Development of Darwin's theory: Encyclopedia II - Development of Darwin's theory - Barnacles

Development of Darwin's theory - Barnacles

A single barnacle species was left to describe, and Darwin began dissecting with the assistance of Hooker who was now at Kew. To compare this with other species he borrowed specimens, and soon became involved in a much needed comprehensive study of these peculiar creatures that had recently been found to be crustaceans rather than molluscs. To Hooker such an exhaustive study might dampen Darwin's tendency to speculative theorising, and to Darwin it would establish his credentials.

Development of Darwin's theory - Hooker reads the Essay

Hooker paid frequent visits, and in January 1847 when Darwin was particularly ill Hooker took away a copy of the "Essay". After some delays he sent a page of notes, giving Darwin the calm critical feedback that he needed. He did not go along with Darwin's rejection of continuing Creation, arguing "All allusions to superintending providence unnecessary – The Creator able to make first [organisms] able also to go on directing & [it's] a matter of moonshine to [the] argument whether he does or no." Their debates continued, sometimes argumentatively, and Darwin felt devastated by Hooker's intention to set off on a survey voyage.

Development of Darwin's theory - British Association: Vestiges and Wilberforce

Darwin overcame illness to attend the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Oxford in May 1847, to discuss the "Sketch" with Hooker. Darwin attended the geological section which featured a talk by Robert Chambers on ancient beaches. An observer at the meeting reported that Chambers "pushed his conclusions to a most unwarrantable length and got roughly handled on account of it by Buckland, De la Beche, Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lyell. The last told me afterwards that he did so purposely that [Chambers] might see that reasonings in the style of the author of the Vestiges would not be tolerated among scientific men." This was a clear warning from Darwin's Cambridge friends.

On the Sunday Samuel Wilberforce, now the Bishop of Oxford, used his sermon at St. Mary's Church on "the wrong way of doing science" to deliver a stinging attack obviously aimed at Chambers. The church "crowded to suffocation" with geologists, astronomers and zoologists heard jibes about the "half-learned" seduced by the "foul temptation" of speculation looking for a self-sustaining universe in a "mocking spirit of unbelief", showing a failure to understand the "modes of the Creator's acting" or to meet the responsibilities of a gentleman. Chambers denounced this as an attempt to stifle progressive opinion, but others thought he must have gone home "with the feeling of a martyr". Darwin was not present, but in the following week at the Association dissociated himself from the error-ridden Vestiges in Lyell's presence, attacking the author's "poverty of intellect" and dismissing it as a "literary curiosity."

Development of Darwin's theory - Health problems

For the rest of the year Darwin suffered increasing health problems, with fiercely inflamed boils, and in November Hooker left for India. Darwin returned his attention to family life and dissecting barnacles. In February 1848 the leader of British science Sir John Herschel wrote recruiting Darwin to a project drawing up instructions for sailors on scientific field work, at the request of the First Sea Lord. Darwin spent five weeks writing a section for the manual explaining how any gentleman could "geologize".

That summer Communist revolution in France was followed by a massive Chartist demonstration in London, with the wealthy and the Queen fleeing to safety. Darwin's friends were mustered to defend the scientific institutions against the possibility of attacks by rioters who would have welcomed his secret theory. Continuing with the barnacles he found that what what seemed like minute parasites were in some cases the minute males "& half embedded in the flesh of their wives they spend their whole lives", a "wonder of nature" not flattering to the Creation idea that God appointed the social system.

Darwin visited The Mount, Shrewsbury for the 82nd birthday of his father who was now seriously ill. He became desperately ill himself and returned home to be nursed by Emma who gave birth to their third son in August, then in November was devastated when his father died. Emma sustained him, and they read religious books together. In February 1849 he drew some comfort from Harriet Martineau's new Eastern Life, Past and Present, a travelogue of tombs with the message that Christian beliefs in reward and punishment were founded in heathen superstitions.

Development of Darwin's theory - Water Cure

His illness had long baffled doctors. Reluctantly and sceptically he took friend's advice and the whole family and household set out on 8 March 1849 for Malvern so that he could try Dr James Gully's Water Cure Establishment for a two month cold water treatment. They rented "The Lodge" in a quiet location nearby, and he embarked on a course including being scrubbed in cold water, a strict diet and homeopathic medicines.

The family enjoyed the spring weather and liked Dr Gully, and it developed into a delightful holiday in the festive atmosphere around the spa. His stomach trouble was diagnosed as nervous in origin, and he was soon free of sickness and walking seven miles (11 km) a day. Despite his suspicions of quackery the cure worked, and after staying 16 weeks they returned home, arriving on 30 June with Darwin eager to resume work on his barnacles.

He continued a slightly relaxed version of the treatment, having a hut built with a cold water douche and getting up a seven a.m. to get heated up with a spirit lamp then take a cold plunge bath and get scrubbed by his butler. In September his duties as Vice-President of the British Association and interest in a paper on barnacles led him to attend their meeting at Birmingham, but he found it unpleasant and the excitement brought back the sickness. Even after a quick visit to Dr Gulley and rest at home he took weeks to recover.

Development of Darwin's theory - Homologies in barnacles

His investigation of barnacles now found how their segmentation related to other crustaceans, showing how they had diverged from their relatives. To Owen such "homologies" in comparative anatomy showed "archetypes" in the Divine mind, but to Darwin this was evidence of Descent, showing dramatically how organs could have changed functions to meet new conditions. Darwin was "cock-a-hoop", writing to Louis Agassiz of this odd metamorphosis and getting him and others around the world to send more barnacle specimens. His cascade of letters made Hooker tire of barnacle details, and write from the Himalayas that on reflection he really did prefer to hear the evolutionary speculation after all. Darwin responded that "this is too bad" as "your decided approval of my Barnacle work" had "led me...to defer my species-paper" in the first place.

