I. Descent of Man.—II. Sexual Selection.—III. Expression of the Emotions.
2.VIII.I. DESCENT OF MAN, 1860-1882.
LETTER 403. TO C. LYELL. Down, April 27th {1860}.
I cannot explain why, but to me it would be an infinite satisfaction to believe that mankind will progress to such a pitch that we should {look} back at {ourselves} as mere Barbarians. I have received proof-sheets (with a wonderfully nice letter) of very hostile review by Andrew Murray, read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. (403/1. "On Mr. Darwin's Theory of the Origin of Species," by Andrew Murray. "Proc. Roy. Soc., Edinb." Volume IV., pages 274-91, 1862. The review concludes with the following sentence: "I have come to be of opinion that Mr. Darwin's theory is unsound, and that I am to be spared any collision between my inclination and my convictions" (referring to the writer's belief in Design).) But I am tired with answering it. Indeed I have done nothing the whole day but answer letters.
LETTER 404. TO L. HORNER.
(404/1. The following letter occurs in the "Memoir of Leonard Horner, edited by his daughter Katherine M. Lyell," Volume II., page 300 (privately printed, 1890).)
Down, March 20th {1861}.
I am very much obliged for your Address (404/2. Mr. Horner's Anniversary Address to the Geological Society ("Proc. Geol. Soc." XVII., 1861).) which has interested me much...I thought that I had read up pretty well on the antiquity of man; but you bring all the facts so well together in a condensed focus, that the case seems much clearer to me. How curious about the Bible! (404/3. At page lxviii. Mr. Horner points out that the "chronology, given in the margin of our Bibles," i.e., the statement that the world was created 4004 B.C., is the work of Archbishop Usher, and is in no way binding on those who believe in the inspiration of Scripture. Mr. Horner goes on (page lxx): "The retention of the marginal note in question is by no means a matter of indifference; it is untrue, and therefore it is mischievous." It is interesting that Archbishop Sumner and Dr. Dawes, Dean of Hereford, wrote with approbation of Mr. Horner's views on Man. The Archbishop says: "I have always considered the first verse of Genesis as indicating, rather than denying, a PREADAMITE world" ("Memoir of Leonard Horner, II.", page 303).) I declare I had fancied that the date was somehow in the Bible. You are coming out in a new light as a Biblical critic. I must thank you for some remarks on the "Origin of Species" (404/4. Mr. Horner (page xxxix) begins by disclaiming the qualifications of a competent critic, and confines himself to general remarks on the philosophic candour and freedom from dogmatism of the "Origin": he does, however, give an opinion on the geological chapters IX. and X. As a general criticism he quotes Mr. Huxley's article in the "Westminster Review," which may now be read in "Collected Essays," II., page 22.) (though I suppose it is almost as incorrect to do so as to thank a judge for a favourable verdict): what you have said has pleased me extremely. I am the more pleased, as I would rather have been well attacked than have been handled in the namby-pamby, old-woman style of the cautious Oxford Professor. (404/5. This no doubt refers to Professor Phillips' "Life on the Earth," 1860, a founded on the author's "Rede Lecture," given before the University of Cambridge. Reference to this work will be found in "Life and Letters," II., pages 309, 358, 373.)
LETTER 405. TO J.D. HOOKER.
(405/1. Mr. Wallace was, we believe, the first to treat the evolution of Man in any detail from the point of view of Natural Selection, namely, in a paper in the "Anthropological Review and Journal of the Anthropological Society," May 1864, page clviii. The deep interest with which Mr. Darwin read his copy is graphically recorded in the continuous series of pencil-marks along the margins of the pages. His views are fully given in Letter 406. The phrase, "in this case it is too far," refers to Mr. Wallace's habit of speaking of the theory of Natural Selection as due entirely to Darwin.)
May 22nd 1864.
I have now read Wallace's paper on Man, and think it MOST striking and original and forcible. I wish he had written Lyell's chapters on Man. (405/2. See "Life and Letters," III., page 11 et seq. for Darwin's disappointment over Lyell's treatment of the evolutionary question in his "Antiquity of Man"; see also page 29 for Lyell's almost pathetic words about his own position between the discarded faith of many years and the new one not yet assimilated. See also Letters 132, 164, 170.) I quite agree about his high-mindedness, and have long thought so; but in this case it is too far, and I shall tell him so. I am not sure that I fully agree with his views about Man, but there is no doubt, in my opinion, on the remarkable genius shown by the paper. I agree, however, to the main new leading idea.
LETTER 406. TO A.R. WALLACE.
(406/1. This letter was published in "Life and Letters," III., page 89.)
Down, {May} 28th {1864}.
I am so much better that I have just finished a paper for the Linnean Society (406/2. On the three forms, etc., of Lythrum.); but I am not yet at all strong, I felt much disinclination to write, and therefore you must forgive me for not having sooner thanked you for your paper on Man (406/3. "Anthropological Review," May 1864.) received on the 11th. (406/4. Mr. Wallace wrote, May 10th, 1864: "I send you now my little contribution to the theory of the origin of man. I hope you will be able to agree with me. If you are able {to write} I shall be glad to have your criticisms. I was led to the subject by the necessity of explaining the vast mental and cranial differences between man and the apes combined with such small structural differences in other parts of the body,—and also by an endeavour to account for the diversity of human races combined with man's almost perfect stability of form during all historical epochs." But first let me say that I have hardly ever in my life been more struck by any paper than that on "Variation," etc., etc., in the "Reader." (406/5. "Reader," April 16th, 1864, an abstract of Mr. Wallace: "On the Phenomena of Variation and Geographical Distribution as illustrated by the Papilionidae of the Malayan Region." "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXV.) I feel sure that such papers will do more for the spreading of our views on the modification of species than any separate treatises on the simple subject itself. It is really admirable; but you ought not in the Man paper to speak of the theory as mine; it is just as much yours as mine. One correspondent has already noticed to me your "high-minded" conduct on this head.
But now for your Man paper, about which I should like to write more than I can. The great leading idea is quite new to me—viz. that during late ages the mind will have been modified more than the body; yet I had got as far as to see with you, that the struggle between the races of man depended entirely on intellectual and moral qualities. The latter part of the paper I can designate only as grand and most eloquently done. I have shown your paper to two or three persons who have been here, and they have been equally struck with it. I am not sure that I go with you on all minor points: when reading Sir G. Grey's account of the constant battles of Australian savages, I remember thinking that Natural Selection would come in, and likewise with the Esquimaux, with whom the art of fishing and managing canoes is said to be hereditary. I rather differ on the rank, under a classificatory point of view, which you assign to man; I do not think any character simply in excess ought ever to be used for the higher divisions. Ants would not be separated from other hymenopterous insects, however high the instinct of the one, and however low the instincts of the other. With respect to the differences of race, a conjecture has occurred to me that much may be due to the correlation of complexion (and consequently hair) with constitution. Assume that a dusky individual best escaped miasma, and you will readily see what I mean. I persuaded the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Army to send printed forms to the surgeons of all regiments in tropical countries to ascertain this point, but I daresay I shall never get any returns. Secondly, I suspect that a sort of sexual selection has been the most powerful means of changing the races of man. I can show that the different races have a widely different standard of beauty. Among savages the most powerful men will have the pick of the women, and they will generally leave the most descendants. I have collected a few notes on man, but I do not suppose I shall ever use them. Do you intend to follow out your views? and if so, would you like at some future time to have my few references and notes? I am sure I hardly know whether they are of any value, and they are at present in a state of chaos.
There is much more that I should like to write, but I have not strength.
