would overthrow all that we
know about the superficial deposits of the Midland Counties. These
gravel-beds belong in fact to the glacial period, and in after years I
found in them broken arctic shells. But I was then utterly astonished
at Sedgwick not being delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical
shell being found near the surface in the middle of England. Nothing
before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various
scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that
general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.

Next morning we started for Llangollen, Conway, Bangor, and Capel
Curig. This tour was of decided use in teaching me a little how to make
out the geology of a country. Sedgwick often sent me on a line parallel
to his, telling me to bring back specimens of the rocks and to mark the
stratification on a map. I have little doubt that he did this for my
good, as I was too ignorant to have aided him. On this tour I had a
striking instance of how easy it is to overlook phenomena, however
conspicuous, before they have been observed by any one. We spent many
hours in Cwm Idwal, examining all the rocks with extreme care, as
Sedgwick was anxious to find fossils in them; but neither of us saw a
trace of the wonderful glacial phenomena all around us; we did not
notice the plainly scored rocks, the perched boulders, the lateral and
terminal moraines. Yet these phenomena are so conspicuous that, as I
declared in a paper published many years afterwards in the
‘Philosophical Magazine’ (‘Philosophical Magazine,’ 1842.), a house
burnt down by fire did not tell its story more plainly than did this
valley. If it had still been filled by a glacier, the phenomena would
have been less distinct than they now are.

At Capel Curig I left Sedgwick and went in a straight line by compass
and map across the mountains to Barmouth, never following any track
unless it coincided with my course. I thus came on some strange wild
places, and enjoyed much this manner of travelling. I visited Barmouth
to see some Cambridge friends who were reading there, and thence
returned to Shrewsbury and to Maer for shooting; for at that time I
should have thought myself mad to give up the first days of
partridge-shooting for geology or any other science.




“VOYAGE OF THE ‘BEAGLE’ FROM DECEMBER 27, 1831, TO OCTOBER 2, 1836.”


On returning home from my short geological tour in North Wales, I found
a letter from Henslow, informing me that Captain Fitz-Roy was willing
to give up part of his own cabin to any young man who would volunteer
to go with him without pay as naturalist to the Voyage of the “Beagle”.
I have given, as I believe, in my MS. Journal an account of all the
circumstances which then occurred; I will here only say that I was
instantly eager to accept the offer, but my father strongly objected,
adding the words, fortunate for me, “If you can find any man of common
sense who advises you to go I will give my consent.” So I wrote that
evening and refused the offer. On the next morning I went to Maer to be
ready for September 1st, and, whilst out shooting, my uncle (Josiah
Wedgwood.) sent for me, offering to drive me over to Shrewsbury and
talk with my father, as my uncle thought it would be wise in me to
accept the offer. My father always maintained that he was one of the
most sensible men in the world, and he at once consented in the kindest
manner. I had been rather extravagant at Cambridge, and to console my
father, said, “that I should be deuced clever to spend more than my
allowance whilst on board the ‘Beagle’;” but he answered with a smile,
“But they tell me you are very clever.”

Next day I started for Cambridge to see Henslow, and thence to London
to see Fitz-Roy, and all was soon arranged. Afterwards, on becoming
very intimate with Fitz-Roy, I heard that I had run a very narrow risk
of being rejected, on account of the shape of my nose! He was an ardent
disciple of Lavater, and was convinced that he could judge of a man’s
character by the outline of his features; and he doubted whether any
one with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for
the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well satisfied that my nose
had spoken falsely.

Fitz-Roy’s character was a singular one, with very many noble features:
he was devoted to his duty, generous to a fault, bold, determined, and
indomitably energetic, and an ardent friend to all under his sway. He
would undertake any sort of trouble to assist those whom he thought
deserved assistance. He was a handsome man, strikingly like a
gentleman, with highly courteous manners, which resembled those of his
maternal uncle, the famous Lord Castlereagh, as I was told by the
Minister at Rio. Nevertheless he must have inherited much in his
appearance from Charles II., for Dr. Wallich gave me a collection of
photographs which he had made, and I was struck with the resemblance of
one to Fitz-Roy; and on looking at the name, I found it Ch. E. Sobieski
Stuart, Count d’Albanie, a descendant of the same monarch.

Fitz-Roy’s temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in
the early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect
something amiss about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame. He
was very kind to me, but was a man very difficult to live with on the
intimate terms which necessarily followed from our messing by ourselves
in the same cabin. We had several quarrels; for instance, early in the
voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he defended and praised slavery, which I
abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner,
who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were
happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all answered “No.” I
then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the
answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything?
This made him excessively angry, and he said that as I doubted his word
we could not live any longer together. I thought that I should have
been compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which
it did quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage
his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an
invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with them. But after
a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by sending an officer
to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live with
him.

His character was in several respects one of the most noble which I
have ever known.

The voyage of the “Beagle” has been by far the most important event in
my life, and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so
small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me thirty miles to
Shrewsbury, which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as
the shape of my nose. I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the
first real training or education of my mind; I was led to attend
closely to several branches of natural history, and thus my powers of
observation were improved, though they were always fairly developed.

The investigation of the geology of all the places visited was far more
important, as reasoning here comes into play. On first examining a new
district nothing can appear more hopeless than the chaos of rocks; but
by recording the stratification and nature of the rocks and fossils at
many points, always reasoning and predicting what will be found
elsewhere, light soon begins to dawn on the district, and the structure
of the whole becomes more or less intelligible. I had brought with me
the first volume of Lyell’s ‘Principles of Geology,’ which I studied
attentively; and the book was of the highest service to me in many
ways. The very first place which I examined, namely St. Jago in the
Cape de Verde islands, showed me clearly the wonderful superiority of
Lyell’s manner of treating geology, compared with that of any other
author, whose works I had with me or ever afterwards read.

Another of my occupations was collecting animals of all classes,
briefly describing and roughly dissecting many of the marine ones; but
from not being able to draw, and from not having sufficient anatomical
knowledge, a great pile of MS. which I made during the voyage has
proved almost useless. I thus lost much time, with the exception of
that spent in acquiring some knowledge of the Crustaceans, as this was
of service when in after years I undertook a monograph of the
Cirripedia.

During some part of the day I wrote my Journal, and took much pains in
describing carefully and vividly all that I had seen; and this was good
practice. My Journal served also, in part, as letters to my home, and
portions were sent to England whenever there was an opportunity.

The above various special studies were, however, of no importance
compared with the habit of energetic industry and of concentrated
attention to whatever I was engaged in, which I then acquired.
Everything about which I thought or read was made to bear directly on
what I had seen or was likely to see; and this habit of mind was
continued during the five years of the voyage. I feel sure that it was
this training which has enabled me to do whatever I have done in
science.

