DOCSLIB.ORG

The Place of Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation Part I

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Place of Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation Part I The Place of Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation Part I. To July 1837 SANDRA HERBERT Department of History University of Maryland, Baltimore County This article forms the first half of an essay on the place of man in Charles Darwin's exploration of the species question. The second half of the essay will appear in a future issue of this journal. The following portion of the essay carries the discussion to the spring of 1837, the date when Darwin first affirmed a transmutationist position. In it I try to show that the subject of man was not one of those lines of inquiry which drew Darwin to transmutationist conclusions, and, conversely, to suggest what sorts of inquiries did lead him to such conclusions. The argument is organized as follows: Part I. Darwin's views on man prior to 1837: (a) orientation toward religion, politics, and career as an under- graduate; (b) observations on man during the voyage of the Beagle; (c) personal change of mind. Part II. Sources of Darwin's conversion to a transmutationist position: (a) evidence of notes dating from the voyage; (b) Darwin's Ornithological Notes and related lists; (c) the role of professional zoologists; and, (d) composition of the Journal of Researches. DARWIN's VIEWS ON MAN PRIOR TO 1837 Orientation toward Religion, Politics, and Career as an Undergraduate As with most people, not much is known about Darwin's youthful philosophical orientation beyond what the subject cared to relate, in this case in an autobiography written in later life. 1 In reviewing the facts of Darwin's early life, however, one is immediately struck by the apparent contradiction between his intellectual heritage as the grandson of the freethinker Erasmus Darwin and his declared intention, as pro- posed to him by his father, of entering Cambridge University in order to become a member of the English clergy. The source of the contra- 1. Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, ed. Nora Balow (New York: Norton, 1958). Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 7, no. 2 (Fall 1974), pp. 217-258. Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland. SANDRA HERBERT diction was Charles's father, Robert Waring Darwin, who, though an unbeliever himself, and unlike his brother-in-law Josiah Wedgwood, did not alter child-rearing practices to fit his personal beliefs. Ideolo- gically Charles thus fell heir both to the liberal traditions of the Darwin- Wedgwood clan and, at least potentially, to the theological tradition represented by the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Yet Charles was very clear in the Autobiography that he was sent by his father to study for the clergy; he did not choose it. Having found himself disinclined toward medicine at Edinburgh University, however, and being entirely dependent on his father for support, he was in no position to object. Fortunately, there exist a few indications of Darwin's own attitudes toward his assigned career in a series of letters which Darwin wrote to his cousin William Darwin Fox. Fox was in much the same situation as Darwin, since he too anticipated combining a clerical post with the pursuit of natural history. Being a year ahead of Darwin in school, Fox faced the final year of reading theology and the accompanying search for a position before Darwin, and Darwin was eager to learn his cousin's opinions of the theological matters he was reading and his success at obtaining a post. 2 From letters, however, it would appear that Darwin's interest in these matters was entirely practical; questions of belief simply did not arise. In these early letters the nearest Darwin came to expressing religious interest was on the occasion of the death of Fox's sister, when, Darwin offered consolation in traditionally religious language. 3 Other indications of Darwin's early taste or distaste for religion are rare, though among the extant materials from the pre-Beagle period there do exist Darwin's notes on William Paley's Evidences of Chris- tianity. 