Book review: ‘The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, volume 28 • 1880’

The twenty-eighth volume of Charles Darwin’s correspondence comprises all the surviving letters both from and to Darwin from the year 1880.

During this year, Darwin published The Power of Movement in Plants (co-authored with his son Francis), and continued his studies of earthworms. He also had to endure persistent criticism from the author Samuel Butler, who claimed Darwin, in his biography of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, had attacked Butler’s own published views in an underhanded manner. (Darwin confided to the biography’s co-author, Ernst Krause, that he thought Butler was insane). Towards the end of the year, Darwin also resurrected the idea—abandoned the previous year—of applying for a civil pension for his cash-strapped friend (and independent discoverer of natural selection) Alfred Russel Wallace.

Other highlights from Darwin’s 1880 correspondence include:

• Thomas Henry Huxley advising against responding to Samuel Butler’s attacks. Huxley includes a doodle of dog after the phrase “son of a…”. He also cites Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who once compared critics to the lice on whales.
• A letter from a former neighbour of Darwin, Wallis Nash, about his new life in Oregon.
• Darwin praising Alfred Russel Wallace’s latest article—although politely disagreeing with its final sentence, in which Wallace, while acknowledging the ability of evolution to produce separate species, genuses and possibly families, questioned whether it was capable of producing separate orders, classes, and sub-kingdoms.
• Darwin making the excuse to a friend, whom he keeps pumping for information and specimens, that “I hope my work will some day end, but new points are continually turning up.”
• Darwin thanking his children for their surprise present of a fur coat, saying, “The coat, however, will never warm my body so much as your dear affection has warmed my heart.”
• Darwin advising a sceptical French entomologist, “I am sorry that you are so strongly opposed to the Descent Theory; I have found the searching for the history of each structure, or instinct an excellent aid to observation; and wonderful observer as you are, it would suggest new points to you.”
• A correspondent from Japan suggesting using fingerprints for identification, and for investigating inheritance. (Darwin forwards the letter to his cousin Francis Galton, who, it transpires, had already looked briefly into the idea.)
• Darwin sending condolences and reminiscences to the son of his cousin and long-time friend William Darwin Fox, whose father is close to death. (Fox dies a short while later.)
• Darwin remarking, “I know that I am hated & abused by many; but I do not care much about this or about fame. It is the one advantage of advanced age.”
• Henry Pitman (of shorthand fame) asking to see the letters of Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus regarding his use of shorthand.
• Darwin expressing his continuing confidence in natural selection to explain biological features: “If I think continuously on some half-dozen structures of which we can at present see no uses, I can persuade myself that natural selection is of quite subordinate importance. On the other hand when I reflect on the innumerable structures, especially in plants, which 20 years ago would have been called simply ‘morphological’ & useless, & which are now known to be highly important, I can persuade myself that every structure may have been developed through natural selection.”
• Darwin briefly explaining his note-making system to Alphonse de Candolle, who uses similar system. (I wrote in more depth on this topic in my article Charles Darwin’s book-writing process.)
• Darwin reporting having invited physicist William Thomson (the future Lord Kelvin) for lunch, and having liked him. This despite the fact that Thomson’s, we now know incorrect, calculations of the age of the earth caused serious problems for Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
• Darwin signing a petition to Prime Minister William Gladstone supporting the abolition of clerical headships and fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge.
• Darwin reporting having entertained 43 members of a natural history society, and, a short while later “67 half-reformed criminals”.
• Darwin advising his son George on how to write a personal reference without actually saying anything.
• Darwin praising Othniel Marsh’s new book on extinct toothed birds, which, he says, provides the best support for evolution in 20 years.
• Darwin thanking his best friend’s wife, Lady Hooker, for her gift of bananas from Kew Gardens.
• Alfred Russel Wallace seeking Darwin’s feedback on his latest book, Island Life. Darwin sends a detailed response, concentrating on the points where they differ, and Wallace sends feedback on Darwin’s feedback.
• Darwin’s oft-quoted letter to Edward Aveling on free thought, in which he says, “Moreover though I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follows from the advance of science.” (Note: It was this letter which was once erroneously believed to have been written to Karl Marx.)
• Darwin, having resurrected the idea of applying for a government pension for Alfred Russel Wallace, asking Wallace’s friend Arabella Buckley to discreetly obtain details of Wallace’s history and circumstances, as Darwin cannot do so himself without raising suspicion.
• Darwin sending Thomas Henry Huxley a draft of a memorial for a civil pension for Wallace with a suggested list of potential signatories, saying “I have seldom wished for anything so much, as to succeed in getting some provision for Wallace.”
• Darwin receiving a letter from Florence Dixie offering to send him a copy of her book Across Patagonia, and telling him about her pet jaguar. (Dixie sounds like quite a character!)
• Darwin being uncharacteristically outspoken in publicly defending natural selection against Sir Wyville Thomson’s denial of it in the introduction to the book Voyage of the Challenger.
• Darwin’s old HMS Beagle shipmate Bartholomew Sulivan sending his latest update with news of other former crew members.
• Darwin complying with a request for his signature, saying, “According to your desire I will sign my name on the next page, but good Lord what geese people are about autographs.”
• Darwin reminiscing to an old family friend, Sarah Haliburton (née Owen), “I remember the pride which I felt when I saw in a book about beetles the impressive words “captured by C. Darwin”. Captured sounded so grand compared with caught. This seemed to me glory enough for any man!” (I previously wrote about Darwin’s delight at his name appearing in this book.)
• Darwin admitting, “My whole soul is absorbed with worms just at present!”
• The agnostic Darwin explaining that he does not believe the Bible is divine revelation, or that Jesus was the son of God.
• Darwin’s son William sending a worm-observation field report from a Roman villa which is currently being excavated
• Darwin thanking geologist James Geikie for having established former interglacial periods, remarking, “Reading your book has brought vividly before my mind the state of knowledge or rather ignorance, half a century ago, when all superficial matter was classed as Diluvium & not considered worthy of the attention of a Geologist.”
• Darwin being invited to a private conference by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The conference is prompted by a petition from prominent religious people who have concerns about the public perception of there being a conflict between science and religion. Darwin declines the invitation, citing ill-health, but also expressing the opinion that the conference has no chance of success. Asked why, he later reples, “in my opinion, a man who wishes to form a judgment on this subject, must weigh the evidence for himself; & he ought not to be influenced by being told that a considerable number of scientific men can reconcile the results of science with revealed or or natural religion, whilst others cannot do so.”
• Darwin’s friend George Romanes reporting that he has obtained a monkey on he plans to make observations, and joking that his wife won’t let it share their daughter’s nursery.

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.