Darwin's Place in the History of Thought

Darwin’s place in the history of thought: A reevaluation Robert J. Richards1 Department of History, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 Scholars have usually given Darwin’s theory a neo-Darwinian Darwin’s place in human thought could hardly have been interpretation. A more careful examination of the language of predicted from the fortunes of that young boy who went to Darwin’s notebooks and the language of the Origin of Species Edinburgh Medical School at age 16, following in the footsteps indicates that he reconstructed nature with a definite purpose: the of his famous grandfather Erasmus Darwin, his father Robert final goal of man as a moral creature. In the aftermath of the Waring Darwin, and his older brother Erasmus. However, his Origin, Darwin, however, became more circumspect. prospects were not golden. In his Autobiography, Darwin re- counts the attitude of that distance self, and his father’s own Descent of Man ͉ moral purpose ͉ Origin of Species ͉ teleology estimation of his son’s abilities: ven before the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859, I believe I was considered by my [school] masters and by EDarwin had begun his ascendency to a premier place in the my Father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the history of biology, and he has yet to cede that position. When we common standard in intellect. To my deep mortification examine the list of those great scientists who have transformed my father once said to me, ‘‘You care for nothing but our vision of the world, we discover that Darwin has few rivals: shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a Aristotle, Harvey, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein—the disgrace to yourself and all your family. pantheon is not large. And if it comes down to individuals who Darwin (ref. 2, p. 28) have altered our understanding of who we are, what we have Darwin, however, adds to that recollection: ‘‘But my father, who been and, perhaps, what we can become, then, I think, Darwin was the kindest man I ever knew, and whose memory I love with stands alone. And if the concept of revolution still carries all my heart, must have been angry and somewhat unjust when conceptual weight, which I believe it does, he staged a singular he used such words.’’ revolution in thought, as Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett have Darwin came down from Edinburgh after 2 years, being argued in this symposium. Darwin accomplished this revolution, unable to tolerate the medical curriculum. His father decided however, not so much by discarding the older framework as by that the only place for a younger son of the gentry with few reconstructing from within it. prospects would be a country parsonage, and so Darwin went to The danger of Darwin’s ideas resides in the extraordinary way Cambridge University in 1828 with the professional goal vaguely he used rather traditional conceptions. The usual assumption is in mind of entering the ministry. Although he did not doubt the that Darwin killed those barren virgins of teleology and of literal truth of the Bible, he later remarked of his acquiescence purpose, scorned moral interpretations of nature, and strode in the decision: ‘‘It never struck me how illogical it was to say that into the modern world escorting the stylish concepts of modern I believed in what I could not understand and what is in fact materialism and secularism. I believe, on the contrary, that unintelligible’’ (ref. 2, p. 57). Darwin’s theory preserved nature’s moral purpose and used During the 3 years he spent at Cambridge, he did become teleological means of doing so. Darwinian evolution had the goal acquainted with the rudiments of botany and a bit of geology, but of reaching a fixed end, namely man as a moral creature. This is he judged the time mostly wasted. He occupied himself with something Darwin implied in the peroration at the end of the Origin, when in justifying the death and destruction wrought by beetle collecting and dinner parties—not unknown to Cam- natural selection, he contended that ‘‘the most exalted object we bridge students today, except for the beetle collecting. are capable of conceiving’’ is ‘‘the production of the higher Of course, Darwin’s life dramatically changed in 1831 when he animals’’ (ref. 1, p. 490). To understand Darwin’s place in got a chance to ship out on the surveying vessel H.M.S. Beagle. history, I think we must first consider what his theory actually He was inspired to attempt the effort because of the book in entailed. which he had been engrossed during his last year at university: In the argument that follows, I will assume what might seem Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Region of the New like a pedantically obvious principle, namely that Darwin’s Continent, 1799-1804 (3). It was a scientific travel adventure theory is embedded in his language. The principle contends that written by Alexander von Humboldt, the German romantic and the conceptual import of Darwin’s language—particularly the friend of the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. deployment of tropes, metaphors, and other linguistic and logical Humboldt told of his own 5-year voyage to South and Central devices—constitute the operative theory advanced in the Origin. America, with a concluding trip to the wilds of Eastern America Darwin began formulating this language in his early notebooks to speak with Thomas Jefferson. The tale filled the 21-year-old and essays; and his constructions form the bedrock of the Darwin with enthusiasm for exotic travel. On the Beagle, Darwin sometimes altered versions in his book. This means that it will occur that the language of Darwin’s theory will at times say more—or less—than he himself might reflectively have wished This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, ‘‘In the Light of Evolution III: Two Centuries of Darwin,’’ held January 16–17, 2009, to say. I will argue this position in the spirit of the 1950s New at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Criticism—the movement that prized the well-wrought urn as an Engineering in Irvine, CA. The complete program and audio files of most presentations are autonomous aesthetic object. available on the NAS web site at www.nasonline.org/Sackler࿝Darwin. Author contributions: R.J.R. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and Darwin’s Early Life wrote the paper. Most are familiar with the trajectory of Darwin’s career, but to The author declares no conflict of interest. set the context of his work, let me briefly fill in the broad outlines This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. of his early life. 1E-mail: [email protected]. 10056–10060 ͉ PNAS ͉ June 16, 2009 ͉ vol. 106 ͉ suppl. 1 www.pnas.org͞cgi͞doi͞10.1073͞pnas.0901111106 Downloaded by guest on September 28, 2021 packed into his very small quarters several of Humboldt’s other specify what the ultimate object or purpose of that progressive books, which he consumed on the outward voyage—in between development might be: namely, man as a moral creature. At the bouts of debilitating sea-sickness and retching over the side of beginning of November, 1838, he put it this way: the ship. Humboldt’s own conception of both science and nature would My theory gives great final cause «I do not wish to say seep deeply into Darwin’s later theory of evolution by natural only cause, but one great final cause...»ofsexes...for selection. This German Romantic scientist portrayed a nature otherwise, there would be as many species, as individu- that was fecund and creative, and not standing in need of Divine als,...weseeitisnottheorder in this perfect world, agency. During the course of his later research, Darwin would either at the present, or many anterior epochs.—but we receive several more booster shots of German Romanticism, can see if all species, there would not be social ani- such that his theory would become resistant to the usual mals...hence not social instincts, which as I hope to interpretations imposed by neo-Darwinian scholars (4). show is «probably» the foundation of all that is most There is no substantial evidence that Darwin doubted the beautiful in the moral sentiments of the animated be- stability of species while on his 5-year voyage. However, his own ings. If man is one great object, for which the world was heritage and reading of his Grandfather’s book Zoonomia (5) brought into present state...& ifmy theory be true and the works of Jean Baptiste de Lamarck—both the elder then the formation of sexes rigidly necessary. Darwin and Lamarck argued for the transmutation of species— Darwin (ref. 7, p. 409; they would have primed him to be conscious of the possibility of wedge quotes indicate later additions) species mutation, a possibility rejected at the time by virtually all Darwin’s final-cause explanation goes this way: Sexual genera- naturalists of standing in England. tion exists for the purpose of bringing social animals into It seems that it was only after his return in October 1836, while existence; and the final cause or purpose of social animals is to cataloguing his specimens from the voyage the following March, bring into existence animals with moral sentiments, namely that he began seriously to entertain the hypothesis of species human beings. Darwin concluded this final-cause consideration transformation (6). It was the mockingbirds he brought back with: ‘‘Man is [the] one great object’’ of nature.

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