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Humboldt, Darwin, and population

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Conclusions

I have attempted to clarify some of the pathways in the development of Darwin's thinking. The foregoing examples of influence by no means include all that can be found by comparing Darwin's writings with Humboldt's. However, the above examples seem adequate to show the nature and extent of this influence. It now seems clear that Humboldt not only, as had been previously known, inspired Darwin to make a voyage of exploration, but also provided him with his basic orientation concerning how and what to observe and how to write about it. An important part of what Darwin assimilated from Humboldt was an appreciation of population analysis as a tool for assessing the state of societies and of the benefits and hardships which these societies can expect to receive from the living world around them.

Darwin exhibited in his Journal of Researches a casual interest in the economic and political conditions of the countries he visited, but these considerations were much less important to him than to Humboldt. Instead, Darwin, with the assistance of Lyell's Principles of Geology, shifted from Humboldt's largely economic framework to a biological one built around the species question. This shift led Darwin away from a consideration of how the population biology of animals was related to man's economy to focus instead upon how population biology fitted into the economy of nature.

Humboldt's Personal Narrative served very well as a model for Darwin's Journal of Researches, thereby helping Darwin gain scientific eminence. The Journal of Researches, like virtually all of Humboldt's writings, was a contribution to scientific orthodoxy. But Darwin had, along the way, acquired an urge to do more than just add his building blocks to the orthodox scientific edifice. He decided to rearrange those blocks of knowledge into a different structure, and for that task neither Humboldt's Personal Narrative nor any other of his works could serve as a model. Humboldt had lacked the confidence which Darwin needed that biogeography and the origin of species could be understood. Humboldt had not explored very far the possible connections between biology and geology. Nor had he provided a general synthetic account of population biology. Had he done so, he might have been more explicit about the extent of his endorsement of Malthus. But even if he had, Humboldt's strong orientation toward cooperation would probably have inhibited his recognition of the importance of competition in nature.

Lyell, who had also benefited from reading Humboldt, gave Darwin insights that were lacking in Humboldt's Personal Narrative. Lyell admirably demonstrated how stratigraphy, paleontology, biogeography, and population biology could be interrelated, and his reasons for doing so were essentially the same as Darwin's. Lyell's understanding of biogeography and ecology came from the writings of Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle as much as from Humboldt's, and from the former Lyell derived an appreciation for the importance of competition and also a confidence that the mysteries of biogeography could be explained.117 Furthermore, Lyell's discussion of all these subjects and also of evolution in his Principles of Geology is a good synthetic argument that was the ideal model for Darwin's greatest book.

Darwin, having become convinced that species change through time, was able to synthesize in his mind the contributions which he had derived from the writings of Humboldt and Lyell as they applied to the species question. When Darwin wrote his Journal of Researches there were two large gaps in his thinking about evolution that bothered him—the mechanism of evolution and the causes of extinction. It was only after reading Malthus in 1838 that he realized, as Lyell had more or less pointed out, how important was competition in nature. He now had the general outlines for his theory, and in the 1845 abridged edition of his Journal, now retitled The Voyage of the Beagle, he inserted a fuller discussion of competition in nature which showed his awareness of its importance as an ecological factor.118

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References

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  5. This reference is to Darwin's Origin of Species, not his Journal of Researches.

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  7. JR, p. 110. Humboldt, in turn, used and praised Darwin's writings. Humboldt, Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung, 5 vols., (Stuttgart, Tübingen, 1845–62). Citations from English trans. by E. C. Otté, assisted by B. H. Paul (in vol. IV) and W. S. Dallas (in vol. V), Cosmos: a Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, 5 vols., (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849–58), I, 221, 237, 286, 297, 302, 315, 338; II, 437; V, 288, 389.

  8. Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: John Murray, 1871; 2nd ed., 1874; citations from Modern Library ed., New York, 1936), chap. 3, n. 28; chap. 7, p. 542; chap. 19, nn. 43 and 69.

