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<h2> MY SEVERAL PUBLICATIONS. </h2>
<p>In the early part of 1844, my observations on the volcanic islands visited
during the voyage of the "Beagle" were published. In 1845, I took much
pains in correcting a new edition of my 'Journal of Researches,' which was
originally published in 1839 as part of Fitz-Roy's work. The success of
this, my first literary child, always tickles my vanity more than that of
any of my other books. Even to this day it sells steadily in England and
the United States, and has been translated for the second time into
German, and into French and other languages. This success of a book of
travels, especially of a scientific one, so many years after its first
publication, is surprising. Ten thousand copies have been sold in England
of the second edition. In 1846 my 'Geological Observations on South
America' were published. I record in a little diary, which I have always
kept, that my three geological books ('Coral Reefs' included) consumed
four and a half years' steady work; "and now it is ten years since my
return to England. How much time have I lost by illness?" I have nothing
to say about these three books except that to my surprise new editions
have lately been called for. ('Geological Observations,' 2nd Edit.1876.
'Coral Reefs,' 2nd Edit. 1874.)</p>
<p>In October, 1846, I began to work on 'Cirripedia.' When on the coast of
Chile, I found a most curious form, which burrowed into the shells of
Concholepas, and which differed so much from all other Cirripedes that I
had to form a new sub-order for its sole reception. Lately an allied
burrowing genus has been found on the shores of Portugal. To understand
the structure of my new Cirripede I had to examine and dissect many of the
common forms; and this gradually led me on to take up the whole group. I
worked steadily on this subject for the next eight years, and ultimately
published two thick volumes (Published by the Ray Society.), describing
all the known living species, and two thin quartos on the extinct species.
I do not doubt that Sir E. Lytton Bulwer had me in his mind when he
introduced in one of his novels a Professor Long, who had written two huge
volumes on limpets.</p>
<p>Although I was employed during eight years on this work, yet I record in
my diary that about two years out of this time was lost by illness. On
this account I went in 1848 for some months to Malvern for hydropathic
treatment, which did me much good, so that on my return home I was able to
resume work. So much was I out of health that when my dear father died on
November 13th, 1848, I was unable to attend his funeral or to act as one
of his executors.</p>
<p>My work on the Cirripedia possesses, I think, considerable value, as
besides describing several new and remarkable forms, I made out the
homologies of the various parts—I discovered the cementing
apparatus, though I blundered dreadfully about the cement glands—and
lastly I proved the existence in certain genera of minute males
complemental to and parasitic on the hermaphrodites. This latter discovery
has at last been fully confirmed; though at one time a German writer was
pleased to attribute the whole account to my fertile imagination. The
Cirripedes form a highly varying and difficult group of species to class;
and my work was of considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the
'Origin of Species' the principles of a natural classification.
Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so
much time.</p>
<p>From September 1854 I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile of
notes, to observing, and to experimenting in relation to the transmutation
of species. During the voyage of the "Beagle" I had been deeply impressed
by discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals covered with
armour like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the manner in
which closely allied animals replace one another in proceeding southwards
over the Continent; and thirdly, by the South American character of most
of the productions of the Galapagos archipelago, and more especially by
the manner in which they differ slightly on each island of the group; none
of the islands appearing to be very ancient in a geological sense.</p>
<p>It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could
only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become
modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that
neither the action of the surrounding conditions, nor the will of the
organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the
innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted
to their habits of life—for instance, a woodpecker or a tree-frog to
climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I had always been
much struck by such adaptations, and until these could be explained it
seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to prove by indirect evidence
that species have been modified.</p>
<p>After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example
of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in any way on
the variation of animals and plants under domestication and nature, some
light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My first note-book was
opened in July 1837. I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any
theory collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect
to domesticated productions, by printed enquiries, by conversation with
skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the
list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole
series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon
perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in making
useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to
organisms living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to
me.</p>
<p>In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic
enquiry, I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus on Population,' and
being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of
animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances
favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to
be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species.
Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so
anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write
even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed myself the
satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in 35
pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of 230
pages, which I had fairly copied out and still possess.</p>
<p>But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is
astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg, how I
could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the tendency in
organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as
they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the
manner in which species of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera
under families, families under sub-orders and so forth; and I can remember
the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the
solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had come to Down. The
solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and
increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified
places in the economy of nature.</p>
<p>Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I
began at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as that
which was afterwards followed in my 'Origin of Species;' yet it was only
an abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I got through
about half the work on this scale. But my plans were overthrown, for early
in the summer of 1858 Mr. Wallace, who was then in the Malay archipelago,
sent me an essay "On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from
the Original Type;" and this essay contained exactly the same theory as
mine. Mr. Wallace expressed the wish that if I thought well of his essay,
I should sent it to Lyell for perusal.</p>
<p>The circumstances under which I consented at the request of Lyell and
Hooker to allow of an abstract from my MS., together with a letter to Asa
Gray, dated September 5, 1857, to be published at the same time with
Wallace's Essay, are given in the 'Journal of the Proceedings of the
Linnean Society,' 1858, page 45. I was at first very unwilling to consent,
as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I
did not then know how generous and noble was his disposition. The extract
from my MS. and the letter to Asa Gray had neither been intended for
publication, and were badly written. Mr. Wallace's essay, on the other
hand, was admirably expressed and quite clear. Nevertheless, our joint
productions excited very little attention, and the only published notice
of them which I can remember was by Professor Haughton of Dublin, whose
verdict was that all that was new in them was false, and what was true was
old. This shows how necessary it is that any new view should be explained
at considerable length in order to arouse public attention.</p>
<p>In September 1858 I set to work by the strong advice of Lyell and Hooker
to prepare a volume on the transmutation of species, but was often
interrupted by ill-health, and short visits to Dr. Lane's delightful
hydropathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the MS. begun on a
much larger scale in 1856, and completed the volume on the same reduced
scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten days' hard labour. It was
published under the title of the 'Origin of Species,' in November 1859.
Though considerably added to and corrected in the later editions, it has
remained substantially the same book.</p>
<p>It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly
successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies was sold on the day of
publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies soon afterwards. Sixteen
thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in England; and considering how
stiff a book it is, this is a large sale. It has been translated into
almost every European tongue, even into such languages as Spanish,
Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has also, according to Miss Bird, been
translated into Japanese (Miss Bird is mistaken, as I learn from Prof.
Mitsukuri.—F.D.), and is there much studied. Even an essay in Hebrew
has appeared on it, showing that the theory is contained in the Old
Testament! The reviews were very numerous; for some time I collected all
that appeared on the 'Origin' and on my related books, and these amount
(excluding newspaper reviews) to 265; but after a time I gave up the
attempt in despair. Many separate essays and books on the subject have
appeared; and in Germany a catalogue or bibliography on "Darwinismus" has
appeared every year or two.</p>
<p>The success of the 'Origin' may, I think, be attributed in large part to
my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having
finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an abstract.
By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and
conclusions. I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule,
namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came
across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum
of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such
facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised
against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.</p>
<p>It has sometimes been said that the success of the 'Origin' proved "that
the subject was in the air," or "that men's minds were prepared for it." I
do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a
few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed
to doubt about the permanence of species. Even Lyell and Hooker, though
they would listen with interest to me, never seemed to agree. I tried once
or twice to explain to able men what I meant by Natural Selection, but
signally failed. What I believe was strictly true is that innumerable
well-observed facts were stored in the minds of naturalists ready to take
their proper places as soon as any theory which would receive them was
sufficiently explained. Another element in the success of the book was its
moderate size; and this I owe to the appearance of Mr. Wallace's essay;
had I published on the scale in which I began to write in 1856, the book
would have been four or five times as large as the 'Origin,' and very few
would have had the patience to read it.</p>
<p>I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the theory
was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I cared very
little whether men attributed most originality to me or Wallace; and his
essay no doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I was forestalled in
only one important point, which my vanity has always made me regret,
namely, the explanation by means of the Glacial period of the presence of
the same species of plants and of some few animals on distant mountain
