Darwin's preface (a short history of evolution) [fwd]

[Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>]

Hi,

Below is the 3rd preface to Darwin's 'Species', in it he clearly gives
credit to Wallace as a co-discover of evolutionary theory. Even to the point
of co-presenting the work to the Linnean Society on July 1, 1858. 

Oh, Erazmus Darwin was Charles' grandfather not uncle. Sorry for any
confusion.


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Forwarded message:

> Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 00:46:47 -0600
> X-within-URL: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/preface.html

>    The Origin of Species
>    Preface to the Third Edition
>    by Charles Darwin
>    
>    I will here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the
>    Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists
>    believed that species were immutable productions, and had been
>    separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many
>    authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that
>    species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are
>    the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. Passing over
>    allusions to the subject in the classical writers,(1) the first author
>    who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon.
>    But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he
>    does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of
>    species, I need not here enter on details.
>    
>    Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited
>    much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his
>    views in 1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his "Philosophie
>    Zoologique,' and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduction to his
>    "Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vert�bres.' In these works he upholds the
>    doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other
>    species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the
>    probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic
>    world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.
>    Lamarck seems to have been chiefly led to his conclusion on the
>    gradual change of species, by the difficulty of distinguishing species
>    and varieties, by the almost perfect gradation of forms in certain
>    groups, and by the analogy of domestic productions. With respect to
>    the means of modification, he attributed something to the direct
>    action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing
>    of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the
>    effects of habit. To this latter agency he seemed to attribute all the
>    beautiful adaptations in nature; -- such as the long neck of the
>    giraffe for browsing on the branches of trees. But he likewise
>    believed in a law of progressive development; and as all the forms of
>    life thus tend to progress, in order to account for the existence at
>    the present day of simple productions, he maintains that such forms
>    are now spontaneously generated.(2)
>    
>    Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, as is stated in his 'Life,' written by his
>    son, suspected, as early as 1795, that what we call species are
>    various degenerations of the same type. It was not until 1828 that he
>    published his conviction that the same forms have not been perpetuated
>    since the origin of all things. Geoffroy seems to have relied chiefly
>    on the conditions of life, or the 'monde ambiant' as the cause of
>    change. He was cautious in drawing conclusions, and did not believe
>    that existing species are now undergoing modification; and, as his son
>    adds, "C'est donc un probl�me � r�server enti�rement � l'avenir,
>    suppos� meme que l'avenir doive avoir prise sur lui.'
>    
>    In 1813, Dr W. C. Wells read before the Royal Society 'An Account of a
>    White female, part of whose skin resembled that of a Negro'; but his
>    paper was not published until his famous 'Two Essays upon Dew and
>    Single Vision' appeared in 1818. In this paper he distinctly
>    recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is the first
>    recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to the
>    races of man, and to certain characters alone. After remarking that
>    negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain tropical
>    diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some
>    degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated
>    animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this
>    latter case 'by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more
>    slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted
>    for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of
>    man, which would occur among the first few and scattered inhabitants
>    of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be better fitted than
>    the others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would
>    consequently multiply, while the others would decrease; not only from
>    their inability to sustain the attacks of disease, but from their
>    incapacity of contending with their more vigorous neighbours. The
>    colour of this vigorous race I take for granted, from what has been
>    already said, would be dark. But the same disposition to form
>    varieties still existing, a darker and a darker race would in the
>    course of time occur: and as the darkest would be the best fitted for
>    the climate, this would at length become the most prevalent; if not
>    the only race, in the particular country in which it had originated.'
>    He then extends these same views to the white inhabitants of colder
>    climates. I am indebted to Mr Rowley, of the United States, for having
>    called my attention, through Mr Brace, to the above passage in Dr
>    Wells' work.
>    
>    The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, afterwards Dean of Manchester, in the
>    fourth volume of the 'Horticultural Transactions,' 1822, and in his
>    work on the 'Amaryllidaceae' (1837, pp. 19, 339), declares that
>    'horticultural experiments have established, beyond the possibility of
>    refutation, that botanical species are only a higher and more
>    permanent class of varieties.' He extends the same view to animals.