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  9. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882, with Original Omissions Restored, ed. Nora Barlow (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959), pp. 67–68. On 4 August 1881 Hooker wrote to Darwin and asked: “Now will you give me your idea as to whether I should be right in calling Humboldt the greatest of scientific travellers, or only the most accomplished,-or most prolific?” To which Darwin replied on 6 August 1881: “I believe that you are fully right in calling Humboldt the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived, I have lately read two or three volume again. His Geology is funny stuff; but that merely means that he was not in advance of his age. I should say he was wonderful, more for his near approach to omniscience than for originality.” Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker O.M., G.C.S.I., Based on Materials Collected and Arranged by Lady Hooker, ed. Leonard Huxley, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1918), II, 223. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1887; citation from American ed., 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton, 1887), II, 422. See also Jean Théodoridès, “Humboldt and England,” British J. Hist. Sci., 3 (1966), 39–55. Idem, “Humboldt et Darwin,” Actes du XI e Congrès internat. Hist. Sci., 5 (1968), 87–92. Darwin's remarks on Humboldt's geology probably refers only to the Personal Narrative, and not to A Geognostical Essay (cited below, n. 103).

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  10. Darwin and Henslow, the Growth of an Idea. Letters 1831–1860, ed. Nora Barlow (London, Berkeley, Los Angeles: John Murray, University of California, 1967), p. 26. Darwin later wrote a letter of appreciation to Humboldt; the latter's reply of 18 September 1839 is quoted on p. 26, n. 2.

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  11. Darwin and Henslow, the Growth of an Idea. Letters 1831–1860, ed. Nora Barlow (London, Berkeley, Los Angeles: John Murray, University of California, 1967), pp. 53, 55. Dated 18 May 1832.

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  12. Erwin H. Ackerknecht, “George Forster, Alexander von Humboldt and Ethnology,” Isis, 46 (1955), 83–95. Pierre Huard and Jean Théodoridès, “Humboldt et l'anthropologie,” Sudhoffs Archiv Gesch. Med. Naturwiss, 46 (1962), 69–81. A number of studies on Humboldt have appeared since I submitted this paper for publication. Two of these of particular relevance are: Charles Minguet, Alexandre de Humboldt, Historien et Géographe de l'Amérique espagnole (1799–1804) (Paris: François Maspero, 1969) and Heinrich Pfeiffer, ed., Alexander von Humboldt: Werk und Weltgeltung (Munich: R. Peper, 1969).

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  13. Humboldt, Cosmos, II, 436.

  14. Forster (1754–94), A Voyage Round the World, in His Britannic Majesty's Sloop, Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the Years 1772, 3, 4, and 5, 2 vols. (London: B. White, J. Robson, P. Elmsly, G. Robinson, 1777; reprinted with introd. by Robert L. Kahn as vol. 1 of Georg Forsters Werke, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968).

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  15. The revised ed. of 1845 had only about 213,000 words. These are Nora Barlow's estimates. R. B. Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist (London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1965), p. 15.

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  16. But the Beagle did not return to England until 2 October 1836.

  17. PN, III, 241–275, 299–303 et passim. But Darwin later discussed this point in The Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 422, and in The Descent of Man, chap. 3.

  18. I have discussed Buffon in my doctoral dissertation entitled “Observations and Studies of Animal Populations before 1860: A Survey Concluding with Darwin's Origin of Species” (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1967), pp. 189–205, 259–262.

  19. Ackerknecht, “Forster, Humboldt and Ethnology,” pp. 83, 88, 91.

  20. Hanno Beck, Alexander von Humboldt, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1959–61), I, 96.

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  21. Darwin, Autobiography, p. 120.

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  23. Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness; with an Inquiry into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which It Occasions, 2nd ed. (London: J. Johnson, 1803), chaps. 1–2.

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  24. Humboldt, Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1811). All citations are from the English translation, which was used by Darwin, entitled Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain trans. John Black, 4 vols. (London, Edinburgh: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; H. Colburn; W. Blackwood; Brown and Crombie, 1811; facsimile ed., New York: AMS Press, 1966), I, chap. 4, p. 107.