summits and in the arctic regions. This view pleased me so much that I
wrote it out in extenso, and I believe that it was read by Hooker some
years before E. Forbes published his celebrated memoir ('Geolog. Survey
Mem.,' 1846.) on the subject. In the very few points in which we differed,
I still think that I was in the right. I have never, of course, alluded in
print to my having independently worked out this view.</p>
<p>Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work on the
'Origin,' as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes
between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of
the embryos within the same class. No notice of this point was taken, as
far as I remember, in the early reviews of the 'Origin,' and I recollect
expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa Gray. Within late
years several reviewers have given the whole credit to Fritz Muller and
Hackel, who undoubtedly have worked it out much more fully, and in some
respects more correctly than I did. I had materials for a whole chapter on
the subject, and I ought to have made the discussion longer; for it is
clear that I failed to impress my readers; and he who succeeds in doing so
deserves, in my opinion, all the credit.</p>
<p>This leads me to remark that I have almost always been treated honestly by
my reviewers, passing over those without scientific knowledge as not
worthy of notice. My views have often been grossly misrepresented,
bitterly opposed and ridiculed, but this has been generally done, as I
believe, in good faith. On the whole I do not doubt that my works have
been over and over again greatly overpraised. I rejoice that I have
avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who many years ago, in
reference to my geological works, strongly advised me never to get
entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a
miserable loss of time and temper.</p>
<p>Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has been
imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even when I
have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my
greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that "I have worked as
hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this." I remember
when in Good Success Bay, in Tierra del Fuego, thinking (and, I believe,
that I wrote home to the effect) that I could not employ my life better
than in adding a little to Natural Science. This I have done to the best
of my abilities, and critics may say what they like, but they cannot
destroy this conviction.</p>
<p>During the two last months of 1859 I was fully occupied in preparing a
second edition of the 'Origin,' and by an enormous correspondence. On
January 1st, 1860, I began arranging my notes for my work on the
'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication;' but it was not
published until the beginning of 1868; the delay having been caused partly
by frequent illnesses, one of which lasted seven months, and partly by
being tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time interested me
more.</p>
<p>On May 15th, 1862, my little book on the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' which
cost me ten months' work, was published: most of the facts had been slowly
accumulated during several previous years. During the summer of 1839, and,
I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend to the
cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come to
the conclusion in my speculations on the origin of species, that crossing
played an important part in keeping specific forms constant. I attended to
the subject more or less during every subsequent summer; and my interest
in it was greatly enhanced by having procured and read in November 1841,
through the advice of Robert Brown, a copy of C.K. Sprengel's wonderful
book, 'Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur.' For some years before 1862 I
had specially attended to the fertilisation of our British orchids; and it
seemed to me the best plan to prepare as complete a treatise on this group
of plants as well as I could, rather than to utilise the great mass of
matter which I had slowly collected with respect to other plants.</p>
<p>My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my book, a
surprising number of papers and separate works on the fertilisation of all
kinds of flowers have appeared: and these are far better done than I could
possibly have effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so long
overlooked, are now fully recognised many years after his death.</p>
<p>During the same year I published in the 'Journal of the Linnean Society' a
paper "On the Two Forms, or Dimorphic Condition of Primula," and during
the next five years, five other papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants.
I do not think anything in my scientific life has given me so much
satisfaction as making out the meaning of the structure of these plants. I
had noticed in 1838 or 1839 the dimorphism of Linum flavum, and had at
first thought that it was merely a case of unmeaning variability. But on
examining the common species of Primula I found that the two forms were
much too regular and constant to be thus viewed. I therefore became almost
convinced that the common cowslip and primrose were on the high road to
become dioecious;—that the short pistil in the one form, and the
short stamens in the other form were tending towards abortion. The plants
were therefore subjected under this point of view to trial; but as soon as
the flowers with short pistils fertilised with pollen from the short
stamens, were found to yield more seeds than any other of the four
possible unions, the abortion-theory was knocked on the head. After some
additional experiment, it became evident that the two forms, though both
were perfect hermaphrodites, bore almost the same relation to one another
as do the two sexes of an ordinary animal. With Lythrum we have the still
more wonderful case of three forms standing in a similar relation to one
another. I afterwards found that the offspring from the union of two
plants belonging to the same forms presented a close and curious analogy
with hybrids from the union of two distinct species.</p>
<p>In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on 'Climbing Plants,' and
sent it to the Linnean Society. The writing of this paper cost me four
months; but I was so unwell when I received the proof-sheets that I was
forced to leave them very badly and often obscurely expressed. The paper
was little noticed, but when in 1875 it was corrected and published as a
separate book it sold well. I was led to take up this subject by reading a
short paper by Asa Gray, published in 1858. He sent me seeds, and on
raising some plants I was so much fascinated and perplexed by the
