Puzzles about the Historical Sketch of On the Origin of Species:
A Note

Hiram Caton 
 

In his article, The Preface to Darwin’s Origin of Species: The Curious History of the “Historical Sketch”, Curtis N. Johnson meticulously described, and attempted to resolve, inconsistencies between Darwin’s different accounts of the genesis of his Historical Sketch.¹  He convincingly argues that the controlling variable of the numerous interactions with colleagues is Darwin’s effort to find a mutually acceptable description of the priority of various evolutionists prior to 1859.  He concludes that the ‘curious’ thing is ‘why Darwin would have failed to remember his “preface” in the fall of 1859, and how he could have recalled so much of its contents when he first wrote to [Baden] Powell in January 1860 while having forgotten he had ever written it’.²  My objective is to show that this curiosity becomes a paradox when it is noticed that in the closing paragraphs of the 6th edition, Darwin rejected all the acknowledgements of the Historical Sketch by claiming to have been the only evolutionist in 1859.  This astonishing claim he repeated in his Autobiography.  Not only was this mind-bending reversal of fact not challenged, it was enthusiastically endorsed by Thomas Huxley, George Romanes, and Alfred Russel Wallace in their construction of Darwin’s reputation as creator of an intellectual revolution ‘without parallel in the history of mankind’ (Romanes).   

Let us review the problem.  The first edition of the Origin incorporated no prefatory acknowledgement of previous publications on evolution.  Darwin commenced by declaring, in the opening lines, that his acquaintance with the distribution of ‘the inhabitants of South American’ during the Beagle expedition convinced him that the evolution hypothesis warranted study.  He dates this decision to 1837, and dates his compendium of his notes on evolution to 1844.  The reason for his attention to ‘these personal details’ becomes clear in the Origin’s second paragraph when he acknowledges that ‘Mr Wallace ... has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on the origin of species’.  He then references the joint presentation of their theories at the July 1858 meeting of the Linnean Society.  His priority to Wallace is reinforced by stating that Hooker had read his 1844 manuscript.³ 

The reaction to the absence of acknowledgement of previous evolution publications was immediate, the first being an objection by Baden Powell, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford.  Then came objections by Herbert Spencer and Patrick Matthew.  The German translator of the Origin, paleontologist H.G. Bronn, also objected.  Let me attend to Johnson’s analysis of Darwin’s response to Baden Powell.  Exactly what Powell protested we don’t know because his letter to Darwin has not been preserved.  But Darwin’s response suggests that he complained of borrowing, for Darwin wrote (January 18, 1860) that ‘if I have taken anything from you, I assure you that it has been unconsciously’.⁴  He explains that poor health prevented his inclusion of acknowledgments in the 1st edition.  In a second letter to Powell, also written on January 18, ‘Darwin changes the picture dramatically’, Johnson observes.⁵  Powell is now informed that he had indeed written an acknowledgement of predecessors, ‘which on my honour I had as completely forgotten as if I had never written it’.⁶  He then quotes from this forgotten manuscript his high praise of Powell’s Philosophy of Creation.  By mining Darwin’s correspondence with Charles Lyell, Johnson convincingly dates this first version of the Historical Sketch to 1856.⁷  Darwin wrote a similar apology to Herbert Spencer on February 2, 1860, but he states that he has ‘now written a Preface for the foreign Editions and for any future English Edit ... in which I give a very brief sketch, & have with much pleasure alluded to your excellent essay on Development …’.⁸  Letters to Asa Gray and Joseph Hooker on February 8 or 9 confirm the new Preface.⁹  The question then arises: if Darwin remembered on January 18 the Historical Sketch he had written in 1856, why did he not include it in the American edition of 1860? Why did he write a new Sketch?¹⁰   

Part of the answer to these questions is that since the original sketch has not been preserved, we do not know its contents, except for passages that Darwin quoted to Powell in his January 18 letter.  Johnson’s detailed comparison of Darwin’s quotations to Powell from the original sketch with passages from the Historical Sketch in the first authorized American edition shows a high degree of similarity.¹¹  Johnson concludes that ‘despite statements to the contrary ... that he had not composed a historical sketch for the [Origin], the two letters to Powell ... suggest strongly that he had’.¹²  Indeed, Johnson states that ‘it seems a strong likelihood that Darwin, in composing his letter to Powell, merely summarized what was already written out as the “preface” to the big book.  Indeed from the second letter to Powell one might be so bold as to infer what the now lost “preface” looked like: something much like the Historical Sketch sent to Gray on February 8 or 9 1860 ...’.¹³  

After a discussion of Darwin’s care in the selection of authors to be included in the list, Johnson argues that the Sketch was indeed conceived well before that first edition of the Origin, and that its purpose was to defend his priority of discovery of natural selection.  But he acknowledges that on this premise, it is ‘curious’ that Darwin failed to remember the Preface already written. ¹⁴   

