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The Place of Man in the Development of Darwin's
Theory of Transmutation
Part I. T o J u l y 1837
SANDRA HERBERT
Department of History
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
This article forms the first half of an essay on the place of man in
Charles Darwin's exploration of the species question. The second half
of the essay will appear in a future issue of this journal. The following
portion of the essay carries the discussion to the spring of 1837, the
date when Darwin first affirmed a transmutationist position. In it I try
to show that the subject of man was not one of those lines of inquiry
which drew Darwin to transmutationist conclusions, and, conversely, to
suggest what sorts of inquiries did lead him to such conclusions. The
argument is organized as follows: Part I. Darwin's views on man prior to
1837: (a) orientation toward religion, politics, and career as an undergraduate; (b) observations on man during the voyage of the Beagle; (c)
personal change of mind. Part II. Sources of Darwin's conversion to a
transmutationist position: (a) evidence of notes dating from the voyage;
(b) Darwin's Ornithological Notes and related lists; (c) the role of
professional zoologists; and, (d) composition of the Journal o f
Researches.
DARWIN's VIEWS ON MAN PRIOR TO 1837
Orientation toward Religion, Politics, and Career as an Undergraduate
As with most people, not much is known about Darwin's youthful
philosophical orientation beyond what the subject cared to relate, in
this case in an autobiography written in later life. 1 In reviewing the
facts of Darwin's early life, however, one is immediately struck by the
apparent contradiction between his intellectual heritage as the grandson
of the freethinker Erasmus Darwin and his declared intention, as proposed to him by his father, of entering Cambridge University in order
to become a member of the English clergy. The source of the contra-
1. Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, ed. Nora Balow (New
York: Norton, 1958).
Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 7, no. 2 (Fall 1974), pp. 217-258.
Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland.
SANDRA HERBERT
diction was Charles's father, Robert Waring Darwin, who, though an
unbeliever himself, and unlike his brother-in-law Josiah Wedgwood,
did not alter child-rearing practices to fit his personal beliefs. Ideologically Charles thus fell heir both to the liberal traditions o f the DarwinWedgwood clan and, at least potentially, to the theological tradition
represented by the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Yet
Charles was very clear in the Autobiography that he was sent by his
father to study for the clergy; he did not choose it. Having found
himself disinclined toward medicine at Edinburgh University, however,
and being entirely dependent on his father for support, he was in no
position to object.
Fortunately, there exist a few indications o f Darwin's own attitudes
toward his assigned career in a series of letters which Darwin wrote to
his cousin William Darwin Fox. Fox was in much the same situation as
Darwin, since he too anticipated combining a clerical post with the
pursuit o f natural history. Being a year ahead of Darwin in school, Fox
faced the final year o f reading theology and the accompanying search
for a position before Darwin, and Darwin was eager to learn his cousin's
opinions o f the theological matters he was reading and his success at
obtaining a post. 2 From letters, however, it would appear that Darwin's
interest in these matters was entirely practical; questions of belief
simply did not arise. In these early letters the nearest Darwin came to
expressing religious interest was on the occasion of the death o f Fox's
sister, when, Darwin offered consolation in traditionally religious
language. 3
Other indications of Darwin's early taste or distaste for religion are
rare, though among the extant materials from the pre-Beagle period
there do exist Darwin's notes on William Paley's Evidences o f Christianity. 4 Paley's book, which had been written "to promote the relig-
2. See Darwin to Fox, January 2, 1829, and March 12, 1829, on Fox's reading
in divinity, Darwin-Fox Correspondence, Christ College, Cambridge.
3. Darwin to Fox, April 23, 1829, Darwin-Fox Correspondence. "I feel most
sincerely & deeply for you & all your family: But at the same time, as far as
anyone can, by his own good principles & religion be supported under such a
misfortune, you I am assured, well known where to look for such support. And
after so pure & holy a comfort as the Bible affords I am equally assured how
useless the sympathy of all friends must appear although it be as heartfelt &
sincere, as I hope you believe me capable of feeling."
4. Darwin MSS, vol. 9I, University Library, Cambridge (hereafter abbreviated
ULC). The chapter headings in Darwin's notes do not correspond to those in the
Evidences but the arguments are clearly Paley's. See William Paley, A View of the
218
Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory of Transmutation
ious part of an academical education," was required reading for
Cambridge undergraduates. Pleased with Paley's skill at argument,
Darwin also read the more famous Natural Theology on his own. s While
overall the Natural Theology is the more important work, there are a
few indications that the Evidences made some impression on Darwin.
For example, in the Autobiography Darwin referred to his "inventing
day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans and
manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere which confirmed
in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. ''6
According to canons put forward in the Evidences such daydreams,
fulfilled, would stand as ideal corroboration of the truth of Christianity.
In a larger perspective, Paley's approach to religion was eighteenthcentury in its concern for simple truth or falsity. (Christianity, incidentally, was taken as emblematic of religion, for, in Paley's words, "if the
Christian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do,
will support the pretensions of any other.") 7 In reading Paley's
arguments for the truth of religion, Darwin was seemingly taken with
his skill in setting up disjunctions. In his notes Darwin concentrated
specifically on Paley's argument that, granted His existence, Jesus
was either the son of God as he claimed or "an imposter or an
enthusiast & deceived himself. ''8 Darwin's approach to Paley was
the appropriate one, since the essential merit in Paley's mode of
argument was the identification of all logical possibilities and then the
progressive elimination of one after another until only one remained.
This simplicity of judgment with respect to religion remained with
Darwin. When during the voyage on the Beagle he turned against the
Old Testament on geological and moral grounds 9 and, after the voyage,
found the argument from design less than universal, he became as easily
Evidences of Christianity (1974) in The Works of William Paley (Edinburgh:
Thomas Nelson & Peter Brown, 1831). Paley's The Prin'tiples of Moral and
.PoliticalPhilosophy (1801) was also required reading.
5. Autobiography, p. 59.
6. Ibid., p. 86.
7. Paley, Evidences, p. 297.
8. Darwin MSS, vol. 91, ULC. Compare with Evidences, Part 2, Chap. 5, p. 364.
9. Autobiography, p. 85. The "geological" grounds very.likely refer to Darwin's
change of opinion the Beagle voyage concerning the geological significance and
historicity of the Noachian flood; the "moral" grounds refer to his dissatisfaction
with the Old Testament image of God as a "revengeful tyrant."
219
SANDRA HERBERT
convinced of the falsity of religion as, at one time, at least passively, he
had been persuaded of its truth. Thus Darwin's undergraduate education influenced the terms of his response to religion, both while he was
for it and when he turned against it.
On the political side, there is nothing to suggest that Darwin forsook
the liberalism of the Darwin-Wedgwood families. Indeed, according to
Paul H. Barrett, Darwin while a student at Edinburgh University in his
teens resigned from the Plinian Society in protest at the reprimand a
student received for espousing materialist views, m° This early evidence
of Darwin's espousal of the liberal belief in the right of free speech
supports the view that it was Darwin's most cherished political belief.
Indeed, as his now famous letter to Karl Marx suggested, he seems to
have regarded free thought and free speech as the chief political
requirement for the gradual enlightenment of mankind, u Another
liberal position which Darwin had occasion to defend early in life was
that against slavery, which was abolished within the British Empire in
1834. Darwin's antagonist on the slavery issue was Robert Fitzroy, the
captain of the Beagle, who was politically conservative and personally
contentious. As a conservative Fitzroy defended the institution of
slavery, and since the two men frequently conversed aboard ship
(Fitzroy treating Darwin as his sole equal), their differences in political
opinion periodically threatened the harmony of their relationship.
Nevertheless, Darwin's fidelity to the political liberalism of his family
traditions apparently did not lead him to more universal philosophical
conclusions. One cannot make the case for Charles Darwin which
Samuel LiUey has made for his grandfather Erasmus that it was the
subject's larger philosophical beliefs, in Erasmus' case a belief in progress, which prompted thoughts on evolution. 1~
To return to the subject of Darwin's career, we can see that his
ambitions lay with science even as an undergraduate. This seemingly
obvious point requires emphasis because the impression gained from the
10. Paul H. Barrett, "Darwin's Gigantic Blunder,"Z Geological Education, 21
(January 1973), p. 23. ProfessorBarrett promises more information on this point
in his forthcoming book, co-authored with HowardGruber, to be titled Darwin on
Man.
11. Charles Darwin to Karl Marx, October 13, 1880, in Sir Arthur Keith,
Darwin Revalued. (London: Watts, 1955), p. 234.
12. Samuel Lilley, "The Origin and Fate of Erasmus Darwin's Theory of
Organic Evolution," Actes du Xle 11965] Congr~s InternatT"onal d'Histoire des
Sciences (Warsaw: Ossolineum, 1968), Vol. V, pp. 70-75.
220
Autobiography is of a young man whose career was transformed by the
opportunity of a voyage. 13 This perception is technically correct in that
the voyage afforded Darwin a major problem on which to work. How
ever, from the Darwin-Fox letters alone one can sense Darwin's scientific ambitions as an undergraduate and the progress he was making
toward their fulfillment. The letters reflect his growing competence:
they show him drawing even with Fox in entomology, Fox's
specialty;14 they give a glimpse of his competitiveness (he rejoiced that
he bested Leonard Jenyns on a point); and they display the ease of.his
entry while visiting London into "places where naturalists are gregarious. ''15 The appearance of the names of other naturalists in the letters,
such as William Hope the entomologist and George Waterhouse, who
later worked on the Beagle collections, further suggests the good company Darwin was keeping in natural history. Of course much of the ease
of Darwin's entry into scientific society was owing to J. S. Henslow,
Professor of Botany at Cambridge, but even that relationship was
apparently initiated by Charles, who sought out Henslow on his brother
Erasmus' recommendation. 16 More could be added from other sources
to illustrate the direction of Darwin's early ambition but enough has
been said to make the point.
In this context Darwin's projected clerical career was a convenience.
It satisfied his father and seemed the appropriate choice since a
number of men eminent in science at Cambridge were also clerics.
Among these one thinks most immediately of Henslow and, at further
remove, Adam Sedgwick, Professor of Geology, and William Whewell,
then Professor of Mineralogy. However, Henslow, Sedgwick, and
Whewell all possessed genuine religious interests to a degree which
Darwin did not. If we take Darwin's scientific ambitions as a given, the
question then becomes when Darwin abandoned his clerical intentions.
The Autobiography states that they "died a natural death" when he
boarded the Beagle. 17 Yet at the time Darwin did not admit as much to
13. Autobiography, pp. 76-77.
14. Darwin to Fox, July 29, 18291 Darwin-Fox Correspondence: "1 do hope
that when you are in Yorkshire you will redeem your character in Entomology. It
is a long time since you mentioned taking any good insects. - I think you would
be surprised ff you were to see all my insects."
15. Darwin to Fox, February 26, 1829, Darwin-Fox Correspondence.
17. Ibid, p. 570.
221
SANDRA HERBERT
his father or to himself. In a remarkable letter which his brother
Erasmus wrote to him during the first year of the Beagle voyage,
Charles was chided for his constancy: "I am sorry to see in your last
letter that you still look forward to the horrid little parsonage in the
desert. I was beginning to hope I should have you set up in London in
lodgings somewhere near the British Museum or some other learned
place. My only chance is the Established Church being abolished...,,is
The letter is particularly important because Erasmus was ahead of
Charles on two counts: first, he had abandoned all pretense of practieing medicine as had been his father's will; and, second, he had
already arranged lodgings for himself in London, complete with laboratory. It took Charles another four and a half years to take those two
steps. Even without formally breaking with his father, however, Charles
had done little or nothing to bring himself closer to a career in the
church.
In contrast, in pursuit of his interests in natural history he had already done a great deal by the time of his graduation from university.