revolving movements of the tendrils and stems, which movements are really
very simple, though appearing at first sight very complex, that I procured
various other kinds of climbing plants, and studied the whole subject. I
was all the more attracted to it, from not being at all satisfied with the
explanation which Henslow gave us in his lectures, about twining plants,
namely, that they had a natural tendency to grow up in a spire. This
explanation proved quite erroneous. Some of the adaptations displayed by
Climbing Plants are as beautiful as those of Orchids for ensuring
cross-fertilisation.</p>
<p>My 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication' was begun, as
already stated, in the beginning of 1860, but was not published until the
beginning of 1868. It was a big book, and cost me four years and two
months' hard labour. It gives all my observations and an immense number of
facts collected from various sources, about our domestic productions. In
the second volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, etc., are
discussed as far as our present state of knowledge permits. Towards the
end of the work I give my well-abused hypothesis of Pangenesis. An
unverified hypothesis is of little or no value; but if anyone should
hereafter be led to make observations by which some such hypothesis could
be established, I shall have done good service, as an astonishing number
of isolated facts can be thus connected together and rendered
intelligible. In 1875 a second and largely corrected edition, which cost
me a good deal of labour, was brought out.</p>
<p>My 'Descent of Man' was published in February, 1871. As soon as I had
become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were mutable
productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the
same law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject for my own
satisfaction, and not for a long time with any intention of publishing.
Although in the 'Origin of Species' the derivation of any particular
species is never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order that no
honourable man should accuse me of concealing my views, to add that by the
work "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history." It
would have been useless and injurious to the success of the book to have
paraded, without giving any evidence, my conviction with respect to his
origin.</p>
<p>But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the doctrine of the
evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable to work up such notes as I
possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin of man. I was
the more glad to do so, as it gave me an opportunity of fully discussing
sexual selection—a subject which had always greatly interested me.
This subject, and that of the variation of our domestic productions,
together with the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, and the
intercrossing of plants, are the sole subjects which I have been able to
write about in full, so as to use all the materials which I have
collected. The 'Descent of Man' took me three years to write, but then as
usual some of this time was lost by ill health, and some was consumed by
preparing new editions and other minor works. A second and largely
corrected edition of the 'Descent' appeared in 1874.</p>
<p>My book on the 'Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals' was
published in the autumn of 1872. I had intended to give only a chapter on
the subject in the 'Descent of Man,' but as soon as I began to put my
notes together, I saw that it would require a separate treatise.</p>
<p>My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced to
make notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he
exhibited, for I felt convinced, even at this early period, that the most
complex and fine shades of expression must all have had a gradual and
natural origin. During the summer of the following year, 1840, I read Sir
C. Bell's admirable work on expression, and this greatly increased the
interest which I felt in the subject, though I could not at all agree with
his belief that various muscles had been specially created for the sake of
expression. From this time forward I occasionally attended to the subject,
both with respect to man and our domesticated animals. My book sold
largely; 5267 copies having been disposed of on the day of publication.</p>
<p>In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near Hartfield, where two
species of Drosera abound; and I noticed that numerous insects had been
entrapped by the leaves. I carried home some plants, and on giving them
insects saw the movements of the tentacles, and this made me think it
probable that the insects were caught for some special purpose.
Fortunately a crucial test occurred to me, that of placing a large number
of leaves in various nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous fluids of equal
density; and as soon as I found that the former alone excited energetic
movements, it was obvious that here was a fine new field for
investigation.</p>
<p>During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my experiments,
and my book on 'Insectivorous Plants' was published in July 1875—that
is, sixteen years after my first observations. The delay in this case, as
with all my other books, has been a great advantage to me; for a man after
a long interval can criticise his own work, almost as well as if it were
that of another person. The fact that a plant should secrete, when
properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and ferment, closely
analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was certainly a remarkable
discovery.</p>
<p>During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the 'Effects of Cross and
Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom.' This book will form a
complement to that on the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' in which I showed
how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall show
how important are the results. I was led to make, during eleven years, the
numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental
observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my
attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of
self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in
height and vigour to seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage. I hope also
to republish a revised edition of my book on Orchids, and hereafter my
papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants, together with some additional
observations on allied points which I never have had time to arrange. My
strength will then probably be exhausted, and I shall be ready to exclaim
"Nunc dimittis."</p>
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