>    The Dean believes that single species of each genus were created in an
>    originally highly plastic condition, and that these have produced,
>    chiefly by intercrossing, but likewise by variation, all our existing
>    species.
>    
>    In 1826 Professor Grant, in the concluding paragraph in his well-known
>    paper ('Edinburgh philosophical journal,' vol. xiv. p. 283) on the
>    Spongilla, clearly declares his belief that species are descended from
>    other species, and that they become improved in the course of
>    modification. This same view was given in his 55th Lecture, published
>    in the 'Lancet' in 1834.
>    
>    In 1831 Mr Patrick Matthew published his work on 'Naval Timber and
>    Arboriculture,' in which he gives precisely the same view on the
>    origin of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by
>    Mr Wallace and myself in the 'Linnean journal,' and as that enlarged
>    in the present volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr Matthew
>    very briefly in scattered passages in an Appendix to a work on a
>    different subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr Matthew
>    himself drew attention to it in the 'Gardener's Chronicle,' on April
>    7th, 1860. The differences of Mr Matthew's view from mine are not of
>    much importance; he seems to consider that the world was nearly
>    depopulated at successive periods, and then re-stocked; and he gives
>    as an alternative, that new forms may be generated ' without the
>    presence of any mould or germ of former aggregates.' I am not sure
>    that I understand some passages; but it seems that he attributes much
>    influence to the direct action of the conditions of life. He clearly
>    saw, however, the full force of the principle of natural selection.
>    
>    The celebrated geologist and naturalist, Von Buch, in his excellent
>    'Description physique des Isles Canaries' (1836, p. 147), clearly
>    expresses his belief that varieties slowly become changed into
>    permanent species, which are no longer capable of intercrossing.
>    
>    Rafinesque, in his 'New Flora of North America,' published in 1836,
>    wrote (p. 6) as follows:- 'All species might have been varieties once,
>    and many varieties are gradually becoming species by assuming constant
>    and peculiar characters'; but farther on (p. 18) he adds, 'except the
>    original types or ancestors of the genus.'
>    
>    In 1843-44 Professor Haldeman ('Boston journal of Nat. Hist. U.
>    States, vol. iv. p. 468) has ably given the arguments for and against
>    the hypothesis of the development and modification of species: he
>    seems to lean towards the side of change.
>    
>    The 'Vestiges of Creation' appeared in 1844. In the tenth and much
>    improved edition (1853) the anonymous author says (p. 155):- 'The
>    proposition determined on after much consideration is, that the
>    several series of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to
>    the highest and most recent, are, under the providence of God, the
>    results, first, of an impulse which has been imparted to the forms of
>    life, advancing them, in definite times, by generation, through grades
>    of organisation terminating in the highest dicotyledons- and
>    vertebrata, these grades being few in number, and generally marked by
>    intervals of organic character, which we find to be a practical
>    difficulty in ascertaining affinities; second, of another impulse
>    connected with the vital forces, tending, in the course of
>    generations, to modify organic structures in accordance with external
>    circumstances, as food, the nature of the habitat, and the meteoric
>    agencies, these being the ''adaptations'' of the natural theologian.'
>    The author apparently believes that organisation progresses by sudden
>    leaps, but that the effects produced by the conditions of life are
>    gradual. He argues with much force on general grounds that species are
>    not immutable productions. But I cannot see how the two supposed
>    'impulses' account in a scientific sense for the numerous and
>    beautiful co-adaptations which we see throughout nature; I cannot see
>    that we thus gain any insight how, for instance, a woodpecker has
>    become adapted to its peculiar habits of Life. The work, from its
>    powerful and brilliant style, though displaying in the earlier
>    editions little accurate knowledge and a great want of scientific
>    caution, immediately had a very wide circulation. In my opinion it 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.
>    
>    In 1846 the veteran geologist N. J. d'Omalius d'Halloy published in an
>    excellent though short paper ("Bulletins de l'Acad. Roy Bruxelles,'
>    tom. xiii. p. 581) his opinion that it is more probable that new
>    species have been produced by descent with modification than that they
>    have been separately created: the author first promulgated this
>    opinion in 1831.
