Book review: ‘The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, volume 27 • 1879’

The twenty-seventh volume of Charles Darwin’s correspondence comprises all the surviving letters both from and to Darwin from the year 1879.

During this year Darwin marked his 70th birthday, researched and published a biography of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, visited the Lake District, and, assisted by his son Francis, continued his studies into the movement in plants.

Other highlights from Darwin’s 1879 correspondence include:

• Darwin advising a correspondent not to worry about differences in opinion between ecclesiastics and scientists, remarking, “In the course of time ecclesiastics have always managed to make their conclusions somehow to harmonise with ascertained truths, which they at first vehemently & ignorantly opposed”.
• Darwin confiding he has come to doubt the scientific judgment of his friend (and independent discoverer of natural selection) Alfred Russel Wallace, though admiring greatly his ingenuity and originality. (In recent years, Wallace had become a convert to Spiritualism, and performed an about-face on his former belief that human morality and other mental faculties had evolved without the need for intervention from some higher power.)
• Darwin writing to his children regarding additional financial provisions he is making for them, and providing advice on investment.
• Darwin observing, “to kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing a new truth or fact.”
• Darwin forwarding to the journal Nature a letter from Fritz Müller “on a frog having eggs on its back—on the abortion of the hairs on the legs of certain caddis-flies, &c.”
• Darwin also sending to Nature an anecdote he heard from an HMS Beagle shipmate who, in his earlier career, had to leave out water for rats to discourage them from gnawing holes in the ship’s water casks.
• Darwin commenting enthusiastically on his grandfather Erasmus Darwin’s commonplace book, which he had recently been sent by a cousin.
• Darwin reporting having heard that Erasmus Darwin and Samuel Johnson, who both had connections with Lichfield in Derbyshire, met only once and hated each other.
• Darwin advising, via his wife, Emma, that “He considers that the theory of evolution is quite compatible with the belief in a God; but that you must remember that different persons have different definitions of what they mean by God—.”
• Darwin, who is currently working on his grandfather’s biography, opining, “I have always thought that there is one golden rule for Biographers, that is, not to insert anything which, as far as one can judge, would interest only the members of the Family. This necessitates much brevity, but it seems to me that it is no use whatever to publish, unless one can make what is published in some degree interesting to the public.”
• A surprised Darwin remarking, “It is something wonderful to me to hear of anyone defending Sexual Selection, which, such is my stock of conceit, I have still full confidence in.”
• Darwin’s letter defending Theist evolutionists, famously describing himself as an agnostic.
• Darwin later saying he does not believe in divine Revelation, and, “[a]s for a future life every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.”
• Darwin commenting on former friend, now critic, Samuel Butler: “He is a very clever man, knows nothing about science & turns everything into ridicule. He hates scientific men.”
• A delighted Darwin reporting his discovery about certain plant roots: “I have proved, wonderful as the fact is, that the apex of a root acts functionally like a brain & commands the nature of the flexure in the upper part. This applies to touch, some other stimulants & geotropism; & I now want to know about light.” (We now know the plant growth hormone auxin influences the growth of root tips.)
• Darwin doodling a skull and crossbones at the end of a letter to one of his sons.
• Darwin asking to meet relative Thomas Henry Farrer regarding Farrer’s objections to Darwin’s son Horrace marrying his daughter. (Farrer later drops his insistance that the engagement be kept secret, and the marriage goes ahead.)
• Darwin on no longer appreciating poetry: “It is a grief to me that some part of my brain has undergone a new form of degeneration, for though in old days I much enjoyed the higher kinds of poetry, now for several years I have not been able to read a line! Perhaps the ‘key-notes’ [a collection he has been sent] may revive my taste, & I will make the trial, but greatly fear that all the ganglia in my skull have become too prosy.”
• Darwin strongly declining a request to sign petition calling for a total ban on vivisection.
• Former and future Prime Minisher William Gladstone sending Darwin his latest book inspired by his reading of Homer. [Having analysed the vocabularies of ancient texts, Gladstone has concluded ancient peoples had under-developed colour vision.]
• Darwin reporting enjoying a break in the Lake District , “but there are too many human beings for my taste”. He subsequently writes to his host, “I am a staunch Conistonite & feel indignant if anyone prefers Grassmere or Ambleside to Coniston”.
• Darwin’s Coniston host quoting John Ruskin, whom Darwin met several times during his stay, as having remarked, before they met, “that if Mr Darwin would get different kinds of air & bottle them, & examine them when bottled, he would do much more useful work than he does in the contemplation of the hinder parts of monkeys.” (Darwin is suitably amused.)
• A letter from the son of the deceased prominent U.S. abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison praising Darwin’s position on slavery. Darwin sends a gratified reply.
• Darwin sending condolences to his friend and former scientific protégé the politician John Lubbock on the death of Lubbock’s wife.
• Darwin being sent a “monograph on the Rectum and its Diseases”!
• Darwin responding to his cousin Francis Galton’s questionnaire on his faculty of visualising. (It turns our Darwin never played chess!)
• On learning third-hand of Alfred Russel Wallace’s financial difficulties, Darwin seeking the thoughts of his best friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker, on the chances of obtaining a goverment pension for Wallace. Darwin lists Wallace’s merits. Hooker advises against the idea on account of Wallace’s spiritualism, and his ill-advised bet against a flat-earther, believing such an endorsement of Wallace would damage the reputation of science. Darwin thanks Hooker for making the counter-argument, which he finds persuasive, and drops the idea—although (spoiler alert) he will return to it the following year.
• Darwin’s views on vegetarian diets.

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.