Looking backwards, I can now perceive how my love for science gradually
preponderated over every other taste. During the first two years my old
passion for shooting survived in nearly full force, and I shot myself
all the birds and animals for my collection; but gradually I gave up my
gun more and more, and finally altogether, to my servant, as shooting
interfered with my work, more especially with making out the geological
structure of a country. I discovered, though unconsciously and
insensibly, that the pleasure of observing and reasoning was a much
higher one than that of skill and sport. That my mind became developed
through my pursuits during the voyage is rendered probable by a remark
made by my father, who was the most acute observer whom I ever saw, of
a sceptical disposition, and far from being a believer in phrenology;
for on first seeing me after the voyage, he turned round to my sisters,
and exclaimed, “Why, the shape of his head is quite altered.”

To return to the voyage. On September 11th (1831), I paid a flying
visit with Fitz-Roy to the “Beagle” at Plymouth. Thence to Shrewsbury
to wish my father and sisters a long farewell. On October 24th I took
up my residence at Plymouth, and remained there until December 27th,
when the “Beagle” finally left the shores of England for her
circumnavigation of the world. We made two earlier attempts to sail,
but were driven back each time by heavy gales. These two months at
Plymouth were the most miserable which I ever spent, though I exerted
myself in various ways. I was out of spirits at the thought of leaving
all my family and friends for so long a time, and the weather seemed to
me inexpressibly gloomy. I was also troubled with palpitation and pain
about the heart, and like many a young ignorant man, especially one
with a smattering of medical knowledge, was convinced that I had heart
disease. I did not consult any doctor, as I fully expected to hear the
verdict that I was not fit for the voyage, and I was resolved to go at
all hazards.

I need not here refer to the events of the voyage—where we went and
what we did—as I have given a sufficiently full account in my published
Journal. The glories of the vegetation of the Tropics rise before my
mind at the present time more vividly than anything else; though the
sense of sublimity, which the great deserts of Patagonia and the
forest-clad mountains of Tierra del Fuego excited in me, has left an
indelible impression on my mind. The sight of a naked savage in his
native land is an event which can never be forgotten. Many of my
excursions on horseback through wild countries, or in the boats, some
of which lasted several weeks, were deeply interesting: their
discomfort and some degree of danger were at that time hardly a
drawback, and none at all afterwards. I also reflect with high
satisfaction on some of my scientific work, such as solving the problem
of coral islands, and making out the geological structure of certain
islands, for instance, St. Helena. Nor must I pass over the discovery
of the singular relations of the animals and plants inhabiting the
several islands of the Galapagos archipelago, and of all of them to the
inhabitants of South America.

As far as I can judge of myself, I worked to the utmost during the
voyage from the mere pleasure of investigation, and from my strong
desire to add a few facts to the great mass of facts in Natural
Science. But I was also ambitious to take a fair place among scientific
men,—whether more ambitious or less so than most of my fellow-workers,
I can form no opinion.

The geology of St. Jago is very striking, yet simple: a stream of lava
formerly flowed over the bed of the sea, formed of triturated recent
shells and corals, which it has baked into a hard white rock. Since
then the whole island has been upheaved. But the line of white rock
revealed to me a new and important fact, namely, that there had been
afterwards subsidence round the craters, which had since been in
action, and had poured forth lava. It then first dawned on me that I
might perhaps write a book on the geology of the various countries
visited, and this made me thrill with delight. That was a memorable
hour to me, and how distinctly I can call to mind the low cliff of lava
beneath which I rested, with the sun glaring hot, a few strange desert
plants growing near, and with living corals in the tidal pools at my
feet. Later in the voyage, Fitz-Roy asked me to read some of my
Journal, and declared it would be worth publishing; so here was a
second book in prospect!

Towards the close of our voyage I received a letter whilst at
Ascension, in which my sisters told me that Sedgwick had called on my
father, and said that I should take a place among the leading
scientific men. I could not at the time understand how he could have
learnt anything of my proceedings, but I heard (I believe afterwards)
that Henslow had read some of the letters which I wrote to him before
the Philosophical Society of Cambridge (Read at the meeting held
November 16, 1835, and printed in a pamphlet of 31 pages for
distribution among the members of the Society.), and had printed them
for private distribution. My collection of fossil bones, which had been
sent to Henslow, also excited considerable attention amongst
palaeontologists. After reading this letter, I clambered over the
mountains of Ascension with a bounding step, and made the volcanic
rocks resound under my geological hammer. All this shows how ambitious
I was; but I think that I can say with truth that in after years,
though I cared in the highest degree for the approbation of such men as
Lyell and Hooker, who were my friends, I did not care much about the
general public. I do not mean to say that a favourable review or a
large sale of my books did not please me greatly, but the pleasure was
a fleeting one, and I am sure that I have never turned one inch out of
my course to gain fame.




FROM MY RETURN TO ENGLAND (OCTOBER 2, 1836) TO MY MARRIAGE (JANUARY 29,
1839.)

These two years and three months were the most active ones which I ever
spent, though I was occasionally unwell, and so lost some time. After
going backwards and forwards several times between Shrewsbury, Maer,
Cambridge, and London, I settled in lodgings at Cambridge (In
Fitzwilliam Street.) on December 13th, where all my collections were
under the care of Henslow. I stayed here three months, and got my
minerals and rocks examined by the aid of Professor Miller.

I began preparing my ‘Journal of Travels,’ which was not hard work, as
my MS. Journal had been written with care, and my chief labour was
making an abstract of my more interesting scientific results. I sent
also, at the request of Lyell, a short account of my observations on
the elevation of the coast of Chile to the Geological Society.
(‘Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838, pages 446-449.)

On March 7th, 1837, I took lodgings in Great Marlborough Street in
London, and remained there for nearly two years, until I was married.
During these two years I finished my Journal, read several papers
before the Geological Society, began preparing the MS. for my
‘Geological Observations,’ and arranged for the publication of the
‘Zoology of the Voyage of the “Beagle”.’ In July I opened my first
note-book for facts in relation to the Origin of Species, about which I
had long reflected, and never ceased working for the next twenty years.

During these two years I also went a little into society, and acted as
one of the honorary secretaries of the Geological Society. I saw a
great deal of Lyell. One of his chief characteristics was his sympathy
with the work of others, and I was as much astonished as delighted at
the interest which he showed when, on my return to England, I explained
to him my views on coral reefs. This encouraged me greatly, and his
advice and example had much influence on me. During this time I saw
also a good deal of Robert Brown; I used often to call and sit with him
during his breakfast on Sunday mornings, and he poured forth a rich
treasure of curious observations and acute remarks, but they almost
always related to minute points, and he never with me discussed large
or general questions in science.