This is indeed odd.  But to evaluate it, we need to take note of Darwin’s complete abandonment of the Historical Sketch in comments in the 6th edition of the Origin.  He wrote: 

As a record of a former state of things, I have retained in the foregoing paragraphs, and elsewhere, several sentences which imply that naturalists believe in the separate creation of each species; and I have been much censured for having thus expressed myself.  But undoubtedly this was the general belief when the first edition of the present work appeared.  I formerly spoke to very many naturalists on the subject of evolution, and never once met with any sympathetic agreement.  It is probable that some did then believe in evolution, but they were either silent or expressed themselves so ambiguously that it was not easy to understand their meaning.  Now, things are wholly changed, and almost every naturalist admits the great principle of evolution.^15,  

The issue is not Darwin’s claim to priority to natural selection, but to ‘the great principle of evolution’.  It seems that Darwin, in 1872 when the 6th edition appeared, had forgotten the thirty-four evolutionists mentioned in the Historical Sketch.  He also seems to have forgotten the sympathetic responses that he received from those with whom he discussed evolution, e.g., Joseph Hooker, Charles Lyell, Asa Gray, Hewett Watson, Joseph Leidy, Thomas Huxley.  (The only unsympathetic naturalist was his old friend, paleontologist Hugh Falconer).   

Darwin repeated this claim in his Autobiography: 

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 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.¹⁶  

Again the issue is not his priority to the discovery of natural selection, which the Sketch conceded to Patrick Matthew, but evolution itself.  The claim is contrary to the personal experience he invokes as evidence that he was the first evolutionist.  At age 17 he encountered ‘doubt about the permanence of species’ at Edinburgh, under the tutelage of the zoology lecturer Robert E. Grant.  Grant prompted young Charles to give a paper to the student natural history group, the Plinian Society.  The minutes of that meeting record that another student paper denied the existence of the soul and attributed all our thoughts to brain activity.  Such was the temper of the materialist and evolutionist Grant.¹⁷  During his Cambridge years, Darwin was exposed to the flamboyant irreligion of Rev. Robert Taylor, dubbed the Devil’s Chaplain.  Taylor promoted phrenology as a proof that the mind is no more than the brain, the nebular hypothesis of the solar system’s origin as a substitute for divine creation, and evolution as a materialist substitute for the biblical account of the Garden of Eden.  Taylor also promoted class struggle (under the French tricolor!) to overthrow throne and altar.¹⁸  That this was the temper of the times we know from Adrian Desmond’s The Politics of Evolution, which describes radicalism among physicians and other professionals in London and Edinburgh during the turbulent 1830s.¹⁹  The establishment of the University of London stimuled their efforts.  A significant activist was Robert Grant, who moved from Edinburgh to the University of London to be closer to the action.²⁰  Darwin, Desmond shows, was aware of this activity.  In 1844, Robert Chambers anonymously published the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which argued the philosophy common among radicals.  In the Historical Sketch, Darwin declared that Vestiges ‘has done excellent service in this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views’.²¹  By 1860, Vestiges had sold 26,700 copies, about ten thousand more than the Origin sold in the UK during Darwin’s lifetime.  The book created a ‘sensation’ documented by James A. Secord’s study of its penetration of all social classes, from the Queen to the working class, reaching about 100,000 readers and stimulating much debate in the popular and the scientific press.²²  The public was well prepared for the Origin.   

How do these details illuminate Johnson’s ‘curiosity’?  The opening paragraph of the first edition gives the impression that he originated the theory of evolution.  Dispelling that impression was the motive of those who raised objections to their exclusion.  The closing passage of the 6th edition, together with his claim in the Autobiography, has the effect of restoring the impression expressed in the first edition.  That Darwin’s admirers accepted this impression is recorded in countless statements.  Let me conclude my remarks by citing George Romanes.  After quoting the eminent philosopher William Whewell as representative of pre-Darwin opinion, he wrote: 

George Romanes

‘So much, then, for the state of the most enlightened and representative opinions on the question of evolution before the publication of Darwin’s book; and so much, likewise, for the only reasonable suggestions as to the causes of evolution which up to that time had been put forward, even by those few individuals who entertained any belief in evolution as a fact.  It was the theory of natural selection that changed all this, and created a revolution in the thought of our time, the magnitude of which in many of its far-reaching consequences we are not even yet in a position to appreciate; but the action of which has already wrought a transformation in general philosophy, as well as in the more special science of biology, that is without parallel in the history of mankind.’²³ 

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Dear Hiram,

I have reread your recent messages to me and your “Puzzles about the Historical Sketch” essay. I find much with which I agree, and also much new to think about. I am now working on a much longer treatment of the idea of “chance” in Darwin, in which I will directly and indirectly be addressing some of your comments. For now I’ll limit myself to a few brief observations.