P.S. Our aristocracy is handsomer (more hideous according to a Chinese or Negro) than the middle classes, from {having the} pick of the women; but oh, what a scheme is primogeniture for destroying Natural Selection! I fear my letter will be barely intelligible to you.
LETTER 406* A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN. 5, Westbourne Grove Terrace, W., May 29th {1864}.
You are always so ready to appreciate what others do, and especially to overestimate my desultory efforts, that I cannot be surprised at your very kind and flattering remarks on my papers. I am glad, however, that you have made a few critical observations (and am only sorry that you were not well enough to make more), as that enables me to say a few words in explanation.
My great fault is haste. An idea strikes me, I think over it for a few days, and then write away with such illustrations as occur to me while going on. I therefore look at the subject almost solely from one point of view. Thus, in my paper on Man (406*/1. Published in the "Anthropological Review," 1864.), I aim solely at showing that brutes are modified in a great variety of ways by Natural Selection, but that in none of these particular ways can Man be modified, because of the superiority of his intellect. I therefore no doubt overlook a few smaller points in which Natural Selection may still act on men and brutes alike. Colour is one of them, and I have alluded to this in correlation to constitution, in an abstract I have made at Sclater's request for the "Natural History Review." (406*/2. "Nat. Hist. Review," 1864, page 328.) At the same time, there is so much evidence of migrations and displacements of races of man, and so many cases of peoples of distinct physical characters inhabiting the same or similar regions, and also of races of uniform physical characters inhabiting widely dissimilar regions,—that the external characteristics of the chief races of man must, I think, be older than his present geographical distribution, and the modifications produced by correlation to favourable variations of constitution be only a secondary cause of external modification. I hope you may get the returns from the Army. (406*/3. Measurements taken of more than one million soldiers in the United States showed that "local influences of some kind act directly on structure."—"Descent of Man," 1901, page 45.) They would be very interesting, but I do not expect the results would be favourable to your view.
With regard to the constant battles of savages leading to selection of physical superiority, I think it would be very imperfect and subject to so many exceptions and irregularities that it would produce no definite result. For instance: the strongest and bravest men would lead, and expose themselves most, and would therefore be most subject to wounds and death. And the physical energy which led to any one tribe delighting in war, might lead to its extermination, by inducing quarrels with all surrounding tribes and leading them to combine against it. Again, superior cunning, stealth, and swiftness of foot, or even better weapons, would often lead to victory as well as mere physical strength. Moreover, this kind of more or less perpetual war goes on amongst savage peoples. It could lead, therefore, to no differential characters, but merely to the keeping up of a certain average standard of bodily and mental health and vigour.
So with selection of variations adapted to special habits of life as fishing, paddling, riding, climbing, etc., etc., in different races, no doubt it must act to some extent, but will it be ever so rigid as to induce a definite physical modification, and can we imagine it to have had any part in producing the distinct races that now exist?
The sexual selection you allude to will also, I think, have been equally uncertain in its results. In the very lowest tribes there is rarely much polygamy, and women are more or less a matter of purchase. There is also little difference of social condition, and I think it rarely happens that any healthy and undeformed man remains without wife and children. I very much doubt the often-repeated assertion that our aristocracy are more beautiful than the middle classes. I allow that they present specimens of the highest kind of beauty, but I doubt the average. I have noticed in country places a greater average amount of good looks among the middle classes, and besides we unavoidably combine in our idea of beauty, intellectual expression, and refinement of manner, which often makes the less appear the more beautiful. Mere physical beauty—i.e. a healthy and regular development of the body and features approaching to the mean and type of European man, I believe is quite as frequent in one class of society as the other, and much more frequent in rural districts than in cities.
With regard to the rank of man in zoological classification, I fear I have not made myself intelligible. I never meant to adopt Owen's or any other such views, but only to point out that from one point of view he was right. I hold that a distinct family for Man, as Huxley allows, is all that can possibly be given him zoologically. But at the same time, if my theory is true, that while the animals which surrounded him have been undergoing modification in all parts of their bodies to a generic or even family degree of difference, he has been changing almost wholly in the brain and head—then in geological antiquity the SPECIES man may be as old as many mammalian families, and the origin of the FAMILY man may date back to a period when some of the ORDERS first originated.
As to the theory of Natural Selection itself, I shall always maintain it to be actually yours and yours only. You had worked it out in details I had never thought of, years before I had a ray of light on the subject, and my paper would never have convinced anybody or been noticed as more than an ingenious speculation, whereas your has revolutionised the study of Natural History, and carried away captive the best men of the present age. All the merit I claim is the having been the means of inducing you to write and publish at once. I may possibly some day go a little more into this subject (of Man), and if I do will accept the kind offer of your notes.
I am now, however, beginning to write the "Narrative of my Travels," which will occupy me a long time, as I hate writing narrative, and after Bates' brilliant success rather fear to fail.
I shall introduce a few chapters on Geographical Distribution and other such topics. Sir C. Lyell, while agreeing with my main argument on Man, thinks I am wrong in wanting to put him back into Miocene times, and thinks I do not appreciate the immense interval even to the later Pliocene. But I still maintain my view, which in fact is a logical result of my theory; for if man originated in later Pliocene, when almost all mammalia were of closely allied species to those now living, and many even identical, then man has not been stationary in bodily structure while animals have been varying, and my theory will be proved to be all wrong.
In Murchison's address to the Geographical Society, just delivered, he points out Africa as being the oldest existing land. He says there is no evidence of its having been ever submerged during the Tertiary epoch. Here then is evidently the place to find early man. I hope something good may be found in Borneo, and that the means may be found to explore the still more promising regions of tropical Africa, for we can expect nothing of man very early in Europe.
It has given me great pleasure to find that there are symptoms of improvement in your health. I hope you will not exert yourself too soon or write more than is quite agreeable to you. I think I made out every word of your letter, though it was not always easy.
(406*/4. For Wallace's later views see Letter 408, note.)
LETTER 407. TO W. TURNER.
(407/1. Sir William Turner is frequently referred to in the "Descent of Man" as having supplied Mr. Darwin with information.)
Down, December 14th {1866}.
Your kindness when I met you at the Royal Society makes me think that you would grant me the favour of a little information, if in your power. I am preparing a on Domestic Animals, and as there has been so much discussion on the bearing of such views as I hold on Man, I have some thoughts of adding a chapter on this subject. The point on which I want information is in regard to any part which may be fairly called rudimentary in comparison with the same part in the Quadrumana or any other mammal. Now the os coccyx is rudimentary as a tail, and I am anxious to hear about its muscles. Mr. Flower found for me in some work that its one muscle (with striae) was supposed only to bring this bone back to its proper position after parturition. This seems to me hardly credible. He said he had never particularly examined this part, and when I mentioned your name, he said you were the most likely man to give me information.
Are there any traces of other muscles? It seems strange if there are none. Do you know how the muscles are in this part in the anthropoid apes? The muscles of the ear in man may, I suppose, in most cases be considered as rudimentary; and so they seem to be in the anthropoids; at least, I am assured in the Zoological Gardens they do not erect their ears. I gather there are a good many muscles in various parts of the body which are in this same state: could you specify any of the best cases? The mammae in man are rudimentary. Are there any other glands or other organs which you can think of? I know I have no right whatever to ask all these questions, and can only say that I should be grateful for any information. If you tell me anything about the os coccyx or other structures, I hope that you will permit me to quote the statement on your authority, as that would add so greatly to its value.
Pray excuse me for troubling you, and do not hurry yourself in the least in answering me.
I do not know whether you would care to possess a copy, but I told my publisher to send you a copy of the new edition of the "Origin" last month.
LETTER 408. TO W. TURNER. Down, February 1st {1867}.