>    
>    Professor Owen, in 1849 ('Nature of Limbs,' p. 86), wrote as follows:-
>    "The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh under diverse such
>    modifications, upon this planet, long prior to the existence of those
>    animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or
>    secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such
>    organic phenomena may have been committed, we, as yet, are ignorant.'
>    In his Address to the British Association, in 1858, he speaks (p. li.)
>    of "the axiom of the continuous operation of creative power, or of the
>    ordained becoming of living things.' Farther on (p. xc.), after
>    referring to geographical distribution, he adds, 'These phenomena
>    shake our confidence in the conclusion that the Apteryx of New Zealand
>    and the Red Grouse of England were distinct creations in and for those
>    islands respectively. Always, also, it may be well to bear in mind
>    that by the word ''creation'' the zoologist means '"a process he knows
>    not what.'' He amplifies this idea by adding that when such cases as
>    that of the Red Grouse are enumerated by the zoologists as evidence of
>    distinct creation of the bird in and for such islands, he chiefly
>    expresses that he knows not how the Red Grouse came to be there, and
>    there exclusively; signifying also, by this mode of expressing such
>    ignorance, his belief that both the bird and the islands owed their
>    origin to a great first Creative Cause.' If we interpret these
>    sentences given in the same Address, one by the other, it appears that
>    this eminent philosopher felt in 1858 his confidence shaken that the
>    Apteryx and the Red Grouse first appeared in their respective homes,
>    'he knew not how,' or by some process 'he knew not what.'
>    
>    This Address was delivered after the papers by Mr Wallace and myself
>    on the Origin of Species, presently to be referred to, had been read
>    before the Linnean Society. When the first edition of this work was
>    published, I was so completely deceived, as were many others, by such
>    expressions as 'the continuous operation of creative power,' that I
>    included Professor Owen with other palaeontologists as being firmly
>    convinced of the immutability of species; but it appears ('Anat. of
>    Vertebrates,' vol. iii. p. 796) that this was on my part a
>    preposterous error. In the last edition of this work I inferred, and
>    the inference still seems to me perfectly just, from a passage
>    beginning with the words 'no doubt the type-form,' &c. (Ibid. vol. i.
>    p. xxxv.), that Professor Owen admitted that natural selection may
>    have done something in the formation of a new species; but this it
>    appears (Ibid. vol. nl. p. 798) is inaccurate and without evidence. I
>    also gave some extracts from a correspondence between Professor Owen
>    and the Editor of the 'London Review,' from which it appeared manifest
>    to the Editor as well as to myself, that Professor Owen claimed to
>    have promulgated the theory of natural selection before I had done so;
>    and I expressed my surprise and satisfaction at this announcement; but
>    as far as it is possible to understand certain recently published
>    passages (Ibid. vol. iii. p. 798) I have either partially or wholly
>    again fallen into error. It is consolatory to me that others find
>    Professor Owen's controversial writings as difficult to understand and
>    to reconcile with each other, as I do. As far as the mere enunciation
>    of the principle of natural selection is concerned, it is quite
>    immaterial whether or not Professor Owen preceded me, for both of us,
>    as shown in this historical sketch, were long ago preceded by Dr Wells
>    and Mr Matthews.
>    
>    M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, in his lectures delivered in 1850
>    (of which a R�sum� appeared in the 'Revue et Nag. de Zoolog.,' Jan.
>    1851), briefly gives his reason for believing that specific characters
>    "sont fix�s, pour chaque esp�ce, tant qu'elle se perp�tue au milieu
>    des m�mes circonstances: ils se modifient, si les circonstances
>    ambiantes viennent � changer.' 'En r�sum�, l'observation des animaux
>    sauvages d�montre d�j� la variabilit� limit� des esp�ces. Les
>    exp�riences sur les animaux sauvages devenus domestiques, et sur les
>    animaux domestiques redevenus sauvages, la d�montrent plus clairement
>    encore. Ces memes exp�riences prouvent, de plus, que les diff�rences
>    produites peuvent etre de valeur g�n�rique.' In his 'Hist. Nat.
>    G�n�ral� (tom. ii. p. 430, 1859) he amplifies analogous conclusions.