4 Paley's book, which had been written "to promote the relig- 2. See Darwin to Fox, January 2, 1829, and March 12, 1829, on Fox's reading in divinity, Darwin-Fox Correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge. 3. Darwin to Fox, April 23, 1829, Darwin-Fox Correspondence. "I feel most sincerely & deeply for you & all your family: But at the same time, as far as anyone can, by his own good principles & religion be supported under such a misfortune, you I am assured, well known where to look for such support. And after so pure & holy a comfort as the Bible affords I am equally assured how useless the sympathy of all friends must appear although it be as heartfelt & sincere, as I hope you believe me capable of feeling." 4. Darwin MSS, vol. 9I, University Library, Cambridge (hereafter abbreviated ULC). The chapter headings in Darwin's notes do not correspond to those in the Evidences but the arguments are clearly Paley's. See William Paley, A View of the 218 Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation ious part of an academical education," was required reading for Cambridge undergraduates. Pleased with Paley's skill at argument, Darwin also read the more famous Natural Theology on his own. s While overall the Natural Theology is the more important work, there are a few indications that the Evidences made some impression on Darwin. For example, in the Autobiography Darwin referred to his "inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. ''6 According to canons put forward in the Evidences such daydreams, fulfilled, would stand as ideal corroboration of the truth of Chris- tianity. In a larger perspective, Paley's approach to religion was eighteenth- century in its concern for simple truth or falsity. (Christianity, inciden- tally, was taken as emblematic of religion, for, in Paley's words, "if the Christian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions of any other.") 7 In reading Paley's arguments for the truth of religion, Darwin was seemingly taken with his skill in setting up disjunctions. In his notes Darwin concentrated specifically on Paley's argument that, granted His existence, Jesus was either the son of God as he claimed or "an imposter or an enthusiast & deceived himself. ''8 Darwin's approach to Paley was the appropriate one, since the essential merit in Paley's mode of argument was the identification of all logical possibilities and then the progressive elimination of one after another until only one remained. This simplicity of judgment with respect to religion remained with Darwin. When during the voyage on the Beagle he turned against the Old Testament on geological and moral grounds 9 and, after the voyage, found the argument from design less than universal, he became as easily Evidences of Christianity (1974) in The Works of William Paley (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Peter Brown, 1831). Paley's The Prin'tiples of Moral and .Political Philosophy (1801) was also required reading. 5. Autobiography, p. 59. 6. Ibid., p. 86. 7. Paley, Evidences, p. 297. 8. Darwin MSS, vol. 91, ULC. Compare with Evidences, Part 2, Chap. 5, p. 364. 9. Autobiography, p. 85. The "geological" grounds very.likely refer to Darwin's change of opinion the Beagle voyage concerning the geological significance and historicity of the Noachian flood; the "moral" grounds refer to his dissatisfaction with the Old Testament image of God as a "revengeful tyrant." 219 SANDRA HERBERT convinced of the falsity of religion as, at one time, at least passively, he had been persuaded of its truth. Thus Darwin's undergraduate educa- tion influenced the terms of his response to religion, both while he was for it and when he turned against it. On the political side, there is nothing to suggest that Darwin forsook the liberalism of the Darwin-Wedgwood families. Indeed, according to Paul H. Barrett, Darwin while a student at Edinburgh University in his teens resigned from the Plinian Society in protest at the reprimand a student received for espousing materialist views, m° This early evidence of Darwin's espousal of the liberal belief in the right of free speech supports the view that it was Darwin's most cherished political belief. Indeed, as his now famous letter to Karl Marx suggested, he seems to have regarded free thought and free speech as the chief political requirement for the gradual enlightenment of mankind, u Another liberal position which Darwin had occasion to defend early in life was that against slavery, which was abolished within the British Empire in 1834. Darwin's antagonist on the slavery issue was Robert Fitzroy, the captain of the Beagle, who was politically conservative and personally contentious. As a conservative Fitzroy defended the institution of slavery, and since the two men frequently conversed aboard ship (Fitzroy treating Darwin as his sole equal), their differences in political opinion periodically threatened the harmony of their relationship. Nevertheless, Darwin's fidelity to the political liberalism of his family traditions apparently did not lead him to more universal philosophical conclusions. One cannot make the case for Charles Darwin which Samuel LiUey has made for his grandfather Erasmus that it was the subject's larger philosophical beliefs, in Erasmus' case a belief in pro- gress, which prompted thoughts on evolution. 