I thank you cordially for all your full information, and I regret much that I have given you such great trouble at a period when your time is so much occupied. But the facts were so valuable to me that I cannot pretend that I am sorry that I did trouble you; and I am the less so, as from what you say I hope you may be induced some time to write a full account of all rudimentary structures in Man: it would be a very curious and interesting memoir. I shall at present give only a brief abstract of the chief facts which you have so very kindly communicated to me, and will not touch on some of the doubtful points. I have received far more information than I ventured to anticipate. There is one point which has occurred to me, but I suspect there is nothing in it. If, however, there should be, perhaps you will let me have a brief note from you, and if I do not hear I will understand there is nothing in the notion. I have included the down on the human body and the lanugo on the foetus as a rudimentary representation of a hairy coat. (408/1. "Descent of Man" I., page 25; II., page 375.) I do not know whether there is any direct functional connection between the presence of hair and the panniculus carnosus (408/2. Professor Macalister draws our attention to the fact that Mr. Darwin uses the term panniculus in the generalised sense of any sheet of muscle acting on the skin.) (to put the question under another point of view, is it the primary or aboriginal function of the panniculus to move the dermal appendages or the skin itself?); but both are superficial, and would perhaps together become rudimentary. I was led to think of this by the places (as far as my ignorance of anatomy has allowed me to judge) of the rudimentary muscular fasciculi which you specify. Now, some persons can move the skin of their hairy heads; and is this not effected by the panniculus? How is it with the eyebrows? You specify the axillae and the front region of the chest and lower part of scapulae: now, these are all hairy spots in man. On the other hand, the neck, and as I suppose the covering of the gluteus medius, are not hairy; so, as I said, I presume there is nothing in this notion. If there were, the rudiments of the panniculus ought perhaps to occur more plainly in man than in woman...
P.S.—If the skin on the head is moved by the panniculus, I think I ought just to allude to it, as some men alone having power to move the skin shows that the apparatus is generally rudimentary.
(408/3. In March 1869 Darwin wrote to Mr. Wallace: "I shall be intensely curious to read the "Quarterly." I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child." The reference is to Mr. Wallace's review, in the April number of the "Quarterly," of Lyell's "Principles of Geology" (tenth edition), and of the sixth edition of the "Elements of Geology." Mr. Wallace points out that here for the first time Sir C. Lyell gave up his opposition to evolution; and this leads Mr. Wallace to give a short account of the views set forth in the "Origin of Species." In this article Mr. Wallace makes a definite statement as to his views on the evolution of man, which were opposed to those of Mr. Darwin. He upholds the view that the brain of man, as well as the organs of speech, the hand and the external form, could not have been evolved by Natural Selection (the child he is supposed to murder). At page 391 he writes: "In the brain of the lowest savages, and, as far as we know, of the prehistoric races, we have an organ...little inferior in size and complexity to that of the highest types...But the mental requirements of the lowest savages, such as the Australians or the Andaman Islanders, are very little above those of many animals...How, then, was an organ developed so far beyond the needs of its possessor? Natural Selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one but very little inferior to that of the average members of our learned societies." This passage is marked in Mr. Darwin's copy with a triply underlined "No," and with a shower of notes of exclamation. It was probably the first occasion on which he realised the extent of this great and striking divergence in opinion between himself and his colleague.
He had, however, some indication of it in Wallace's paper on Man, "Anthropological Review," 1864. (See Letter 406). He wrote to Lyell, May 4th, 1869, "I was dreadfully disappointed about Man; it seems to me incredibly strange." And to Mr. Wallace, April 14th, 1869, "If you had not told me, I should have thought that {your remarks on Man} had been added by some one else. As you expected, I differ grievously from you, and I am very sorry for it."
LETTER 409. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, Thursday, February 21st {1868-70?}.
I received the Jermyn Street programme, but have hardly yet considered it, for I was all day on the sofa on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bad though I was, I thought with constant pleasure of your very great kindness in offering to read the proofs of my essay on man. I do not know whether I said anything which might have appeared like a hint, but I assure you that such a thought had never even momentarily passed through my mind. Your offer has just made all the difference, that I can now write, whether or no my essay is ever printed, with a feeling of satisfaction instead of vague dread.
Beg my colleague, Mrs. Huxley, not to forget the corrugator supercilii: it will not be easy to catch the exact moment when the child is on the point of crying, and is struggling against the wrinkling up {of} its little eyes; for then I should expect the corrugator, from being little under the command of the will, would come into play in checking or stopping the wrinkling. An explosion of tears would tell nothing.
LETTER 410. TO FRANCIS GALTON. Down, December 23rd {1870?}.
I have only read about fifty pages of your (to the Judges) (410/1. "Hereditary Genius: an Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences," by Francis Galton, London, 1869. "The Judges of England between 1660 and 1865" is the heading of a section of this work (page 55). See "Descent of Man" (1901), page 41.), but I must exhale myself, else something will go wrong in my inside. I do not think I ever in all my life read anything more interesting and original. And how well and clearly you put every point! George, who has finished the and who expressed himself just in the same terms, tells me the earlier chapters are nothing in interest to the later ones! It will take me some time to get to these later chapters, as it is read aloud to me by my wife, who is also much interested. You have made a convert of an opponent in one sense, for I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think {this} is an eminently important difference. I congratulate you on producing what I am convinced will prove a memorable work. I look forward with intense interest to each reading, but it sets me thinking so much that I find it very hard work; but that is wholly the fault of my brain, and not of your beautifully clear style.
LETTER 411. TO W.R. GREG. March 21st {1871?}.
Many thanks for your note. I am very glad indeed to read remarks made by a man who possesses such varied and odd knowledge as you do, and who is so acute a reasoner. I have no doubt that you will detect blunders of many kinds in my (411/1. "The Descent of Man.") Your MS. on the proportion of the sexes at birth seems to me extremely curious, and I hope that some day you will publish it. It certainly appears that the males are decreasing in the London districts, and a most strange fact it is. Mr. Graham, however, I observe in a note enclosed, does not seem inclined to admit your conclusion. I have never much considered the subject of the causes of the proportion. When I reflected on queen bees producing only males when not impregnated, whilst some other parthenogenetic insects produced, as far as known, only females, the subject seemed to me hopelessly obscure. It is, however, pretty clear that you have taken the one path for its solution. I wished only to ascertain how far with various animals the males exceeded the females, and I have given all the facts which I could collect. As far as I know, no other data have been published. The equality of the sexes with race-horses is surprising. My remarks on mankind are quite superficial, and given merely as some sort of standard for comparison with the lower animals. M. Thury is the writer who makes the sex depend on the period of impregnation. His pamphlet was sent me from Geneva. (411/2. "Memoire sur la loi de Production des Sexes," 2nd edition, 1863 (a pamphlet published by Cherbuliez, Geneva).) I can lend it you if you like. I subsequently read an account of experiments which convinced me that M. Thury was in error; but I cannot remember what they were, only the impression that I might safely banish this view from my mind. Your remarks on the less ratio of males in illegitimate births strikes me as the most doubtful point in your MS.—requiring two assumptions, viz. that the fathers in such cases are relatively too young, and that the result is the same as when the father is relatively too old.
My son, George, who is a mathematician, and who read your MS. with much interest, has suggested, as telling in the right direction, but whether sufficient is another question, that many more illegitimate children are murdered and concealed shortly after birth, than in the case of legitimate children; and as many more males than females die during the first few days of life, the census of illegitimate children practically applies to an older age than with legitimate children, and would thus slightly reduce the excess of males. This might possibly be worth consideration. By a strange coincidence a stranger writes to me this day, making the very same suggestion.