>    
>    From a circular lately issued it appears that Dr Freke, in 1851
>    ("Dublin Medical Press,' p. 322), propounded the doctrine that all
>    organic beings have descended from one primordial form. His grounds of
>    belief and treatment of the subject are wholly different from mine;
>    but as Dr Freke has now (1861) published his Essay on the 'Origin of
>    Species by means of Organic Affinity,' the difficult attempt to give
>    any idea of his views would be superfluous on my part.
>    
>    Mr Herbert Spencer, in an Essay (originally published in the 'Leader,'
>    March, 1852, and republished in his 'Essays,' in 1858), has contrasted
>    the theories of the Creation and the Development of organic beings
>    with remarkable skill and force. He argues from the analogy of
>    domestic productions, from the changes which the embryos of many
>    species undergo, from the difficulty of distinguishing species and
>    varieties, and from the principle of general gradation, that species
>    have been modified; and he attributes the modification to the change
>    of circumstances. The author (1855) has also treated psychology on the
>    principle of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and
>    capacity by gradation.
>    
>    In 1852 M. Naudin, a distinguished botanist, expressly stated, in an
>    admirable paper on the Origin of Species ('Revue Horticole, p. 102;
>    since partly republished in the 'Nouvelles Archives du Mus�um,' tom.
>    i. p. 171), his belief that species are formed in an analogous manner
>    as varieties are under cultivation; and the latter process he
>    attributes to man's power of selection. But he does not show how
>    selection acts under nature. He believes, like Dean Herbert, that
>    species, when nascent, were more plastic than at present. He lays
>    weight on what he calls the principle of finality, 'puissance
>    myst�rieuse, ind�termin�e; fatalit� pour les uns; pour les autres
>    volont� providentielle, dont l'action incessante sur les �tres vivants
>    d�termine, � toutes les �poques de l'existence du monde, la forme, le
>    volume, et la dur�e de chacun d'eux, en raison de sa destin�e dans
>    l'ordre de choses dont il fait partie. C'est cette puissance qui
>    harmonise chaque membre � l'ensemble, en l'appropriant � la fonction
>    qu'il doit remplir dans l'organisme g�n�ral de la nature, fonction qui
>    est pour lui sa raison d'�tre.'(3)
>    
>    In 1853 a celebrated geologist, Count Keyserling ("Bulletin de la Soc.
>    G�olog.,' 2nd Ser., tom. x. p. 357), suggested that as new diseases,
>    supposed to have been caused by some miasma, have arisen and spread
>    over the world, so at certain periods the germs of existing species
>    may have been chemically affected by circumambient molecules of a
>    particular nature, and thus have given rise to new forms.
>    
>    In this same year, 1853, Dr Schaaffhausen published an excellent
>    pamphlet ('Verhand. des Naturhist. Vereins der preuss. Rheinlands,'
>    &c.), in which he maintains the development of organic forms on the
>    earth. He infers that many species have kept true for long periods,
>    whereas a few have become modified. The distinction of species he
>    explains by the destruction of intermediate graduated forms. 'Thus
>    living plants and animals are not separated from the extinct by new
>    creations, but are to be regarded as their descendants through
>    continued reproduction.'
>    
>    A well-known French botanist, M. Lecoq, writes in 1854 ('Etudes sur
>    G�ograph. Bot.,' tom. i. p. 250), 'On voit que nos recherches sur la
>    fixit� ou la variation de l'esp�ce, nous conduisent directement aux
>    id�es �mises, par deux hommes justement c�l�bres, Geoffroy
>    Saint-Hilaire et Goethe.' Some other passages scattered through M.
>    Lecoq's large work, make it a little doubtful how far he extends his
>    views on the modification of species.
>    
>    The 'Philosophy of Creation' has been treated in a masterly manner by
>    the Rev. Baden Powell, in his "Essays on the Unity of Worlds,' 1855.
>    Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that
>    the introduction of new species is "a regular, not a casual
>    phenomenon,' or, as Sir John Herschel expresses it, 'a natural in
>    contradistinction to a miraculous, process.'
>    
>    The third volume of the "Journal of the Linnean Society' contains
>    papers, read July 1st, 1858, by Mr Wallace and myself, in which, as
>    stated in the introductory remarks to this volume, the theory of
>    Natural Selection is promulgated by Mr Wallace with admirable force
>    and clearness.