1~ To return to the subject of Darwin's career, we can see that his ambitions lay with science even as an undergraduate.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Charles Darwin's
    GORDON CHANCELLOR AND JOHN VAN WYHE This book is the first-ever full edition of the notebooks used by Charles Darwin during his epic voyage in the Beagle. Darwin’s Beagle notebooks are the most direct sources we have for CHANCELLOR VAN WYHE VAN his experiences on this journey, and they now survive as some of the most precious CHARLES DARWIN’S documents in the history of science and exploration, written by the man who later used these notes to develop one of the greatest scientific theories of all time. notebooks from the voyage The book contains complete transcriptions of the 15 notebooks which Darwin used over the 5 years of the voyage to record his ‘on the spot’ geological and general observations. of the ‘beagle’ Unlike the many other documents that he also created, the field notebooks are not confined to any one subject or genre. Instead, they record the full range of his interests and activities foreword by during the voyage, with notes and observations on geology, zoology, botany, ecology, weather notebooks from the voyage notes, barometer and thermometer readings, depth soundings, ethnography, anthropology, CHARLES DARWIN’S RICHARD DARWIN archaeology and linguistics, along with maps, drawings, financial records, shopping lists, KEYNES reading notes, memoranda, theoretical essays and personal diary entries. of the ‘beagle’ Some of Darwin’s critical discoveries and experiences, made famous through his own publications, are recorded in their most immediate form in the notebooks, and published here for the very first time. The notebook texts are accompanied by full editorial apparatus and introductions which explain in detail Darwin’s actions at each stage of the voyage, and focus on discoveries which were pivotal to convincing him that life on Earth had evolved.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Charles Darwin's Notebooks from the Voyage of the `Beagle`. Transcribed, Edited and Introduced by Gordon Chancellor and John
    Charles Darwin’s Notebooks from the Voyage of the `Beagle`. Transcribed, edited and introduced by Gordon Chancellor and John van Wythe. xxxiii + 615 pp. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2009. $ 150 (cloth). Until now, it has not been possible to read in book form the immediate notes that Darwin himself had written during his 1832-1836 voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. Darwin’s Beagle records comprised five different kinds: field notebooks, personal diary, geological and zoological diaries, and specimen catalogues. Unlike the many other documents that Darwin created during the voyage, the field notebooks are not confined to any one subject. They contain notes and observations on geology, zoology, botany, ecology, weather notes, barometer and thermometer readings, ethnography, archaeology, and linguistics as well as maps, drawings, financial records, shopping lists, reading notes, and personal entries. The editors described the notebooks as the most difficult and complex of all of Darwin’s manuscripts. They were for the most part written in pencil which was often faint or smeared. They were generally not written while sitting at a desk but held in one hand, on mule or horseback or on the deck of the Beagle. Furthermore the lines were very short and much was not written in complete sentences. Added to this, they were full of Darwin’s chaotic spelling of foreign names so the handwriting was sometimes very difficult to decipher. Alternative readings were often possible. Darwin did not number the pages of the notebooks, and often wrote in them at different times from opposite ends. Most of the notebook space was devoted to geological descriptions and drawings, a reflection of Darwin’s interest in the works of Charles Lyell and his previous fieldwork with Adam Sedgwick.