I am quite delighted to hear that my interests you enough to lead you to read it with some care.
LETTER 412. TO FRANCIS GALTON. Down, January 4th, 1873.
Very many thanks for "Fraser" (412/1. "Hereditary Improvement," by Francis Galton, "Fraser's Magazine," January 1873, page 116.): I have been greatly interested by your article. The idea of castes being spontaneously formed and leading to intermarriage (412/2. "My object is to build up, by the mere process of extensive enquiry and publication of results, a sentiment of caste among those who are naturally gifted, and to procure for them, before the system has fairly taken root, such moderate social favours and preference, no more no less, as would seem reasonable to those who were justly informed of the precise measure of their importance to the nation" (loc. cit., page 123).) is quite new to me, and I should suppose to others. I am not, however, so hopeful as you. Your proposed Society (412/3. Mr. Galton proposes that "Some society should undertake three scientific services: the first, by means of a moderate number of influential local agencies, to institute continuous enquiries into the facts of human heredity; the second to be a centre of information on heredity for breeders of animals and plants; and the third to discuss and classify the facts that were collected" (loc. cit., page 124).) would have awfully laborious work, and I doubt whether you could ever get efficient workers. As it is, there is much concealment of insanity and wickedness in families; and there would be more if there was a register. But the greatest difficulty, I think, would be in deciding who deserved to be on the register. How few are above mediocrity in health, strength, morals and intellect; and how difficult to judge on these latter heads. As far as I see, within the same large superior family, only a few of the children would deserve to be on the register; and these would naturally stick to their own families, so that the superior children of distinct families would have no good chance of associating much and forming a caste. Though I see so much difficulty, the object seems a grand one; and you have pointed out the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race. I should be inclined to trust more (and this is part of your plan) to disseminating and insisting on the importance of the all-important principle of inheritance. I will make one or two minor criticisms. Is it not possible that the inhabitants of malarious countries owe their degraded and miserable appearance to the bad atmosphere, though this does not kill them, rather than to "economy of structure"? I do not see that an orthognathous face would cost more than a prognathous face; or a good morale than a bad one. That is a fine simile (page 119) about the chip of a statue (412/4. "...The life of the individual is treated as of absolutely no importance, while the race is as everything; Nature being wholly careless of the former except as a contributor to the maintenance and evolution of the latter. Myriads of inchoate lives are produced in what, to our best judgment, seems a wasteful and reckless manner, in order that a few selected specimens may survive, and be the parents of the next generation. It is as though individual lives were of no more consideration than are the senseless chips which fall from the chisel of the artist who is elaborating some ideal form from a rude block" (loc. cit., page 119).); but surely Nature does not more carefully regard races than individuals, as (I believe I have misunderstood what you mean) evidenced by the multitude of races and species which have become extinct. Would it not be truer to say that Nature cares only for the superior individuals and then makes her new and better races? But we ought both to shudder in using so freely the word "Nature" (412/5. See Letter 190, Volume I.) after what De Candolle has said. Again let me thank you for the interest received in reading your essay.
Many thanks about the rabbits; your letter has been sent to Balfour: he is a very clever young man, and I believe owes his cleverness to Salisbury blood. This letter will not be worth your deciphering. I have almost finished Greg's "Enigmas." (412/6. "The Enigmas of Life," 1872.) It is grand poetry—but too Utopian and too full of faith for me; so that I have been rather disappointed. What do you think about it? He must be a delightful man.
I doubt whether you have made clear how the families on the Register are to be kept pure or superior, and how they are to be in course of time still further improved.
LETTER 413. TO MAX MULLER. Down, July 3rd, 1873.
(413/1. In June, 1873, Professor Max Muller sent to Mr. Darwin a copy of the sixth edition of his "Lectures on the Science of Language" (413/2. A reference to the first edition occurs in "Life and Letters," II., page 390.), with a letter concluding with these words: "I venture to send you my three lectures, trusting that, though I differ from some of your conclusions, you will believe me to be one of your diligent readers and sincere admirers.")
I am much obliged for your kind note and present of your lectures. I am extremely glad to have received them from you, and I had intended ordering them.
I feel quite sure from what I have read in your works that you would never say anything of an honest adversary to which he would have any just right to object; and as for myself, you have often spoken highly of me—perhaps more highly than I deserve.
As far as language is concerned I am not worthy to be your adversary, as I know extremely little about it, and that little learnt from very few . I should have been glad to have avoided the whole subject, but was compelled to take it up as well as I could. He who is fully convinced, as I am, that man is descended from some lower animal, is almost forced to believe a priori that articulate language has been developed from inarticulate cries (413/3. "Descent of Man" (1901), page 133.); and he is therefore hardly a fair judge of the arguments opposed to this belief.
(413/4. In October, 1875, Mr. Darwin again wrote cordially to Professor Max Muller on receipt of a pamphlet entitled "In Self-Defence" (413/5. Printed in "Chips from a German Workshop," Volume IV., 1875, page 473.), which is a reply to Professor Whitney's "Darwinism and Language" in the "North American Review," July 1874. This essay had been brought before the "general reader" in England by an article of Mr. G. Darwin's in the "Contemporary Review," November, 1874, page 894, entitled, "Professor Whitney on the Origin of Language." The article was followed by "My reply to Mr. Darwin," contributed by Professor Muller to the "Contemporary Review," January, 1875, page 305.)
LETTER 414. G. ROLLESTON TO CHARLES DARWIN. British Association, Bristol, August 30th, 1875.
(414/1. In the first edition of the "Descent of Man" Mr. Darwin wrote: "It is a more curious fact that savages did not formerly waste away, as Mr. Bagehot has remarked, before the classical nations, as they now do before modern civilised nations..."(414/2. Bagehot, "Physics and Politics," "Fortnightly Review," April, 1868, page 455.) In the second edition (page 183) the statement remains, but a mass of evidence (pages 183-92) is added, to which reference occurs in the reply to the following letter.)
At pages 4-5 of the enclosed Address (414/3. "British Association Reports," 1875, page 142.) you will find that I have controverted Mr. Bagehot's view as to the extinction of the barbarians in the times of classical antiquity, as also the view of Poppig as to there being some occult influence exercised by civilisation to the disadvantage of savagery when the two come into contact.
I write to say that I took up this subject without any wish to impugn any views of yours as such, but with the desire of having my say upon certain anti-sanitarian transactions and malfeasance of which I had had a painful experience.
On reading however what I said, and had written somewhat hastily, it has struck me that what I have said might bear the former interpretation in the eyes of persons who might not read other papers of mine, and indeed other parts of the same Address, in which my adhesion, whatever it is worth, to your views in general is plainly enough implied. I have ventured to write this explanation to you for several reasons.
LETTER 415. TO G. ROLLESTON. Bassett, Southampton, September 2nd {1875}.
I am much obliged to you for having sent me your Address, which has interested me greatly. I quite subscribe to what you say about Mr. Bagehot's striking remark, and wish I had not quoted it. I can perceive no sort of reflection or blame on anything which I have written, and I know well that I deserve many a good slap on the face. The decrease of savage populations interests me much, and I should like you some time to look at a discussion on this subject which I have introduced in the second edition of the "Descent of Man," and which you can find (for I have no copy here) in the list of additions. The facts have convinced me that lessened fertility and the poor constitution of the children is one chief cause of such decrease; and that the case is strictly parallel to the sterility of many wild animals when made captive, the civilisation of savages and the captivity of wild animals leading to the same result.
LETTER 416. TO ERNST KRAUSE. Down, June 30th, 1877.