  25. PN, I, 292.

  26. PN, VI, 121. For his explanation of the slower growth rate, see the quotation below, n. 44.

  27. E.g.: “The imperfection of political institutions may for ages have converted places, where the commerce of the world should be found concentrated, into deserts; but the time approaches when these obstacles will exist no longer” (PN, V, 513). See also many of the above quotations.

  28. “We may congratulate the civilized nations of Europe, that they have hitherto had no knowledge of ecbolics in appearance so little injurious to health. The introduction of these drinks would perhaps increase the depravity of manners in towns, where one quarter of the children see the light only to be abandoned by their parents” (PN, V, 32). On this practice, see George Devereux, A Study of Abortion in Primitive Societies. A Typological, Distributional, and Dynamic Analysis of the Prevention of Birth in 400 Preindustrial Societies (London and New York: T. Yoseloff and Julian Press, 1960), pp. 37, 179, 197, 304.

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  29. Charlotte(Mrs. L.)Kellner, Alexander von Humboldt (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 103.

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  30. Malthus' statistical abilities were rated low by Harald Westergaard, Contributions to the History of Statistics (London: P. S. King and Son, 1932; facsimile edition, New York: Ogathon Press, 1968), pp. 125–129. A more detailed, but not more favorable, analysis has recently been made by Michael Drake, “Malthus on Norway,” Population Studies, 20 (1966), 175–196. Idem, Population and Society in Norway, 1735–1865 (Cambridge: The University Press, 1969), chap. 2.

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  31. JR, p. 27.

  32. JR, p. 140: Buenos Ayres—60,000, Monte Video-15,000; p. 337: Chiloe-42,000; p. 421: Coquimbo—6000 to 8000; p. 516: Sydney—23,000; p. 533: Hobart Town-13,826, Tasmania—36,505; p. 570: Port Louis—20,000; p. 575: Cape Town-15,000, South Africa—200,000; p. 580: St. Helena Island-about 5000; p. 594: Angra—about 10,000.

  33. PN, VI, 116. Benjamin Franklin, “Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c.,” anonymous appendix in William Clarke, Observations on the Late and Present Conduct of the French, with Regard to Their Encroachments upon the British Colonies in North America (Boston, 1755); reprinted in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert Henry Smyth, 10 vols. (New York, London: Macmillan, 1905–7), III, 63–73. Franklin's estimate proved to be excellent, as indicated by the censuses taken from 1790–1890. Conway Zirkle, “Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Malthus and the United States Census,” Isis, 48 (1957), 58–62.

  34. PN, VI, 121–122.

  35. New Spain, I, chap. 4, pp. 106–107. See also PN, I, 288.

  36. E.g., PN, III, 326, 430, 435–438, 444; VI, 129–142. New Spain, I, chap. 6, p. 131; chap. 7, p. 256.

  37. Franklin, “Observations,” par. 13, 22–24. Franklin did not reprint par. 23–24 after the 1755 edition.

  38. PN, III, 426–427. Cf. New Spain, chap. 6–7.

  39. JR, p. 337.

  40. JR, p. 120.

  41. JR, p. 520. Darwin later cited Humboldt under the heading of “On the Extinction of the Races of Man” in The Descent of Man, chap. 7.

  42. Competition refers to the attempt of two or more organisms to acquire the same thing, such as light, water, food, or shelter. Darwin liked to use the term “struggle,” which includes competition, but also includes the struggle of an organism against his inanimate environment and the struggle between predator and prey. See L. C. Birch, “The Meanings of Competition,” American Naturalist, 91 (1957), 5–18. See also below, n. 73.

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  43. PN, IV, 423–424. See V, 706–707. Crocodiles are discussed below.

  44. PN, III, 234. In a later volume, VI, 61, Humboldt observed: “What we have seen of the power of man struggling against the force of nature in Gaul, in Germany, and recently, but still beyond the tropics, in the United States, can scarcely give any just measure of what we must expect from the progress of civilization in the torrid zone.” These two passages were not cited in the survey by Conway Zirkle, “Natural Selection Before the ‘Origin of Species,’” Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., 84 (1941), 71–123.