He was then, for example, in the process of arranging passage for himself and several friends to the Canary Islands for the purposes of observation and collection, a project taken on in emulation of Humboldt. It
is very likely that he would have successfully made his way there had
the Beagle opportunity not arisen. In the meantime, however, Henslow
had arranged for him to accompany Adam Sedgwick on a geological
excursion in Wales, Henslow intenionally turning his student toward
geology at this point, i9 As Adam Sedgwick, in company with Roderick
Murchison, was then engaged in his most important work - the identification of the earliest fossil-bearing strata - it requires no great leap of
the imagination to speculate that Darwin might easily have been
recruited by the stream of British geology which they represented had
not the Beagle offer intervened. 2° A remark which Erasmus made to
18. Erasmus to Charles Darwin, postmarked August 20, 1832, Darwin MSS
(Robin Darwin deposit), ULC.
20. For a brief account of the Sedgwick-Murchison achievement during this
period see M.J.S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils (New York: American
Elsevier, 1972), pp. 191-200. Two recent papers which suggest the style as well as
the content of the Sedgwick-Murchison endeavors, and thereby the geological
world Darwin might have entered, are M. J. S. Rudwick, "Levels of Disagreement
in the Sedgwick-Murchison Controversy," and its companion piece by
J. C. Thackray, "The Murchison-Sedgwick Controversy," Geological Society of
London (in press).
222
Charles in the letter quoted above bears this out: "You would have had
a very pleasant summer in Shropshire this year. Sedgwick and
Murchison were both geologizing there. Murchison went to examine all
the country about the Ponsford Hills which even I should liked to have
joined him in. ''21
As it happened, Erasmus continued to make his way in London's
hterary and political circles (he was an intimate of such people as
Thomas Carlyle and Harriet Martinueau) while Charles was already as of
the date of this letter a partisan of Lyetl's Principles, which represented
a rather different stream in British geology from that of Sedgwick and
Murchison. These circumstances are all parts of other stories - t h e
history of geology in England, the organization of London's literary as
opposed to its scientific world - but for the moment they may serve
to support the assertion that Charles Darwin was in pursuit of a fulltime scientific career at the point of his graduating from university at
the age of twenty-two. Thus it is clear that his declared intention of
entering the English clergy had behind it neither personal desire nor
interest in philosophical subjects beyond that characteristic of his family.
Observations on Man during the Voyage o f the "Beagle"
The course of the development of Darwin's ideas on species is a
matter which has received considerable attention from his own day to
the present. 22 We will touch on it at this point only to the extent
21. Erasmus to Charles Darwin, August 20, 1832, Darwin MSS (Robin Darwin
deposit), ULC
22. See Howard E. Gruber and Valmai Gruber, "The Eye of Reson: Darwin's
Development during the Beagle Voyage," 1sis, 53, (June 1962), 186-200; and
Sydney Smith, "The Origin of 'The Origin'," Advance. Sci., 16 (1960), 391-400.
On the Malthus question see Frank Egerton, "Humboldt, Darwin and Population," J. Hist. Biol., 3 (Fall 1970), 325-360; Sandra Herbert, "Darwin, Malthus,
and Selection," J. Hist. Biol., 4 (Spring 1971), 209-217; and Peter Vorzimmer,
"Darwin, Malthus, and the Theory of Natural Selection," J. Hist. ldeas, 30
(1969), 527-542. More general works covering the period include Gavin de Beer,
Charles Darwin: A Scientific Biography (New York: Doubleday, 1965);
Loren Eisetey, Darwin's Century (New York: Doubleday, 1958); Michael Ghiselin, The Triumph o f the Darwinian Method (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1969); Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (New
York: Doubleday, 1959); and Camille Limoges, La s3lection naturelle (Paris:
Presses Universitalres de France, 1970). For Darwin's relationship to Lyell, see
Leonard G. Wilson, Charles Lyell: The Years to 1841 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972). On the interesting subject of the growth in Darwin's self223
SANDRA HERBERT
necessary to determine whether anything Darwin learned about man in
the course of the voyage led him to entertain the notion of transmutation. While the materials available for answering this question have
not yet been exhaustively explored and, if the past is any guide, new
Darwin manuscripts will continue to come to light, a provisional judgment can now be made. Fortunately, for the Beagle period itself, there
are a variety of sources to draw on. Of particular value in approaching
this period are Darwin's record of major dates in his life, which he
began in August 1838, 23 and his Autobiography, which contains a brief
recapitulation of his thought during the voyage (December 27,
1831 - October 2, 1836). With respect to manuscript material from the
voyage, it is the major collections at University Library, Cambridge, and
at Down House, the Darwin Memorial in Kent, which are most useful.
One very striking aspect of the manuscript material from the voyage
period is the grouping of notes according to subject matter. The geological notes represent the greatest portion of the collection, followed by
the zoological notes. ~ Botanical subjects are rarely covered, and there
are no separate notes devoted to human subjects. In part this distribution of labor represents what Darwin felt to be his areas of competence
(he was relatively ignorant about botanical classification for example),
but it also reflects his judgment of the expectations of the collections
desired by various professional groups within British science. Hence, at
the outset of the voyage he had decided to concentrate on geology
rather than zoology, with which he was at that time more familiar, as
the geology of the areas being visited by the Beagle was less well known
than the zoology. He knew that a good survey of the geological aspects
of South America would do more to establish his reputation than a
confidence during the voyage see Frank SullowayIII, "Charles Darwin and the
Voyage of the Beagle," Unpub. thesis, Harvard University, chap. 1. Its interpretation rests on a content analysis of the important Darwin-Henslow correspondence from the voyage published by Nora Barlow. See Nora Balow, ed.,
Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of an Idea. Letters, 1831-1860 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1967).
23. "Darwin's Journal," ed. Sir Gavin de Beer, Bulletin o f the British Museum
(Natural History] Historieal Series, 2 (1959). The cover of the original notebook
is labeled "Journal/Charles Darwin/August 1838."
24. For the priority of geological subjects during the voyage see Grnber and
Grnber, "Eye of Reason," p. 189. An illustration of the preponderance of geology
over zoology in Darwin's efforts is the fact, which Gruber and Gruber point out,
that the formal' geologicalnotes from the voyageconstitute 1,383 pages while the
zoological notes only 368 pages.
224
Man in the Development o f Darwin's Theory of Transmutation
reworking of South American zoology. On the botanical side, Darwin's
major effort was expended in an exhaustive collection of Gal~pagos
species. In this case, however, his own interest in island species was
primary, rather than the needs of a professional community numbering
more than one (Henslow) at home.
In the scheme of contemporary British science, however, there was no
similar call for anthropological collections (the Ethnological Society o f
London was not formed until 1843), and Darwin simply did not collect
human artifacts or remains, As one historian o f anthropology has
remarked, "the study of non-European man [in England] still lacked an
adequate institutional embodiment in the mid-1830's. ''2s Possibly for
that reason Darwin did not establish a professionally oriented series of
notes on man during the voyage, and, outside of parenthetical remarks
on man in his geological or zoological notes or in his field notebooks, 26
only his Diary 27 contains a large number o f observations on man.
The Diary is a good representation of Darwin's views on man during
the voyage, though limited b y the purpose for which Darwin wrote it,
namely, as a log o f daily events useful to himself, potentially publishable, and descriptive o f his adventures to his family, to whom he sent
sections of the Diary as it was written. There is an abundance of
material on man in the Diary, as it was entirely within the tradition of
25. George W. Stocking, Jr., "What's in a name? The Origins of the Royal
Anthropological Institute (1837-71)," Man, n.s., 5 (1971), 371. The Aborigines
Protection Society was founded in 1837; out of this humanitarian enterprise came
the Ethnological Society. From the point of view of voyaging naturalists, however, perhaps the most interesting element in the institutional development of
anthropology in the British Isles was the ethnographical questionnaire prepared
by James Pritchard at the behest of the British Association following his 1839
paper before the Association titled "On the Extinction of Human Races." The
questionnaire, which became the B.A.A.S.'s still continuing Notes and Queries on
Addressed to Travellers and Others (London: R. & J.E. Taylor, 18397). Had such
an authoritative questionnaire been available to Darwin in 1831, it is very possible
that he would have taken the Fuegians and other natives more seriously, perhaps
devoting a separate set of notes to the topic of man. Certainly he was open to this
method of information gathering, as he used it himself in his 1839 "Questions
about the Breeding of Animals" and in his 1867 "Queries about Expression for
Anthrophological Inquiry."
26. Selections from all the extant field notebooks have been published in Nora
Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle (New York: Philosophical
Library, 1946). The originals of the notebooks are stored at Down House, Kent.
27. Charles Darwin's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. "'Beagle," ed. Nora Balow
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933).
225
SANDRA HERBERT
travel literature that the author should comment on foreign habits,
foods, language, religion, government, and so on. Before proceeding to
use the Diary as a source for the reconstruction of Darwin's ideas,
however, it must be acknowledged that at least one scholar has suggested in its published form as the Journal o f Researches 2s the Diary is
"not strictly a scientific work" but essentially a "popular account of
[Darwin's] travels" which thus must be used "with great caution. '':9 If
these judgments are true for any portions of the Journal o f Researches,
they are true for the sections on man, for the reasons previously cited,
that the observations were not backed up by a collection or by critical
pressure brought to bear by the existence of an audience of professionals. These deficiences are most apparent in the transfer of material from
the Diary to the Journal, for the sections on man remained relatively
unaltered while sections of the Diary dealing with zoological and geological matters were altered and expanded 3° following Darwin's contacts
with professional communities of geologists and zoologists on his return
to London. Given these qualifications, however, Darwin's remarks on
man in the Diary are otherwise of the same quality as his observations on
other areas of natural history and can be taken to represent his views. It
would be taking a misleadingly narrow view of what constitutes a scientific account to denigrate the Diary or the Journal o f Researches on the
grounds that they are popular works. Travel narrative was, of course, an
established genre which appealed to a wide public, but in the hands of a
Humboldt or a Darwin it became an instrument for awakening the
public to the excitement o f science as well as an instrument that
provided the author with a convenient vehicle for announcing a great
variety of finds in more specialized fields, aa It was for the latter reason
that Darwin's title for the Journal o f Researches made sense: it was
28. Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History
of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle (London: Henry
Colburn, 1839).
29. Ghiselin, The Triumph of the Darwinian Method, 9.
30. While the Diary contained 189,000 words, the first edition of the Journat.of
Researches had 224,000 words, an increase of 19 percent. CharlesDarwin's Diary,
p. viii.
31. See Alexander yon Humboldt, PersonalNarrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, 1799-1804, trans. Helen Maria Williams
(London: Longman, 1814-1829). On board the Beagle Darwin had access to a
good collection of standard accounts of voyages such as those written or
including sections by F. W. Beechey, George Bennett, George A. Byron, Adelbert
yon Chamisso, William Ellis, J. R. Forster, P. P. King, and Otto yon Kotzebue.
226
literally a record of the various researches which had grown out of his
travels. This record was not a popularization, for few of these
researches had yet been published in any form. On the other hand, it
was not a monograoh. It was a scientific work, but one modeled on the
idea of nature present in Humbolt's Personal Narrative rather than on
the idea of science inherent in, say, one of Cuvier's monographs. It is
not a model which Darwin himself preferred in most cases, but, as
should be clear by the end of this paper, it served him exceedingly well
with respect to the species question.