I have been much interested by your able argument against the belief that the sense of colour has been recently acquired by man. (416/1. See "Kosmos," June 1877, page 264, a review of Dr. Hugo Magnus' "Die Geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes," 1877. The first part is chiefly an account of the author's views; Dr. Krause's argument begins at page 269. The interest felt by Mr. Darwin is recorded by the numerous pencil-marks on the margin of his copy.) The following observation bears on this subject.
I attended carefully to the mental development of my young children, and with two, or as I believe three of them, soon after they had come to the age when they knew the names of all common objects, I was startled by observing that they seemed quite incapable of affixing the right names to the colours in coloured engravings, although I tried repeatedly to teach them. I distinctly remember declaring that they were colour-blind, but this afterwards proved a groundless fear.
On communicating this fact to another person he told me that he had observed a nearly similar case. Therefore the difficulty which young children experience either in distinguishing, or more probably in naming colours, seems to deserve further investigation. I will add that it formerly appeared to me that the gustatory sense, at least in the case of my own infants, and very young children, differed from that of grown-up persons. This was shown by their not disliking rhubarb mixed with a little sugar and milk, which is to us abominably nauseous; and in their strong taste for the sourest and most austere fruits, such as unripe gooseberries and crabapples.
(PLATE: G.J. ROMANES, 1891. Elliott Fry, photo. Walker and Cockerell, ph. sc.)
LETTER 417. TO G.J. ROMANES. {Barlaston}, August 20th, 1878.
(417/1. Part of this letter (here omitted) is published in "Life and Letters," III., page 225, and the whole in the "Life and Letters of G.J. Romanes," page 74. The lecture referred to was on animal intelligence, and was given at the Dublin meeting of the British Association.)
...The sole fault which I find with your lecture is that it is too short, and this is a rare fault. It strikes me as admirably clear and interesting. I meant to have remonstrated that you had not discussed sufficiently the necessity of signs for the formation of abstract ideas of any complexity, and then I came on the discussion on deaf mutes. This latter seems to me one of the richest of all the mines, and is worth working carefully for years, and very deeply. I should like to read whole chapters on this one head, and others on the minds of the higher idiots. Nothing can be better, as it seems to me, than your several lines or sources of evidence, and the manner in which you have arranged the whole subject. Your will assuredly be worth years of hard labour; and stick to your subject. By the way, I was pleased at your discussing the selection of varying instincts or mental tendencies; for I have often been disappointed by no one having ever noticed this notion.
I have just finished "La Psychologie, son Present et son Avenir," 1876, by Delboeuf (a mathematician and physicist of Belgium) in about a hundred pages. It has interested me a good deal, but why I hardly know; it is rather like Herbert Spencer. If you do not know it, and would care to see it, send me a postcard.
Thank Heaven, we return home on Thursday, and I shall be able to go on with my humdrum work, and that makes me forget my daily discomfort.
Have you ever thought of keeping a young monkey, so as to observe its mind? At a house where we have been staying there were Sir A. and Lady Hobhouse, not long ago returned from India, and she and he kept {a} young monkey and told me some curious particulars. One was that her monkey was very fond of looking through her eyeglass at objects, and moved the glass nearer and further so as to vary the focus. This struck me, as Frank's son, nearly two years old (and we think much of his intellect!!) is very fond of looking through my pocket lens, and I have quite in vain endeavoured to teach him not to put the glass close down on the object, but he always will do so. Therefore I conclude that a child under two years is inferior in intellect to a monkey.
Once again I heartily congratulate you on your well-earned present, and I feel assured, grand future success.
(417/2. Later in the year Mr. Darwin wrote: "I am delighted to hear that you mean to work the comparative Psychology well. I thought your letter to the "Times" very good indeed. (417/3. Romanes wrote to the "Times" August 28th, 1878, expressing his views regarding the distinction between man and the lower animals, in reply to criticisms contained in a leading article in the "Times" of August 23rd on his lecture at the Dublin meeting of the British Association.) Bartlett, at the Zoological Gardens, I feel sure, would advise you infinitely better about hardiness, intellect, price, etc., of monkey than F. Buckland; but with him it must be viva voce.
"Frank says you ought to keep a idiot, a deaf mute, a monkey, and a baby in your house.")
LETTER 418. TO G.A. GASKELL. Down, November 15th, 1878.
(418/1. This letter has been published in Clapperton's "Scientific Meliorism," 1885, page 340, together with Mr. Gaskell's letter of November 13th (page 337). Mr. Gaskell's laws are given in his letter of November 13th, 1878. They are:—
I. The Organological Law:
Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.
II. The Sociological Law:
Sympathetic Selection, or Indiscriminate Survival.
III. The Moral Law:
Social Selection, or the Birth of the Fittest.)
Your letter seems to me very interesting and clearly expressed, and I hope that you are in the right. Your second law appears to be largely acted on in all civilised countries, and I just alluded to it in my remarks to the effect (as far as I remember) that the evil which would follow by checking benevolence and sympathy in not fostering the weak and diseased would be greater than by allowing them to survive and then to procreate.
With regard to your third law, I do not know whether you have read an article (I forget when published) by F. Galton, in which he proposes certificates of health, etc., for marriage, and that the best should be matched. I have lately been led to reflect a little, (for, now that I am growing old, my work has become {word indecipherable} special) on the artificial checks, but doubt greatly whether such would be advantageous to the world at large at present, however it may be in the distant future. Suppose that such checks had been in action during the last two or three centuries, or even for a shorter time in Britain, what a difference it would have made in the world, when we consider America, Australia, New Zealand, and S. Africa! No words can exaggerate the importance, in my opinion, of our colonisation for the future history of the world.
If it were universally known that the birth of children could be prevented, and this were not thought immoral by married persons, would there not be great danger of extreme profligacy amongst unmarried women, and might we not become like the "arreoi" societies in the Pacific? In the course of a century France will tell us the result in many ways, and we can already see that the French nation does not spread or increase much.
I am glad that you intend to continue your investigations, and I hope ultimately may publish on the subject.
LETTER 419. TO K. HOCHBERG. Down, January 13th, 1879.
I am much obliged for your note and for the essay which you have sent me. I am a poor german scholar, and your german is difficult; but I think that I understand your meaning, and hope at some future time, when more at leisure, to recur to your essay. As far as I can judge, you have made a great advance in many ways in the subject; and I will send your paper to Mr. Edmund Gurney (The late Edmund Gurney, author of "The Power of Sound," 1880.), who has written on and is much interested in the origin of the taste for music. In reading your essay, it occurred to me that facility in the utterance of prolonged sounds (I do not think that you allude to this point) may possibly come into play in rendering them musical; for I have heard it stated that those who vary their voices much, and use cadences in long continued speaking, feel less fatigued than those who speak on the same note.
LETTER 420. TO G.J. ROMANES. Down, February 5th, 1880.
(420/1. Romanes was at work on what ultimately came to be a on animal intelligence. Romanes's reply to this letter is given in his "Life," page 95. The table referred to is published as a frontispiece to his "Mental Evolution in Animals," 1885.)
As I feared, I cannot be of the least use to you. I could not venture to say anything about babies without reading my Expression and paper on Infants, or about animals without reading the "Descent of Man" and referring to my notes; and it is a great wrench to my mind to change from one subject to another.
