More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I Part 31

LETTER 188. TO F. MULLER. Down, January 11th [1866].

I received your interesting letter of November 5th some little time ago, and despatched immediately a copy of my "Journal of Researches." I fear you will think me troublesome in my offer; but have you the second German edition of the "Origin?" which is a translation, with additions, of the third English edition, and is, I think, considerably improved compared with the first edition. I have some spare copies which are of no use to me, and it would be a pleasure to me to send you one, if it would be of any use to you. You would never require to re-read the book, but you might wish to refer to some pa.s.sage. I am particularly obliged for your photograph, for one likes to have a picture in one's mind of any one about whom one is interested. I have received and read with interest your paper on the sponge with h.o.r.n.y spicula. (188/1. "Ueber Darwinella aurea, einen Schwamm mit sternformigen Hornnadeln."--"Archiv.

Mikrosk. Anat." I., page 57, 1866.) Owing to ill-health, and being busy when formerly well, I have for some years neglected periodical scientific literature, and have lately been reading up, and have thus read translations of several of your papers; amongst which I have been particularly glad to read and see the drawings of the metamorphoses of Peneus. (188/2. "On the Metamorphoses of the Prawns," by Dr. Fritz Muller.--"Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XIV., page 104 (with plate), 1864. Translated by W.S. Dallas from "Wiegmann's Archiv," 1863 (see also "Facts and Arguments for Darwin," pa.s.sim, translated by W.S. Dallas: London, 1869).) This seems to me the most interesting discovery in embryology which has been made for years.

I am much obliged to you for telling me a little of your plans for the future; what a strange, but to my taste interesting life you will lead when you retire to your estate on the Itajahy!

You refer in your letter to the facts which Aga.s.siz is collecting, against our views, on the Amazons. Though he has done so much for science, he seems to me so wild and paradoxical in all his views that I cannot regard his opinions as of any value.

LETTER 189. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, January 22nd, 1866.

