Abstract
In the eyes of the young Charles Darwin, the traditional fixist, essentialist and teleological framework had found itself in an increasingly deep crisis since the end of the eighteenth century. In his opinion, this crisis was caused primarily by two principal issues: (1) the thesis of a common progenitor had been underpinned by a growing mass of empirical data (fossils, geographical distribution, and so on) and by ever more stringent morphological analyses (homology, embryological relations, and so on); (2) it had been possible to think in terms of processes of temporal duration much longer than those that were still being hypothesized half way through the previous century (geological succession, and so on). Notwithstanding this, the transformist concepts — beginning with those proposed by Erasmus Darwin and, especially, by Lamarck1 — had not succeeded, in Darwin’s opinion, in offering a ‘satisfactory’ response to the burning question continually reiterated by the supporters of fixism, especially in the Anglophone world on the admirable adaptation of species. A convincing résumé of this situation is offered in the Origin of Species itself:
In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until it could be shown how the innumerable species inhabiting this world have been modified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which justly excites our admiration.2
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Notes
As Egerton pointed out, correcting the autobiographical representation, before leaving on the Beagle Darwin had read not only Erasmus’ Zoonomia but also Lamarck’s Système des animaux sans vertèbres (Paris: Deterville, 1801), as emerges from the notes written in Edinburgh (1825–1827), and so it is probable, although not certain, that he had read the introduction in which the theory of the transformation of species is proposed. Darwin thus would have had direct access to Lamarck even before reading Lyell’s criticism. See F. N. Egerton (1976) ‘Darwin’s Early Reading of Lamarck’, Isis, vol. 67, no. 3, 452–6, pp. 454–5. What is also important is Darwin’s indirect reception of Lamarck conveyed by Lyell’s anti-Lamarckism: see for example P. Corsi (1978) ‘The Importance of French Transformist Ideas for the Second Volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology’, cit.;
W. Coleman (1962) ‘Lyell and the “Reality” of Species: 1830–1833’, Isis, vol. 53, n. 3, 325–338.
C. R. Darwin The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882. With original omission restored. Edited with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow (London: Collins, 1958), p. 118 f.
See C. R. Darwin Notebook C (1838), in Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836–1844. Geology, Transmutations of Species, Metaphysical Enquiries, Paul H. Barrett et al. (eds) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), the Trustees of the British Museum 1987, now also available at http://darwin-online.org.uk, f. 175.
See C. R. Darwin The Foundations of the Origin of Species, A Sketch Written in 1842 by Charles Darwin, ed. F. Darwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), Intro, I, ii, pp. 7–8.
See for example D. Becquemont (2009) Charles Darwin 1837–1839: aux sources d’une découverte (Paris: Kimé), pp. 219 ff.
J. F. W. Herschel A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, 1 edn London 1830 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987), p. 87 f. (§78): ‘to the consideration of a proximate, if not an ultimate, cause’; see p. 101; on the question of verae cause see above pp. 144 ff.
See C. R. Darwin Macculloch. Attrib of Deity, Essay on Theology and Natural Selection, 1838, in. P. H. Barrett Early writings of Charles Darwin, in H. E. Gruber Darwin on man (London: Wildwood, 1974), now also in http://darwin-online.org.uk, on the dating see the introductory note.
See W. Whewell (1833) On Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (London: Pickering), Chapter VI: ‘Bacon’s comparison of final causes to the vestal virgins is one of those poignant sayings, so frequent in his writings, which it is not easy to forget. “Like them,” he says, “they are dedicated to God, and are barren.” But to any one who reads his work it will appear in what spirit this was meant. “Not because those final causes are not true and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province.” (Of the Advancement of Learning, b. ii, p. 142.). If he had occasion to develop his simile, full of latent meaning as his similes so often are, he would probably have said, that of these final causes barrenness was no reproach, seeing they ought to be, not the mothers but the daughters of our natural sciences; and that they were barren, not by imperfection of their nature, but in order that they might be kept pure an undefiled, and so fit ministers in the temple of God’. On the reading of Whewell see for example D. Kohn (1989) ‘Darwin’s Ambiguity: The Secularization of Biological Meaning’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 22, n. 2, 215–39, especially pp. 228–30.