During these two years I took several short excursions as a relaxation,
and one longer one to the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, an account of
which was published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ (1839, pages
39-82.) This paper was a great failure, and I am ashamed of it. Having
been deeply impressed with what I had seen of the elevation of the land
of South America, I attributed the parallel lines to the action of the
sea; but I had to give up this view when Agassiz propounded his
glacier-lake theory. Because no other explanation was possible under
our then state of knowledge, I argued in favour of sea-action; and my
error has been a good lesson to me never to trust in science to the
principle of exclusion.

As I was not able to work all day at science, I read a good deal during
these two years on various subjects, including some metaphysical books;
but I was not well fitted for such studies. About this time I took much
delight in Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s poetry; and can boast that I
read the ‘Excursion’ twice through. Formerly Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’
had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage of
the “Beagle”, when I could take only a single volume, I always chose
Milton.




FROM MY MARRIAGE, JANUARY 29, 1839, AND RESIDENCE IN UPPER GOWER
STREET, TO OUR LEAVING LONDON AND SETTLING AT DOWN, SEPTEMBER 14,
1842.


(After speaking of his happy married life, and of his children, he
continues:—)

During the three years and eight months whilst we resided in London, I
did less scientific work, though I worked as hard as I possibly could,
than during any other equal length of time in my life. This was owing
to frequently recurring unwellness, and to one long and serious
illness. The greater part of my time, when I could do anything, was
devoted to my work on ‘Coral Reefs,’ which I had begun before my
marriage, and of which the last proof-sheet was corrected on May 6th,
1842. This book, though a small one, cost me twenty months of hard
work, as I had to read every work on the islands of the Pacific and to
consult many charts. It was thought highly of by scientific men, and
the theory therein given is, I think, now well established.

No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this, for
the whole theory was thought out on the west coast of South America,
before I had seen a true coral reef. I had therefore only to verify and
extend my views by a careful examination of living reefs. But it should
be observed that I had during the two previous years been incessantly
attending to the effects on the shores of South America of the
intermittent elevation of the land, together with denudation and the
deposition of sediment. This necessarily led me to reflect much on the
effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace in imagination the
continued deposition of sediment by the upward growth of corals. To do
this was to form my theory of the formation of barrier-reefs and
atolls.

Besides my work on coral-reefs, during my residence in London, I read
before the Geological Society papers on the Erratic Boulders of South
America (‘Geolog. Soc. Proc.’ iii. 1842.), on Earthquakes (‘Geolog.
Trans. v. 1840.), and on the Formation by the Agency of Earth-worms of
Mould. (‘Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838.) I also continued to superintend
the publication of the ‘Zoology of the Voyage of the “Beagle”.’ Nor did
I ever intermit collecting facts bearing on the origin of species; and
I could sometimes do this when I could do nothing else from illness.

In the summer of 1842 I was stronger than I had been for some time, and
took a little tour by myself in North Wales, for the sake of observing
the effects of the old glaciers which formerly filled all the larger
valleys. I published a short account of what I saw in the
‘Philosophical Magazine.’ (‘Philosophical Magazine,’ 1842.) This
excursion interested me greatly, and it was the last time I was ever
strong enough to climb mountains or to take long walks such as are
necessary for geological work.

During the early part of our life in London, I was strong enough to go
into general society, and saw a good deal of several scientific men,
and other more or less distinguished men. I will give my impressions
with respect to some of them, though I have little to say worth saying.

I saw more of Lyell than of any other man, both before and after my
marriage. His mind was characterised, as it appeared to me, by
clearness, caution, sound judgment, and a good deal of originality.
When I made any remark to him on Geology, he never rested until he saw
the whole case clearly, and often made me see it more clearly than I
had done before. He would advance all possible objections to my
suggestion, and even after these were exhausted would long remain
dubious. A second characteristic was his hearty sympathy with the work
of other scientific men. (The slight repetition here observable is
accounted for by the notes on Lyell, etc., having been added in April,
1881, a few years after the rest of the ‘Recollections’ were written.)

On my return from the voyage of the “Beagle”, I explained to him my
views on coral-reefs, which differed from his, and I was greatly
surprised and encouraged by the vivid interest which he showed. His
delight in science was ardent, and he felt the keenest interest in the
future progress of mankind. He was very kind-hearted, and thoroughly
liberal in his religious beliefs, or rather disbeliefs; but he was a
strong theist. His candour was highly remarkable. He exhibited this by
becoming a convert to the Descent theory, though he had gained much
fame by opposing Lamarck’s views, and this after he had grown old. He
reminded me that I had many years before said to him, when discussing
the opposition of the old school of geologists to his new views, “What
a good thing it would be if every scientific man was to die when sixty
years old, as afterwards he would be sure to oppose all new doctrines.”
But he hoped that now he might be allowed to live.

The science of Geology is enormously indebted to Lyell—more so, as I
believe, than to any other man who ever lived. When [I was] starting on
the voyage of the “Beagle”, the sagacious Henslow, who, like all other
geologists, believed at that time in successive cataclysms, advised me
to get and study the first volume of the ‘Principles,’ which had then
just been published, but on no account to accept the views therein
advocated. How differently would anyone now speak of the ‘Principles’!
I am proud to remember that the first place, namely, St. Jago, in the
Cape de Verde archipelago, in which I geologised, convinced me of the
infinite superiority of Lyell’s views over those advocated in any other
work known to me.

The powerful effects of Lyell’s works could formerly be plainly seen in
the different progress of the science in France and England. The
present total oblivion of Elie de Beaumont’s wild hypotheses, such as
his ‘Craters of Elevation’ and ‘Lines of Elevation’ (which latter
hypothesis I heard Sedgwick at the Geological Society lauding to the
skies), may be largely attributed to Lyell.

I saw a good deal of Robert Brown, “facile Princeps Botanicorum,” as he
was called by Humboldt. He seemed to me to be chiefly remarkable for
the minuteness of his observations, and their perfect accuracy. His
knowledge was extraordinarily great, and much died with him, owing to
his excessive fear of ever making a mistake. He poured out his
knowledge to me in the most unreserved manner, yet was strangely
jealous on some points. I called on him two or three times before the
voyage of the “Beagle”, and on one occasion he asked me to look through
a microscope and describe what I saw. This I did, and believe now that
it was the marvellous currents of protoplasm in some vegetable cell. I
then asked him what I had seen; but he answered me, “That is my little
secret.”

He was capable of the most generous actions. When old, much out of
health, and quite unfit for any exertion, he daily visited (as Hooker
told me) an old man-servant, who lived at a distance (and whom he
supported), and read aloud to him. This is enough to make up for any
degree of scientific penuriousness or jealousy.

