Book review: ‘The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, volume 26 • 1878’

The twenty-sixth volume of Charles Darwin’s correspondence comprises all the surviving letters both from and to Darwin from the year 1878.

During this year, assisted by his son Francis, Darwin spent much time studing movement in plants. He also encouraged, and tried to gain support for, Irish businessman James Torbitt, who hoped to use Darwinian principles to breed blight-resistant varieties of potatoes. To his great surprise, Darwin was also contacted by a complete stranger, Anthony Rich, who wished to leave him and his family a significant inheritance.

Other highlights from Darwin’s 1878 correspondence include:

• A geologist informing Darwin of his attempt to calculate a minimum age for the earth based limestone deposit rates.
• An eccentric letter from a religious correspondent enclosing an acrostic poem spelling out Darwin’s name.
• A letter from a young geologist who believes he has proof of multiple ice ages having occurred, with humans and animals inhabiting the inter-glacials. And Darwin’s reply.
• Joseph Dalton Hooker explaining how he has urged against the development of coffee monocultures in the British colonies.
• Darwin receiving a report of the post-mortem dissection of a chimpanzee’s brain.
• A correspondent asking if Darwin’s doctrine, as described in The Descent of Man, “destroys the evidence of the existence of a God looked at through nature’s phenomena”. To which, Darwin replies: “The strongest argument for the existence of God, as it seems to me, is the instinct or intuition which we all (as I suppose) feel that there must have been an intelligent designer of the Universe; but then comes the doubt & difficulty whether such intuitions are trustworthy.”
• Joseph Dalton Hooker consulting Darwin on the publication of the late Charles Lyell’s correspondence.
• A correspondent speculating whether the colours of fruits or flowers might have driven the evolution of colour vision in certain animals.
• Darwin declaring, “The principle of evolution is too well established for any one man to shake it.”
• Darwin urging an old school friend, “Pray do not call me Dr Darwin, the title seems to me quite ridiculous.”
• A correspondent hypothesising on how the bravest men in a tribe might end up with more (rather than fewer) offspring.
• Darwin’s old HMS Beagle shipmate, Bartholomew James Sulivan, suggesting they remotely ‘adopt’ one of the grandsons of ‘Jemmy Button’ (real name, Orundellico: one of the Fuegians aboard the ship) at the mission station in Ushuaia. (It turns out the boy has apparently already been adopted, but [spoiler alert] he hasn’t really, so is adopted by Sulivan, Darwin and a few other former shipmates the following year.)
• A correspondent sending an illustration of a snail found attached to duck’s foot.
• Darwin gently admonishing his son Francis for neglecting the importance of negative results: “It was a great misfortune that you threw away the notes about the failures; failures often prove as useful as successes.”
• An Austrain geologist suggesting rocks should be dated according to the fossils they bear, under the assumption that evolution is an established fact. Darwin replies: “What a wonderful change in the future of geological chronology you indicate, by assuming the descent-theory to be established, & then taking the graduated changes of the same group of organisms as the true standard! I never hoped to live to see such a step even proposed by anyone.”
• Thomas Henry Huxley sending Darwin an Encyclopaedia Britannica article on evolution which he part-wrote.
• Darwin declaring, “it is so much more interesting to observe than to write”.
• A distant relative writing to Darwin’s son George, offering to sell Darwin a portrait of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin painted by Joseph Wright of Derby. (Darwin was to take her up on the offer.)
• Darwin signing off a letter, “Your insane friend Ch. Darwin”.
• Darwin on the importance of Charles Brown-Séquard’s (supposed) discovery of inherited injuries.
• On learning that, having been nominated six times, he has finally been elected as a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences (albeit for his botanical, rather than evolutionary work), Darwin wryly observing: “It is rather a good joke that I sh^d be elected in the Botanical section, as the extent of my knowledge is little more than that a daisy is a compositous plant & a pea a leguminous one.”
• An animal rights campaigner sending Darwin the outline of a proposed book in which humans are put on trial.
• Darwin observing, “Many persons think that what I have done in science has been much overrated, & I very often think so myself; but my comfort is that I have never consciously done anything to gain applause.”
• Darwin describing having recently observed a monkey using an eye-glass, and concluding the animal was more intelligent than his two-year-old grandson, Bernard.
• An Irish scientist reporting someone has observed that extinct Irish elks’ left antlers are larger than their right. He suggests this might have been for protecting their hearts during combat, and thinks the same might apply to extant species of deer.
• Alfred Russel Wallace asking Darwin to provide a reference for his (ultimately unsuccessful) application to become Superintendent of Epping Forest, which Darwin is happy to endorse.
• Darwin informing George John Romanes of the recent exposure of a fraudulent medium.
• Darwin writing to Joseph Lister to suggest using benzoic acid to kill bacteria.
• A letter from a parakeet owner who claims his bird avoids defacating on people, and on the table cloth!
• A letter from a lepidopterist on colour polymorphism, and what we now refer to as industrial melanism.
• A letter from a medium, suggesting Darwin try a number of quack remedies for his ailments.
• Darwin on the tension between science and religion: “I most wholly agree with you that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness, though each upholding strictly their beliefs.”
• Darwin adding his name to an unsuccessful petition for Cambridge University to drop its requirement for sudents to be able to read ancient Greek.
• Darwin sounding out (pun intended) John Tyndall on using a siren to test plants’ responses to sound. He subsequently borrows a siren from Tyndall. The experiment was not a success.

As with all the volumes in this series, this book is really aimed at people with a serious interest in Charles Darwin. As with all the other volumes, every letter is annotated with meticulously researched footnotes explaining its context and references. The series as a whole is a masterpiece of scholarship.