    [Show full text]
  • Nora Barlow and the Darwin Legacy (Smith, in Process)
    Advancing Women Home | Job Search | Career Strategies |Business| Entrepreneur | Web | Money | Education | Network | International Advancing Women in Leadership Online Journal Volume 19, Fall 2005 Call for AWL Journal Home Current Volume Archives Manuscripts/Guidelines [ Journal Index ] Nora Barlow - A Modern Cambridge Victorian And 'The Many Lives of Modern Woman' Louis M. Smith An Introduction: Integrating Divergent Items The audience and thesis of a book carry multiple implications for what will follow in the discussion. In reading The many lives of modern woman (Gruenberg and Krech, 1952), I found the authors speaking to a number of issues about which I was concerned. In particular they seemed to offer a kind of subtext to the last chapter of the biography I am writing, Nora Barlow and the Darwin legacy (Smith, In process). If that works out, it is a major discovery or accomplishment. Further, when colleagues Sharon Lee and Kelly McKerrow sent a call for papers on women, leadership, and social justice, I thought the Gruenberg and Krech book spoke not only to the Barlow life but also to the Lee and McKerrow request. My intension and task is the integration of a review of a classic book, and a view and commentary of the life of Nora Barlow, a privileged 19th Century woman. She was well to do and part of the intellectual aristocracy of England. A part of her life concerned the issues of community leadership and for her, at a very personal level, attempts at the resolution of the problems of equality and social justice. Finally in this essay review I present, and try to integrate, a series of more autobiographical comments of the interrelationships between the book and my, and my wife's, personal lives.
    [Show full text]
  • Sede Amministrativa: Università Degli Studi Di Padova Dipartimento Di Filosofia
    Sede Amministrativa: Università degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di filosofia ___________________________________________________________________ CORSO DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN FILOSOFIA CICLO XXXI TITOLO TESI DARWIN’S CONTRIVANCES: ORCHIDS, EVOLUTION AND SCIENTIFIC ETHICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE OF XIX CENTURY Coordinatore: Ch.mo Prof. Francesca Menegoni Supervisore: Ch.mo Prof. Fabio Grigenti Dottorando : Antonio Danese INDEX 0 INTRODUCTION 5 0.1 Topic 5 0.2 Why Orchids? 9 0.3 Structure of the work 12 1 THE DARWINIAN THEORY 14 1.1 The origin of the origin of species 14 1.2 The first concept of species 16 1.3 The renouncement of immutability and the problem of classification 18 1.4 Variation 23 1.5 The ecological context and the tree of life 26 1.6 New way of observing nature 28 2 FORERUNNERS OF DARWIN IN THE BOTANICAL FIELD 29 2.1 Cell and transmutation 31 2.2 The molecular basis for the development of life sciences 31 2.3 The starting points for Darwinian botany 33 3 THE WORK ON PLANT SCIENCES 35 3.1 The botanist Darwin 36 3.2 The movements of climbing plants 40 3.3 The insectivorous plants 43 3.4 Cross-self fertilisation 45 3.5 The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species 46 3.6 The power of movement in plants 49 4 ORCHIDS IN VICTORIAN AGE 52 4.1 Classification of new species of orchids 53 4.2 Linnaeus 54 4.3 Orchids, society, and literature 56 4.4 Darwin and orchids 59 5 THE ORIGIN OF On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Darwin's Bubble: the Evolution Of
    CHARLES DARWIN ’S BUBBLE : THE EVOLUTION OF DOWN HOUSE Aldemaro Romero and Kristen Nolte College of Arts & Sciences SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY EDWARDSVILLE Abstract Charles Darwin lived for 40 years, until his death, in the same place: Down House. During that time he reformed and expanded that property according to both his personal and professional needs. This article is aimed to elucidate the relationship between Darwin, his family, and his residence. We conclude that Darwin’s changes to Down House were utilitarian in nature and restricted to the needs of the moment, from and expanding family to his demands for more working space. In many ways those changes reflected Darwin’s character. Today Down House is a mixture of memorial and museum. Introduction Although many biographical essays narrate the life of an individual and how s/he fit into his/her times, little emphasis is given between that person and the personal spaces in which they inhabited. Yet, we can assume that a person and his/her living space are intimately related. That is particularly true when an individual lives for a long time in the same place. A person’s sense of space is a combination of the way s/he perceives it as well as his or her cultural background. Thus, by studying the activities, relationships, and emotions of an individual and the environment in which s/he has lived for a long time, one can discern a great deal about that person’s life. That is particularly true in the case of people with a high level of intellectuality who use their home as their center of activity.