>    
>    Von Baer, towards whom all zoologists feel so profound a respect,
>    expressed about the year 1859 (see Prof. Rudolph Wagner, a
>    "Zoologisch-Anthropologische Untersuchungen,' 1861, s. 51) his
>    conviction, chiefly grounded on the laws of geographical distribution,
>    that forms now perfectly distinct have descended from a single
>    parent-form.
>    
>    In June, 1859, Professor Huxley gave a lecture before the Royal
>    Institution on the 'Persistent Types of Animal Life.' Referring to
>    such cases, he remarks, "It is difficult to comprehend the meaning of
>    such facts as these, if we suppose that each species of animal and
>    plant, or each great type of organisation, was formed and placed upon
>    the surface of the globe at long intervals by a distinct act of
>    creative power; and it is well to recollect that such an assumption is
>    as unsupported by tradition or revelation as it is opposed to the
>    general analogy of nature. If, on the other hand, we view 'Persistent
>    Types' in relation to that hypothesis which supposes the species
>    living at any time to be the result of the gradual modification of
>    pre-existing species a hypothesis which, though unproven, and sadly
>    damaged by some of its supporters, is yet the only one to which
>    physiology lends any countenance; their existence would seem to show
>    that the amount of modification which living beings have undergone
>    during geological time is but very small in relation to the whole
>    series of changes which they have suffered.'
>    
>    In December, 1859, Dr Hooker published his 'Introduction to the
>    Australian Flora.' In the first part of this great work he admits the
>    truth of the descent and modification of species, and supports this
>    doctrine by many original observations.
>    
>    The first edition of this work was published on November 24th, 1859,
>    and the second edition on January 7th, 1860.
>    
>    Footnotes
>    
>    (1) Aristotle, in his 'Physicae Auscultationes' (lib. 2, cap. 8, s.
>    2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn
>    grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer's corn when threshed
>    out of doors, applies the same argument to organization: and adds (as
>    translated by Mr Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to
>    me), 'So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having
>    this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example,
>    grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the
>    grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they
>    were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident.
>    And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to
>    exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things
>    together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they
>    were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been
>    appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity, and whatsoever
>    things were not thus constituted, perished, and still perish. We here
>    see the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how little
>    Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks on
>    the formation of the teeth.
>    
>    (2) I have taken the date of the first publication of Lamarck from
>    Isid. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's ('Hist. Nat. G�n�rale,' tom. ii. p.
>    405, 1859) excellent history of opinion on this subject. In this work
>    a full account is given of Buffon's conclusions on the same subject.
>    It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr Erasmus Darwin,
>    anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in
>    his 'Zoonomia' (vol. i. pp. 500-510), published in 1794. According to
>    Isid. Geoffroy there is no doubt that Goethe was an extreme partisan
>    of similar views, as shown in the Introduction to a work written in
>    1794 and 1795, but not published till long afterwards: he has
>    pointedly remarked ('Goethe als Naturforscher,' von Dr Karl Medinge s.
>    34) that the future question for naturalists will be how, for
>    instance, cattle got their horns, and not for what they are used. It
>    is rather a singular instance of the manner in which similar views
>    arise at about the same time, that Goethe in Germany, Dr Darwin in
>    England, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (as we shall immediately see) in
>    France; came to the same conclusion on the origin of species, in the
>    years 1794-5.
>    
>    (3) From references in Bronn's 'Untersuchungen �ber die
>    Entwickenlungs-Gesetze,' it appears that the celebrated botanist and
>    palaeontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species
>    undergo development and modification. Dalton, likewise, in Pander and
>    Dalton's work on Fossil Sloths, expressed, in 1821 a similar belief.
>    Similar views have, as is well known, been maintained by Oken in his
>    mystical 'Natur-philosophie.' From other references in Godron's work
>    'Sur l'Esp�ce,' it seems that Bory St Vincent, Burdach, Poiret, and
>    Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being
>    produced.
>    
>    I may add, that of the thirty-four authors named in this Historical
>    Sketch, who believe in the modification of species, or at least
>    disbelieve in separate acts of creation, twenty-seven have written on
>    special branches of natural history or geology.
>    
>    
>    Contents 
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>    
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