I will, however, hazard one or two remarks. Firstly, I should have thought that the word "love" (not sexual passion), as shown very low in the scale, to offspring and apparently to comrades, ought to have come in more prominently in your table than appears to be the case. Secondly, if you give any instance of the appreciation of different stimulants by plants, there is a much better case than that given by you—namely, that of the glands of Drosera, which can be touched roughly two or three times and do not transmit any effect, but do so if pressed by a weight of 1/78000 grain ("Insectivorous Plants" 263). On the other hand, the filament of Dionoea may be quietly ld with a much greater weight, while a touch by a hair causes the lobes to close instantly. This has always seemed to me a marvellous fact. Thirdly, I have been accustomed to look at the coming in of the sense of pleasure and pain as one of the most important steps in the development of mind, and I should think it ought to be prominent in your table. The sort of progress which I have imagined is that a stimulus produced some effect at the point affected, and that the effect radiated at first in all directions, and then that certain definite advantageous lines of transmission were acquired, inducing definite reaction in certain lines. Such transmission afterwards became associated in some unknown way with pleasure or pain. These sensations led at first to all sorts of violent action, such as the wriggling of a worm, which was of some use. All the organs of sense would be at the same time excited. Afterwards definite lines of action would be found to be the most useful, and so would be practised. But it is of no use my giving you my crude notions.
LETTER 421. TO S. TOLVER PRESTON. Down, May 22nd, 1880.
(421/1. Mr. Preston wrote (May 20th, 1880) to the effect that "self-interest as a motive for conduct is a thing to be commended—and it certainly {is} I think...the only conceivable rational motive of conduct: and always is the tacitly recognised motive in all rational actions." Mr. Preston does not, of course, commend selfishness, which is not true self-interest.
There seem to be two ways of looking at the case given by Darwin. The man who knows that he is risking his life,—realising that the personal satisfaction that may follow is not worth the risk—is surely admirable from the strength of character that leads him to follow the social instinct against his purely personal inclination. But the man who blindly obeys the social instinct is a more useful member of a social community. He will act with courage where even the strong man will fail.)
Your letter appears to me an interesting and valuable one; but I have now been working for some years exclusively on the physiology of plants, and all other subjects have gone out of my head, and it fatigues me much to try and bring them back again into my head. I am, moreover, at present very busy, as I leave home for a fortnight's rest at the beginning of next week. My conviction as yet remains unchanged, that a man who (for instance) jumps into a river to save a life without a second's reflection (either from an innate tendency or from one gained by habit) is deservedly more honoured than a man who acts deliberately and is conscious, for however short a time, that the risk and sacrifice give him some inward satisfaction.
You are of course familiar with Herbert Spencer's writings on Ethics.
(422/1. The observations to which the following letters refer were continued by Mr. Wallis, who gave an account of his work in an interesting paper in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," March 2nd, 1897. The results on the whole confirm the belief that traces of an ancestral pointed ear exist in man.)
LETTER 422. TO H.M. WALLIS. Down, March 22nd, 1881.
I am very much obliged for your courteous and kind note. The fact which you communicate is quite new to me, and as I was laughed at about the tips to human ears, I should like to publish in "Nature" some time your fact. But I must first consult Eschricht, and see whether he notices this fact in his curious paper on the lanugo on human embryos; and secondly I ought to look to monkeys and other animals which have tufted ears, and observe how the hair grows. This I shall not be able to do for some months, as I shall not be in London until the autumn so as to go to the Zoological Gardens. But in order that I may not hereafter throw away time, will you be so kind as to inform me whether I may publish your observation if on further search it seems desirable?
LETTER 423. TO H.M. WALLIS. Down, March 31st, 1881.
I am much obliged for your interesting letter. I am glad to hear that you are looking to other ears, and will visit the Zoological Gardens. Under these circumstances it would be incomparably better (as more authentic) if you would publish a notice of your observations in "Nature" or some scientific journal. Would it not be well to confine your attention to infants, as more likely to retain any primordial character, and offering less difficulty in observing. I think, though, it would be worth while to observe whether there is any relation (though probably none) between much hairiness on the ears of an infant and the presence of the "tip" on the folded margin. Could you not get an accurate sketch of the direction of the hair of the tip of an ear?
The fact which you communicate about the goat-sucker is very curious. About the difference in the power of flight in Dorkings, etc., may it not be due merely to greater weight of body in the adults?
I am so old that I am not likely ever again to write on general and difficult points in the theory of Evolution.
I shall use what little strength is left me for more confined and easy subjects.
LETTER 424. TO MRS. TALBOT.
(Mrs. Emily Talbot was secretary of the Education Department of the American Social Science Association, Boston, Mass. A circular and register was issued by the Department, and answers to various questions were asked for. See "Nature," April 28th, page 617, 1881. The above letter was published in "The Field Naturalist," Manchester, 1883, page 5, edited by Mr. W.E. Axon, to whom we are indebted for a copy.)
Down, July 19th {1881?}
In response to your wish, I have much pleasure in expressing the interest which I feel in your proposed investigation on the mental and bodily development of infants. Very little is at present accurately known on this subject, and I believe that isolated observations will add but little to our knowledge, whereas tabulated results from a very large number of observations, systematically made, would probably throw much light on the sequence and period of development of the several faculties. This knowledge would probably give a foundation for some improvement in our education of young children, and would show us whether the system ought to be followed in all cases.
I will venture to specify a few points of inquiry which, as it seems to me, possess some scientific interest. For instance, does the education of the parents influence the mental powers of their children at any age, either at a very early or somewhat more advanced stage? This could perhaps be learned by schoolmasters and mistresses if a large number of children were first classed according to age and their mental attainments, and afterwards in accordance with the education of their parents, as far as this could be discovered. As observation is one of the earliest faculties developed in young children, and as this power would probably be exercised in an equal degree by the children of educated and uneducated persons, it seems not impossible that any transmitted effect from education could be displayed only at a somewhat advanced age. It would be desirable to test statistically, in a similar manner, the truth of the oft-repeated statement that coloured children at first learn as quickly as white children, but that they afterwards fall off in progress. If it could be proved that education acts not only on the individual, but, by transmission, on the race, this would be a great encouragement to all working on this all-important subject. It is well known that children sometimes exhibit, at a very early age, strong special tastes, for which no cause can be assigned, although occasionally they may be accounted for by reversion to the taste or occupation of some progenitor; and it would be interesting to learn how far such early tastes are persistent and influence the future career of the individual. In some instances such tastes die away without apparently leaving any after effect, but it would be desirable to know how far this is commonly the case, as we should then know whether it were important to direct as far as this is possible the early tastes of our children. It may be more beneficial that a child should follow energetically some pursuit, of however trifling a nature, and thus acquire perseverance, than that he should be turned from it because of no future advantage to him. I will mention one other small point of inquiry in relation to very young children, which may possibly prove important with respect to the origin of language; but it could be investigated only by persons possessing an accurate musical ear. Children, even before they can articulate, express some of their feelings and desires by noises uttered in different notes. For instance, they make an interrogative noise, and others of assent and dissent, in different tones; and it would, I think, be worth while to ascertain whether there is any uniformity in different children in the pitch of their voices under various frames of mind.
I fear that this letter can be of no use to you, but it will serve to show my sympathy and good wishes in your researches.
2.VIII.II. SEXUAL SELECTION, 1866-1872.
LETTER 425. TO JAMES SHAW. Down, February 11th {1866}.
I am much obliged to you for your kindness in sending me an abstract of your paper on beauty. (425/1. A newspaper report of a communication to the "Dumfries Antiquarian and Natural History Society.") In my opinion you take quite a correct view of the subject. It is clear that Dr. Dickson has either never seen my or overlooked the discussion on sexual selection. If you have any precise facts on birds' "courtesy towards their own image in mirror or picture," I should very much like to hear them. Butterflies offer an excellent instance of beauty being displayed in conspicuous parts; for those kinds which habitually display the underside of the wing have this side gaudily coloured, and this is not so in the reverse case. I daresay you will know that the males of many foreign butterflies are much more brilliantly coloured than the females, as in the case of birds. I can adduce good evidence from two large classes of facts (too large to specify) that flowers have become beautiful to make them conspicuous to insects. (425/2. This letter is published in "A Country Schoolmaster, James Shaw." Edited by Robert Wallace, Edinburgh, 1899.)