    [Show full text]
  • Deceived by Orchids: Sex, Science, fiction and Darwin
    BJHS 49(2): 205–229, June 2016. © British Society for the History of Science 2016 doi:10.1017/S0007087416000352 First published online 09 June 2016 Deceived by orchids: sex, science, fiction and Darwin JIM ENDERSBY* Abstract. Between 1916 and 1927, botanists in several countries independently resolved three problems that had mystified earlier naturalists – including Charles Darwin: how did the many species of orchid that did not produce nectar persuade insects to pollinate them? Why did some orchid flowers seem to mimic insects? And why should a native British orchid suffer ‘attacks’ from a bee? Half a century after Darwin’s death, these three mysteries were shown to be aspects of a phenomenon now known as pseudocopulation, whereby male insects are deceived into attempting to mate with the orchid’s flowers, which mimic female insects; the males then carry the flower’s pollen with them when they move on to try the next deceptive orchid. Early twentieth-century botanists were able to see what their predecessors had not because orchids (along with other plants) had undergone an imaginative re-creation: Darwin’s science was appropriated by popular interpreters of science, including the novelist Grant Allen; then H.G. Wells imagined orchids as killers (inspiring a number of imitators), to produce a genre of orchid stories that reflected significant cultural shifts, not least in the presentation of female sexuality. It was only after these changes that scientists were able to see plants as equipped with agency, actively able to pursue their own, cunning reproductive strategies – and to outwit animals in the process.
    [Show full text]
  • BOOK REVIEWS Theory
    NATURE. VOL. 2 J 5. SEPTEMBER 23. l 967 1417 development, indirectly and contrary to his anticipation or wishes an essential contributor to the origin of The Origin of Species. Although admittedly less important, the later letters cover matters less widely familiar. Still addressed with somewhat reticent affection, Henslow here becomes one of the many colleagues from whom Darwin sought the facts he was building into the fabric of evolutionary BOOK REVIEWS theory. There is, for instance, an amusing sequence of letters in which Darwin is trying with evident difficulty to draw out Henslow on the closeness of alliance of species within genera without revealing that those data would bear on Darwin's still unpublished views on the origin of species. Another quite charming sequence of letters reveals that Henslow had organized a sort of posse of MASTER AND PUPIL young girls who collected botanical specimens, especially seeds, for Darwin. Darwin, anxious to be generous but not Darwin and Henslow profligate, was dubious as to whether he should reward The Growth of an Idea. Letters 1831-1860 edited by the maidens with 3d or 6d for each packet of seeds. That Nora Barlow. Pp. xii+251+8 plates. (London: John particular incident was connected with an abortive Murray, 1967.) 35s. net attempt to determine whether Azorean species also found THE Reverend Professor John Stevens Henslow, professor in the neighbourhood of Hitcham were particularly apt first of mineralogy and then of botany at the University for overseas dispersal. of Cambridge and later Rector of Hitcham, was "one As with Lady Barlow's previous books, or indeed all chief means of giving[Darwin]a taste for NaturalHistory", that has to do with Darwin, there are innumerable nuggets as Darwin hastened to state in the first version of the work of news or reminders.