1)     I do not dispute that Darwin was a cagey writer. He was not always eager to make public his private thoughts, and sometimes positively avoided doing so, even to his closest friends. This claim can be documented by comparing the notebooks, the correspondence, and the published writings. I think we agree about this.

2)     I do not doubt your claim that plenty of scientists (and others) “fib.” There is a lot to be gained sometimes if you can pull this off successfully, and as every dishonest person since Thrasymachus knows, it is only worth doing so if you can be sure you can get away with it.

3)     Did Darwin “fib”? You think he did by noting that he claimed to be the only evolutionist prior to the Origin.  In objection to this I would note: a) he probably knew he could not get away with a fib of this magnitude. b) Since he wrote the Historical Sketch in 1856 it appears that he did not even want to try to get away with a fib of that kind (but I agree—why, then, did he suppress the Sketch until 1860?). c) His first letter to Baden Powell (and several other letters from the same period) makes it clear that, to his correspondents at least, he did not want to be understood as saying he inventing the idea of evolution. d) But what about natural selection? Obviously Matthew, Wells, and some others (like Empedocles!) had anticipated natural selection. My view is that Darwin really did not know about these folks until after 1860. That is what he says, and why doubt it? There is no evidence to the contrary.

4)     The last paragraphs of the 6th edition: “I formerly spoke to very many naturalists on the subject of evolution, and never once met with any sympathetic agreement” etc. You seem to place quite a lot of weight on this paragraph as showing Darwin’s “fib.” But: a) he does not here or anywhere say literally that he discovered the idea of evolution. On the contrary, he sometimes says explicitly that he did not (as to Powell); b) it is not implausible to believe that the naturalists with whom he did speak (Lyell, Tegetmeier, Owen, even Hooker at first) disagreed with him about evolution, in favor of separate creation; and c) (as I’ve said before) it isn’t clear what Darwin means here. “Evolution” as Darwin understood it takes in a lot of territory: spontaneous variation (a necessary but not sufficient condition); heritability (ditto); struggle for existence (ditto); and natural selection (ditto). So it is possible that when he said he spoke to other naturalists about evolution, he meant not the simple fact of descent with modification, but the whole complex assortment of necessary and sufficient conditions. And if that is what he meant, he is probably right—no one prior to the Origin could go all the way with him.

So, Hiram, these are some reflections on your proposal. But again, though I disagree with some of your conclusions, I agree with others, and in every case found much to think about.  Thanks again.

Curtis

I’m pleased to see the points of agreement that you specify in paras. 1 & 2.  In your para. 3, however, we go separate ways.  My point is that Darwin’s claim, made in the 6th edition, to have been the sole evolutionist in 1859 is in direct conflict with his acknowledgement of previous evolutionists made in the Historical Sketch.  You say that he ‘probably knew that he could not get away with a fib of this magnitude’.  But he did get away with it.  He told the fib in 1872 after Huxley, Haeckel, and Wallace, among others, attributed the founding of evolution science to him.  (See for example Huxley’s 1871 paper, Mr. Darwin’s Critics).  The fib is a major element of the Darwin Legend, as I point out in Darwin’s Cathedral. 

Your response to Darwin’s claim to have ‘never once to have met with any sympathetic agreement’ doesn’t ask whether is this statement true or false.  As I pointed out, it’s a grotesque fib, and a grievous insult to his long-term supporter, Charles Lyell.  (Darwin terminated his friendship with Lyell in 1863 because of his displeasure with Lyell’s Antiquity of Man).  Again, your guesses about what Darwin might have meant avoids coping with his claim that he ‘never happened across a single [naturalist], who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species’.  The facts are that at age 17, Darwin encountered Robert Grant’s evolutionism in Edinburgh.  Evolution was promoted by a group of London physicians, 1834-1840.  Again, Robert Chamber’s Vestiges attracted considerable public attention (1844-1860), so evolution was very much ‘in the air’.  How does Darwin deal with these facts?  He cuddles up in his own private space of personal interactions.  He claims that he ‘never happened across a single one, who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species’.  This is the question at issue; it’s a very big fib.  And then there’s his claim that ‘I tried once or twice to explain to able men what I meant by natural selection, but signally failed’.   Yet in the Sketch he acknowledges that Patrick Matthew and Wallace independently discovered natural selection.  He also avoids mention of cogent criticisms that were made by Owen, Huxley, and Wilberforce after the publication of the Origin.  But then, the Legend treats natural selection as the Holy Grail of evolution science.