To return to the subject of man in the Diary, two themes stand out as
likely candidates for roles in the development of a theory of transmutation. The first was the sharp distinction drawn between savage and
civilized man and the second the attention paid to the geographical
distribution and presumed place of origin of the various human groups
encountered during the course of the Beagle's voyage. The first interest
was the simpler one, being frornits first appearance almost a response
rather than an indication of original thought. This interest was stimulated by the fact that an extracurricular mission of the voyage had been
to return to their homeland three natives of Tierro del Fuego who had
been taken to England by Robert Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle, in
1830 following the ship's first voyage, a2 The Beagle deposited the
Fuegians according to plan in January 1833 and paid a return call on
them thirteen months later in March 1834. The return of the Fueglans
thus provided Darwin with the unexpected opportunity of observing
what was, in a sense, an experiment in acculturation.
It seems likely from the scant notice Darwin gave to the three
Fuegians aboard ship before reaching Tierra del Fuego that he had not
anticipated the extent of his own interest, which was, from the intensity of his description, apparently aroused on the occasion of his first
sighting Fuegians on their native soil. "It was," he wrote, "without
exception the most curious and interesting spectacle I ever beheld. ''aa
In the course of his description Darwin invoked a parallel between
savage and civilized man, on the one hand, and wild and domesticated
32. For the interesting story of the circumstances of the Fuegians' journey and
of Fitzroy's hopes from them see Robert Fitzroy, Narrative of the Surveying
Voyages of His Mafesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle (London: Henry Colburn,
1839), II, 1-16. The transported Fueglans would appear to have been members of
the coastal'Yaghan tribe rather than of the inland-dwelling Ona tribe.
33. Char[esDarwin's Diary, p. 119.
227
SANDRA HERBERT
animals, on the other, which went far toward explaining how he understood the Fuegians. By citing the relationship of a wild animal to its
domestic cousin, Darwin was claiming identity in an original progenitor
for savage and civilized man (indeed on almost every occasion he made
clear that he believed all beings of human form to be of a single species)
while claiming differences of a sort which would enable various groups
to be ranked on a scale ranging from savage to civilized. The comparison between wild-domestic and savage-civilized failed, however, on
one important point, which was of immediate interest with respect to
the success of the Fuegian experiment. Darwin had no reason to think
that wild animals became domesticated within a single generation. Such
was not at all apparent with respect to the civilizing of supposed
savages. In his initial contact with Fuegians he took the liberal position
that their three years with Englishmen had sufficed "in contradiction of
what has often been stated . . . to change savages into as far as habits
go, complete & voluntary Europeans. ''a4 He was so far convinced of
their transformation into good Englishmen that he feared they had
been made unfit to return to their families.
Upon the Beagle's return to Tierra del Fuego in March 1834, however, Darwin observed that Jemmy Button, the ship's favorite of the
three surviving Fuegians, seemed "as happy as if he had never left his
mother country; which is much more than I had formerly thought. ''3s
Darwin thus claimed to have witnessed the passage in a single generation of a savage into a civilized man and, with allowances, of the adjustment of the same man once again to his former state. The only new
element in the discussion of 1834 on the subject is an invocation of the
force of habit fitting the Fuegian for his life, though this particular
reference is so slight that it is hard to know whether or not it represents
a change in opinion, a6
Two years later, at the end of the voyage, Darwin in general retained
the opinion formed in 1833 that the differences separating men in a
savage and civilized state were externally caused, though there was now
a trace of doubt about whether the savage lacked reason or only "the
arts consequent on human reason. ''37 However, despite what may have
been a new uncertainty over the hereditary nature of certain accomplishments, Darwin continued to speak of the difference between what
34. Ibid., p. 136.
35. Ibid., p. 216.
36. Ibid., p. 213.
37. Ibid., p. 428.
228
Man in the Development of Darwin's Theory o f Transmutation
he termed savage man and what he termed civilized man as though it
were a difference between potential and actual states o f being. For that
reason the opposition he set up between savage and civilized did not
constitute a step in the direction o f an espousal o f the notion of the
mutability o f species. Whatever the strength o f the psychological effect
on Darwin of "the first sight in his native haunt, of a real barbarian,"
the terms he used during the voyage to describe the passage between
savage and civilized were not transmutationist.38
The second theme developed with respect to man which offered
transmutationist possibilities was that of the relation o f various peoples
to one another geographically and consequently genetically. This theme
seems to have been developed casually with respect to man, even after
it became important for describing other aspects o f natural history.
This was true in spite of the numerous possibilities for the study of
geographical distribution and variation afforded b y the distribution o f
Indian tribes in South America and b y the encroachments on their
territories being made b y the decendants of the Spanish and Portuguese
conquerors and their African slaves. While there is an occasional spark
of brilliance in Darwin's remarks (as, for example, in the suggestion that
the parasites inhabiting mankind might be used to study the affinities
of its various subdivisions), 39 the majority o f the observations are less
systematic with respect to the human species than were those o f
Humboldt. It was Fitzroy, and not Darwin, for example, who first
38. Ibid.
39. Darwin routinely studied the contents of the intestines of the animals he
dissected as well as examining fecal matter, both of which procedures familiarized
him with the uniqueness of parasite-host relationships. While he suggested the
utility of such studies with respect to man as early as 1833, I do not know that he
ever made such studies. In 1833 he suggested in his notation for specimen 646 in
his "Catalogue for Animals in Spirits of Wine" that a comparison of the parasites
of a wild South American guinea pig with those of its European cousin would
show "whether they have been altered by transportation and domestication" and
that "it would be curious to make analogous observation with respect to various
tribes of man." (Quoted in Barlow, Charles Darwin and the Voyage o f the Beagle,
p. 265.) In a comment in his zoological notes made a year later the emphasis was
shifted from the study of the parasite to the study of the host and specifically to
the utility of the study of human parasites for discovering the genetic relationships between subdivisions of the human species: "Man springing from one stock
according to his varieties having different species of parasites." (Quoted by
Gruber and Gruber, "Eye of Reason," p. 193.)
229
SANDRA HERBERT
published a brief table of vocabulary for the Fuegians and the inhabitants of the Chonos Archipelago. 4°
The most complicated puzzle in human geography which Darwin
attempted to solve concerned the identity of the Indian tribes inhabiting the islands of Chiloe off the coast of Chili at 43 ° south latitude and
the Chonos Archipelago a degree farther south. In his "enquiries concerning the history of the Indians of Chiloe, ''41 he relied on the
affinities of language and, to a lesser extent, on affinities of custom. He
supposed that the remnants of original tribes inhabiting the area had
been displaced b y two tribes thought to be from the north, but which
he believed unrelated linguistically to the northern neighbors of the
Indians of Chiloe, the famous Araucanians. A modern authority has
come independently to a similar judgment. 42
In addition, on several occasions Darwin made use of the distribution
of Indians to demonstrate his primary hypothesis at that time, the
recent date of the elevation of the South American continent. What is
striking to the present-day reader about these examples is Darwin's
conception of substantial amounts of elevation having occurred during
historical times, that is, since the period of the great Indian empires.
This is an estimation not presently shared by geologists or LatinAmerican archeologists. He suggested, for example, that the existence
of uninhabited houses high in the Andes indicated that the land had
stood at a lower level (and hence there was a more temperate climate)
when the houses were constructed:
If the mountains rose slowly, the change of climate would also
deteriorate slowly. I know of no reason for denying that a large part
of this may have taken place since S. America was peopled. 43
More striking still, he used the present inhabitation of Tierra del Fuego,
40. Fitzroy, Voyage, vol. II, Appendix (a separate volume), 135-142.
41. CharlesDarwin's Diary, p.- 269.
42. See John M. Cooper, "The Chono," Srnithsonian Institution Bureau of
American Ethnology Bulletin 143: Handbook of South American Indians, ed.
Julian H. Steward (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946), p. 49.
Cooper believes the language was distinct, unrelated to the Araueanian, and more
likely a dialect of the Alaealauf language spoken by natives of the islands below
48Q South Latitude."
43. Charles Darwin's Diary, p. 303.
230
whose dreary climate was unattractive on its own merits, to support his
general argument that large parts of the continent had but very recently
risen from the sea:
Conversing with Capt. Fitz Roy concerning the recent elevation of
the continent he suggested the following bold hypothesis: The
number of distinct languages in T. del Fuego & the similarity in
physical structure suggests an high antiquity to the race of these
Indians: It seems a most strange fact,~that any power could have
induced a set of men to leave the immense & [fertile? ] regions of
temperate America & inhabit the miserable country of the South.
- May we conjecture that this migration took place anterior to the
last 2 or 3000 ft. elevation; when the greater part of America being
covered with the sea want of food might well compel small tribes to
follow to the extremity the ridge of mountains? May we venture to
extend this idea - the lofty plains of Mexico & Peru probably existed
as dry land at an immensely remote epoch. - H e n c e did they not
become the two centres of aboriginal civilization? ~
This technique of inferring past crustal movements from ranges of
species was an important one and recurs in the transmutation notebooks. It is interesting that Darwin never hesitated to use it with
respect to the human species, but aside from their ready naturalism, his
discussions of the geographical distribution of the human species do not
seem to have been the critical examples which moved him closer to a
belief in the transmutation of species.
Before leaving the period of the voyage proper, we should perhaps
also credit Darwin's ready naturalism with a certain amount of
anthropological acuity. For example, almost intuitively, he assigned
dual functions to native customs. A sacred tree might serve, on the one
hand, as a religious center and, on the other hand, as a direction
marker. 4s Also, the Diary contains numerous general comments on
human nature ( " H o w universal is the desire of man to show he has
44. Darwin MSS, vol. 34, i, ULC. This passage was part of a long essay on the
elevation of Patagonia and was probably written in 1834, a dating on which
Professor Sydney Smith and Peter J. Gautrey concur. The passage in the Diary relaying the same thought and also composed in 1834 was more cautious, as was the
fmal version of the Journal. Compare Diary, p. 213 and Journal of Researches,
p. 237.
45. Charles Darwin's Diary, pp. 159-160.
231
SANDRA HERBERT
ascended the highest points in every country")46 and several suggestions
of the ways human artifacts provide keys to the past. For example,
knowing the association of horses and hunting with bolas and finding
arrowheads on the Patagonian plains led him to the conclusion not only
that the Patagonian Indians had not hunted with horses but also that
"the horse was not an original inhabitant" of the continent. 47 But,
considering the wealth of speculation on similar topics within the
tradition of voyaging naturalists, and the outstanding work of
Humboldt, to which Darwin referred as a model, his observations fall
well within the bounds of the remarks expected of an observant and
informed naturalist.
Personal Changeof Mind
If Darwin's direct observations on man during the voyage do not seem
to have initiated any large changes in his notions of species, what of his
attitude? Were there more subtle changes in his opinion of the position
of man with respect to the rest of the natural world? Had his religious
beliefs altered? The chief document useful for answering such questions
is Darwin's o w n account of his changes of heart in a section from his
Autobiography devoted to the subject of "Religious Belief.''48 Although the Autobiography is suspect for having been written some
forty years after the events, it is an indispensable source because nowhere else did Darwin describe the course of his change of mind so
directly.
The essential feature for our purposes in Darwin's description of his
own loss of faith is his periodization of his state of mind into the time
before and the time after the voyage. Although he described his loss of
belief as occurring "at a very slow rate," thus causing him "no distress,"
by his own account this process began only after his return to England. 49 This may be a somewhat simplified periodization as it is an unusual person who would be possessed of an identical religious and philosophical outlook at age twenty-seven as at age twenty-two. Certainly his
disavowal during the course of the voyage of the geological meaningfulness of the biblical deluge was significant, ff only for the reason that it
46. Ibid., p. 152.
47. Ibid., p. 174.
48. Autobiography,pp. 85-96.
49. Ibid., pp. 87, 86.
232
served to emphasize to Darwin the many possible issues separating his
own Whiggish views from those of Fitzroy. Nonetheless, Darwin's
change of heart on religious and philosophical matters does seem on all
other major points to postdate the voyage. For example, in a passage
written a year and a half before the end of the voyage, Darwin
defended the notion that extinct species must logically be replaced by
the introduction of new species since otherwise - if the number of
species had varied greatly - the "fitness" which the "Author of
Nature" had established would have been altered, s° This reference to
the "fitness" required by the "Author of Nature" as more than a
defense of natural law; it was a remark which stood within the tradition
of natural theology as well as natural history. Later, Darwin, even while
associating the rule of natural law with the existence of a divine lawmaker, would not so freely attribute such specific characteristics as
"fitness" to the operation of the lawmaker. On other religious and
philosophical topics, such as the relation of the mental to the physical,
the nature of the soul, and the existence of free will, Darwin makes no
comment in the material dating from the period of the voyage. In sum,
then, neither Darwin's observations on man during the voyage nor a
change in his overall religious or philosophical attitude during the same
period seems to have precipitated his interest in the species question.