I may here mention a few other eminent men, whom I have occasionally
seen, but I have little to say about them worth saying. I felt a high
reverence for Sir J. Herschel, and was delighted to dine with him at
his charming house at the Cape of Good Hope, and afterwards at his
London house. I saw him, also, on a few other occasions. He never
talked much, but every word which he uttered was worth listening to.

I once met at breakfast at Sir R. Murchison’s house the illustrious
Humboldt, who honoured me by expressing a wish to see me. I was a
little disappointed with the great man, but my anticipations probably
were too high. I can remember nothing distinctly about our interview,
except that Humboldt was very cheerful and talked much.

—reminds me of Buckle whom I once met at Hensleigh Wedgwood’s. I was
very glad to learn from him his system of collecting facts. He told me
that he bought all the books which he read, and made a full index, to
each, of the facts which he thought might prove serviceable to him, and
that he could always remember in what book he had read anything, for
his memory was wonderful. I asked him how at first he could judge what
facts would be serviceable, and he answered that he did not know, but
that a sort of instinct guided him. From this habit of making indices,
he was enabled to give the astonishing number of references on all
sorts of subjects, which may be found in his ‘History of Civilisation.’
This book I thought most interesting, and read it twice, but I doubt
whether his generalisations are worth anything. Buckle was a great
talker, and I listened to him saying hardly a word, nor indeed could I
have done so for he left no gaps. When Mrs. Farrer began to sing, I
jumped up and said that I must listen to her; after I had moved away he
turned around to a friend and said (as was overheard by my brother),
“Well, Mr. Darwin’s books are much better than his conversation.”

Of other great literary men, I once met Sydney Smith at Dean Milman’s
house. There was something inexplicably amusing in every word which he
uttered. Perhaps this was partly due to the expectation of being
amused. He was talking about Lady Cork, who was then extremely old.
This was the lady who, as he said, was once so much affected by one of
his charity sermons, that she _borrowed_ a guinea from a friend to put
in the plate. He now said “It is generally believed that my dear old
friend Lady Cork has been overlooked,” and he said this in such a
manner that no one could for a moment doubt that he meant that his dear
old friend had been overlooked by the devil. How he managed to express
this I know not.

I likewise once met Macaulay at Lord Stanhope’s (the historian’s)
house, and as there was only one other man at dinner, I had a grand
opportunity of hearing him converse, and he was very agreeable. He did
not talk at all too much; nor indeed could such a man talk too much, as
long as he allowed others to turn the stream of his conversation, and
this he did allow.

Lord Stanhope once gave me a curious little proof of the accuracy and
fulness of Macaulay’s memory: many historians used often to meet at
Lord Stanhope’s house, and in discussing various subjects they would
sometimes differ from Macaulay, and formerly they often referred to
some book to see who was right; but latterly, as Lord Stanhope noticed,
no historian ever took this trouble, and whatever Macaulay said was
final.

On another occasion I met at Lord Stanhope’s house, one of his parties
of historians and other literary men, and amongst them were Motley and
Grote. After luncheon I walked about Chevening Park for nearly an hour
with Grote, and was much interested by his conversation and pleased by
the simplicity and absence of all pretension in his manners.

Long ago I dined occasionally with the old Earl, the father of the
historian; he was a strange man, but what little I knew of him I liked
much. He was frank, genial, and pleasant. He had strongly marked
features, with a brown complexion, and his clothes, when I saw him,
were all brown. He seemed to believe in everything which was to others
utterly incredible. He said one day to me, “Why don’t you give up your
fiddle-faddle of geology and zoology, and turn to the occult sciences!”
The historian, then Lord Mahon, seemed shocked at such a speech to me,
and his charming wife much amused.

The last man whom I will mention is Carlyle, seen by me several times
at my brother’s house, and two or three times at my own house. His talk
was very racy and interesting, just like his writings, but he sometimes
went on too long on the same subject. I remember a funny dinner at my
brother’s, where, amongst a few others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of
whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing
during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner
Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked Carlyle for his very
interesting lecture on silence.

Carlyle sneered at almost every one: one day in my house he called
Grote’s ‘History’ “a fetid quagmire, with nothing spiritual about it.”
I always thought, until his ‘Reminiscences’ appeared, that his sneers
were partly jokes, but this now seems rather doubtful. His expression
was that of a depressed, almost despondent yet benevolent man; and it
is notorious how heartily he laughed. I believe that his benevolence
was real, though stained by not a little jealousy. No one can doubt
about his extraordinary power of drawing pictures of things and men—far
more vivid, as it appears to me, than any drawn by Macaulay. Whether
his pictures of men were true ones is another question.

He has been all-powerful in impressing some grand moral truths on the
minds of men. On the other hand, his views about slavery were
revolting. In his eyes might was right. His mind seemed to me a very
narrow one; even if all branches of science, which he despised, are
excluded. It is astonishing to me that Kingsley should have spoken of
him as a man well fitted to advance science. He laughed to scorn the
idea that a mathematician, such as Whewell, could judge, as I
maintained he could, of Goethe’s views on light. He thought it a most
ridiculous thing that any one should care whether a glacier moved a
little quicker or a little slower, or moved at all. As far as I could
judge, I never met a man with a mind so ill adapted for scientific
research.

Whilst living in London, I attended as regularly as I could the
meetings of several scientific societies, and acted as secretary to the
Geological Society. But such attendance, and ordinary society, suited
my health so badly that we resolved to live in the country, which we
both preferred and have never repented of.




RESIDENCE AT DOWN FROM SEPTEMBER 14, 1842, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1876.


After several fruitless searches in Surrey and elsewhere, we found this
house and purchased it. I was pleased with the diversified appearance
of vegetation proper to a chalk district, and so unlike what I had been
accustomed to in the Midland counties; and still more pleased with the
extreme quietness and rusticity of the place. It is not, however, quite
so retired a place as a writer in a German periodical makes it, who
says that my house can be approached only by a mule-track! Our fixing
ourselves here has answered admirably in one way, which we did not
anticipate, namely, by being very convenient for frequent visits from
our children.

Few persons can have lived a more retired life than we have done.
Besides short visits to the houses of relations, and occasionally to
the seaside or elsewhere, we have gone nowhere. During the first part
of our residence we went a little into society, and received a few
friends here; but my health almost always suffered from the excitement,
violent shivering and vomiting attacks being thus brought on. I have
therefore been compelled for many years to give up all dinner-parties;
and this has been somewhat of a deprivation to me, as such parties
always put me into high spirits. From the same cause I have been able
to invite here very few scientific acquaintances.