(425/3. Mr. Darwin wrote again to Mr. Shaw in April, 1866:—)
I am much obliged for your kind letter and all the great trouble which you have taken in sending to all the various and interesting facts on birds admiring themselves. I am very glad to hear of these facts. I have just finished writing and adding to a new edition of the "Origin," and in this I have given, without going into details (so that I shall not be able to use your facts), some remarks on the subject of beauty.
LETTER 426. TO A.D. BARTLETT. Down, February 16th {1867?}
I want to beg two favours of you. I wish to ascertain whether the Bower-Bird discriminates colours. (426/1. Mr. Bartlett does not seem to have supplied any information on the point in question. The evidence for the Bower-Bird's taste in colour is in "Descent of Man," II., page 112.) Will you have all the coloured worsted removed from the cage and bower, and then put all in a row, at some distance from bower, the enclosed coloured worsted, and mark whether the bird AT FIRST makes any selection. Each packet contains an equal quantity; the packets had better be separate, and each thread put separate, but close together; perhaps it would be fairest if the several colours were put alternately—one thread of bright scarlet, one thread of brown, etc., etc. There are six colours. Will you have the kindness to tell me whether the birds prefer one colour to another?
Secondly, I very much want several heads of the fancy and long-domesticated rabbits, to measure the capacity of skull. I want only small kinds, such as Himalaya, small Angora, Silver Grey, or any small-sized rabbit which has long been domesticated. The Silver Grey from warrens would be of little use. The animals must be adult, and the smaller the breed the better. Now when any one dies would you send me the carcase named; if the skin is of any value it might be skinned, but it would be rather better with skin, and I could make a present to any keeper to whom the skin is a perquisite. This would be of great assistance to me, if you would have the kindness thus to aid me.
LETTER 427. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER.
(427/1. We are not aware that the experiment here suggested has ever been carried out.)
Down, March 5th {1867}.
I write on the bare and very improbable chance of your being able to try, or get some trustworthy person to try, the following little experiment. But I may first state, as showing what I want, that it has been stated that if two long feathers in the tail of the male Widow-Bird at the Cape of Good Hope are pulled out, no female will pair with him.
Now, where two or three common cocks are kept, I want to know, if the tail sickle-feathers and saddle-feathers of one which had succeeded in getting wives were cut and mutilated and his beauty spoiled, whether he would continue to be successful in getting wives. This might be tried with drakes or peacocks, but no one would be willing to spoil for a season his peacocks. I have no strength or opportunity of watching my own poultry, otherwise I would try it. I would very gladly repay all expenses of loss of value of the poultry, etc. But, as I said, I have written on the most improbable chance of your interesting any one to make the trial, or having time and inclination yourself to make it. Another, and perhaps better, mode of making the trial would be to turn down to some hens two or three cocks, one being injured in its plumage.
I am glad to say that I have begun correcting proofs. (427/2. "The Variation of Animals and Plants.") I hope that you received safely the skulls which you so kindly lent me.
LETTER 428. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER. Down, March 30th {1867}.
I am much obliged for your note, and shall be truly obliged if you will insert any question on the subject. That is a capital remark of yours about the trimmed game cocks, and shall be quoted by me. (428/1. "Descent of Man," Edition I., Volume II., page 117. "Mr. Tegetmeier is convinced that a game cock, though disfigured by being dubbed with his hackles trimmed, would be accepted as readily as a male retaining all his natural ornaments.") Nevertheless I am still inclined from many facts strongly to believe that the beauty of the male bird determines the choice of the female with wild birds, however it may be under domestication. Sir R. Heron has described how one pied peacock was extra attentive to the hens. This is a subject which I must take up as soon as my present is done.
I shall be most particularly obliged to you if you will dye with magenta a pigeon or two. (428/2. "Mr. Tegetmeier, at my request, stained some of his birds with magenta, but they were not much noticed by the others."—"Descent of Man" (1901), page 637.) Would it not be better to dye the tail alone and crown of head, so as not to make too great difference? I shall be very curious to hear how an entirely crimson pigeon will be received by the others as well as his mate.
P.S.—Perhaps the best experiment, for my purpose, would be to colour a young unpaired male and turn him with other pigeons, and observe whether he was longer or quicker than usual in mating.
LETTER 429. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, April 29th {1867}.
I have been greatly interested by your letter, but your view is not new to me. (429/1. We have not been able to find Mr. Wallace's letter to which this is a reply. It evidently refers to Mr. Wallace's belief in the paramount importance of protection in the evolution of colour. This is clear from the P.S. to the present letter and from the passages in the "Origin" referred to. The first reference, Edition IV., page 240, is as follows: "We can sometimes plainly see the proximate cause of the transmission of ornaments to the males alone; for a pea-hen with the long tail of the male bird would be badly fitted to sit on her eggs, and a coal-black female capercailzie would be far more conspicuous on her nest, and more exposed to danger, than in her present modest attire." The passages in Edition I. (pages 89, 101) do not directly bear on the question of protection.) If you will look at page 240 of the fourth edition of the "Origin" you will find it very briefly given with two extreme examples of the peacock and black grouse. A more general statement is given at page 101, or at page 89 of the first edition, for I have long entertained this view, though I have never had space to develop it. But I had not sufficient knowledge to generalise as far as you do about colouring and nesting. In your paper perhaps you will just allude to my scanty remark in the fourth edition, because in my Essay on Man I intend to discuss the whole subject of sexual selection, explaining as I believe it does much with respect to man. I have collected all my old notes, and partly written my discussion, and it would be flat work for me to give the leading idea as exclusively from you. But, as I am sure from your greater knowledge of Ornithology and Entomology that you will write a much better discussion than I could, your paper will be of great use to me. Nevertheless I must discuss the subject fully in my Essay on Man. When we met at the Zoological Society, and I asked you about the sexual differences in kingfishers, I had this subject in view; as I had when I suggested to Bates the difficulty about gaudy caterpillars, which you have so admirably (as I believe it will prove) explained. (429/2. See a letter of February 26th, 1867, to Mr. Wallace, "Life and Letters" III., page 94.) I have got one capital case (genus forgotten) of a {Australian} bird in which the female has long tail-plumes, and which consequently builds a different nest from all her allies. (429/3. Menura superba: see "Descent of Man" (1901), page 687. Rhynchoea, mentioned a line or two lower down, is discussed in the "Descent," page 727. The female is more brightly coloured than the male, and has a convoluted trachea, elsewhere a masculine character. There seems some reason to suppose that "the male undertakes the duty of incubation.") With respect to certain female birds being more brightly coloured than the males, and the latter incubating, I have gone a little into the subject, and cannot say that I am fully satisfied. I remember mentioning to you the case of Rhynchoea, but its nesting seems unknown. In some other cases the difference in brightness seemed to me hardly sufficiently accounted for by the principle of protection. At the Falkland Islands there is a carrion hawk in which the female (as I ascertained by dissection) is the brightest coloured, and I doubt whether protection will here apply; but I wrote several months ago to the Falklands to make enquiries. The conclusion to which I have been leaning is that in some of these abnormal cases the colour happened to vary in the female alone, and was transmitted to females alone, and that her variations have been selected through the admiration of the male.
It is a very interesting subject, but I shall not be able to go on with it for the next five or six months, as I am fully employed in correcting dull proof-sheets. When I return to the work I shall find it much better done by you than I could have succeeded in doing.