I thank you for your paper on pigeons (189/1. "On the Pigeons of the Malay Archipelago" (The "Ibis," October, 1865). Mr. Wallace points out (page 366) that "the most striking superabundance of pigeons, as well as of parrots, is confined to the Australo-Malayan sub-region in which...the forest-haunting and fruit-eating mammals, such as monkeys and squirrels, are totally absent." He points out also that monkeys are "exceedingly destructive to eggs and young birds."), which interested me, as everything that you write does. Who would ever have dreamed that monkeys influenced the distribution of pigeons and parrots! But I have had a still higher satisfaction, for I finished your paper yesterday in the "Linnean Transactions." (189/2. "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXV.: a paper on the geographical distribution and variability of the Malayan Papilionidae.) It is admirably done. I cannot conceive that the most firm believer in species could read it without being staggered. Such papers will make many more converts among naturalists than long-winded books such as I shall write if I have strength. I have been particularly struck with your remarks on dimorphism; but I cannot quite understand one point (page 22), (189/3. The pa.s.sage referred to in this letter as needing further explanation is the following: "The last six cases of mimicry are especially instructive, because they seem to indicate one of the processes by which dimorphic forms have been produced. When, as in these cases, one s.e.x differs much from the other, and varies greatly itself, it may happen that individual variations will occasionally occur, having a distant resemblance to groups which are the objects of mimicry, and which it is therefore advantageous to resemble. Such a variety will have a better chance of preservation; the individuals possessing it will be multiplied; and their accidental likeness to the favoured group will be rendered permanent by hereditary transmission, and each successive variation which increases the resemblance being preserved, and all variations departing from the favoured type having less chance of preservation, there will in time result those singular cases of two or more isolated and fixed forms bound together by that intimate relations.h.i.+p which const.i.tutes them the s.e.xes of a single species. The reason why the females are more subject to this kind of modification than the males is, probably, that their slower flight, when laden with eggs, and their exposure to attack while in the act of depositing their eggs upon leaves, render it especially advantageous for them to have some additional protection. This they at once obtain by acquiring a resemblance to other species which, from whatever cause, enjoy a comparative immunity from persecution." Mr. Wallace has been good enough to give us the following note on the above pa.s.sage: "The above quotation deals solely with the question of how certain females of the polymorphic species (Papilio Memnon, P. Pammon, and others) have been so modified as to mimic species of a quite distinct section of the genus; but it does not attempt to explain why or how the other very variable types of female arose, and this was Darwin's difficulty. As the letter I wrote in reply is lost, and as it is rather difficult to explain the matter clearly without reference to the coloured figures, I must go into some little detail, and give now what was probably the explanation I gave at the time. The male of Papilio Memnon is a large black b.u.t.terfly with the nervures towards the margins of the wings bordered with bluish gray dots. It is a forest insect, and the very dark colour renders it conspicuous; but it is a strong flier, and thus survives. To the female, however, this conspicuous ma.s.s of colour would be dangerous, owing to her slower flight, and the necessity for continually resting while depositing her eggs on the leaves of the food-plant of the larva. She has accordingly acquired lighter and more varied tints. The marginal gray-dotted stripes of the male have become of a brownish ash and much wider on the fore wings, while the margin of the hind wings is yellowish, with a more defined spot near the a.n.a.l angle. This is the form most nearly like the male, but it is comparatively rare, the more common being much lighter in colour, the bluish gray of the hind wings being often entirely replaced by a broad band of yellowish white. The a.n.a.l angle is orange-yellow, and there is a bright red spot at the base of the fore wings. Between these two extremes there is every possible variation. Now, it is quite certain that this varying mixture of brown, black, white, yellow, and red is far less conspicuous amid the ever-changing hues of the forest with their glints of suns.h.i.+ne everywhere penetrating so as to form strong contrasts and patches of light and shade. Hence ALL the females--one at one time and one at another--get SOME protection, and that is sufficient to enable them to live long enough to lay their eggs, when their work is finished. Still, under bad conditions they only just managed to survive, and as the colouring of some of these varying females very much resembled that of the protected b.u.t.terflies of the P. c.o.o.n group (perhaps at a time when the tails of the latter were not fully developed) any rudiments of a prolongation of the wing into a tail added to the protective resemblance, and was therefore preserved. The woodcuts of some of these forms in my "Malay Archipelago" (i., page 200) will enable those who have this book at hand better to understand the foregoing explanation."), and should be grateful for an explanation, for I want fully to understand you. How can one female form be selected and the intermediate forms die out, without also the other extreme form also dying out from not having the advantages of the first selected form?

for, as I understand, both female forms occur on the same island. I quite agree with your distinction between dimorphic forms and varieties; but I doubt whether your criterion of dimorphic forms not producing intermediate offspring will suffice, for I know of a good many varieties which must be so called that will not blend or intermix, but produce offspring quite like either parent.

I have been particularly struck with your remarks on geographical distribution in Celebes. It is impossible that anything could be better put, and would give a cold shudder to the immutable naturalists.

And now I am going to ask a question which you will not like. How does your journal get on? It will be a shame if you do not popularise your researches.

LETTER 190. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN. Hurstpierpoint, Suss.e.x, July 2nd, 1866.

I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of numbers of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, the self-acting and necessary effects of Natural Selection, that I am led to conclude that the term itself, and your mode of ill.u.s.trating it, however clear and beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to impress it on the general naturalist public. The two last cases of the misunderstanding are: (1) the article on "Darwin and his Teachings" in the last "Quarterly Journal of Science," which, though very well written and on the whole appreciative, yet concludes with a charge of something like blindness, in your not seeing that Natural Selection requires the constant watching of an intelligent "chooser," like man's selection to which you so often compare it; and (2) in Janet's recent work on the "Materialism of the Present Day," reviewed in last Sat.u.r.day's "Reader,"

by an extract from which I see that he considers your weak point to be that you do not see that "thought and direction are essential to the action of Natural Selection." The same objection has been made a score of times by your chief opponents, and I have heard it as often stated myself in conversation. Now, I think this arises almost entirely from your choice of the term "Natural Selection" and so constantly comparing it in its effects to Man's Selection, and also your so frequently personifying nature as "selecting," as "preferring," as "seeking only the good of the species," etc., etc. To the few this is as clear as daylight, and beautifully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a stumbling-block. I wish, therefore, to suggest to you the possibility of entirely avoiding this source of misconception in your great work (if not now too late), and also in any future editions of the "Origin,"

and I think it may be done without difficulty and very effectually by adopting Spencer's term (which he generally uses in preference to Natural Selection)--viz., "survival of the fittest."