SOURCES OF DARWIN'S CONVERSION TO A
TRANSMUTATIONIST POSITION
Thus far in examining what Darwin had to say about man during the
voyage we have avoided naming a date for Darwin's adoption of a
transmutationist hypothesis for the good reason that the exact date is
not universally agreed on. Writing in 1838, Darwin himself dated the
moment of decision as March 1837:
In July opened first note book on "transmutation of Species" - Had
been greatly struck from about month of previous March on character
50. Darwin MSS, vol. 42, ULC. The entire sentence reads, "If the existence of
species is allowed each according to its kind we must suppose deaths to follow at
different epochs & then successive births must repeople the globe or the number
of its inhabitants has varied exceedingly at different periods. - A supposition in
contradiction to the fitness which the Author of Nature has now established."
The folio in which this sentence appears was dated February 1835.
233
SANDRA HERBERT
of S. American fossils- & species on Galapagos Archipelago. These
facts origin (especially latter) of all my views, sl
Claims, however, have been made by Nora Barlow, who has published a
number of important manuscripts from this period, that Darwin was
already approaching the question of species from a transmutationist
view by mid-1835, that is, during the Beagle voyage, sz Given the disagreement over dating Darwin's transmutationist moment and our
purpose of seeing where the question of human origins entered his
speculations, it is necessary at this point to review the sources on the
basis of which authors have confirmed or altered Darwin's testimony.
The four items which have figured most prominently in the setting of
dates for Darwin's conversion to a transmutationist thesis have been:
the notes from the voyage taken as a whole; the Ornithological Notes,
to which Lady Barlow has assigned a relatively early date; Beagle notebook 1.2, s3 which Lady Barlow has treated together with the Ornithological Notes; and Darwin's marginalia in the fifth edition of Lyelrs
Pn'nciples of Geology, to which Professor Sydney Smith has called
attention.S4
Until now authors have reconstructed the development of Darwin's
thought on species prior to July 1837 by using some or all of these
documents. Rather than following this tack, I would like instead to
block out the period in terms of Darwin's activities during the years or
months preceeding July 1837. This approach has the advantage of
ordering the period prior to July 1837 with respect to the development
of Darwin's views on species without requiring an exhaustive discussion
of all the issues involved. It is also particularly appropriate for the
period from the end of the voyage to the opening of the first notebook
on transmutation because during that time Darwin did not, so far as is
51. "Darwin's Journal," p. 7. This entry was presumably written shortly after
Darwin opened his "Journal" in August 1838. The "previous March" is thus
March 1837.
52. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," ed., Nora Barlow, Bulletin of the British
Museum (Natural History) Historical Series 2, no. 7 (1963), 204. The Notes
represent vol. 29, ii, of the Darwin MSS. at ULC.
53. Beaglenotebook 1.2, labeled "R.N.," Darwin MSS, Down House, Kent. Lady
Barlow has published the portions of the notebook dealing with species in an appendix to "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," pp. 267-277. Peter Gautrey of the University Library and I are atpresent preparing an edition of the complete notebook.
54. Smith, "Origin of the 'Origin'," pp. 397-398. The original Lyell volumes
form part of the Darwin Library held at ULC.
234
known, keep a diary or a single set of notes which would enable one to
identify the state of his views on a subject at any given date. And,
finally, this approach makes more obvious the role played by external
circumstances in the progress of Darwin's theoretical work on species.
The four separate projects which served in turn as the" center for his
speculations on species are: (1) the geological and zoological note
taking during the voyage; (2) the listing of separate zoological collections, including the Ornithological Notes, done for the most part during
the last months of the voyage; (3) the identification of numerous parts
of his collection by members of the Zoological Society o f London
during the first three months of 1837; and (4) the composition of the
Journal o f Researches, in the spring and summer of 1837. Darwin's
marginalia in the fifth edition of Lyell's Principles are of various date
and will be treated in closing.
Evidence o f Notes Dating from the Voyage
The geological and zoological notes from the voyage were written for
Darwin's own use and include theoretical and speculative passages on
many subjects. For that reason they may be accepted as representing
his opinion on species during the period. This is important, as the notes
do not contain any explicitly transmutationist statements which would
allow one to say that Darwin was converted to the position during the
voyage. Even so, enormous progress had been made. As part of his more
general conversion to a LyeUian program of geological research, Darwin
had accepted Lyell's setting of the species question, s5 This is illustrated
in his belief that the extinction and birth of species should be treated as
55. LyeU's program on the species question was most succintly expressed ha his
letter to John Herschel of June 1, 1836, in Life, Letters and Journals of Sir
Charles Lyell, Bart. (London: John Murray, 1881), I, 467-469. His detailed
presentation is contained in the second volume of his Principles of Geology
(London: John Murray, 1830o33). For a summary of it see William Coleman,
"Lyell and the 'Reality' of Species: 1830-1833." 1sis, 53 (September 1962),
325-338. For a more methodologically oriented view see M. J. S. Rudwick, "The
Strategy of LyeU's Principles of Geology," Isis, 61 (Spring 1970), 5-33. An
excellent new account of certain aspects of the subject is Michael Bartholomew,
"Lyell and Evolution: An Account of LyeU's Response to the Prospect of an
Evolutionary Ancestry for Man," BrL J. Hist. ScL, 6 (1973), 261-303. Bartholomew is particularly right in crediting LyeU with setting the species question in a
manner in which it could be solved, even though, as Waiter Cannon and Martin
Rudwick have argued, Lyell's view was fundamentally ahistorical.
235
SANDRA HERBERT
occurring singly rather than en masse, s6 Also, and again as part of his
response to Lyell, Darwin maintained a special interest in the study o f
emergent land masses as being the likely platforms for new life. F o r
example, in his "Reflection on reading m y geological notes," probably
written in 1 8 3 5 - 3 6 , he. speculated " t h a t rocks from seas too deep for
life were rapidly elevated & that immediately when within a proper
depth life commenced. ''sT In addition to progress at the theoretical
level, there was also enormous progress at the level o f observation.
Indeed the factual basis for a transmutationist view often appears complete in the notes. For example, Darwin could describe a Gal~pagos
mockingbird as " a singular form existing as varieties o f distinct species
in the different Isds. ''ss Yet judgments o f fact presumed professionally
drawn distinctions between taxonomic groupings (the b o u n d a r y
between species and variety being particularly troublesome) which
made Darwin's store o f observations less immediately assimilable to
other lines of speculation than might appear at first reading. Thus it was
only after the voyage that these separate lines o f speculation and observation could draw together.
Darwin's Ornithological Notes and Related Lists
Lady Barlow's publication of the Ornithological Notes in 1963
naturally brought attention to this manuscript and to the important
passage she first singled out in 1935:
When I see these Islands in sight o f each other & (but del.) possessed
o f b u t a scanty stock o f animals, tenanted by these birds, b u t slightly
56. E.g., a passage bearing a February 1835 date from Darwin MSS, vol. 42,
ULC. "With respect then to the death of species of Terrestrial mammalia in the S.
Part of S. America I am strongly inclined to reject the action of any sudden
debacle. - Indeed the very numbers of the remains render it to me more probable
that they are owing to a succession of deaths after the ordinary course of
nature. - As Mr. LyeU supposes Species may perish as well as individuals; to the
arguments he adduces I hope the Caria of B. Blanca will be one more small
instance of at least a relation of certain genera with certain districts of the earth.
This co-relation to my mind renders the gradual birth & death of species more
probable."
57. Darwin MSS, vol. 42, ULC. Peter Gautrey has suggested a date of 1835 for
this passage.
58. Darwin MSS, vol. 31, ii, ULC. Contrary to the impression created in the
Journal of Researches (p. 474), many of the descriptions of Gal~pagos specimens
do note the island of origin.
236
differing in structure & filling the same place in Nature, I must suspect they are only v a r i e t i e s . . . I f there is the slightest foundation for
these remarks the zoology o f A r c h i p e l a g o e s - will be well worth
examining; for such facts [would inserted] undermine the stability o f
Species. s9
Two obvious questions posed by this passage are those o f its date and
o f its relation to the issue o f transmutation. Before taking up these
questions directly, I should like to place the Ornithological Notes in
the context o f what I take to be the purpose for which they were
written, that is, as guides to individual portions o f Darwin's zoological
collections intended for professional taxonomists.
The first point to be made with respect to the interpretation of the
Ornithological Notes is that they form but one part o f a series o f
manuscript notes on various portions o f Darwin's zoological coUections. 6° When all o f these notes are examined together, it becomes clear
that they are not so much fresh notes on various groups of specimens as
comparatively simple lists taken in the main from two o f Darwin's three
specimen catalogs. 6x Given the simplicity o f these lists the probable
reason for their existence was the practical one of providing a separate
catalog of each large grouping o f specimens for individual taxonomists.
Indeed at least two o f the lists (Reptiles and Fish) bear annotations in
59. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 362. Lady Barlow first published this
passage in a letter to Nature, 136 (July-December 1935), 391. That the date of
this passage is not obvious at first glance is evidenced by the fact that in her letter
to Nature Lady Barlow took its composition to be contemporary with the visit of
the Beagle to the Gal~pagos Islands in September and October 1835. Since then
she has made a thorough study of the entire text and her "Introduction, Notes,
and Appendix" to the "Notes" should be consulted on all technical points.
60. Darwin MSS, vol. 29, ULC, contains, among other things, lists of animals,
fish, insects, and shells like and including that on birds which has been published
as "Darwin's Ornithological Notes." The complementary list for reptiles is housed
at the British Museum (Natural History) where it came by way of Thomas Bell,
who examined these specimens. All of the above notes were written on paper
bearing the watermark "J. Whatman 1834," which was originally identified with
respect to the ornithological list by Professor Sydney Smith. See "Darwin's
Ornithological Notes," p. 208.
61. The three master specimen catalogs were divided according to specimens
stored in spirits, specimens stored dry, and geological specimens and fossils. The
first two catalogs are housed at Down House, the third, mentioned in the Journal
of Researches (p. 600), is missing.
237
SANDRA HERBERT
the handwriting of the specialist who handled that portion of the
collection. 62
The mode of procedure seems to have been this: toward the end of
the voyage Darwin went through his specimen catalogs initialing entries
according to a simple key which appears at the beginning of each of the
two extant catalogs. The initials used were "A," "B," "I," "S," and
"P" for animal, bird, insect, shell, and plant, respectively. (Occasionally
other initials were used which do not appear in the key, such as "C" for
crustacea.) Having initialed the entries in this manner, Darwin then
turned his catalogs over to his assistant, Syms Covington, who copied
out a separate list for each category. Hence most of the lists are in
Covington's hand and follow the original entries in the master catalogs
word for word except for the addition of the date and place of collection where needed. For example, item 153 in the Catalog for Animals
in Spirits of Wine is listed in ink as "Lacerta" with a penciled "R"
added beside it; in the list rifled "Reptiles in Spirits of Wine" the entry
reads "153 Lacerta: March, Bahia," the required date and place of
collection having been added by Covington from information appearing
in the margin of the master catalog. For some entries Covington was
also instructed by Darwin's notation in the master catalogs to add
information from the general zoological notes (Darwin MSS, vols. 30
and 31), and this Covington did.