As his work progressed on to fossil barnacles, pressures brought on illness again and in June 1850 he went to Malvern for a week of treatment. Hooker was helping search for evidence, now trying to test evolutionary ideas and writing that "they have possessed me, without however converting me". While Hooker was not finding gradations of varieties, Darwin's barnacles were showing this to the extent that defining species was extremely difficult.

Development of Darwin's theory - Annie falls ill

Darwin returned from Malvern at the end of June 1850 to a reawakening of his fears that his illness might be hereditary. His bright nine year old daughter Anne who had become a particular favourite and comfort to him fell sick. She was miserable for weeks on end, then became feverish. Their doctor could do nothing and thought it might be inherited. She had recovered to some extent by March 1851, but then she and her father were both laid low by influenza. Darwin recovered but Annie was still ill, and on 24 March he took her to Malvern, leaving her there for the best treatment he knew of, and returning to Downe where Emma had stayed as she was pregnant. With his first paper on barnacles printed and Hooker safely returned to Britain laden with specimens, things were looking up, but then on 15 April Annie suffered a serious relapse and Darwin had to rush to her side.

An agonised Darwin stayed at Annie's bedside as the crisis deepened. Dr Gully attended through the night thinking her unlikely to last, but at 6 a.m. she vomited and her condition stabilised. She seemed to recover slightly and a series of ups and downs followed with Darwin and Fanny Wedgwood anxiously watching and writing home, but she deteriorated and on 23 April 1851 died.

During Annie's long illness Darwin had read books by Francis Newman, a Unitarian evolutionist who called for a new post-Christian synthesis and wrote that "the fretfulness of a child is an infinite evil". With Annie's death Darwin lost all faith in a beneficent God and saw Christianity as futile. For three years he had deliberated about the Christian meaning of mortality. This opened a new vision of tragically circumstantial nature. On 30 April Darwin wrote a brief and intensely emotional memoir of Annie for himself and Emma.

Development of Darwin's theory - Family life

Darwin was on good terms with the local curate. He contributed to the church, helped with parish assistance and proposed a benefit society which became the Down Friendly Society with Darwin as guardian and treasurer. On Sundays Emma took the children to church. Darwin sometimes went with them as far as the lychgate to the churchyard, and then he would go for a walk. During the service, Emma continued to face forward when the congregation turned to face the altar for the Creed, sticking to her Unitarian faith.

The Darwins went up to the Great Exhibition in 1851, staying with "Uncle Ras", but while the children enjoyed their several visits, Darwin's ailments returned with the excitement. The slog of describing barnacles continued. Family life was rewarding but also brought pressures. The worst of his bugbears was a fear of inherited weaknesses. His oldest son William was a slow learner, and after much agonising Darwin sent him to Rugby School. While they had inherited wealth, it had to be wisely invested. A large proportion was cautiously put in railway stock, then in a boom but subject to fluctuations. He had kept records of the effects of the continuing water treatment, and finding that it was of some help with relaxation but had no significant effect he stopped it in 1852 and proceeded to try various experimental therapies without any confidence in their effects.

Development of Darwin's theory - Progressive reforms

The Great Exhibition heralded the success of free trade and modern science in improving prosperity. There was a new appetite for liberal, progressive reforms. An alliance of thinkers began recasting nature as a competitive market-place. The Westminster Review recently acquired by John Chapman became their focus, and an early article by Herbert Spencer set out a Malthusian view that people who multiply beyond their means take "the high road to extinction", while "the select of their generation" remained to ensure progress. Spencer became a close friend and ally of Thomas Huxley, an ambitious naturalist who had returned from a long survey trip but lacked the family wealth or contacts to find a career. Huxley had sent papers to Darwin which began a correspondence, and Darwin sent him a copy of the first volume of Barnacles when it was printed. Huxley called it an exemplary work, all the more remarkable for coming from a distinguished geologist rather than an anatomist.

In recognition of his work on South American geology, invertebrate research and particularly his work on Barnacles, Darwin was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and received it at their meeting on 30 November 1853. The excitement brought back illness and he resumed the water treatment. This time it was successful and his health improved. He finished the second volume of Barnacles, completing almost eight years of work which had made him the world's foremost authority on the subject.

In the spring of 1854 he joined the Royal Society's Philosophical Club. To his surprise his stomach was not troubled and he greatly enjoying regularly visiting London and meeting with the new generation of scientists, in particular John Tyndall, Hooker and Huxley. Darwin supported them in gaining gold medals from the Society, saying that they would become "scientific giants" and he thought it only right that they should get the accolades to spur them on. Tyndall had taken the chair of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution in 1853 and was now helping Huxley run the science section of The Westminster Review. Huxley began teaching at the Royal School of Mines in November, then "sick of the dilettante middle class" began his famous working men's lectures a year later, and Hooker became ensconced at Kew Gardens.

Biology was becoming liberalised, even among churchmen. Hooker commented; "These parsons are so in the habit of dealing with the abstraction of doctrines as if there was no difficulty about them whatever... that they gallop over the [science] course... as if we were in the pews and they in the pulpit. Witness the self confident style of...Baden Powell". This was the Reverend Harry Baden-Powell, a mathematics professor at the University of Oxford who applied the theological argument that God is a lawgiver, miracles break the lawful edicts issued at Creation, therefore belief in miracles is atheistic.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Barnacles", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki