The Reception of the Origin of Species | Page 6

a serious caveat. Nevertheless, he was a tower of strength, and his courageous stand for truth as against consistency, did him infinite honour. As evolutionists, sans phrase, I do not call to mind among the biologists more than Asa Gray, who fought the battle splendidly in the United States; Hooker, who was no less vigorous here; the present Sir John Lubbock and myself. Wallace was far away in the Malay Archipelago; but, apart from his direct share in the promulgation of the theory of natural selection, no enumeration of the influences at work, at the time I am speaking of, would be complete without the mention of his powerful essay 'On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species,' which was published in 1855. On reading it afresh, I have been astonished to recollect how small was the impression it made.
In France, the influence of Elie de Beaumont and of Flourens--the former of whom is said to have "damned himself to everlasting fame" by inventing the nickname of "la science moussante" for Evolutionism (One is reminded of the effect of another small academic epigram. The so-called vertebral theory of the skull is said to have been nipped in the bud in France by the whisper of an academician to his neighbour, that, in that case, one's head was a "vertebre pensante."),--to say nothing of the ill-will of other powerful members of the Institut, produced for a long time the effect of a conspiracy of silence; and many years passed before the Academy redeemed itself from the reproach that the name of Darwin was not to be found on the list of its members. However, an accomplished writer, out of the range of academical influences, M. Laugel, gave an excellent and appreciative notice of the 'Origin' in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes.' Germany took time to consider; Bronn produced a slightly Bowdlerized translation of the 'Origin'; and 'Kladderadatsch' cut his jokes upon the ape origin of man; but I do not call to mind that any scientific notability declared himself publicly in 1860. (However, the man who stands next to Darwin in his influence on modern biologists, K.E. von Baer, wrote to me, in August 1860, expressing his general assent to evolutionist views. His phrase, "J'ai enonce les memes idees...que M. Darwin" (volume ii.) is shown by his subsequent writings to mean no more than this.) None of us dreamed that, in the course of a few years, the strength (and perhaps I may add the weakness) of "Darwinismus" would have its most extensive and most brilliant illustrations in the land of learning. If a foreigner may presume to speculate on the cause of this curious interval of silence, I fancy it was that one moiety of the German biologists were orthodox at any price, and the other moiety as distinctly heterodox. The latter were evolutionists, a priori, already, and they must have felt the disgust natural to deductive philosophers at being offered an inductive and experimental foundation for a conviction which they had reached by a shorter cut. It is undoubtedly trying to learn that, though your conclusions may be all right, your reasons for them are all wrong, or, at any rate, insufficient.
On the whole, then, the supporters of Mr. Darwin's views in 1860 were numerically extremely insignificant. There is not the slightest doubt that, if a general council of the Church scientific had been held at that time, we should have been condemned by an overwhelming majority. And there is as little doubt that, if such a council gathered now, the decree would be of an exactly contrary nature. It would indicate a lack of sense, as well as of modesty, to ascribe to the men of that generation less capacity or less honesty than their successors possess. What, then, are the causes which led instructed and fair-judging men of that day to arrive at a judgment so different from that which seems just and fair to those who follow them? That is really one of the most interesting of all questions connected with the history of science, and I shall try to answer it. I am afraid that in order to do so I must run the risk of appearing egotistical. However, if I tell my own story it is only because I know it better than that of other people.
I think I must have read the 'Vestiges' before I left England in 1846; but, if I did, the book made very little impression upon me, and I was not brought into serious contact with the 'Species' question until after 1850. At that time, I had long done with the Pentateuchal cosmogony, which had been impressed upon my childish understanding as Divine truth, with all the authority of parents and instructors, and from which it