This term is the plain expression of the fact; Natural Selection is a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain degree indirect and incorrect, since, even personifying Nature, she does not so much select special variations as exterminate the most unfavourable ones.

Combined with the enormous multiplying powers of all organisms, and the "struggle for existence" leading to the constant destruction of by far the largest proportion--facts which no one of your opponents, as far as I am aware, has denied or misunderstood--"the survival of the fittest"

rather than of those who were less fit could not possibly be denied or misunderstood. Neither would it be possible to say that to ensure the "survival of the fittest" any intelligent chooser was necessary; whereas when you say Natural Selection acts so as to choose those that are fittest, it IS misunderstood, and apparently always will be. Referring to your book, I find such expressions as "Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends." This, it seems, will always be misunderstood; but if you had said "Man selects only for his own good; Nature, by the inevitable 'survival of the fittest,' only for that of the being she tends," it would have been less liable to be so.

I find you use the term "Natural Selection" in two senses: (1) for the simple preservation of favourable and rejection of unfavourable variations, in which case it is equivalent to "survival of the fittest"; and (2) for the effect or change produced by this preservation, as when you say, "To sum up the circ.u.mstances favourable or unfavourable to Natural Selection," and again, "Isolation, also, is an important element in the process of Natural Selection." Here it is not merely "survival of the fittest," but change produced by survival of the fittest, that is meant. On looking over your fourth chapter, I find that these alterations of terms can be in most cases easily made, while in some cases the addition of "or survival of the fittest" after "Natural Selection" would be best; and in others, less likely to be misunderstood, the original term may stand alone.

I could not venture to propose to any other person so great an alteration of terms, but you, I am sure, will give it an impartial consideration, and if you really think the change will produce a better understanding of your work, will not hesitate to adopt it.

It is evidently also necessary not to personify "Nature" too much--though I am very apt to do it myself--since people will not understand that all such phrases are metaphors. Natural Selection is, when understood, so necessary and self-evident a principle, that it is a pity it should be in any way obscured; and it therefore seems to me that the free use of "survival of the fittest," which is a compact and accurate definition of it, would tend much to its being more widely accepted, and prevent it being so much misrepresented and misunderstood.

There is another objection made by Janet which is also a very common one. It is that the chances are almost infinite against the particular kind of variation required being coincident with each change of external conditions, to enable an animal to become modified by Natural Selection in harmony with such changed conditions; especially when we consider that, to have produced the almost infinite modifications of organic beings, this coincidence must have taken place an almost infinite number of times.

Now, it seems to me that you have yourself led to this objection being made, by so often stating the case too strongly against yourself. For example, at the commencement of Chapter IV. you ask if it is "improbable that useful variations should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations"; and a little further on you say, "unless profitable variations do occur, Natural Selection can do nothing." Now, such expressions have given your opponents the advantage of a.s.suming that favourable variations are rare accidents, or may even for long periods never occur at all, and thus Janet's argument would appear to many to have great force. I think it would be better to do away with all such qualifying expressions, and constantly maintain (what I certainly believe to be the fact) that variations of every kind are always occurring in every part of every species, and therefore that favourable variations are always ready when wanted. You have, I am sure, abundant materials to prove this; and it is, I believe, the grand fact that renders modification and adaptation to conditions almost always possible. I would put the burthen of proof on my opponents to show that any one organ, structure, or faculty does not vary, even during one generation, among all the individuals of a species; and also to show any mode or way in which any such organ, etc., does not vary. I would ask them to give any reason for supposing that any organ, etc., is ever absolutely identical at any one time in all the individuals of a species, and if not then it is always varying, and there are always materials which, from the simple fact that "the fittest survive,"

will tend to the modification of the race into harmony with changed conditions.

I hope these remarks may be intelligible to you, and that you will be so kind as to let me know what you think of them.

I have not heard for some time how you are getting on. I hope you are still improving in health, and that you will now be able to get on with your great work, for which so many thousands are looking with interest.