What, then, of the date of these notes? The earliest possible date is
that of the watermark of the paper, 1834, and in the judgment of Lady
Barlow, the Ornithological Notes were probably begun at that time. 6a
But since these lists contain information which Darwin already possessed
in other forms and do not suggest that he was perusing the physical
specimens once again it is hard to imagine why the lists would have
been begun at such an early date. Rather it would seem likely that they
were ordered (and here I am speaking of the lists done primarily in
Covington's hand) late in the voyage when Darwin was anticipating the
distribution of various portions of his collection to professional taxono-
62. The reptiles list bears what I believe to be the handwriting of Leonard
Jenyns. I am grateful to Professor Sydney Smith for showing me a notebook
belonging to Jenyns which allowed this identification.
63. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 205. There is some ambiguity in her
presentation, however, as she also explains references to specimens out of
sequence by saying that "this is wholly in keeping with the belief that they were
written during the last year of voyage with his 'rough notes' before him," (Ibid).
See also p. 259, n. 1.
238
mists. As is generally known, Darwin collected very few specimens after
visiting the Gal~pagos because the ports visited later in the voyage had
been well collected by other naturalists64 and instead used the remaining year primarily for writing. 6s Therefore it would seem plausible to
assign the compilation of these species lists to the post-Gal~pagos period,
and, in all likelihood, to a time well into 1836.
The date by which time the lists were completed is somewhat easier
to assign. At least one of the lists, the "Shells in Spirits of Wine," does
not contain entries for specimens which Darwin recorded in the master
catalog in December 1836; 66 this particular list was therefore completed
prior to Decemher 1836. The more general evidence that the lists
represent a project of the voyage is the fact that proper scientific names
for specimens assigned from January 1837 on appear in the lists only as
later additions. Lady Barlow has pointed this out with respect to the
Ornithological Notes, 67 and it is true for the other lists as well. 6~ One
can therefore conclude that the lists were in existence prior to January
1837 when the zoologists began to assign new names to Darwin's
specimens. 69
64. See Darvdn's letter of January 1836, Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow,
p. 114
65. See Darwin's letter of April 29, 1836, CharlesDarwin and the Voyage of the
Beagle, p. 138.
66. Darwin MSS, vol- 29, i, ULC. The numbers listed in sequence go up to 1469.
In the master catalog of specimens in spirits there is a final series of specimens,
numbered from 1474 to 1529 (not inclusive), listed in pencil under the date
"Decemb 1836."
67. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 216.
68. E.g.: The first thirty-two folios of "Animals" do not contain notation of
species names assigned to the specimens in the winter of 1837 other than those,
such as Mus elegans (fol. 1), which were clearly later additions. Darwin MSS,
voL 32, i, ULC.
69. There is one fact which could be used against this conclusion. The ornithologist John Gould remarked upon his first presentation of Darwin's birds to the
Zoology Society on January 10, 1837, that he "deferred entering into any further
details respecting the species under consideration until Mr. Darwin had furnished
him with some information relating to their habits and manners." Proc. Zool. Soc.
Lond., 5 "(1837), 7. Since information on habits and ranges was contained in the
Ornithological Notes, Gould certainly did not have a copy of the Notes as of
January 10. He apparently did have some information on habits and ranges by the
next meeting of the Society on January 24 since he referred to assurances from
Darwin "that the habits of this bird Polyborus Galapagoensis strictly coincide
with those of the Caracara (Polyborus Brasiliensis)" (Ibid., p. 9). A similar change
239
SANDRA HERBERT
If the interpretation o f the ornithological and related notes given
above is accepted, how would it affect a reading o f the passage quoted
at the outset o f this section on the "stability o f Species"? As has been
mentioned, the observations themselves were n o t new. 7° But there was
a new urgency to their expression. The underlying problem in the
paragraph on the "stability o f Species" was the demarcation between
mere varieties and good species. This question was b y definition the
province of professional taxonimists, the presumed audience to which
the various lists were directed. (The pointedness o f this question is
revealed even more sharply in the "Animals" list which Darwin d o s e d
b y asking himself, "Are the various specimens o f mice, which I have
collected varieties or s p e c i e s ? - Their geographical distribution often
causes me to doubt. ''71 Also, if the lists were written for the u s e o f
other as well as himself, the ambivalent abruptness o f the sentences
where Darwin referred to "facts which would undermine the stability
o f Species" m a y have been intentional. This means, then, whatever the
interest inherent in individual passages from the Ornithological Notes
and its counterparts, the entire work, or set o f works, should be seen
in terms o f the audience to which it was addressed. Holding the audience
to mind can aid in interpreting particular passages and in identifying
the subjects that necessarily demanded attention while a particular
project was under way. In this case the subject was the boundary
separating varieties from species, and the audience was the professional
zoological c o m m u n i t y
occurred with the animals - James Reid mentioning his lack of information on
habits and ranges on January 10 and William Martin using information of the
same sort on January 24 (ibid., pp. 4, 11.) As Darwin probably did not communicate in person with the zoologists from January 10 to 24 since he was in
Cambridge, it is conceivable that the lists were sent to them during these two
weeks or even that the two lists were written during this period.
It must be allowed, that it is also possible (though again inconsistent with
this interpretation) that Darwin kept the Birds and Animals lists entirely within
his own possession and imparted information only on request. For example, in his
one long presentation to the Society, Darwin was apparently reading directly
from the Ornithological Notes; cf. Proc. ZooL Soc. Lond. 5 (1837), 35-36, on the
two rheas with "Darwin's ornithological Notes," pp. 268-275. Even if Gould did
have a copy of the Notes, however, he may not have had this final section on the
two rheas, as the extant copy does not have the instruction "cop" (copy) in the
margin.
70. E.g., compare the remark on the same specimen of mockingbirds made in
the zoological notes (see note 58) and on the Ornithological Notes (see note 59).
71. Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i, "Animals," fol. 32, ULC.
240
The Role o f Professional Zoologists
In discussing Darwin's dealings with zoologists from October 1836 to
March 1837 a cautionary judgment must be made at the outset that
Darwin's own professional identification was with geology. This was of
his own choosing. Even as measured in externalities, Darwin's effort to
establish himself as a member of the Geological Society of London was
considerable: he requested Henslow to put him forward for membership in the Society even before the voyage was over so that no time
would be lost "before being balloted for"; 72 upon his return he
immediately accepted the offer of Lyell's tutelage; 73 and, once elected
to the Council of the Society, he did not miss a single meeting from
March 8, 1837, to March 7, 1838. 74 In contrast, Darwin kept himself
at some remove from the Zoological Society of London, becoming
only a corresponding member. The result of his relatively distant
relationship with the Zoological Society was that it left him free
to negotiate the receipt of his zoological collections with individual
zoologists on a piece-work basis.
Darwin began these negotiations immediately upon his return to
England in October 1836, the months of October and November being
largely taken up with this task. His frankest discussions of his efforts to
place his collections are contained in several of the letters to Henslow
which have been published by Lady Barlow. 7s During this time Darwin
had to steer a fine course between not offering his collections to those
important men who, by past example, had shown themselves unlikely
to produce speedy results and not, by withholding his collections from
them, giving offense. For example, he made a decision to offer his
fossil mammalia to Richard Owen at the Royal Co!leg_e of Surgeons,
where Owen was assistant to William Clift, rather t h a n to William
Buckland at Oxford. He also prevented the possibility that Robert
Brown at the British Museum would lay a dead hand upon the flora.
(As Brown was one of Darwin's frequent advisers, this must have required
72. Darwin to Henslow, July.9, 1836, Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, p. 115.
73. See Wilson, Charles Lyell, chap. 13.
74. Attendance record tallied from the Minute Books of the Council, Geological
Society of London, Burlington House.
75. See particularly Darwin's letter of October 30, 1836, Barlow, ed., in Darwin
and Henslow, pp. 118-123.
241
SANDRA HERBERT
all of Darwin's considerable tact.) One circumstance which of course
strengthened Darwin's hand in negotiation was his lack of interest in
being paid for his specimens and his complete title to them.
A few decisions were made early. Darwin had collected the Gal~ipagos
flowering plants as a present for Henslow as well as a matter of
interest to himself, v6 The disposition of the most spectacular specimens,
the large fossil mammalia, was decided very soon after Darwin was
introduced to Richard Owen by Lyell on October 29, 1836 - less than a
month after Darwin had stepped ashore. 77 Owen, then thirty-two years
old, confirmed Darwin's judgment that the specimens were important
by having a preliminary list of them ready on January 1837. 7s Not
surprisingly, Owen's was the first portion of the Zoology ready for
publication, the first unit of Part I on Fossil Mammalia appearing in
February 1838. 79 Equally efficient was John Gould, also thirty-two
years old, who was apparently offered the ornological specimens in
the fall of 1836 as the first presentation of specimens, the Gal~pagos
finches, was made at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London on
January 10, 1837. Although he was not a man of formal education and
had come to the Society originally as a paid taxidermist, Gould had,
through ambition, competence, and industry, become one of the
group's central figuresfl° Although involved in many other projects,
Gould worked rapidly on Darwin's collection and made five separate
presentations on various specimens to the meetings of the Society in
the first seven months of 1837. 81 Later he collaborated with Darwin on
the ornithological sections of the Zoology, a work to which his wife
Elizabeth Coxen Gould, the artist, also contributed, producing fifty
plates for the series before departing for Australia in May 1838. The
76. Darwin to Henslow, January 1836 and May 18, 1837, Barlow, ed., Darwin
and Henslow, pp. 113, 129.
77. Wilson, Charles Lyell, p. 434.
78. Ibid., pp. 436-437.
79. Charles Darwin, ed., The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M,S. Beagle...:
Part 1, Fossil Mammalia, by Richard Owen (1838-40); Part 2, Mammalia, by
George R. Waterhouse (1838-39); Part 3, Birds, by John Gould (1838-41), Part 4,
Fish, by Leonard Jenyns (1840-42); Part 5, Reptiles, by Thomas Bell (1842-43),
(London: Smith Elder, 1838-43).
80. On Gould's appetite for new specimens see C. E. Bryant, "Gould Miscellanea and Some Anecdotes," Emu, 38, (October 1838), 227.
81. John Gould, "Remarks on a Group of Ground Finches from Mr. Darwin's
Collection, with Characters of the New Species," Proe. Zool. Soc. LoncL, 5
242
only disappointment the Goulds ever provided Darwin resulted from
the circumstance that they did not describe the entire collection before
their departure, leaving Darwin to tie up a great number of loose ends.
The other persons Darwin solicited to describe his collections proved
nearly as efficient. George Waterhouse, Darwin's old acquaintance and
curator at the Zoological Society, began publishing immediately on the
important specimens of mice and rats, and ultimately did the volume
on the mammalia for the Zoology. The fish were eventually given to
Leonard Jenyns, Henslow's brother-in-law, in the fall of 1837. In
November 1836 Thomas Bell, a leading figure in the Zoological Society,
expressed interest in doing the reptiles and was apparently promised
them forthwith, though this portion of the Zoology was the last to
emerge. Remaining portions of the collection were also described by
professionals (W. H. Miller, the minerals; G. B. Sowerby, the shells;
J. Martin, some of the mammals, and so on), with Darwin reserving
some of the invertebrates for himself. In short, although experiencing
some setbacks, Darwin was succesful in placing his collections into
competent hands.