    [Show full text]
  • Newsletter and Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London
    NEWSLETTER AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON VOLUME 25 • NUMBER 3 • OCTOBER 2009 THE LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON Registered Charity Number 220509 Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BF Tel. (+44) (0)20 7434 4479; Fax: (+44) (0)20 7287 9364 e-mail: [email protected]; internet: www.linnean.org President Secretaries Council Dr Vaughan Southgate BOTANICAL The Officers and Dr Sandra D Knapp Prof Pieter Baas Vice-Presidents Prof Richard Bateman Dr Mike Fay ZOOLOGICAL Dr Andy Brown Dr Sandra D Knapp Dr Malcolm Scoble Dr John David Dr Keith Maybury Dr Terry Langford Dr Malcolm Scoble EDITORIAL Prof Geoff Moore Dr John R Edmondson Dr Sylvia Phillips Treasurer Mr Terence Preston Professor Gren Ll Lucas OBE COLLECTIONS Dr Max Telford Mrs Susan Gove Dr Mark Watson Dr David Williams Executive Secretary Librarian Prof Patricia Willmer Dr Ruth Temple Mrs Lynda Brooks Conservator Financial Controller/Membership Assistant Librarian Ms Janet Ashdown Mr Priya Nithianandan Mr Ben Sherwood Special Publications Building and Office Manager Honorary Archivist and Education Manager Ms Victoria Smith Ms Gina Douglas Ms Leonie Berwick Communications Manager Office Assistant Conservation Assistant Ms Claire Inman Mrs Catherine Tanner Ms Lucy Gosnay THE LINNEAN Newsletter and Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London ISSN 0950-1096 Edited by Brian G Gardiner Editorial .............................................................................................................. 1 Society News ...........................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • A New Species of Biography: the Darwin Poetry of Ruth Padel and Emily Ballou
    Postgraduate English www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english Issue 24 May 2012 Editors: Kaja Marczewska & Avishek Parui A New Species of Biography: The Darwin Poetry of Ruth Padel and Emily Ballou Vicky MacKenzie* * University of St. Andrews: [email protected] MacKenzie Postgraduate English: Issue 24 A New Species of Biography: The Darwin Poetry of Ruth Padel and Emily Ballou Vicky MacKenzie University of St. Andrew’s Postgraduate English, Issue 24, May 2012 Introduction 2009 was the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the first publication On the Origin of Species, Darwin’s most famous work, which describes his theory of evolution by natural selection.1 There were hundreds of events around the world to mark the anniversary, including exhibitions, academic symposia, specially-composed musicals, new anthologies of scientific papers and packs of ‘Darwin’ playing cards.2 The influence of Darwin has been felt across disciplines and literature is no exception: his bicentenary year also saw the publication of two poetry collections responding to his life, Emily Ballou’s The Darwin Poems and Darwin: A Life in Poems by Ruth Padel.3 Darwin has already been long-associated with literature through ‘literary Darwinism’ and ‘evocriticism’: these theories are forms of literary criticism that seek to understand literature through evolutionary psychology. However, my concern is not with how reading and writing poetry can be understood through Darwin’s work on evolution, nor in examining the enormous impact of Darwin’s theories on culture – extensive work has already been done in this area, notably by 1 Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
    [Show full text]
  • Author Title Publisher, Date Notes Subject Heading Subject Heading Subject Heading Subject Heading Subject Heading Subject Headi
    Subj Subj ect ect Subject Subject Subject Subject Subject Subject headi headi Author Title Publisher, Date Notes heading heading heading heading heading heading ng ng Margaretta Acworth, Acworth’s Margarett Georgian (Pavilion Books, a Cokkery Book. 1987) Includes note and signature of Erasmus Copy of MS Darwin 2001.68.4 (old dated [Nov] Darwin, no. MS 4615) of 1, 1773. Erasmus, [Anonymo Darwin and Dr. S. Johnson's Contained in 1731- us] Conduit Lands House Folder 3. 1802 In: The English Nation by G. G. Cunningham Darwin, ([S.l.]: Fullarton, Erasmus, [Anonymo "Erasmus 1880), pp. 388- Contained in 1731- us] Darwin" 398 Folder 2. 1802 Erasmus Darwin Bicentennial Dining Club. Darwin, Fifth Meeting. Erasmus, [Anonymo Lunch Elston Hall, 12th 1731- us] Programme. December 2004 1802 Indenture of Transcription 1797 for a by John Watt, [Anonymo James Watt Source: Bass Bonnet. Science - James, us] Steam Engine Museum Includes history 1736-1819 photocopy of original. Letter from Erasmus In: A History of Barlow Pritchard, the Bristol Royal attached, James [Anonymo "James Cowles Infirmary, pp. dated 15-5- Medicine Cowles, us] Pritchard" 468-473 96. - history 1786-1848 Contained in Folder 2. A double-sided one page typescript with quotes from various persons about "Opinions of Darwin's Erasmus poetry. Darwin, Darwin and his Undated and Erasmus, [Anonymo poems, 1789- no compiler 1731- us] 1879" indicated. 1802 Poetry The Reformed Botanic Practice; and the Nature and cause of Disease clearly explained, and expressly (Birmingham: arranged for the T.Simmons, [Anonymo use of all 1852) [Cabinet us] classes C] The Bruising Royal Arnold- Apothecary: Pharmace Forster, Images of utical Kate and Pharmacy and (London: The Society of Caricature Nigel Medicine in Pharmaceutical Pharmac Great s and Tallis Caricature Press, 1989) y Britain cartoons An Account of the Foxglove Aronson, and its medical J.K.