It is curious how we hit on the same ideas. I have endeavoured to show in my MS. discussion that nearly the same principles account for young birds not being gaily coloured in many cases, but this is too complex a point for a note.
On reading over your letter again, and on further reflection, I do not think (as far as I remember my words) that I expressed myself nearly strongly enough on the value and beauty of your generalisation (429/4. See Letter 203, Volume I.), viz., that all birds in which the female is conspicuously or brightly coloured build in holes or under domes. I thought that this was the explanation in many, perhaps most cases, but do not think I should ever have extended my view to your generalisation. Forgive me troubling you with this P.S.
LETTER 430. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, May 5th {1867}.
The offer of your valuable notes is most generous, but it would vex me to take so much from you, as it is certain that you could work up the subject very much better than I could. Therefore I earnestly, and without any reservation, hope that you will proceed with your paper, so that I return your notes. You seem already to have well investigated the subject. I confess on receiving your note that I felt rather flat at my recent work being almost thrown away, but I did not intend to show this feeling. As a proof how little advance I had made on the subject, I may mention that though I had been collecting facts on the colouring, and other sexual differences in mammals, your explanation with respect to the females had not occurred to me. I am surprised at my own stupidity, but I have long recognised how much clearer and deeper your insight into matters is than mine. I do not know how far you have attended to the laws of inheritance, so what follows may be obvious to you. I have begun my discussion on sexual selection by showing that new characters often appear in one sex and are transmitted to that sex alone, and that from some unknown cause such characters apparently appear oftener in the male than in the female. Secondly, characters may be developed and be confined to the male, and long afterwards be transferred to the female. Thirdly, characters may arise in either sex and be transmitted to both sexes, either in an equal or unequal degree. In this latter case I have supposed that the survival of the fittest has come into play with female birds and kept the female dull-coloured. With respect to the absence of spurs in the female gallinaceous birds, I presume that they would be in the way during incubation; at least I have got the case of a German breed of fowls in which the hens were spurred, and were found to disturb and break their eggs much. With respect to the females of deer not having horns, I presume it is to save the loss of organised matter. In your note you speak of sexual selection and protection as sufficient to account for the colouring of all animals, but it seems to me doubtful how far this will come into play with some of the lower animals, such as sea anemones, some corals, etc., etc. On the other hand Hackel (430/1. See "Descent of Man" (1901) page 402.) has recently well shown that the transparency and absence of colour in the lower oceanic animals, belonging to the most different classes, may be well accounted for on the principle of protection.
Some time or other I should like much to know where your paper on the nests of birds has appeared, and I shall be extremely anxious to read your paper in the "Westminster Review." (430/2. "Westminster Review," July, 1867.) Your paper on the sexual colouring of birds will, I have no doubt, be very striking. Forgive me, if you can, for a touch of illiberality about your paper.
LETTER 431. TO A.R. WALLACE. March 19th, 1868.
(431/1. "The Variation of Animals and Plants" having been published on January 30th, 1868, Mr. Darwin notes in his diary that on February 4th he "Began on Man and Sexual Selection." He had already (in 1864 and 1867) corresponded with Mr. Wallace on these questions—see for instance the "Life and Letters," III., page 89; but, owing to various interruptions, serious work on the subject did not begin until 1869. The following quotations show the line of work undertaken early in 1868.
Mr. Wallace wrote (March 19th, 1868): "I am glad you have got good materials on sexual selection. It is no doubt a difficult subject. One difficulty to me is, that I do not see how the constant MINUTE variations, which are sufficient for Natural Selection to work with, could be SEXUALLY selected. We seem to require a series of bold and abrupt variations. How can we imagine that an inch in the tail of the peacock, or 1/4-inch in that of the Bird of Paradise, would be noticed and preferred by the female.")
In regard to sexual selection. A girl sees a handsome man, and without observing whether his nose or whiskers are the tenth of an inch longer or shorter than in some other man, admires his appearance and says she will marry him. So, I suppose, with the pea-hen; and the tail has been increased in length merely by, on the whole, presenting a more gorgeous appearance. J. Jenner Weir, however, has given me some facts showing that birds apparently admire details of plumage.
LETTER 432. TO F. MULLER. March 28th {1868}.
I am particularly obliged to you for your observations on the stridulation of the two sexes of Lamellicorns. (432/1. We are unable to find any mention of F. Muller's observations on this point; but the reference is clearly to Darwin's observations on Necrophorus and Pelobius, in which the stridulating rasp was bigger in the males in the first individuals examined, but not so in succeeding specimens. "Descent of Man," Edition II., Volume I., page 382.) I begin to fear that I am completely in error owing to that common cause, viz. mistaking at first individual variability for sexual difference.
I go on working at sexual selection, and, though never idle, I am able to do so little work each day that I make very slow progress. I knew from Azara about the young of the tapir being striped, and about young deer being spotted (432/2. Fritz Muller's views are discussed in the "Descent of Man," Edition II., Volume II., page 305.); I have often reflected on this subject, and know not what to conclude about the loss of the stripes and spots. From the geographical distribution of the striped and unstriped species of Equus there seems to be something very mysterious about the loss of stripes; and I cannot persuade myself that the common ass has lost its stripes owing to being rendered more conspicuous from having stripes and thus exposed to danger.
LETTER 433. TO J. JENNER WEIR.
(433/1. Mr. John Jenner Weir, to whom the following letters are addressed, is frequently quoted in the "Descent of Man" as having supplied Mr. Darwin with information on a variety of subjects.)
Down, February 27th {1868}.
I must thank you for your paper on apterous lepidoptera (433/2. Published by the West Kent Natural History, Microscopical and Photographic Society, Greenwich, 1867. Mr. Weir's paper seems chiefly to have interested Mr. Darwin as affording a good case of gradation in the degree of degradation of the wings in various species.), which has interested me exceedingly, and likewise for the very honourable mention which you make of my name. It is almost a pity that your paper was not published in some Journal in which it would have had a wider distribution. It contained much that was new to me. I think the part about the relation of the wings and spiracles and tracheae might have been made a little clearer. Incidentally, you have done me a good service by reminding me of the rudimentary spurs on the legs of the partridge, for I am now writing on what I have called sexual selection. I believe that I am not mistaken in thinking that you have attended much to birds in confinement, as well as to insects. If you could call to mind any facts bearing on this subject, with birds, insects, or any animals—such as the selection by a female of any particular male—or conversely of a particular female by a male, or on the rivalry between males, or on the allurement of the females by the males, or any such facts, I should be most grateful for the information, if you would have the kindness to communicate it.
P.S.—I may give as instance of {this} class of facts, that Barrow asserts that a male Emberiza (?) at the Cape has immensely long tail-feathers during the breeding season (433/3. Barrow describes the long tail feathers of Emberiza longicauda as enduring "but the season of love." "An Account of Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa": London, 1801, Volume I., page 244.); and that if these are cut off, he has no chance of getting a wife. I have always felt an intense wish to make analogous trials, but have never had an opportunity, and it is not likely that you or any one would be willing to try so troublesome an experiment. Colouring or staining the fine red breast of a bullfinch with some innocuous matter into a dingy tint would be an analogous case, and then putting him and ordinary males with a female. A friend promised, but failed, to try a converse experiment with white pigeons—viz., to stain their tails and wings with magenta or other colours, and then observe what effect such a prodigious alteration would have on their courtship. (433/4. See Letter 428.) It would be a fairer trial to cut off the eyes of the tail-feathers of male peacocks; but who would sacrifice the beauty of their bird for a whole season to please a mere naturalist?
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