Darwin's activity on behalf of his collections did not end there. He
engaged the support of the heads of the highest scientific societies in
gaining financial support from the government, himself dealing personaUy with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to enable publication of
the Zoology. 82 He also appears to have exercised some control over the
order in which his specimens were examined. The report on the
Gal~ipagos finches, for instance, was made on January 10, 1837, the
first meeting of the Zoological Society at which any of the Beagle
specimens was treated. A month thereafter, on February 14, Gould
described the Gal~pagos mockingbird, and Waterhouse began his
extended presentation on the mice. While Darwin was not always so
successful in generating speedy answers to his questions (he pleaded
(January 10, 1837), 4-7; "Observations on the Raptorial Birds in Mr.Darwin's
Collection, with Characters of the New Species," 5 (January 24, 1837), 9-11;
"Exhibition of the Fissirostral Birds from Mr. Darwin's Collection, and Characters
of the New Species,"5 (February 14, 1837), 22; "On a New Rhea (Rhea
Darwinii) from Mr. Darwin's Collection," 5 (March 14, 1837), 35-36; and "Exhibition of Mr. Darwin's Birds (PyrgitaIagoensis)," 5 (July 25, 1837), 77-78.
82. On the progress of the negotiations see Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow,
pp. 127, 134.
243
SANDRA HERBERT
with Henslow for each answer on the Gal~pagos fauna), sa it is an
impressive testimony to his energy and single-mindedness that six
months after the Beagle's return the most important species had been
described.
The results of the professional examination of Darwin's collections
were decisive. In the test cases his specimens were declared to represent
new species rather than, in Darwin's phrase, "only varieties" o f known
species. Gould, for example, established a new genus, Geospiza, along
with three subgenera for the Gal~pagos ground finches and named fourteen new species in all from the group. 84 The geographically isolated
forms of the Gal~pagos mockingbird were also declared to be distinct
species, as In a similar case, Darwin's smaller rhea was given official
recognition as a new species. ~ As for the mammals, there had been
some gaps in the collection asDarwin did not possess specimens of the
Gal~pagos tortoises or the Falkland foxes (the East Falkland fox
eventually described in the Zoology was from Fitzroy's collection). 87
Disappointments such as these were, however, balanced in part by the
fme array of rodents in the collection. In the restricted genus Mus alone
Waterhouse described nineteen new species at the meetings of the
Zoological Society o n February 14 and 28 and set up a new genus,
Reithrodon, for two other specimens, ss Clearly Waterhouse had answered Darwin's questions, expressed at the close of the "Animals" list,
as to whether the majority of his mice were varieties or species. It is
therefore not difficult to see that the decisions of the professional
taxonomists represented a rite of passage for Darwin in his approach to
the species question. And, later, not surprisingly, having received their
judgment and used it as the basis for speculation, he was determined to
see it acknowledged universally. Perhaps recalling his own initial un-
83. On October 29, 1836, Darwin removed the box of Gal~pagos plants from
the Beagle, which was then docked at Greenwich. He sent the box at once to
Henslow along with questions to which he wanted immediate answers. Letters
44-49 of the Darwin and Henslow collection reflect the increasing urgency with
which Darwin put the questions to Henslow and his frustration at not being able
to obtain immediate answers. The collection was eventually described by Joseph
Hooker in the 1840's.
84. Prec. ZooL Soc. Lend., 5 (1837), 4-7.
85. Ibid., p. 27.
86. Ibid., p. 35
87 Zoology of the Beagle, Part 2, pp. 8-10.
88. Prec. ZooL Soc. Lend., 5 (1837), 15-21, 27-32.
244
certainty on the variety-species distinction, and knowing that his still
unpublished theory rested on its proper resolution, he wrote in the
Zoology of the Galfipagos mockingbirds:
I may observe, that [if] some naturalists may be inclined to attribute
these differences to local varieties.., then the experience of all the
best ornithologists must be given up, and whole genera must be
blended into species. 89
Composition o f the "Journal o f Researches'"
During the period October 1836 - J u l y 1837 Darwin probably spent
more time on the Journal o f Researches than on any other single
project. Most of the circumstances surrounding the composition of this
work are well known and need only be alluded to: Fitzroy's favorable
impression of Darwin's Diary and the consequent invitation to publish
jointly; Henry Holland's negative opinion of the originality of the Diary
and the brief family worry over its publishability; Darwin's haste in
writing to meet a mid-1837 deadline; and Fitzroy's tardiness in completing his volume, which postponed publication of the Beagle series
until 1839. To this may be added a general knowledge of Darwin's
procedure in transforming the Diary into the Journal by the addition of
several different sorts of material. 9° In the process of rewriting, Darwin
added full descriptions of the specimens to the text of the Diary. As
Lady Barlow has suggested, these were often taken from the Ornithological Notes 91 and, we may add, from the "Animals" list as well. Where
available, new taxonomic designations were also given a prominent
place in the description of specimens. A second kind of material added
to the Diary was geological, a number of important theories and observations appearing for the first time publicly in the Journal. Finally,
Darwin's personal narrative was broadened in outlook by the addition
89. Zoology of the Beagle, part 3, pp. 63-64. In a common sort of redefinition,
the Gal,lpagos mockingbird is presently ranked as a single species, Nesomimus
trifasciatus, with the forms recognized by Gould as distinct species being regarded
as geographical races. See James Peters, Checklist of Birds of the World, ed. Ernst
Mayr and James C. Greenway, Jr., (Cambridge, Mass.: Museum of Comparitive
Zoology, 1960), vol. 9 Mimiclae, pp. 440-458, N. trifasciatus, pp. 447-448.
90. See the preface by Lady Barlow to CharlesDarwin's Diary, pp. vii-xx.
91. "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 33.
245
SANDRA HERBERT
of references to the experiences of other voyagers as well as to various
contemporary works of science.
It is to this last body of material that a new point may be addressed.
It would appear that in adding references from his reading to the Diary
Darwin was working from a notebook numbered in the Beagle series as
notebook 1.2 and bearing the label "R.N." on its cover. In this light the
initials "ILN." may be read as standing for "Reading Notes" or,
perhaps, "Rough Notes. ''92 An example of the use of the notebook in
this manner is the entry on page 126 of the notebook where Darwin
wrote "1826.27.28 grt drought at Sydney which caused Capt. Sturt expedition." and incorporated the fact into the text of the Journal o f
Researches on page 157 of the first edition. 93 Although the frequent
correspondence between entries in the notebook and the Journal does
not allow us to say that one was begun with the other in mind, clearly
the notebook was used in the composition of the Journal.
Overall, Beagle notebook 1.2 ("R.N.")stands midway between the
field notebooks of the voyage and the later transmutation notebooks.
Although, chronologically speaking, certain portions date from the
voyage itself, the time during which the field notebooks were written,
its content reflects the bold speculation characteristic of the later
transmutation notebooks. It was in this notebook that Darwin began
to consider what might be expected "if one species altered. ''94 The
tenor of Darwin's remarks on species in this notebook is new, as this
phrase alone suggests. Where previously the problem and been phrased
in terms of the introduction of new species, now the words "change"
and "altered" are used. Of course, as one might expect, the majority
of the themes brought forward were familiar ones, but old themes
were set alongside the newly considered possibility that one species
might change into another: reflection on the birth and death of species
had given way to reflection on the transmutation of species.
The date of the transmutationist passage in notebook R.N. is important because in these passages the change in view on species alluded
92. I am grateful to Peter Gautrey for suggesting "Rough Notes" to me, out of
which "Reading Notes" evolved.
93. The work referred to was Charles Sturt, Two Expeditions into the Interior
of Southern Australia during the years 1828-1831 (London: Smith, Elder, & Co.,
1833). The information mentioned by Darwin appears in Sturt, I, pp. 1-2, the full
citation not being given in either notebook R.N. or the Journal o f Researches.
94. Quoted in Charles Darwin and the Voyage o f the Beagle, p. 263. Lady
Barlow.published the important passages from notebook R.N. nearly thirty years
246
Man in the D e v e l o p m e n t o f Darwin's T h e o r y o f T r a n s m u t a t i o n
to in the Ornithological Notes is given real substance. L a d y Barlow, the
single person t o c o m m e n t in print o n these passages, assigned t h e m the
date o f no later t h a n April 1836. As she is an a u t h o r i t y on these early
texts, a few c o m m e n t s o n her arguments for this date may be helpful.
She chose this date for t w o reasons, one general, the o t h e r m o r e
specific. The looser justification for assigning the passages, indeed the
entire n o t e b o o k , to an early period is a letter Darwin w r o t e to one o f
his sisters in April 1836 describing h i m s e l f at w o r k "rearranging old
geological notes: the rearranging generally consists in totally rewriting
t h e m . ''gs H o w e v e r , the notes Darwin was v e r y likely referring to in the
letter are the f o r m a l well-ordered geological notes contained in
volumes 32 and 33 o f the Darwin manuscript collection rather t h a n the
entries in n o t e b o o k R.N., w h i c h are scraps - brilliant scraps, b u t scraps
nonetheless. It is t h e r e f o r e unsafe to presume f r o m Darwin's letter o f
April 1836 to his sister t h a t n o t e b o o k R.N. represented the efforts at
rewriting indicated in that letter.
ago in this work; they are reprinted in "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," pp.
276-277. The following is the longest single train of thought on species developed
in the notebook (pp. 127-130): "Speculate on neutral ground for 2 Ostriches:
bigger one encroaches on smaller. - change not progressive: produced at one
blow if one species altered: Mem: my idea of volc. islands elevated, then peculiar
plants created, if for such mere points; then any mountain, one is falsely less
surprised at new creation for large. - Australia, = if for volc. isld then for any spot
of land. = Yet new creation affected by Halo of neighbouring continent. ~ as if
any creation taking place over certain area must have peculiar character:... Great
contrast of two sides of Cordillera, where climate similar. - I do not know
botanicaUy = but picturesquely Both N & S. great contrast from nature of
climate. = . . . Go steadily through all the limits of birds and animals in S. America.
ZoriUa [skunk]: wide limit of waders: Ascension. Keeling: at sea so commonly
seen at long distances: generally first arrives. - . . .
Tempted to believe animals
created for definite time: - not extinguished by change of circumstances: The
same kind of relation that common ostrich bears to (Petisse [Avestruz petise, the
smaller rhea] - & diff kinds of Fourmiller: [Galfipagus mockingbirds] extinct
Guanaco to recent: in former case position, in latter time (or changes consequent
on lapse) being the relation. - As in first cases distinct cases inosculate so must we
believe ancient ones: not gradual change or degeneration from circumstances: if
one species does change into another it must be per saltum - or species may
perish. - This representation of species important, each its own limit, & represented. - Chiloe creeper: Furnarius. Calandrla. inosculation alone shows not
gradation: - " I am grateful to Professor Smith for reading the word "Fourmiller".
"Fourmiller" or ant thrush is listed in Dict. Classy, VII, 22. Also see Zoology o f
the Beagle, part 3, pp. 59-63.
95. Charles to Caroline Darwin, April 29, 1836, in Charles Darwin and the
Voyage o f the Beagle, p. 138.
247
SANDRA HERBERT
In addition to dating the notebook by this general means, Lady
Barlow also put forward an argument based on the date of Darwin's
recognition of the existence of two independent species of the South
American rhea. She demonstrated by a careful use of Darwin's zoological notes that Darwin was satisfied as of April 1836 that the "Avestruz
petise," the southernmost rhea, differed sufficiently from the "Petise,"
the common rhea, to be ranked as a separate :species.96'Yet, even
though the appreciation of the existence of two species of the South
American rhea is an element common to the portion of Darwin's
zoological notes written prior to April 1836 and to notebook R.N., that
fact alone is insufficient to assign to both works the same date. Also,
since page 32 of the notebook refers to the opinions of John Hershel
and Andrew Smith, whom Darwin did not meet until the end of
May 1836, it would seem that only the opening portion of the notebook
could conceivably be assigned a date as early as April 1836.