  45. JR, p. 236.

  46. JR, p. 237.

  47. For example: “The town of Cariaco has been repeatedly sacked in former times by the Caribs. Its population has agumented rapidly, since the provincial authorities, in spite of the prohibitory orders of the court of Madrid, have often favoured the trade with foreign colonies. The population has doubled in ten years and amounted, in 1800, to more than 6000 souls. The inhabitants are active in the cultivation of cotton” (PN, III, 191).

  48. For example: “The same spirit of monoply has shut up the Meta, the Rio Atracto, and the river of Amazons. Strange policy that, which teaches mother-countries to leave those regions uncultivated where nature has deposited all the germs of fertility! The wild Indians have every where availed themselves of this want of population. They have dawn near the rivers, they molest the passengers, and attempt to reconquer what they have lost for so many ages” (PN, IV, 567).

  49. JR, pp. 520–521, 533–534.

  50. Sydney, Australia “is a most magnificent testimony to the power of the British nation. Here, in a less promising country, scores of years have effected many times more, than the same number of centuries have done in South America” (JR, p. 515). The French and English in Mauritius were contrasted in JR, pp. 571–572.

  51. PN, II, 194.

  52. New Spain, I, chap. 5, pp. 121–123.

  53. PN, III, 445; IV, 3, 36. In the earthquake of 26 March 1812, many of Humboldt's friends were among the 12,000 inhabitants killed in Caracas.

  54. JR, pp. 371–373.

  55. Heinrich Schipperges, “Humboldts Beitrag zur Medizin des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Alexander von Humboldt. Studien zu seiner universalen Geisteshaltung, ed. Joachim Heinrich Schultze (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1959), pp. 36–68. Idem, “Quellen zu Humboldts medizinischem Weltbild,” Sudhoffs Archiv Gesch. Med. Naturwiss., 43 (1959), 147–171. Idem, “Alexander von Humboldt und die Medizin seiner Zeit,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte. 41 (1959), 166–182.

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  56. The glossary by Phyllis Richmond is of some help in equating Humboldt's names of diseases with modern names, but this does not answer the question of whether the diseases were consistently diagnosed under the same name in the first place. Phyllis A. Richmond, “Glossary of Historical Fever Terminology,” J. Hist. Med., 16 (1961), 76–77.

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  57. PN, V, 110–111.

  58. JR, pp.446–447, 520–522. Darwin cited Humboldt, New Spain, IV, 199.

  59. Karl Eduard Rothschuh, “Alexander von Humboldt und die Physiologie seiner Zeit,” Sudhoffs Archiv, 43 (1959), 97–113.

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  60. Informe del Conde de Casa-Valencia, manuscript, which we have already quoted several times-Humboldt's note.

  61. PN, IV, 338–339.

  62. PN, IV, 342. On comparison of European and American populations, see PN, VI, 335–342, New Spain, I, chap. 4, pp. 105–108.

  63. PN, V, 573, 685.

  64. PN, VI, 45.

  65. PN, IV, 395–396.

  66. “Crax alector, the peacock pheasant; C. pauxi the cashew bird.”-Humboldt's note. C. alector L. 1766 is now called Black Curassow; C. pauxi = Pauxi pauxi (L. 1766), now called Helmeted Curassow.

  67. PN, IV, 421–422.

  68. PN, II, 14–15.

  69. PN, IV, 426.

  70. He felt, however, that the shift from hunting to herding or husbandry involved a certain amount of loss of vitality: “The Indian of the Missions is more secure of subsistence. Not being continually struggling against hostile forces, against the elements and against man, he leads a more monotonous life, less active, and less fitted to impart energy to the mind, than the savage or independent Indian. PN, III, 220. See also III, 15.

  71. Species determination in oysters is presently under dispute. See P. Korringa, “Recent Advances in Oyster Biology,” Quart. Rev. Biol., 27 (1952), 266–308, 339–365.