LETTER 191. TO A.R. WALLACE.

(191/1. From "Life and Letters," III., page 45.)

Down, July 5th [1866].

I have been much interested by your letter, which is as clear as daylight. I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H.

Spencer's excellent expression of "the survival of the fittest."

This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words Natural Selection. I formerly thought, probably in an exaggerated degree, that it was a great advantage to bring into connection natural and artificial selection; this indeed led me to use a term in common, and I still think it some advantage. I wish I had received your letter two months ago, for I would have worked in "the survival," etc., often in the new edition of the "Origin," which is now almost printed off, and of which I will of course send you a copy. I will use the term in my next book on domestic animals, etc., from which, by the way, I plainly see that you expect MUCH too much. The term Natural Selection has now been so largely used abroad and at home that I doubt whether it could be given up, and with all its faults I should be sorry to see the attempt made. Whether it will be rejected must now depend "on the survival of the fittest." As in time the term must grow intelligible the objections to its use will grow weaker and weaker. I doubt whether the use of any term would have made the subject intelligible to some minds, clear as it is to others; for do we not see even to the present day Malthus on Population absurdly misunderstood? This reflection about Malthus has often comforted me when I have been vexed at this misstatement of my views. As for M. Janet, he is a metaphysician, and such gentlemen are so acute that I think they often misunderstand common folk. Your criticism on the double sense in which I have used Natural Selection is new to me and unanswerable; but my blunder has done no harm, for I do not believe that any one, excepting you, has ever observed it. Again, I agree that I have said too much about "favourable variations," but I am inclined to think that you put the opposite side too strongly: if every part of every being varied, I do not think we should see the same end or object gained by such wonderfully diversified means.

I hope you are enjoying the country, and are in good health, and are working hard at your "Malay Archipelago" book, for I will always put this wish in every note I write to you, as some good people always put in a text. My health keeps much the same, or rather improves, and I am able to work some hours daily.

LETTER 192. TO C. LYELL. Down, October 9th [1866].

One line to say that I have received your note and the proofs safely, and will read them with the greatest pleasure; but I am certain I shall not be able to send any criticism on the astronomical chapter (192/1.

"Principles of Geology," by Sir Charles Lyell; Edition X., London, 1867.

Chapter XIII. deals with "Vicissitudes in Climate how far influenced by Astronomical Causes."), as I am as ignorant as a pig on this head.

I shall require some days to read what has been sent. I have just read Chapter IX. (192/2. Chapter IX., "Theory of the Progressive Development of Organic Life at Successive Geological Periods."), and like it extremely; it all seems to me very clear, cautious, and sagacious. You do not allude to one very striking point enough, or at all--viz., the cla.s.ses having been formerly less differentiated than they now are; and this specialisation of cla.s.ses must, we may conclude, fit them for different general habits of life as well as the specialisation of particular organs.

Page 162 (192/3. On page 163 Lyell refers to the absence of Cetacea in Secondary rocks, and expresses the opinion that their absence "is a negative fact of great significance, which seems more than any other to render it highly improbable that we shall ever find air-breathers of the highest cla.s.s in any of the Primary strata, or in any of the older members of the Secondary series.") I rather demur to your argument from Cetacea: as they are such greatly modified mammals, they ought to have come in rather later in the series. You will think me rather impudent, but the discussion at the end of Chapter IX. on man (192/4. Loc. cit., pages 167-73, "Introduction of Man, to what extent a Change of the System."), who thinks so much of his fine self, seems to me too long, or rather superfluous, and too orthodox, except for the beneficed clergy.

LETTER 193. TO V. CARUS.

(193/1. The following letter refers to the 4th edition of the "Origin,"

1866, which was translated by Professor Carus, and formed the 3rd German edition. Carus continued to translate Darwin's books, and a strong bond of friends.h.i.+p grew up between author and translator (see "Life and Letters," III., page 48). Nageli's pamphlet was first noticed in the 5th English edition.)

Down, November 21st, 1866.