Where then can the notebook be placed? The question is particularly
important for the last third of the notebook, which contains the
speculations on species. Fortunately there are several clues within the
text. For example, immediately preceding the selection cited above
(note 95) there is a reference to a "Mr. Owen," that very likely being
Richard Owen, whom Darwin did not meet until October 1836. 97 Then
too, the lists of geographical distribution of species which Darwin
suggested making in the notebook ("Go steadily through all the limits
of birds and animals in S. America") appear to be those presently
bound with other Darwin MSS in vol. 29, i. 9s These lists are of postBeagle date, since some groups (such as the new genus Reithrodon) are
referred to by names assigned them in January and February of 1837.
Similarly, the comparison of "extinct Guanaco to recent" (see note 95)
rested on Owen's identification in January 1837 of a set of fossil bones
collected by Darwin as being related, like the guanaco, to the family
Camelidae. 99 The transmutationist portions of notebook R.N. must
96. Darwin's "Ornithological Notes," p. 274. In my opinion Darwin believed in
the existence of a second species of rhea much earlier. The specimen catalogs
suggest that he went out of his way to collect the southern rhea soon after hearing
it described by local Indians. A Darwin letter of 1834 recently published by Lady
Baxlow loads to the same conclusion. See Barlow, ed., Darwin and Henslow, p. 86.
97. Notebook 1LN., p. 127, Darwin MSS, Down House,
98. Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i, ULC.
99. See the Journal of Researches, pp. 208-209, and Wilson, CharlesLyell, pp.
436-442. As Professor Wilson suggests, Darwin may not have received Owen's
word until after returning to London in March 1837. This is, however, an exceptionally cautious judgment given the letter-writing propensities of the group.
248
therefore be assigned a date no earlier than January or February 1837.
Very probably, taken together they represent the insights which Darwin
recollected as occuring in March 1837. Whatever month they are
referred to, however, they clearly date from the year 1837, most probably the first half of that y e a r ) °°
Such a dating would o f course tally nicely with the use of the noteb o o k in the composition o f the Journal of Researches from March to
June 1837.1°1 The question then arises how the project itself, the composition o f the Journal of Researches, related to the n o t e b o o k passages
that were to prove crucial to Darwin's development of a theory of
transmutation. In a trivial sense, the correspondence between the two
is d e a r , since the various thoughts expressed on species in the n o t e b o o k
found their way directly into the Journal, as shown in the guanaco
instance cited above. The more important question, however, is whether
there is a deeper sense in which the composition o f the Journal of
Researches generated the n o t e b o o k remarks On transmutation. The
danger in answering this question t o o readily in the affirmative is that
o f confounding the benefits derived from the voyage itself with those
derived from writing a b o o k on the experience. Still, some account
should be made o f the circumstance that it was while working on the
Jourhal that Darwin came to a belief in the mutability of species. An '
intermediate position might be this: problems inherent in the occupation o f the voyaging naturahst required reflection on the geographical
definition o f species. I~ is therefore understandable that the project o f
writing the naturalist's report on such a voyage should have brought the
subject to the forefront o f Darwin's attention.
100. As a whole notebook R.N. was probably finished by May 1837, since on
178 (of 181) of the notebook Darwin referred to samples of silicified wood which
he was discussing with Robert Brown in that month. See Barlow, ed., Darwin and
Henslow, p. 127. Portions of the notebook on species were clearly in existence by
the writing of page 153 of notebook B, the first transmutation notebook, which
quotes directly from notebook R.N. In a general way that quotation suggests that
Darwin was using R.N. as a predecessor to B without allowing much in the way of
more exact dating for R.N.
101. Darwin apparently wrote the first draft of the Journal of Researches from
March to June and then revised and made additions up to the typesetting of the
main text in September 1837. This explains the discrepancy between his letter to
Fox (quoted in "Darwin's Ornithological Notes," p. 203) where he referred to
completing the draft in June and his entry in his datebook ("Darwin's Journal,"
p.,7) where he observed "from March 13th to end of September entirely
employed in my journaL" The preface and addenda to the Journal of Researches
were not added until much nearer the date of actual pubhcation.
249
SANDRA HERBERT
This interpretation was suggested to me in the process of editing
notebook R.N. As the majority of references in the notebook were
to works of travel, numerous similarities between Darwin's experience
and those of his predecessors are apparent. The narrative of one
particular voyager cited in the notebook stands out, however, in
summarizing several features of the work of the voyaging English
naturalist. The author was W. H. B. Webster, a career man and surgeon
in the British navy, and the work was his Narrative o f a voyage
to the Southern Atlantic Ocean in the year 1828, 29, 30 performed in 1-1..11£ Sloop Chanticleer. 1~ The voyage itself was a significant one, being undertaken by the Admiralty under the guidance of
the Royal Society solely for the purpose of ascertaining "the true figure
of the earth, and the law of variation of gravity in different points of its
surface. ''l°a The importance of this official governmental effort on
behalf of science is reflected in the membership of the Committee
which set its goals: the three presidents of the Royal, Geological, and
Astronomical Societies - Davies Gilbert, William Fitton, and William
Herschel, respectively- Robert Brown, and the ever present Francis
Beaufort. Compared to the voyage of the Chanticleer, the Beagle voyage
was a very modest affair indeed in its scientific pretensions.l°4 As with
the Beagle, however, and apparently with more design, the Committee
setting the agenda for the Chanticleer arranged for the collection of
specimens in the various branches of natural history. To its own disappointment, however, the Committee was unable to gain room aboard
ship for the professional personnel it desired and was forced to rely
entirely on the services of "Mr. Webster, the surgeon of the s h i p . . , to
attend to the collection and preservation of specimens in zoology,
mineralogy, and geology united. ''l°s
In being called to serve as a surgeon-naturalist William Webster was
filling a traditional role in the British navy. The pertinence of this role
102. w. H. B. Webster, Narrative of a Voyage to the Southern Atlantic Ocean in
the Years 1838, 29, 30, Performed in H.M. Sloop Chanticleer, under the
Command of the Late Captain Henry Foster, R.R.S. &c. by Order of the Lords
Commisioners of the Admiralty (London: Richard Bentley, 1834).
103. From the "Report of the Committee on which the foregoing voyage was
ordered," in Webster, Narrative, II, 370.
104. For a survey of the voyages including that of the Chanticleer and those of
the Beagle, see G. S. Ritchie, The Admiralty Chart: British Naval Hydrography in
the Nineteenth-Century (London: Hollis & Sydney, 1967).
105. "Report of the Committee," in Webster, Narrative, II, 380-381. The Committee seems to have held out, presumably under Brown's influence, for a
professional botanist, though the text of Webster's narrative does not suggest that
it was successful
250
to the social setting of Darwin's work has been illustrated to great
effect by Jacob Gruber, who has shown by a careful marshaling of
rather elusive evidence that the original naturalist to the Beagle was a
surgeon by the name of Robert McCormick. 1°6 It is Gruber's contention
that despite the low estate of the British surgeon such men as McCormick (and, by extension, Webster) in taking on the responsibilities
of naturalists, were "acting within a developing tradition of governmentally sponsored scientific research. ''x°7 The growth, and even the
continuation, of this tradition, however, was threatened by the parallel
growth of the class of professional naturalists who were more qualified
for the position by virtue of training and professional association. Yet
not every advantage favored the professional for, as happened on the
Chanticleer, perennial scarcity of room aboard ship favored the
surgeon, who could serve two functions.
In the competition between surgeon and professional for the position
of naturalist aboard ship, Webster and Darwin represented opposing
sides. The contrast between them is marked at many points - ownership of collections, freedom to leave the ship, and so on; most simply it
appears in the uneven state of our knowledge of the two men, for
whereas virtually every detail of Darwin's hfe is familiar, not even
Webster's birth and death dates are known, and this despite the fact
that he wrote two books. ~°s
Despite the social distance separating Webster from Darwin, however,
there was a notably common interest in fundamental questions about
species apparent in their reports of their respective voyages. Darwin's
interest is, of course, well known, but Webster's requires documentation. While there are several passages in Webster's Narrative which
reflect this interest, none is more pointed than the following:
106. Jacob W. Gruber, "Who was the Beagle's Naturalist? "Brit. J. Hist. Sc~, 4,
(1969), 266-282.
107. Ibid., p. 266.
108. In addition to the volumes on the Chanticleer's voyage, Webster also
published a book on meteorology in later life. See W. H. B. Webster, Atmospheric
Periods, Or The Recurring Monthly Periods and Periodic System o f the Atmospheric Actions, with Evidences of the Transfer o f Heat and Electricity, and
General Observations on Meteorology, (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1857). The
preface to this work displays how close yet how far Webster and Darwin were
from each other in the spectrum of British science: each was somehow involved
with the Admiralty during this period but while Darwin was contributing to the
Admiralty's Manual o f Scientific Enquiry Webster was barely:gaining entry to the
Hydrographic Office's meteorological records. Ironically it was Robert Fitzroy
that Webster credited with servingas his patron within the Admiralty.
251
SANDRA HERBERT
It has always struck me, that naturalists have been somewhat at
variance with the geologists. They have found on, or given peculiar
species o f plants, &c. to remote islandsl when these islands have been
thought to be of a later origin than the continents themselves; while
species have been limited to the first periods of creation. For
example; if St. Helena is o f subsequent formation to the great continents, then its possessing a distinct and new species of plant, or
animated being whatsoever, must either be a conclusive proof that a
successive creation of species goes forward, or that the naturalists are
wrong in their definition or discrimination of species: most probably
the latter. But I have no confidence in the vagueness and blindness of
geological speculation; but abide rather by the wisdom of the
Apostle, who says, "through faith we understand that the worlds
were framed b y the word o f God, and the things which are seen were
not made of things which appear." lo9
The existence of such a paragraph in a work such as Webster's
Narrative in itself suggests that the occupation o f voyaging naturalists
was conducive to reflection on the origin of species. At this point the
discontinuties between Webster and Darwin in matters of rank, training,
and, presumably, talent yielded in the face of a deeper continuity based
on the common nature of the tasks facing them as naturalists.
While this argument does not depend on Darwin's having been influenced b y Webster, it is only fair to note that the reference to
Webster in notebook R.N. immediately precedes the transmutationist
passages.a l° As Darwin was already beyond Webster's formulation of the
109. Webster, Narrative, II, 312.
110. The first transmutationist passage occuxs on p. 127 of the notebook, two
pages after the entry "Earthquakes at St. Helena. 1756. June 1780, Sept 21st
1817. - p. 371 Webster Antartic veg." The page reference is to Webster's Narrative, I, 371. The reference to Antarctic vegetation pertains to Webster's description of change in types of vegetation among islands with similar climates. Darwin
returned to this theme on p. 128 of the notebook, where he wrote, "Contrast low
limit of Palms, evergreen trees, arborescent grasses, parasitic plants, Cacti: & with
limits of no vegetation at So Shetland: /Great contrast of two sides of Cordillera
where climate similar. - I do not know botanically but picturesquely Both N.
& S. great contrast from nature of climate." Darwin also apparently sought other
reports from the Chanticleer, as the finding of an undecomposed corpse during
the voyage is recorded further along in the notebook (p. 139) according to an
account given of it by another member of the ship's company. See Lieu. Kendal
(sic), "Account of the Island of Deception, One of the New Shetland Isles,"
J. Geogr. Soe., 1, (1832), 62-66.
252
issues, the bond between them could not have been one of simple
borrowing. Perhaps, however, reading Webster and finding speculation
on familiar topics from an author inferior in so many respects urged
Darwin to tackle the species question again, this time, with the added
knowledge he had gained from his experience with professional taxonomists.