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  72. PN, II, 277. This pessimism was well founded, because the Latin American pearls did not achieve commercial importance, though their inferior quality was a factor as well as their lack of abundance: “Philip the Second's celebrated pearl, which weighed 250 carats, and was valued at 150,000 dollars, came from St. Margarita. Yet the pearls of the West are not to be compared with those of the East in shape, beauty, colour, or texture. I am not aware that any established fishery is now conducted at St. Margarita, or on the coast of Columbia, on an extensive scale, after the failure of the Columbia and Panama speculation in 1826.” John R. Philpots, Oysters, and All about Them, 2 vols. (London, Leicester: Richardson, 1890), II, 940.

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  73. PN, III, 126. A Latin description is on p. 125.

  74. PN, III, 124–130.

  75. Rodolphe Meyerde Schauensee, assisted by Eugene Eisenmann, The Species of Birds of South America and Their Distribution (Narberth, Pa.: Livingston Publishing Co. for Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1966), p. 146.

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  76. Some demographic details are now available: the normal clutch is 2 to 4 eggs, with a median of 2.7; it breeds on Trinidad from December to September, with a complete nesting cycle lasting five months; some adults raise two broods a year; there is a 50% nesting success. David W. Snow, “The Natural History of the Oilbird, Steatornis caripensis, in Trinidad, W. I. Part 1: General Behavior and Breeding Habits,” Zoologica (New York), 46 (1961), 27–49 + 2pls. “Part 2: Population, Breeding Ecology and Food,” Zoologica, 47 (1962), 199–221 + 4 pls. I am endebted for asistance in locating this paper to Dr. Mary H. Clench, Department of Birds, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh.

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  77. PN, IV, 485. For recent accounts, see the following. Raymond M. Gilmore, “Fauna and Ethnozoology of South America,” Handbook of South american Indians, Julian Haynes Steward, ed. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 143 1950), VI, 345–464; see pp. 400–405. James Jerome Parsons, The Green Turtle and Man (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962), pp. 84, 89–93. Janis A. Roze, “Pilgrim of the River,” Natural History, 73, no. 7 (August 1964), 35–41. P. E. Vanzolini, “Notes on the Nesting Behaviour of Podocnemis expansa in the Amazon Valley (Testudines, Pelomedusidae),” Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia, 20 (1967), 191–215. I am endebted for assistance in locating these sources and those in notes 80 and 81 to Neil D. Richmond, Department of Reptiles and Amphibians, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, and to George R. Zug, Division of Reptiles and Amphibians, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

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  78. PN, IV, 489. Young females lay only 50 to 60 eggs; the average number per nest is 82 to 85, and the maximum record is 150, according to Roze, “Pilgrim of the River.”

  79. PN, IV, 495.

  80. Both P. expansa and P. dumeriliana are found in the Amazon as well as in the Orinoco. On their ranges see Fred Medem, “Informe sobre reptiles Colombianos (II.) El Conocimiento actual sobre la Distribucion geografica de las Testidinata en Colombia,” Boletin del Museo de Ciencias Naturales (Caracas), 2–3 (1956–57, pub. 1958), 13–45; see pp. 25–26, 29. Medem, “Datos zoo-geograficos y ecologicos sobre los Crocodylia y Testudinata de los Rios Amazonas,” Caldasis, 8 (1960), 341–351; see pp. 346, 348.

  81. According to Fred Medem, “Informe sobre Reptiles Colombianos. III: Investigaciones sobre la Anatomia craneal; Distribucion geografica y ecologia de Crocodylus intermedius (Graves) en Colombia,” Caldasia, 8 (1958), 175–215; see p. 212.

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  82. Michel Étienne Descourtilz (1775-ca. 1835), Voyages d'un naturaliste, et ses observations faits sur les trois régnes de la nature, dans plusieurs ports de mer Français, en Espagne, au continent de l'Amérique septentrionale, à Saint-Yago de Cuba, et à St.-Domingne, 3 vols. (Paris: Dufart, père, 1809), III, 6–108; see p. 102 and chart facing p. 50.

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  83. PN, IV, 422–423. Humboldt cited Descourtilz, but without a title.

