[In the letters already given we have had occasion to notice the general bearing of a number of botanical problems on the wider question of Evolution. The detailed work in botany which my father accomplished by the guidance of the light cast on the study of natural history by his own work on Evolution remains to be noticed. In a letter to Mr. Murray, September 74th, 1861, speaking of his book on the ‘Fertilisation of Orchids’ he says: “It will perhaps serve to illustrate how Natural History may be worked under the belief of the modification of species.” This remark gives a suggestion as to the value and interest of his botanical work, and it might be expressed in far more emphatic language without danger of exaggeration.

In the same letter to Mr. Murray, he says: “I think this little volume will do good to the ‘Origin,’ as it will show that I have worked hard at details.” It is true that his botanical work added a mass of corroborative detail to the case for Evolution, but the chief support to his doctrines given by these researches was of another kind. They supplied an argument against those critics who have so freely dogmatised as to the uselessness of particular structures, and as to the consequent impossibility of their having been developed by means of natural selection. His observations on Orchids enabled him to say: “I can show the meaning of some of the apparently meaningless ridges, horns; who will now venture to say that this or that structure is useless?”

[The letters given in the present chapter tell their story with sufficient clearness, and need but a few words of explanation. Mr. Wallace's Essay, referred to in the first letter, bore the title, ‘On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type,’ and was published in the Linnean Society's ‘Journal’ (1858, vol. iii. p. 53) as part of the joint paper of “Messrs. C. Darwin and A. Wallace,” of which the full title was ‘On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.’

My father's contribution of the paper consisted of (1) Extracts from the sketch of 1844; (2) part of a letter addressed to Dr. Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, and which is given at p. 120. The paper was “communicated” to the Society by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker, in whose prefatory letter, a clear account of the circumstances of the case is given.

Referring to Mr. Wallace's Essay, they wrote:—

“So highly did Mr. Darwin appreciate the value of the views therein set forth, that he proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. Wallace's consent to allow the Essay to be published as soon as possible.

[The period illustrated by the following letters includes the years between my father's return from the voyage of the Beagle and his settling at Down. It is marked by the gradual appearance of that weakness of health which ultimately forced him to leave London and take up his abode for the rest of his life in a quiet country house. In June 1841 he writes to Lyell: “My father scarcely seems to expect that I shall become strong for some years; it has been a bitter mortification for me to digest the conclusion that the ‘race is for the strong,’ and that I shall probably do little more, but be content to admire the strides others make in science.”

There is no evidence of any intention of entering a profession after his return from the voyage, and early in 1840 he wrote to Fitz-Roy: “I have nothing to wish for, excepting stronger health to go on with the subjects to which I have joyfully determined to devote my life.”

These two conditions—permanent ill-health and a passionate love of scientific work for its own sake—determined thus early in his career, the character of his whole future life. They impelled him to lead a retired life of constant labour, carried on to the utmost limits of his physical power, a life which signally falsified his melancholy prophecy.

[Under the date of October 1st, 1859, in my father's Diary occurs the entry: “Finished proofs (thirteen months and ten days) of Abstract on ‘Origin of Species’ 1250 copies printed. The first edition was published on November 24th, and all copies sold first day.”

On October 2nd he started for a water-cure establishment at Ilkely, near Leeds, where he remained with his family until December, and on the 9th of that month he was again at Down. The only other entry in the Diary for this year is as follows: “During end of November and beginning of December, employed in correcting for second edition of 3000 copies; multitude of letters.”

The first and a few of the subsequent letters refer to proof sheets, and to early copies of the ‘Origin’ which were sent to friends before the book was published.]

C. Lyell to C. Darwin.

October 3rd, 1859.

My Dear Darwin,—I have just finished your volume and right glad I am that I did my best with Hooker to persuade you to publish it without waiting for a time which probably could never have arrived, though you lived till the age of a hundred, when you had prepared all your facts on which you ground so many grand generalizations.

The earliest records of the family show the Darwins to have been substantial yeomen residing on the northern borders of Lincolnshire, close to Yorkshire. The name is now very unusual in England, but I believe that it is not unknown in the neighbourhood of Sheffield and in Lancashire. Down to the year 1600 we find the name spelt in a variety of ways— Derwent, Darwen, Darwynne, &c. It is possible, therefore, that the family migrated at some unknown date from Yorkshire, Cumberland, or Derbyshire, where Derwent occurs as the name of a river.

The first ancestor of whom we know was one William Darwin, who lived, about the year 1500, at Marton, near Gainsborough. His great grandson, Richard Darwyn, inherited land at Marton and elsewhere, and in his will, dated 1584, “bequeathed the sum of 3s. 4d. towards the settynge up of the Queene's Majestie's armes over the quearie (choir) doore in the parishe churche of Marton.”

The son of this Richard, named William Darwin, and described as “gentleman,” appears to have been a successful man. Whilst retaining his ancestral land at Marton, he acquired through his wife and by purchase an estate at Cleatham, in the parish of Manton, near Kirton Lindsey, and fixed his residence there. This estate remained in the family down to the year 1760.

[In the first volume, p. 82, the growth of the ‘Origin of Species’ has been briefly described in my father's words. The letters given in the present and following chapters will illustrate and amplify the history thus sketched out.

It is clear that, in the early part of the voyage of the Beagle he did not feel it inconsistent with his views to express himself in thoroughly orthodox language as to the genesis of new species. Thus in 1834 he wrote at Valparaiso: “I have already found beds of recent shells yet retaining their colour at an elevation of 1300 feet, and beneath the level country is strewn with them. It seems not a very improbable conjecture that the want of animals may be owing to none having been created since this country was raised from the sea.”

This passage does not occur in the published ‘Journal,’ the last proof of which was finished in 1837; and this fact harmonizes with the change we know to have been proceeding in his views. But in the published ‘Journal’ we find passages which show a point of view more in accordance with orthodox theological natural history than with his later views. Thus, in speaking of the birds Synallaxis and Scytalopus (1st edit, p. 353; 2nd edit. p. 289), he says: “When finding, as in this case, any animal which seems to play so insignificant a part in the great scheme of nature, one is apt to wonder why a distinct species should have been created.”

[The beginning of the year 1861 saw my father with the third chapter of ‘The Variation of Animals and Plants’ still on his hands. It had been begun in the previous August, and was not finished until March 1861. He was, however, for part of this time (I believe during December 1860 and January 1861) engaged in a new edition (3000 copies) of the ‘Origin,’ which was largely corrected and added to, and was published in April 1861.

With regard to this, the third edition, he wrote to Mr. Murray in December 1860:—

“I shall be glad to hear when you have decided how many copies you will print off—the more the better for me in all ways, as far as compatible with safety; for I hope never again to make so many corrections, or rather additions, which I have made in hopes of making my many rather stupid reviewers at least understand what is meant. I hope and think I shall improve the book considerably.”

An interesting feature in the new edition was the “Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species” which now appeared for the first time, and was continued in the later editions of the work. It bears a strong impress of the author's personal character in the obvious wish to do full justice to all his predecessors,—though even in this respect it has not escaped some adverse criticism.