My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout life has been
scientific work; and the excitement from such work makes me for the
time forget, or drives quite away, my daily discomfort. I have
therefore nothing to record during the rest of my life, except the
publication of my several books. Perhaps a few details how they arose
may be worth giving.




MY SEVERAL PUBLICATIONS.


In the early part of 1844, my observations on the volcanic islands
visited during the voyage of the “Beagle” were published. In 1845, I
took much pains in correcting a new edition of my ‘Journal of
Researches,’ which was originally published in 1839 as part of
Fitz-Roy’s work. The success of this, my first literary child, always
tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books. Even to this
day it sells steadily in England and the United States, and has been
translated for the second time into German, and into French and other
languages. This success of a book of travels, especially of a
scientific one, so many years after its first publication, is
surprising. Ten thousand copies have been sold in England of the second
edition. In 1846 my ‘Geological Observations on South America’ were
published. I record in a little diary, which I have always kept, that
my three geological books (‘Coral Reefs’ included) consumed four and a
half years’ steady work; “and now it is ten years since my return to
England. How much time have I lost by illness?” I have nothing to say
about these three books except that to my surprise new editions have
lately been called for. (‘Geological Observations,’ 2nd Edit.1876.
‘Coral Reefs,’ 2nd Edit. 1874.)

In October, 1846, I began to work on ‘Cirripedia.’ When on the coast of
Chile, I found a most curious form, which burrowed into the shells of
Concholepas, and which differed so much from all other Cirripedes that
I had to form a new sub-order for its sole reception. Lately an allied
burrowing genus has been found on the shores of Portugal. To understand
the structure of my new Cirripede I had to examine and dissect many of
the common forms; and this gradually led me on to take up the whole
group. I worked steadily on this subject for the next eight years, and
ultimately published two thick volumes (Published by the Ray Society.),
describing all the known living species, and two thin quartos on the
extinct species. I do not doubt that Sir E. Lytton Bulwer had me in his
mind when he introduced in one of his novels a Professor Long, who had
written two huge volumes on limpets.

Although I was employed during eight years on this work, yet I record
in my diary that about two years out of this time was lost by illness.
On this account I went in 1848 for some months to Malvern for
hydropathic treatment, which did me much good, so that on my return
home I was able to resume work. So much was I out of health that when
my dear father died on November 13th, 1848, I was unable to attend his
funeral or to act as one of his executors.

My work on the Cirripedia possesses, I think, considerable value, as
besides describing several new and remarkable forms, I made out the
homologies of the various parts—I discovered the cementing apparatus,
though I blundered dreadfully about the cement glands—and lastly I
proved the existence in certain genera of minute males complemental to
and parasitic on the hermaphrodites. This latter discovery has at last
been fully confirmed; though at one time a German writer was pleased to
attribute the whole account to my fertile imagination. The Cirripedes
form a highly varying and difficult group of species to class; and my
work was of considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the
‘Origin of Species’ the principles of a natural classification.
Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so
much time.

From September 1854 I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile
of notes, to observing, and to experimenting in relation to the
transmutation of species. During the voyage of the “Beagle” I had been
deeply impressed by discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil
animals covered with armour like that on the existing armadillos;
secondly, by the manner in which closely allied animals replace one
another in proceeding southwards over the Continent; and thirdly, by
the South American character of most of the productions of the
Galapagos archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which they
differ slightly on each island of the group; none of the islands
appearing to be very ancient in a geological sense.

It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could
only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become
modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that
neither the action of the surrounding conditions, nor the will of the
organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the
innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully
adapted to their habits of life—for instance, a woodpecker or a
tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I
had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until these could
be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to prove by
indirect evidence that species have been modified.

After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the
example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in
any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and
nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My
first note-book was opened in July 1837. I worked on true Baconian
principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale
scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by
printed enquiries, by conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners,
and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds
which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and
Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that
selection was the keystone of man’s success in making useful races of
animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms
living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me.

In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my
systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement ‘Malthus on
Population,’ and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for
existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of
the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these
circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and
unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the
formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which
to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not
for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I
first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract
of my theory in pencil in 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the
summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and
still possess.

But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it
is astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg,
how I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the
tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in
character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is
obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed
under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders and so
forth; and I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my
carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long
after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the
modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become
adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.

Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and
I began at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as
that which was afterwards followed in my ‘Origin of Species;’ yet it
was only an abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I got
through about half the work on this scale. But my plans were
overthrown, for early in the summer of 1858 Mr. Wallace, who was then
in the Malay archipelago, sent me an essay “On the Tendency of
Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type;” and this
essay contained exactly the same theory as mine. Mr. Wallace expressed
the wish that if I thought well of his essay, I should sent it to Lyell
for perusal.

The circumstances under which I consented at the request of Lyell and
Hooker to allow of an abstract from my MS., together with a letter to
Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, to be published at the same time
with Wallace’s Essay, are given in the ‘Journal of the Proceedings of
the Linnean Society,’ 1858, page 45. I was at first very unwilling to
consent, as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so
unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble was his
disposition. The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa Gray had
neither been intended for publication, and were badly written. Mr.
Wallace’s essay, on the other hand, was admirably expressed and quite
clear. Nevertheless, our joint productions excited very little
attention, and the only published notice of them which I can remember
was by Professor Haughton of Dublin, whose verdict was that all that
was new in them was false, and what was true was old. This shows how
necessary it is that any new view should be explained at considerable
length in order to arouse public attention.

In September 1858 I set to work by the strong advice of Lyell and
Hooker to prepare a volume on the transmutation of species, but was
often interrupted by ill-health, and short visits to Dr. Lane’s
delightful hydropathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the MS.
begun on a much larger scale in 1856, and completed the volume on the
same reduced scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten days’ hard
labour. It was published under the title of the ‘Origin of Species,’ in
November 1859. Though considerably added to and corrected in the later
editions, it has remained substantially the same book.

It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly
successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies was sold on the day
of publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies soon afterwards.
Sixteen thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in England; and
considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large sale. It has been
translated into almost every European tongue, even into such languages
as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has also, according to
Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese (Miss Bird is mistaken, as I
learn from Prof. Mitsukuri.—F.D.), and is there much studied. Even an
essay in Hebrew has appeared on it, showing that the theory is
contained in the Old Testament! The reviews were very numerous; for
some time I collected all that appeared on the ‘Origin’ and on my
related books, and these amount (excluding newspaper reviews) to 265;
but after a time I gave up the attempt in despair. Many separate essays
and books on the subject have appeared; and in Germany a catalogue or
bibliography on “Darwinismus” has appeared every year or two.