  84. PN, IV, 494–495.

  85. PN, V, 705.

  86. PN, V, 87.

  87. PN, V, 97–98. These were: Culex cyanopennis [= Psorophora ciliata (Fabricius 1794)]; C. lineatus [=P. lineata]; C.ferrox [= P. ferox]; C. chloropterus [= Sabethes chloropterus]; and C. maculatus [= nomina dubia]. For taxonomy, geographical range, and bibliography, cf. Alan Stone, Kenneth L. Knight, and Helle Starcke, A Synoptic Catalog of the Mosquitoes of the World (Diptera, Culicidae) (Washington: Entomological Society of America, 1959), pp. 92, 125–127, 283. On the medical importance of P. ciliata and P. ferox, cf. William R. Horsfall, Mosquitoes: Their Bionomics and Relation to Disease (New York: Ronald Press, 1955), pp. 386–390, 399–401. On S. chloropterus, cf. Pedro Galindo, “Bionomics of Sabethes chloropterus Humboldt, a Vector of Sylvan Yellow Fever in Middle America,” Amer. J. Tropical Med. Hyg., 7 (1958), 429–440.

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  88. PN, V, 93.

  89. PN, V, 88–117.

  90. PN, V, 98.

  91. PN, V, 108.

  92. JR, p. 200.

  93. PN, V, 114–115. On pp. 93–94 Humboldt stated that the Zancudo is a long-legged gnat. The quotation above indicates that it may have been an Anopheles mosquito.

  94. JR, p. 161. Although Darwin was also bitten by the Benchuga (Triatoma infestans), a large blood-sucking bug of the Pampas, his account makes it clear that in that case it was involuntary. His description of the blood sucking of the Benchuga was from observations on another volunteer—one of the officers of the Beagle (ibid., pp. 403–404).

  95. PN, I, iii–iv, 263–275; II, 53–56; III, 490–502; V, 180. Humboldt's Essai is cited above, n. 3.

  96. Essai, p. 19. PN, I, iv–v.

  97. PN, III, 490–491. Thus, he must have influenced Kirby, Spence, and Swainson in their conviction that the laws of biogeography are forever inscrutable. See Egerton, “Studies of Animal Populations from Lamarck to Darwin,” p. 230.

  98. William Coleman, “Abraham Gottlob Werner vu par Alexander von Humboldt, avec des notes de Georges Cuvier,” Sudhoffs Archiv, 47 (1963), 465–478. Walter Schellhas, “Alexander von Humboldt und Freiberg in Sachsen,” in Alexander von Humboldt 14.9.1769–6.5.1859: Gedenkschrift zur 100. Wiederkehr seines Todestages, ed. Hans Ertel (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1959), pp. 337–422.

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  99. See Darwin's remark indicative of this, quoted above, n. 8. Cf. also, Rhoda Rappaport, “Problems and Sources in the History of Geology, 1749–1810,” Hist. Sci., 3 (1964), 60–77.

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  100. Humboldt, Essai géognostique sur le gisement des roches dans les deux hémisphères (Paris, 1823; German trans., Strassburg, 1823). Citation from English anon. trans. entitled A Geognostical Essay on the Superposition of Rocks in Both Hemispheres (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1823), pp. 30, 44–67. Most of this treatise was also published in 1822 under the title “Indépendance des Formations,” in Dictionnaire des sciences naturelles (Strasbourg, Paris: F. G. Levrault, Le Normant), XXIII, 56–385.

  101. JR, pp. 170, 524.

  102. JR, p. 400.

  103. JR, p. 400.

  104. In his personal chronology, entitled “Journal,” he wrote under the year 1837: “In July opened first note book on ‘Transmutation of Species’ —Had been greatly struck from about Month of previous March on character of S. American fossils-& species on Galapagos Archipelago. These facts origin (especially latter) of all my views. From March 13th to end of September entirely employed in my Journal [of Researches].” “Darwin's Journal,” ed. Gavin de Beer, Bull. British Mus. (Nat. Hist.) Hist. Ser., 2 no. 1 (November 1959), 7. Camille Limoges has recently argued convincingly that Darwin became converted to evolution in late 1836. La sélection naturelle. Étude sur la première constitution d'un concept (1837–1859) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1790), p. 19.