...With respect to a note on Nageli (193/2. "Entstehung und Begriff der Naturhistorischen Art," an Address given before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich, March 28th, 1865. See "Life and Letters," III., page 50, for Mr. Darwin's letter to the late Prof. Nageli.) I find on consideration it would be too long; for so good a pamphlet ought to be discussed at full length or not at all. He makes a mistake in supposing that I say that useful characters are always constant. His view about distinct species converging and acquiring the same identical structure is by implication answered in the discussion which I have given on the endless diversity of means for gaining the same end.

The most important point, as it seems to me, in the pamphlet is that on the morphological characters of plants, and I find I could not answer this without going into much detail.

The answer would be, as it seems to me, that important morphological characters, such as the position of the ovules and the relative position of the stamens to the ovarium (hypogynous, perigynous, etc.) are sometimes variable in the same species, as I incidentally mention when treating of the ray-florets in the Compositae and Umbelliferae; and I do not see how Nageli could maintain that differences in such characters prove an inherent tendency towards perfection. I see that I have forgotten to say that you have my fullest consent to append any discussion which you may think fit to the new edition. As for myself I cannot believe in spontaneous generation, and though I expect that at some future time the principle of life will be rendered intelligible, at present it seems to me beyond the confines of science.

LETTER 194. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 22nd [1866?].

I suppose that you have received Hackel's book (194/1. "Generelle Morphologie," 1866.) some time ago, as I have done. Whenever you have had time to read through some of it, enough to judge by, I shall be very curious to hear your judgment. I have been able to read a page or two here and there, and have been interested and instructed by parts. But my vague impression is that too much s.p.a.ce is given to methodical details, and I can find hardly any facts or detailed new views. The number of new words, to a man like myself, weak in his Greek, is something dreadful.

He seems to have a pa.s.sion for defining, I daresay very well, and for coining new words. From my very vague notions on the book, and from its immense size, I should fear a translation was out of the question. I see he often quotes both of us with praise. I am sure I should like the book much, if I could read it straight off instead of groaning and swearing at each sentence. I have not yet had time to read your Physiology (194/2. "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," 1866.) book, except one chapter; but I have just re-read your book on "Man's Place, etc.," and I think I admire it more this second time even than the first. I doubt whether you will ever have time, but if ever you have, do read the chapter on hybridism in the new edition of the "Origin" (194/3. Fourth Edition (1866).), for I am very anxious to make you think less seriously on that difficulty. I have improved the chapter a good deal, I think, and have come to more definite views. Asa Gray and Fritz Muller (the latter especially) think that the new facts on illegitimate offspring of dimorphic plants, throw much indirect light on the subject. Now that I have worked up domestic animals, I am convinced of the truth of the Pallasian (194/4. See Letter 80.) view of loss of sterility under domestication, and this seems to me to explain much. But I had no intention, when I began this note, of running on at such length on hybridism; but you have been Objector-General on this head.

LETTER 195. TO T. RIVERS.

(195/1. For another letter of Mr. Darwin's to him see "Life and Letters," III., page 57.)

Down, December 23rd [1866?].

I do not know whether you will forgive a stranger addressing you.

My name may possibly be known to you. I am now writing a book on the variation of animals and plants under domestication; and there is one little piece of information which it is more likely that you could give me than any man in the world, if you can spare half an hour from your professional labours, and are inclined to be so kind. I am collecting all accounts of what some call "sports," that is, of what I shall call "bud-variations," i.e. a moss-rose suddenly appearing on a Provence rose--a nectarine on a peach, etc. Now, what I want to know, and which is not likely to be recorded in print, is whether very slight differences, too slight to be worth propagating, thus appear suddenly by buds. As every one knows, in raising seedlings you may have every gradation from individuals identical with the parent, to slight varieties, to strongly marked varieties. Now, does this occur with buds or do only rather strongly marked varieties thus appear at rare intervals of time by buds? (195/2. Mr. Rivers could not give a decided answer, but he did not remember to have seen slight bud-variations. The question is discussed in "Variation under Domestication," Edition II., Volume I., page 443.) I should be most grateful for information. I may add that if you have observed in your enormous experience any remarkable "bud-variations," and could spare time to inform me, and allow me to quote them on your authority, it would be the greatest favour. I feel sure that these "bud-variations" are most interesting to any one endeavouring to make out what little can be made out on the obscure subject of variation.