Darwin and Modern Science [15]
as the chief interpreter of the order of nature is currently regarded as the displacement of an anthropomorphic view by a purely scientific one: a little reflection, however, will show that what has actually happened has been merely the replacement of the anthropomorphism of the eighteenth century by that of the nineteenth. For the place vacated by Paley's theological and metaphysical explanation has simply been occupied by that suggested to Darwin and Wallace by Malthus in terms of the prevalent severity of industrial competition, and those phenomena of the struggle for existence which the light of contemporary economic theory has enabled us to discern, have thus come to be temporarily exalted into a complete explanation of organic progress." (P. Geddes, article "Biology", "Chambers's Encyclopaedia".) It goes without saying that the idea suggested by Malthus was developed by Darwin into a biological theory which was then painstakingly verified by being used as an interpretative formula, and that the validity of a theory so established is not affected by what suggested it, but the practical question which this line of thought raises in the mind is this: if Biology did thus borrow with such splendid results from social theory, why should we not more deliberately repeat the experiment?
Darwin was characteristically frank and generous in admitting that the principle of Natural Selection had been independently recognised by Dr W.C. Wells in 1813 and by Mr Patrick Matthew in 1831, but he had no knowledge of these anticipations when he published the first edition of "The Origin of Species". Wells, whose "Essay on Dew" is still remembered, read in 1813 before the Royal Society a short paper entitled "An account of a White Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro" (published in 1818). In this communication, as Darwin said, "he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case 'by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit.'" ("Origin of Species" (6th edition) page xv.) Thus Wells had the clear idea of survival dependent upon a favourable variation, but he makes no more use of the idea and applies it only to man. There is not in the paper the least hint that the author ever thought of generalising the remarkable sentence quoted above.
Of Mr Patrick Matthew, who buried his treasure in an appendix to a work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", Darwin said that "he clearly saw the full force of the principle of natural selection." In 1860 Darwin wrote--very characteristically--about this to Lyell: "Mr Patrick Matthew publishes a long extract from his work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Natural Selection. I have ordered the book, as some passages are rather obscure, but it is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation. Erasmus always said that surely this would be shown to be the case some day. Anyhow, one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on Naval Timber." ("Life and Letters" II. page 301.)
De Quatrefages and De Varigny have maintained that the botanist Naudin stated the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1852. He explains very clearly the process of artificial selection, and says that in the garden we are following Nature's method. "We do not think that Nature has made her species in a different fashion from that in which we proceed ourselves in order to make our variations." But, as Darwin said, "he does not show how selection acts under nature." Similarly it must be noted in regard to several pre-Darwinian pictures of the struggle for existence (such as Herder's, who wrote in 1790 "All is in struggle...each one for himself" and so on), that a recognition of this is only the first step in
Darwin was characteristically frank and generous in admitting that the principle of Natural Selection had been independently recognised by Dr W.C. Wells in 1813 and by Mr Patrick Matthew in 1831, but he had no knowledge of these anticipations when he published the first edition of "The Origin of Species". Wells, whose "Essay on Dew" is still remembered, read in 1813 before the Royal Society a short paper entitled "An account of a White Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro" (published in 1818). In this communication, as Darwin said, "he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case 'by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit.'" ("Origin of Species" (6th edition) page xv.) Thus Wells had the clear idea of survival dependent upon a favourable variation, but he makes no more use of the idea and applies it only to man. There is not in the paper the least hint that the author ever thought of generalising the remarkable sentence quoted above.
Of Mr Patrick Matthew, who buried his treasure in an appendix to a work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", Darwin said that "he clearly saw the full force of the principle of natural selection." In 1860 Darwin wrote--very characteristically--about this to Lyell: "Mr Patrick Matthew publishes a long extract from his work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Natural Selection. I have ordered the book, as some passages are rather obscure, but it is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation. Erasmus always said that surely this would be shown to be the case some day. Anyhow, one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on Naval Timber." ("Life and Letters" II. page 301.)
De Quatrefages and De Varigny have maintained that the botanist Naudin stated the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1852. He explains very clearly the process of artificial selection, and says that in the garden we are following Nature's method. "We do not think that Nature has made her species in a different fashion from that in which we proceed ourselves in order to make our variations." But, as Darwin said, "he does not show how selection acts under nature." Similarly it must be noted in regard to several pre-Darwinian pictures of the struggle for existence (such as Herder's, who wrote in 1790 "All is in struggle...each one for himself" and so on), that a recognition of this is only the first step in