  105. JR, pp. 138–139. Darwin made similar observations about the spread of introduced species in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London: John Murray, 1859; citation from facsimile ed., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 64–65.

  106. JR, p. 64. The three vultures, with their present names given in square brackets, were: Gallinazo (Cathartes atratus) [= Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus (Bechstein 1793))]; Carrancha (Polyborus braziliensis) [= Crested Caracara (P. plancus (Miller 1777))]; Chimango (Polyborus chimango) [= Milvago chimango (Vieillott 1816)].

  107. JR, pp. 143, 172, 195.

  108. For a discussion of his reluctance to accept the importance of competition and his final conversion, see Egerton, “Studies of Animal Populations from Lamarck to Darwin,” pp. 245–247.

  109. Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1st ed., II, 142–156. See Darwin, JR, 520.

  110. PN, IV, 556–557. See I, xxvii.

  111. JR, pp. 209–210. This point was defended later in greater detail by Alfred Russel Wallace, “On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species,” Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 2 16 (1855), 184–196; facsimile ed. in Proc. Linnean Soc. London, 171 (1960), 141–153. On the history of the “law of the succession of types,” see Limoges, La Selection naturelle, pp. 17–18.

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  112. JR, p. 211. See also p. 354 on subsidence of land, and p. 525 on predation.

  113. JR, p. 212. On Brocchi, see Egerton, “Studies of Animal Populations from Lamarck to Darwin,” p. 235. Brocchi was not the last to defend this theory. See Henri Decugis, Le Vieillissement du monde vivant (Paris: Librairie Plon, Masson, 1941).

  114. JR, p. 305.

  115. There is some congregation of the females during the egg-laying period; a female lays 7 to 20 eggs, with the average being 9 to 10. John D. Hendrickson, “The Galápagos Tortoises, Geochelone Fitzinger 1835 (Testudo Linnaeus 1758 in Part),” in The Galápagos. Proceedings of the Symposia of the Galápagos International Scientific Project, Robert I. Bowman, ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 252–257.

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  116. JR, pp. 462–466. It was used extensively for food and has been exterminated or reduced to rarity on most of the Galapagos Islands. See Charles Haskins Townsend, “The Galápagos Tortoises in Their Relation to the Whaling Industry; a Study of Old Logbooks,” Zoologica (New York), 4 (1925), 55–135.

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  117. Egerton, “Studies of Animal Populations from Lamarck to Darwin,” pp. 231–239. Idem, “The Biological Concept of Competition before Darwin,” Actes du XII e Congrès internat. Hist. Sci. (inpress).

  118. Voyage of the Beagle (1845), pp. 174–176.

  119. Wallace had read Humboldt, Malthus, Lyell, and Darwin before he wrote to Henry Walter Bates on 11 April 1846: “I was much pleased to find that you so well appreciated Lyell. I first read Darwin's “Journal” three or four years ago, and have lately re-read it. As the Journal of a scientific traveller, it is second only to Humboldt's ‘Personal Narrative’-as a work of general interest, perhaps superior to it.... My reference to Darwin's ‘Journal’ and to Humboldt's ‘Personal Narrative’ indicate, I believe, the two works to whose inspiration I owe my determination to visit the tropics as a collector.” Alfred Russel Wallace, My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions, 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1905), I, 256. Elsewhere (I, 232) he indicated that he read Humboldt's Personal Narrative and Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population while living in Leicester (which was from early 1844 until Easter, 1845).

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  120. H. Lewis McKinney, “Alfred Russel Wallace and the Discovery of Natural Selection,” J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., 21 (1966), 333–357. Barbara G. Beddall, “Wallace, Darwin, and the Theory of Natural Selection: A Study in the Development of Ideas and Attitudes,” J. Hist. Biol., 1 (1968), 261–323.

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    Frank N. Egerton

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An abridged version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the History of Science Society in Washington, D.C., on 29 December 1969.

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Egerton, F.N. Humboldt, Darwin, and population. J Hist Biol 3, 325–360 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00137357

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