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William Henry Fox
Talbot, The
Geologists, c. 1843
(Salt print from
calotype
photograph)
Robert Farren, Duria Antiquior (An Earlier Dorset), c. 1850
Proto-evolutionary ideas:
First, forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass.
These as successive generations bloom
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.
(Erasmus Darwin, Temple of Nature, 1802)
There will be a continual and more or less slow
progress of all the species toward a superior
perfection, with the result that all the degrees of the
scale will be continually variable within a determined
and constant relation….Man, one transported to an
abode more suited to the eminence of his faculties,
will leave to the monkey and the elephant that
foremost place that he occupied before among the
animals of our planet… There will be Newtons among
the monkeys and Vaubans among the beavers.
(Charles Bonnet, Palingénésie philosophique, 17691770)
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
I must think that such a book, if it does no other good,
spreads the taste for Natural Science. But I am perhaps no
fair judge, for I am almost as unorthodox about species as
the Vestiges itself, though I hope not quite so
unphilosophical.
(Darwin, in a letter to T.H. Huxley, 1854)
Natural Theology
The Bridgewater Treatises (1833-1840):
A series of works commissioned by the Earl of
Bridgewater upon his death in 1829 to explore
“the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as
manifested in the Creation.”
The mind rests with equal pleasure and admiration on these
beautiful laws, which silently, but unceasingly, work out an
expression of the Almighty Will.
(Silliman, First Principles of Chemistry,
Philadelphia: 1850)
Darwin and Literature
“Because of its
preoccupation with time
and with change,
evolutionary theory has
inherent affinities with the
problems and processes of
narrative” (Beer 5).
The evolutionary epic is probably the best
myth we will ever have.
(E.O. Wilson, On Human Nature,
1978)
Plot without man…
Even now, the waters of lakes, seas, and the great ocean, which
teem with life, may be said to have no immediate relation to the
human race—to be portions of the terrestrial system of which man
has never taken, nor ever can take, possession, so that the greater
part of the inhabited surface of the planet remains still as
insensible to our presence as before any isle or continent was
appointed to be our residence.
(Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology)
Edward Cooke, Triassic Cliffs at Blue Anchor, North Somerset, 1866
Evolutionary trees by Darwin,
1859 (above) and Haeckel, 1891
(left)
Animal Affinities
The Sick Monkey, by
William Henry Simmons
after Edwin Landseer,
1875.
Why we’re reading excerpts…
“This relentless piling, sorting and re-arranging
of evidence can make Darwin seem a little OCD,
like an intellectual version of Wall-E.”
(John Whitfield, Blogging the Origin, 2/9/09)
Origin's Textual History
1st edition (1859): “There is grandeur in this view of life,
with its several powers, having been originally breathed
into a few forms or into one”
2nd edition (1860): “…having been originally breathed by
the Creator into a few forms or into one”
Charles Darwin was not the first to write about evolution:
Again, the doctrine of evolution as applied to organic
life…is widely spoken of by the term “Darwinism.” Yet this
doctrine is far older than Mr. Darwin, and is held by many
who deem that which is truly “Darwinism” (namely a
belief in the origin of species by natural selection) to be a
crude and utterly untenable hypothesis.
(St. John Mivart, Man and Apes, 1873)
Darwin becomes
the figure for
evolution in 1871
The Hornet, March 22, 1871
Fun, Victorian humor magazine, 1871 and 1872
Darwin and the “tree of life”
Illustrations from Le Petite Lune (1870s) and Punch (1875)
Ad from the 1890s
OED: Evolution
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The process of unrolling, opening out, or revealing (17th c.)
The process by which living organisms or their parts develop
from a rudimentary to a mature or complete state [now
ontogeny] (17th c.)
A process of gradual change…esp. from a simpler to a more
complex or advanced state. Also: a gradual and natural
development as opposed to a sudden or instigated change
(often in contrast with revolution). (late 18th c.)
The transformation of animals, plants, and other living
organisms into different forms by the accumulation of
changes over successive generations (early 19th c.)
Fashion
Harper’s Bazaar (1883)
Fashion/Humor
Fun (October 31, 1888)
Visual Humor
Puck, 1907
Social issues
Railroad Democracy (1923)
World War I
Life (1915)
World War II
Washington Post (1938)
Chicago Tribune (1937)
When it is first advanced, theory is at its most fictive.
The awkwardness of fit between the natural world as it
is currently perceived and as it is hypothetically
imagined holds the theory itself for a time within a
provisional scope akin to that of fiction (Beer 1).