In any case, Webster's setting of the issues must have prickled. While
Webster was unfamiliar with the current state of geological opinion in
the 1830's (being, for example, ignorant of LyeU), his identification of
the tension between geologists and naturalists was on target, as was his
interest in volcanic islands. Less obviously, Webster's reluctance to carry
his speculations forward was also important, since it stemmed from the
complex of his religious beliefs. As might be expected, Webster wrote
from within the English tradition of natural theology and, like Darwin,
was altogether familiar with the argument from design. Whereas Darwin
only occasionally drew on the argument, as in his observation on the
anflion, in Webster found evidences of design everywhere: St. Helena
was positioned for the convenience of ships by the beneficence of the
Creator, and so on, n~ Darwin was not inherently more modest in his
use of the argument from design, only superficially more palatable.
Like Lyell, he had come to believe that the extinction of species
required the introduction of new species if "the fitness which the
author of Nature has now established ''n3 were to be preserved. This
hne of argument depended on knowledge of divine attributes as much
as did Webster's, "fitness" being substituted for "beneficence." But for
Darwin, unlike Webster, belief in the universality of natural law
triumphed over any other elements within the scope of natural theology. What seemed a blasphemous transgression of jurisdiction to
Webster ("I have no confidence i n . . . geological speculation; but abide
rather by the wisdom of the Apostle") seemed a necessary, if un-
111. Charles Darwin's Diary, p. 383; also see p. 439 n.54.
112. Webster, Narrative, I, 343. Webster was quick to proceed from discussion
of the arguments for the existence of God as drawn from evidence of design to
discussion of divine attributes as they were revealed by the evidence: the beneficence of the Creator, the chasteness of his work, etc. This lent an easily ridiculed
panglossian tone to Webster's book, which, however, was not, at least in principle,
inconsistent with Paley's Natural Theology which was subtitled Evidences of the
Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature.
113. See note 50.
253
SANDRA HERBERT
popular, development of science to Darwin. Here, again, of course,
Webster and Darwin stood for opposing sides in a disagreement whose
lines were already drawn. 114:The point to be made in this context is
simply that, once again, Darwin and Webster appear as parties to discussions which were appropriately raised, or alluded to, in the pages of
a travel narrative written by an English naturalist in the 1830's. u s
Moreover, the act of composing the Journal o f Researches was highly
instrumental in the development of Darwin's thought on species. Some
years later, in describing the series o f insights which led him to his
theory, Darwin recalled that it was understanding the character of the
South American fossils, the geographical replacement of closely allied
species by one another, and the nature o f the Gal~pagos species which
brought him to consider the mutability of species, u6 While each of
114. See Walter F. Cannon, "The Problem of Miraclesin the 1830's," Victorian
Studies, September 1960, pp. 5-32. In defending the search for intermediate
causes on the issue of the extinction and introduction of species Lyell spoke of
the larger conception of God afforded by such a view. (Lyell, Life, I, 467-468.)
Darwin took this tack repeatedly in the transmutation notebooks. The general
argument against limiting the jurisdiction of science on religious grounds went
back at least as far as Francis Bacon, whom Darwin quoted to this end in the
frontispiece of the Origin.
115. The c6mmunalities between Darwin and Webster are, of course, of interest
only in retrospect. To either man they would have appeared too obvious for
words and more than canceled by their differences. Had Darwin been called on to
express his opinion of Webster's Narrative he might easily have said of it what he
did of Captain P. P. King's volume in the Beagle series, that it "abounds with
Natural History of a very trashy nature" (Charles to Susan Darwin, April 1839, in
Charles Darwin and the Voyageof the Beagle, p. 147). Whatever Darwin's opinion
of Webster might have been, the fact is that he never referred to him in print or,
apparently, met him but went straight to Robert Brown for information on
questions of geographical distribution in the southern hemisphere similar to those
raised in Webster's work. For his part Webster, who would have abhorred the
doctrine of transmutation on religious grounds, did on occasion express his sense
of his own inferior status in the scheme of British science, blaming it on his lack
of opportunity and, modestly enough, on lack of ability (Webster, Atmospheric
Periods, p. xxiv).
116. Autobiography, p. 118. The reconstruction of these insights in "Darwin's
Journal" (see note 7) omits mention of the phenomenon of geographical replacement, as does an 1844 letter to Hooker. See Darwin to J.D. Hooker, [January 11,
18441, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin, 3 vols.
(London: John Murray, 1888), II, 23. This is not surprising as the entry in the
"Journal" was quite possibly contemporary with the Hooker letter (appearing as
254
these insights is present in notebook R.N., it is the second theme which
appears as the latecomer in the group. The generalized n o t i o n of a geographical replacement of allied species seems to have crystallized for
Darwin during the course of keeping the notebook. Following this
realization, Darwin then turned to consider the subject of geographical
distribution in another set of notes. Thus, the character of one project
- the composition of the Journal o f Researches - is revealed in its
progeny.
The source of this interpretation is the following sentence, which
appears in notebook R.N.: " G o steadily through all the limits of birds
& animals in S. America. ''117 Evidence that Darwin heeded this instruction is contained in two lists, one for birds and one for animals, which
do just that. n s These two lists were concerned with the presence or
absence of allied species on either side of the Cordillera. n9 The two lists
are short, each containing about thirty species. The format for the two
lists is suggested by the opening three entries in the "Birds" list:
it does as a later addition to the text and using nearly the same vocabulary; 1844
was a year when Darwin was going through all his old notes) and as the insight
into geographical replacement was in some sense derivative from that into the distribution of the Gal~pagos species.
117. Notebook R.N., p. 128. The relevant entries which include this sentence
are quoted in note 95.
118. These lists are contained in the "Animals" notes in Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i,
ULC. FoL 1-32 of these notes contain the list of Beagle specimens similar to the
list published as "Darwin's Ornithological Notes"; fol. 33-50 contain a variety of
different sorts of notes including these two lists. The "Birds" list is numbered as
fol. 41, the "Animals" list appears between fols. 46 and 47. Both list were done
on paper watermarked "W. Fincher 1836," in contrast to folios 1-32, which were
written on paper bearing an 1834 watermark. In general, fols. 33-50 relate to
Waterhouse's work on Darwin's specimens and contain a number of remarks
suggesting close cooperation between the two men, as, for example, where Darwin
remarked that "Mr. Waterhouse cannot make up his mind" concerning the classification of a particular specimen.
119. The Autobiography (p. 118) refers to interest in a north-south pattern of
replacement, like that of the two rheas, which because of differences in climate
dependent on differences in latitude is the more obvious of the two patterns.
Notebook R.N., p. 128, refers to this pattern: "Both N. and S. g~eat contrast
from nature of climate." The list discussed were premised on the less obvious
east-west distribution resulting from the physical boundary to the expansion of
species range presented by the Andes. That it was the east-west distribution being
referred to in the instruction "Go steadily through all the limits" is suggested by
the fact that after the instruction appeared the word "Zorilla" (skunk) which also
appears on the east-west "Animals" list.
255
SANDRA HERBERT
East
Larks (same?)
Tinochorus
Swallows ( ? )
West Chili
do? [ditto]/a desert bird/
different
Following the lists, and indeed at several other points in fols. 33-50 of
Darwin MSS, vol. 29, i, are statements of the notion of representative
species. These comments, like the lists themselves, hold intrinsic interest, for the notion of representative species was of great moment in
Darwin's intellectual progress as well as being an advance for the general
scientific understanding of geographical distribution. But for our purposes it is sufficient to associate the notion of representative species
with the R.N. notebook and thereby with the composition of the Journal of Researches. 12o
This interpretation has the effect of raising the reputation of the
Journal o f Researches and, by extension, of this genre of scientific
literature. It should not, however, be taken either as an exhaustive
summary of the issues involved in Darwin's conversion to a belief in the
mutability of species or as a full account of those issues which were
touched on. It does not describe the history behind any single theme
- t h e favored analogy between the individual and the species, for
example. Nor does it tell us why certain issues were so important
Darwin's efforts to show the noncorrelation between climate and size
of animal, to take another example. But this interpreatation can suggest
how the nature of a particular task may bring forward certain kinds of
questions. In the case of the Journal of Researches it was the subject of
geographical distribution of species which was, given the objects of investigation, natural focus. This was as true for Webster, with his theological disclaimers and personal isolation, as it was for Darwin with his
Lyellianism and his access to the professional community. The
questions each man raised were inherent in the endeavor. For Webster
the project was not carried to completion and thus, from the point of
view of the progress of science, the origin of his questions is a matter
-
120. This overall interprestation is supported by the letter Darwin wrote to.
Henslow in March 1837 describing his mode of attack on the Journal of
Researches. Particularly striking with respect to the two fists discussed above is
Darwin's stated plan of first going straight through the journal (presumably
reworking the narrative) and then "adding what I can by studying.., geographical range" - the very subject of the lists. See Darwin to Henslow, March 28,
1837, Barlow, ed. Darwin and Henslow, pp. 124-125.
256
of indifference. For Darwin it was carried past completion with the
transmutation insights of March 1837. But in both cases the content of the questions raised was determined by more than individual
curiosity.
CONCLUSION
This argument has emphasized the professional character of Darwin's
early activities, largely in order to balance the usual portrayal of the
amateurishness of his early training and field of study. Arguing this
way has revealed the interplay between Darwin's personal interests and
his professional obligations, the latter being particularly important for
the period from October 1836 to July 1837. In several instances,
notably the treatment o f his collections, the progress of his thought
followed the professional lead directly. In the absence of such a lead
Darwin did not pursue certain issues, if only for lack of time. Thus the
subject o f man did not figure in his initial formulation of a transmutationist position. Only after the commitment to the new point o f
view had been made did the issues emerge which will be treated in
Part II of this article. However, we may close by noting Darwin's
inherited disposition on the subject: in the summer of 1837 Darwin
responded to Lyell's claim that the change from irrational animal to
rational man represented "a phenomenon of a distinct kind from the
passage from the more simple to the more perfect forms of animal
organization and instinct" with a fanciful doodle in the margin. 121 The
thoughts behind the bemused scribbling were to occupy a good portion
of Darwin's time for the next two years.
121. Darwin's copy of LyeU,Principle of Geology 5th ed. (London: John Murray,
1837), I, 248 at ULC. The importance of these marginalia was first recognized by
Sydney Smith in 1960. See Smith, "Origin of the Origin," pp. 397-398. Since
Professor Smith's ground-breaking work, however, his dating of the marginalia to
March 1837 has been challenged. (See Limoges, La s~lection naturelle, pp. 28-30).
Just when Darwin first read Lyell's fifth edition is still undetermined. Very
probably it was not as early as March, as none of the references to thePrinciples in
the R.N. notebook are to the fifth edition, though, equally probable it was within
the next few months, as the fifth edition was cited in the Journal of Researches
(pp. 97, 186, 290-291) and was referred to in the first transmutation notebook
(B,59). The date or, more likely, dates of the marginalia are even more arguable.
The annotation referred to here was probably made on the earliest reading, as the
page number (248) appears in the list of such numbers on the back inside cover of
the volume. This would represent the systemmatic note taking which Darwin did
257
SANDRA HERBERT
Acknowledgments
I wish to t h a n k the Smithsonian I n s t i t u t i o n for a p o s t d o c t o r a l
research y e a r in 1 9 7 0 - 7 1 w h e n this w o r k was begun.
in reading new works. Other marginal criticisms of Lyell's view on man in these
volumes are more aggressive, in heavier pencil, and probably represent a later
reading. Such a case would be Darwin's comment "when perpetuated more might
be gained like the intellect of civilized man" to Lyell's admission that "some more
useful and peculiar races" might be formed by careful breeding of individual
characters (II 410).
258

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