The success of the ‘Origin’ may, I think, be attributed in large part
to my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my
having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an
abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts
and conclusions. I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule,
namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought
came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a
memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by
experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape
from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few
objections were raised against my views which I had not at least
noticed and attempted to answer.

It has sometimes been said that the success of the ‘Origin’ proved
“that the subject was in the air,” or “that men’s minds were prepared
for it.” I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally
sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a
single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. Even
Lyell and Hooker, though they would listen with interest to me, never
seemed to agree. I tried once or twice to explain to able men what I
meant by Natural Selection, but signally failed. What I believe was
strictly true is that innumerable well-observed facts were stored in
the minds of naturalists ready to take their proper places as soon as
any theory which would receive them was sufficiently explained. Another
element in the success of the book was its moderate size; and this I
owe to the appearance of Mr. Wallace’s essay; had I published on the
scale in which I began to write in 1856, the book would have been four
or five times as large as the ‘Origin,’ and very few would have had the
patience to read it.

I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the
theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I
cared very little whether men attributed most originality to me or
Wallace; and his essay no doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I
was forestalled in only one important point, which my vanity has always
made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the Glacial period
of the presence of the same species of plants and of some few animals
on distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions. This view
pleased me so much that I wrote it out in extenso, and I believe that
it was read by Hooker some years before E. Forbes published his
celebrated memoir (‘Geolog. Survey Mem.,’ 1846.) on the subject. In the
very few points in which we differed, I still think that I was in the
right. I have never, of course, alluded in print to my having
independently worked out this view.

Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work on the
‘Origin,’ as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes
between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance
of the embryos within the same class. No notice of this point was
taken, as far as I remember, in the early reviews of the ‘Origin,’ and
I recollect expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa
Gray. Within late years several reviewers have given the whole credit
to Fritz Muller and Hackel, who undoubtedly have worked it out much
more fully, and in some respects more correctly than I did. I had
materials for a whole chapter on the subject, and I ought to have made
the discussion longer; for it is clear that I failed to impress my
readers; and he who succeeds in doing so deserves, in my opinion, all
the credit.

This leads me to remark that I have almost always been treated honestly
by my reviewers, passing over those without scientific knowledge as not
worthy of notice. My views have often been grossly misrepresented,
bitterly opposed and ridiculed, but this has been generally done, as I
believe, in good faith. On the whole I do not doubt that my works have
been over and over again greatly overpraised. I rejoice that I have
avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who many years ago, in
reference to my geological works, strongly advised me never to get
entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a
miserable loss of time and temper.

Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has
been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and
even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it
has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that “I
have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than
this.” I remember when in Good Success Bay, in Tierra del Fuego,
thinking (and, I believe, that I wrote home to the effect) that I could
not employ my life better than in adding a little to Natural Science.
This I have done to the best of my abilities, and critics may say what
they like, but they cannot destroy this conviction.

During the two last months of 1859 I was fully occupied in preparing a
second edition of the ‘Origin,’ and by an enormous correspondence. On
January 1st, 1860, I began arranging my notes for my work on the
‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication;’ but it was not
published until the beginning of 1868; the delay having been caused
partly by frequent illnesses, one of which lasted seven months, and
partly by being tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time
interested me more.

On May 15th, 1862, my little book on the ‘Fertilisation of Orchids,’
which cost me ten months’ work, was published: most of the facts had
been slowly accumulated during several previous years. During the
summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led
to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects,
from having come to the conclusion in my speculations on the origin of
species, that crossing played an important part in keeping specific
forms constant. I attended to the subject more or less during every
subsequent summer; and my interest in it was greatly enhanced by having
procured and read in November 1841, through the advice of Robert Brown,
a copy of C.K. Sprengel’s wonderful book, ‘Das entdeckte Geheimniss der
Natur.’ For some years before 1862 I had specially attended to the
fertilisation of our British orchids; and it seemed to me the best plan
to prepare as complete a treatise on this group of plants as well as I
could, rather than to utilise the great mass of matter which I had
slowly collected with respect to other plants.

My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my book, a
surprising number of papers and separate works on the fertilisation of
all kinds of flowers have appeared: and these are far better done than
I could possibly have effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so
long overlooked, are now fully recognised many years after his death.

During the same year I published in the ‘Journal of the Linnean
Society’ a paper “On the Two Forms, or Dimorphic Condition of Primula,”
and during the next five years, five other papers on dimorphic and
trimorphic plants. I do not think anything in my scientific life has
given me so much satisfaction as making out the meaning of the
structure of these plants. I had noticed in 1838 or 1839 the dimorphism
of Linum flavum, and had at first thought that it was merely a case of
unmeaning variability. But on examining the common species of Primula I
found that the two forms were much too regular and constant to be thus
viewed. I therefore became almost convinced that the common cowslip and
primrose were on the high road to become dioecious;—that the short
pistil in the one form, and the short stamens in the other form were
tending towards abortion. The plants were therefore subjected under
this point of view to trial; but as soon as the flowers with short
pistils fertilised with pollen from the short stamens, were found to
yield more seeds than any other of the four possible unions, the
abortion-theory was knocked on the head. After some additional
experiment, it became evident that the two forms, though both were
perfect hermaphrodites, bore almost the same relation to one another as
do the two sexes of an ordinary animal. With Lythrum we have the still
more wonderful case of three forms standing in a similar relation to
one another. I afterwards found that the offspring from the union of
two plants belonging to the same forms presented a close and curious
analogy with hybrids from the union of two distinct species.

In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on ‘Climbing Plants,’ and
sent it to the Linnean Society. The writing of this paper cost me four
months; but I was so unwell when I received the proof-sheets that I was
forced to leave them very badly and often obscurely expressed. The
paper was little noticed, but when in 1875 it was corrected and
published as a separate book it sold well. I was led to take up this
subject by reading a short paper by Asa Gray, published in 1858. He
sent me seeds, and on raising some plants I was so much fascinated and
perplexed by the revolving movements of the tendrils and stems, which
movements are really very simple, though appearing at first sight very
complex, that I procured various other kinds of climbing plants, and
studied the whole subject. I was all the more attracted to it, from not
being at all satisfied with the explanation which Henslow gave us in
his lectures, about twining plants, namely, that they had a natural
tendency to grow up in a spire. This explanation proved quite
erroneous. Some of the adaptations displayed by Climbing Plants are as
beautiful as those of Orchids for ensuring cross-fertilisation.

My ‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’ was begun, as
already stated, in the beginning of 1860, but was not published until
the beginning of 1868. It was a big book, and cost me four years and
two months’ hard labour. It gives all my observations and an immense
number of facts collected from various sources, about our domestic
productions. In the second volume the causes and laws of variation,
inheritance, etc., are discussed as far as our present state of
knowledge permits. Towards the end of the work I give my well-abused
hypothesis of Pangenesis. An unverified hypothesis is of little or no
value; but if anyone should hereafter be led to make observations by
which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have done good
service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus
connected together and rendered intelligible. In 1875 a second and
largely corrected edition, which cost me a good deal of labour, was
brought out.

My ‘Descent of Man’ was published in February, 1871. As soon as I had
become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were mutable
productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the
same law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject for my own
satisfaction, and not for a long time with any intention of publishing.
Although in the ‘Origin of Species’ the derivation of any particular
species is never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order that no
honourable man should accuse me of concealing my views, to add that by
the work “light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”
It would have been useless and injurious to the success of the book to
have paraded, without giving any evidence, my conviction with respect
to his origin.

But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the doctrine of
the evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable to work up such
notes as I possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin
of man. I was the more glad to do so, as it gave me an opportunity of
fully discussing sexual selection—a subject which had always greatly
interested me. This subject, and that of the variation of our domestic
productions, together with the causes and laws of variation,
inheritance, and the intercrossing of plants, are the sole subjects
which I have been able to write about in full, so as to use all the
materials which I have collected. The ‘Descent of Man’ took me three
years to write, but then as usual some of this time was lost by ill
health, and some was consumed by preparing new editions and other minor
works. A second and largely corrected edition of the ‘Descent’ appeared
in 1874.

My book on the ‘Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals’ was
published in the autumn of 1872. I had intended to give only a chapter
on the subject in the ‘Descent of Man,’ but as soon as I began to put
my notes together, I saw that it would require a separate treatise.

My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced
to make notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he
exhibited, for I felt convinced, even at this early period, that the
most complex and fine shades of expression must all have had a gradual
and natural origin. During the summer of the following year, 1840, I
read Sir C. Bell’s admirable work on expression, and this greatly
increased the interest which I felt in the subject, though I could not
at all agree with his belief that various muscles had been specially
created for the sake of expression. From this time forward I
occasionally attended to the subject, both with respect to man and our
domesticated animals. My book sold largely; 5267 copies having been
disposed of on the day of publication.

In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near Hartfield, where
two species of Drosera abound; and I noticed that numerous insects had
been entrapped by the leaves. I carried home some plants, and on giving
them insects saw the movements of the tentacles, and this made me think
it probable that the insects were caught for some special purpose.
Fortunately a crucial test occurred to me, that of placing a large
number of leaves in various nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous fluids of
equal density; and as soon as I found that the former alone excited
energetic movements, it was obvious that here was a fine new field for
investigation.

During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my
experiments, and my book on ‘Insectivorous Plants’ was published in
July 1875—that is, sixteen years after my first observations. The delay
in this case, as with all my other books, has been a great advantage to
me; for a man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost
as well as if it were that of another person. The fact that a plant
should secrete, when properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and
ferment, closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was
certainly a remarkable discovery.

During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the ‘Effects of Cross and
Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom.’ This book will form a
complement to that on the ‘Fertilisation of Orchids,’ in which I showed
how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall
show how important are the results. I was led to make, during eleven
years, the numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere
accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be
repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable
fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in
the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of
cross-fertilised parentage. I hope also to republish a revised edition
of my book on Orchids, and hereafter my papers on dimorphic and
trimorphic plants, together with some additional observations on allied
points which I never have had time to arrange. My strength will then
probably be exhausted, and I shall be ready to exclaim “Nunc dimittis.”




WRITTEN MAY 1ST, 1881.


‘The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation’ was published in the
autumn of 1876; and the results there arrived at explain, as I believe,
the endless and wonderful contrivances for the transportal of pollen
from one plant to another of the same species. I now believe, however,
chiefly from the observations of Hermann Muller, that I ought to have
insisted more strongly than I did on the many adaptations for
self-fertilisation; though I was well aware of many such adaptations. A
much enlarged edition of my ‘Fertilisation of Orchids’ was published in
1877.

In this same year ‘The Different Forms of Flowers, etc.,’ appeared, and
in 1880 a second edition. This book consists chiefly of the several
papers on Heterostyled flowers originally published by the Linnean
Society, corrected, with much new matter added, together with
observations on some other cases in which the same plant bears two
kinds of flowers. As before remarked, no little discovery of mine ever
gave me so much pleasure as the making out the meaning of heterostyled
flowers. The results of crossing such flowers in an illegitimate
manner, I believe to be very important, as bearing on the sterility of
hybrids; although these results have been noticed by only a few
persons.

In 1879, I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause’s ‘Life of Erasmus
Darwin’ published, and I added a sketch of his character and habits
from material in my possession. Many persons have been much interested
by this little life, and I am surprised that only 800 or 900 copies
were sold.

In 1880 I published, with [my son] Frank’s assistance, our ‘Power of
Movement in Plants.’ This was a tough piece of work. The book bears
somewhat the same relation to my little book on ‘Climbing Plants,’
which ‘Cross-Fertilisation’ did to the ‘Fertilisation of Orchids;’ for
in accordance with the principle of evolution it was impossible to
account for climbing plants having been developed in so many widely
different groups unless all kinds of plants possess some slight power
of movement of an analogous kind. This I proved to be the case; and I
was further led to a rather wide generalisation, viz. that the great
and important classes of movements, excited by light, the attraction of
gravity, etc., are all modified forms of the fundamental movement of
circumnutation. It has always pleased me to exalt plants in the scale
of organised beings; and I therefore felt an especial pleasure in
showing how many and what admirably well adapted movements the tip of a
root possesses.

I have now (May 1, 1881) sent to the printers the MS. of a little book
on ‘The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms.’
This is a subject of but small importance; and I know not whether it
will interest any readers (Between November 1881 and February 1884,
8500 copies have been sold.), but it has interested me. It is the
completion of a short paper read before the Geological Society more
than forty years ago, and has revived old geological thoughts.

I have now mentioned all the books which I have published, and these
have been the milestones in my life, so that little remains to be said.
I am not conscious of any change in my mind during the last thirty
years, excepting in one point presently to be mentioned; nor, indeed,
could any change have been expected unless one of general
deterioration. But my father lived to his eighty-third year with his
mind as lively as ever it was, and all his faculties undimmed; and I
hope that I may die before my mind fails to a sensible extent. I think
that I have become a little more skilful in guessing right explanations
and in devising experimental tests; but this may probably be the result
of mere practice, and of a larger store of knowledge. I have as much
difficulty as ever in expressing myself clearly and concisely; and this
difficulty has caused me a very great loss of time; but it has had the
compensating advantage of forcing me to think long and intently about
every sentence, and thus I have been led to see errors in reasoning and
in my own observations or those of others.