    [Show full text]
  • Further Remarks on Darwin's Spelling Habits and the Dating Of
    Further Remarks on Darwin’s Spelling Habits and the Dating of Beagle Voyage Manuscripts FRANK J. SULLOWAY Department of Psychology University College London Gower Street, London WClE 6BT, England In this journal I recently published (Sulloway 1982) a systematic table of certain spelling errors that are present in Charles Darwin’s BeugZe voyage manuscripts (1832-1836). My primary purpose in publishing this table was to provide a means of dating Darwin’s Omi- thological Notes (1963 [ 18361). Long the subject of conjecture and debate, the dating of these notes, which contain Darwin’s first tentative speculations about the possible transmutation of species, has ranged from as early as 1835 to as late as 1838. By monitoring Darwin’s spelling habits during the Beagle voyage, I was able to contribute evidence bearing on this historiographic problem. More specifically, just as the geologist can use certain fossilized forms to recognize and date strata of different geological ages, so the historian can use various spelling changes in Darwin’s voyage manuscripts to provide analogous identifying “markers” for certain distinct spans of time during the Beagle voyage. By recording dated usages of the words occasion, coral, and Pacific (and their variant spellings occassion, coral& and Pad&k), I found it possible to divide the Beagle voyage into seven distinct spelling phases and, as a result, to show that Darwin’s famous Omi- thological Notes - drafted during the fifth of these seven phases - were written between late November 1835 and mid-August 1836. Further manuscript evidence, namely, comparison of Darwin’s Omi- thological Notes with eleven other similar specimen catalogues written on identical paper, allowed me to date the Ornithological Notes even more precisely to within a thirty-one-day period (June 18 to July 19, 1836).
    [Show full text]
  • Darwin. a Reader's Guide
    OCCASIONAL PAPERS OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES No. 155 February 12, 2009 DARWIN A READER’S GUIDE Michael T. Ghiselin DARWIN: A READER’S GUIDE Michael T. Ghiselin California Academy of Sciences California Academy of Sciences San Francisco, California, USA 2009 SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS Alan E. Leviton, Ph.D., Editor Hallie Brignall, M.A., Managing Editor Gary C. Williams, Ph.D., Associate Editor Michael T. Ghiselin, Ph.D., Associate Editor Michele L. Aldrich, Ph.D., Consulting Editor Copyright © 2009 by the California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Drive, San Francisco, California 94118 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISSN 0068-5461 Printed in the United States of America Allen Press, Lawrence, Kansas 66044 Table of Contents Preface and acknowledgments . .5 Introduction . .7 Darwin’s Life and Works . .9 Journal of Researches (1839) . .11 Geological Observations on South America (1846) . .13 The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842) . .14 Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands…. (1844) . .14 A Monograph on the Sub-Class Cirripedia, With Figures of All the Species…. (1852-1855) . .15 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) . .16 On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing (1863) . .23 The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species (1877) .
    [Show full text]