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Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw, So What? Tennyson Wrote His Famous Evolutionary Anthropology 19:41–45 (2010) Crotchets & Quiddities ‘‘Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw’’, So What? Tennyson wrote his famous line with evolution in mind, but he was basically wrong KENNETH M. WEISS A young Alfred Tennyson (Fig. 1A) widely used to describe the ruthless 1833, Charles Darwin was early in arrived at Cambridge University in way that Nature daily dispenses with his voyage on the HMS Beagle. 1827. He became fast friends with individuals and, over eons, with spe- Though they were born in the same another student, Arthur H. Hallam cies as well. Could it be, asked Ten- year, and were contemporaries at (Fig. 1B). Both were aspiring poets and nyson, that even Man, Cambridge, they may never have Arthur helped Alfred with his budding met, because Darwin spent most of Who trusted God was love indeed efforts, coming strongly to his defense his time hunting. Although the poem And love Creation’s final law— when his first books were attacked by was finished in 1850, well before Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw reviewers. Their families became close Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), With ravine, shriek’d against and, in 1832, Arthur became engaged Tennyson was brooding on the cru- his creed— to Tennyson’s sister Emilia. But the fol- elty of Nature because the realization lowing year and without warning, Hal- Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills, of gradual change in the earth and lam, still in his early 20s, suffered a Who battled for the True, the Just, in life was ‘‘in the air’’ in intellectual brain hemorrhage and died. Be blown about the desert dust circles in Britain. Tennyson was devastated. He Or seal’d within the iron hills?1 Tennyson read many of the same vented his shattered emotions in works as Darwin did, and eventually verse, which he continued to augment Evolution was on Tennyson’s mind read Darwin’s work itself. Both were until the result was finally published as he worked on In Memoriam. influenced by Charles Lyell’s Princi- 17 years later as his long masterpiece, When he began writing the poem in ples of Geology,2 which appeared in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850).1 The public actually read poetry in those days, and Tennyson became so popular that he succeeded the great William Wordsworth as Britain’s poet laureate in the year In Memo- riam was published. Proclaimed to have an incredible ‘‘ear’’ and to be one of Britain’s greatest poets ever, he is known for several major works, but perhaps none so much as his ode to his lost friend. That’s where he wrote, ‘‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’’ Another line from In Memoriam that’s still in circulation is Tenny- son’s characterization of ‘‘Nature, red in tooth and claw.’’ This is still Ken Weiss is Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Genetics at Penn State University. E-mail: kenweiss@ psu.edu V C 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Figure 1. Poetic partners. A. Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), by G. F. Watts. B. Arthur H. DOI 10.1002/evan.20255 Published online in Wiley InterScience Hallam (1811–1833), artist unknown. Source: public domain: Wikimedia. [Color figure can (www.interscience.wiley.com). be viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com.] 42 Weiss Crotchets & Quiddities Chambers was profoundly influ- privately drafted a tentative chapter enced by Lyell and the evidence of called ‘‘Natural Selection’’,9 in which slow geological change, as well as by he first explicitly outlined his evolu- Jean Lamarck’s theory that biological tionary ideas—so explicitly, indeed, species changed gradually, inheriting that an extract of the chapter was adaptive traits that their parents had introduced to the Linnaean Society in acquired during life.6 Chambers 1858 to prove Darwin’s priority over argued that the universe had initially Wallace in developing a modern theory been created by God, a cosmos Ten- of how biological variation evolved. nyson characterized as ‘‘a fluid haze of light’’ (from The Princess1). In making his creation, God imposed HAECKEL (P)REDUX? natural laws on the universe, which By the early nineteenth century, thereafter motored along—evolved— vertebrate embryologists had found on its own without further divine that ‘‘Each animal has been found to intervention. This world view is called pass, in the course of his germinal Figure 2. Robert Chambers (1802–1871). deism and was, of course, a direct history, through a series of changes Source: public domain. threat to the established church view resembling the permanent forms of inwhichGodwasverymuchwithus. the various orders of animals inferior several volumes around the time of In Chambers’ view, evolutionary proc- to it in the scale.’’ For example, a four- Hallam’s death. Lyell described the esses ineluctably led to improvement, stage progression had been suggested, geological processes by which the wending their way toward a final state that went from fish, to reptiles, to birds, earth’s features very slowly ground with a ‘‘nobler type of humanity, to mammals and, of course, humans. along in a relentless, purely material which shall complete the zoological This quote will probably seem fa- way, which Tennyson, in In Memo- circle on this planet, and realize some miliar to you. The idea was the basis riam, described as the ‘‘streams that of the dreams of the purest spirits of of the German evolutionist Ernst swift or slow/Draw down aeonian 3 the present race.’’ Haeckel’s ‘‘biogenetic law’’ that ‘‘on- [aeons-old] hills, and sow/The dust Although Chambers’ book was a of continents to be’’. Then, in 1844, togeny recapitulates phylogeny.’’ First public sensation, it was heavily stated in Haeckel’s book General Mor- about halfway between Hallam’s criticized, partly for what Darwin phology in 1866,10 this was an oft- death and the completion of In characterized in the preface to the Memoriam, a new book appeared repeated central pillar in his staunch Origin of Species as ‘‘little accurate defense of Darwinism. Haeckel’s catch- that was so startling that its author knowledge and a great want of scien- phrase is still heard today. refused to identify himself. 7 tific caution.’’ But even Darwin went But the quote is not from Haeckel! on to acknowledge that Chambers It’s from Chambers, in 1844. His was A BOOK ‘‘COMPOSED had done ‘‘excellent service in this probably the most widely read state- country in calling attention to the IN SOLITUDE’’ ment of these findings, which were subject, in removing prejudice, and well-known at the time, until Haeckel Robert Chambers (1802–1871, Fig. in thus preparing the ground for the took the stage. But even earlier,11 in 7 2) was a Scottish journalist and pub- reception of analogous views.’’ 1832, in The Palace of Art, Tennyson lisher. Though not a professional sci- Chambers both followed Lamarck had built the same embryological entist, he was curious, widely read, and anticipated Darwin by saying facts into a remarkable evolutionary and well aware of the ideas of organic that a species rose to higher form or statement about the human brain1: as well as geologic change that were became degraded ‘‘by the influence building in England at the time. of the physical conditions in which it ‘‘From shape to shape at first within 3 Chambers assembled his thoughts lives.’’ This is the familiar theory of the womb into a book, The Vestiges of the Natural use and disuse that both Lamarck The brain is modell’d,’’ she began, 3 History of Creation. (For discussion and Darwin espoused, which, if ‘‘And thro’ all phases of all thought 4 5 of his views see Eisely , and Gould as properly phrased in modern terms, I come well as Wikipedia: Vestiges of the we have no problem with today: Into the perfect man.’’ Natural History of Creation.) In its ‘‘use’’ means preserved by selection conclusion, Chambers described his and ‘‘disuse’’ means that a trait not All nature widens upward. Evermor book as ‘‘composed in solitude...for maintained by selection will gradu- The simpler essence lower lies: the sole purpose ... of improving the ally mutate away. In anthropology, More complex is more perfect, knowledge of mankind, and through Loring Brace later referred to this as owning more that medium their happiness.’’3 But the ‘‘probable mutation effect.’’8 Discourse, more widely wise. despite these good intentions, he pub- The year Vestiges was published, lished anonymously because he knew 1844, was remarkable not just because Here, Tennyson sees in compara- that his ideas would stir a cultural Chambers’ book made a public splash, tive embryology a natural view of the hornet’s nest. Indeed, they certainly did! but also because that year Darwin progression of the complex human Crotchets & Quiddities Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw, So What 43 of course Karl Marx and their fol- of death and destruction, of tooth and lowers, were rumbling, often in dia- claw, on which these views were metrically opposed ways, about how based, may be a fact but, in fact, does social evolution must also follow sci- not imply what was claimed of it. entific laws. Even the biologists, Dar- win and Wallace and their followers, notably including Darwin’s advocate A DESCRIPTION OF NATURE, BUT Thomas Huxley, concluded that WHAT DOES IT MEAN? because of our brain power humans could now, finally, overcome biologi- Every creature dies, and most of us cal selection and engineer society to will die in grim ways we would not our liking. choose. In the animal and plant world, Among Victorian fiction writers, it usually means being torn apart while Tennyson probably kept most still alive.
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