There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at
first my statement or proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly
I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for
several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile
hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the
words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are
often better ones than I could have written deliberately.

Having said thus much about my manner of writing, I will add that with
my large books I spend a good deal of time over the general arrangement
of the matter. I first make the rudest outline in two or three pages,
and then a larger one in several pages, a few words or one word
standing for a whole discussion or series of facts. Each one of these
headings is again enlarged and often transferred before I begin to
write in extenso. As in several of my books facts observed by others
have been very extensively used, and as I have always had several quite
distinct subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention that I keep
from thirty to forty large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled
shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or
memorandum. I have bought many books, and at their ends I make an index
of all the facts that concern my work; or, if the book is not my own,
write out a separate abstract, and of such abstracts I have a large
drawer full. Before beginning on any subject I look to all the short
indexes and make a general and classified index, and by taking the one
or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during
my life ready for use.

I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last
twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry
of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy
I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical
plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable,
and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to
read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and
found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost
lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking
too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me
pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause
me the exquisite delight which it formerly did. On the other hand,
novels which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high
order, have been for years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I
often bless all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to
me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end
unhappily—against which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to
my taste, does not come into the first class unless it contains some
person whom one can thoroughly love, and if a pretty woman all the
better.

This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all
the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels (independently
of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all
sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems
to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large
collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of
that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I
cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better
constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if
I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some
poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps
the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active
through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may
possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral
character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many
languages, and passed through several editions in foreign countries. I
have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test
of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but
judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years.
Therefore it may be worth while to try to analyse the mental qualities
and the conditions on which my success has depended; though I am aware
that no man can do this correctly.

I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable
in some clever men, for instance, Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic:
a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and
it is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak
points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought
is very limited; and therefore I could never have succeeded with
metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it
suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed
or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on
the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally
recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one sense is my
memory, that I have never been able to remember for more than a few
days a single date or a line of poetry.

Some of my critics have said, “Oh, he is a good observer, but he has no
power of reasoning!” I do not think that this can be true, for the
‘Origin of Species’ is one long argument from the beginning to the end,
and it has convinced not a few able men. No one could have written it
without having some power of reasoning. I have a fair share of
invention, and of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly
successful lawyer or doctor must have, but not, I believe, in any
higher degree.

On the favourable side of the balance, I think that I am superior to
the common run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention,
and in observing them carefully. My industry has been nearly as great
as it could have been in the observation and collection of facts. What
is far more important, my love of natural science has been steady and
ardent.

This pure love has, however, been much aided by the ambition to be
esteemed by my fellow naturalists. From my early youth I have had the
strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,—that is,
to group all facts under some general laws. These causes combined have
given me the patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over
any unexplained problem. As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow
blindly the lead of other men. I have steadily endeavoured to keep my
mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I
cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown
to be opposed to it. Indeed, I have had no choice but to act in this
manner, for with the exception of the Coral Reefs, I cannot remember a
single first-formed hypothesis which had not after a time to be given
up or greatly modified. This has naturally led me to distrust greatly
deductive reasoning in the mixed sciences. On the other hand, I am not
very sceptical,—a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the
progress of science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is
advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met with not a few
men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment or
observations, which would have proved directly or indirectly
serviceable.

In illustration, I will give the oddest case which I have known. A
gentleman (who, as I afterwards heard, is a good local botanist) wrote
to me from the Eastern counties that the seed or beans of the common
field-bean had this year everywhere grown on the wrong side of the pod.
I wrote back, asking for further information, as I did not understand
what was meant; but I did not receive any answer for a very long time.
I then saw in two newspapers, one published in Kent and the other in
Yorkshire, paragraphs stating that it was a most remarkable fact that
“the beans this year had all grown on the wrong side.” So I thought
there must be some foundation for so general a statement. Accordingly,
I went to my gardener, an old Kentish man, and asked him whether he had
heard anything about it, and he answered, “Oh, no, sir, it must be a
mistake, for the beans grow on the wrong side only on leap-year, and
this is not leap-year.” I then asked him how they grew in common years
and how on leap-years, but soon found that he knew absolutely nothing
of how they grew at any time, but he stuck to his belief.

After a time I heard from my first informant, who, with many apologies,
said that he should not have written to me had he not heard the
statement from several intelligent farmers; but that he had since
spoken again to every one of them, and not one knew in the least what
he had himself meant. So that here a belief—if indeed a statement with
no definite idea attached to it can be called a belief—had spread over
almost the whole of England without any vestige of evidence.

I have known in the course of my life only three intentionally
falsified statements, and one of these may have been a hoax (and there
have been several scientific hoaxes) which, however, took in an
American Agricultural Journal. It related to the formation in Holland
of a new breed of oxen by the crossing of distinct species of Bos (some
of which I happen to know are sterile together), and the author had the
impudence to state that he had corresponded with me, and that I had
been deeply impressed with the importance of his result. The article
was sent to me by the editor of an English Agricultural Journal, asking
for my opinion before republishing it.

A second case was an account of several varieties, raised by the author
from several species of Primula, which had spontaneously yielded a full
complement of seed, although the parent plants had been carefully
protected from the access of insects. This account was published before
I had discovered the meaning of heterostylism, and the whole statement
must have been fraudulent, or there was neglect in excluding insects so
gross as to be scarcely credible.

The third case was more curious: Mr. Huth published in his book on
‘Consanguineous Marriage’ some long extracts from a Belgian author, who
stated that he had interbred rabbits in the closest manner for very
many generations, without the least injurious effects. The account was
published in a most respectable Journal, that of the Royal Society of
Belgium; but I could not avoid feeling doubts—I hardly know why, except
that there were no accidents of any kind, and my experience in breeding
animals made me think this very improbable.

So with much hesitation I wrote to Professor Van Beneden, asking him
whether the author was a trustworthy man. I soon heard in answer that
the Society had been greatly shocked by discovering that the whole
account was a fraud. (The falseness of the published statements on
which Mr. Huth relied has been pointed out by himself in a slip
inserted in all the copies of his book which then remained unsold.) The
writer had been publicly challenged in the Journal to say where he had
resided and kept his large stock of rabbits while carrying on his
experiments, which must have consumed several years, and no answer
could be extracted from him.

My habits are methodical, and this has been of not a little use for my
particular line of work. Lastly, I have had ample leisure from not
having to earn my own bread. Even ill-health, though it has annihilated
several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society
and amusement.

Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have
amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex and
diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most
important have been—the love of science—unbounded patience in long
reflecting over any subject—industry in observing and collecting
facts—and a fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With
such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I
should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of
scientific men on some important points.




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