On the influence of Paley’s teleology and the other natural theologians, see for example M. Ruse (2005) ‘The Darwinian Revolution, as seen in 1979 and as seen Twenty-Five Years Later in 2004’, Journal of the History of Biology, 38 (1), 3–17, pp. 5 ff.;
M. Ruse (2000) ‘Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow?’, cit., pp. 230–1;
J. Howard (1982) Darwin (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 22 ff.;
S. J. Gould (2005) The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press), pp. 116 ff., and in particular on final cause in 1855 pp. 234–5. On the early abandonment of traditional teleology, see also
D. Ospovat (1979) ‘Darwin after Malthus’, Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 12, n. 2, 211–30, especially pp. 214 ff., although he insists on the perspective of harmonious design. On the fundamental ambiguity of Darwinian teleology, and on its difference from that of Paley, see
D. Kohn (1989) ‘Darwin’s Ambiguity: The Secularization of Biological Meaning’, cit., especially pp. 233 ff.
See C. R. Darwin Origin of Species, cit., chapter 14, pp. 397 ff.; to the previous question paragraph 9 of the Sketch of 1842, Aborted Organs was dedicated, with examples and similar analyses, then chapter IX , Abortive or rudimentary organs, from the Essay of 1844, see C. R. Darwin The Foundations of The Origin of Species. Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844, ed. F. Darwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909).
On this turnaround emphasized by Huxley see also P. Casini (2009) Darwin e la disputa della creazione (Bologna: il Mulino), pp. 94 ff.
T. H. Huxley (1859) ‘Darwin on the Origin of Species’, The Times, 26 December 1859, 8–9, p. 8.
T. H. Huxley ‘Darwin on the Origin of Species’, cit., p. 9; see in the same vein see also T. H. Huxley (1860) ‘Darwin on the Origin of Species’, Westminster Review, 17, 541–70, p. 548.
For a concise overview, see for example G. P. Wagner (1989) ‘The Biological Homology Concept’, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 20, 51–69, especially pp. 52 ff. in which he highlights Owen and Goethe.
C. R. Darwin Origin of Species, cit., chapter 14, p. 393. For a wider view of the theories of the hand in natural history, see C. Pogliano (2010), ‘Homo hapticus. Sulla mano umana, da Aristotele a Darwin’, in L. Calabi (ed.) Il futuro di Darwin. L’uomo (Torino: UTET).
See on the same theme, although indirectly in relation to natural theology, J. Howard (1982) Darwin, cit., pp. 93–6.
C. R. Darwin Macculloch. Attributes of Deity Vol I. (1838), cit., [28 v]. On the fundamental re-evaluation of randomness together with the development of the idea of natural selection, see for example D. Ospovat (1980) ‘God and Natural Selection: The Darwinian Idea of Design’, Journal of the History of Biology, 13, n. 2, 169–94, pp. 183–5.
See the incisive overview in E. Sober (2009) ‘Did Darwin write the “Origin” backwards?’, PNAS, vol. 106, suppl. 1, 10048–55, pp. 10048–50.
See for example C. R. Darwin Origin of Species, cit., chapter 4, p. 86 ff.: ‘Mere chance, as we may call it, might cause one variety to differ in some character from its parents, and the offspring of this variety again to differ from its parent in the very same character and in a greater degree; but this alone would never account for so habitual and large a degree of difference as that between the species of the same genus.’ On this question, see the analysis by G. Barsanti (2005) Una lunga pazienza cieca, cit., pp. 257–8, which recalls the other passages and emphasizes the multiple meanings and references in the semantic universe of randomness in the text (accidental, incidental, occasionally, occasional); see also T. Hoquet (2009) Darwin contre Darwin. Comment lire l’ Origine des espèces? (Paris: Seuil), pp. 201 ff.
C. R. Darwin Notebook B, cit., pp. 2–5. On the fundamental importance of especially young Darwin’s studies on geology see the monumental work of S. Herbert (2005) Charles Darwin, Geologist (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press).
C. R. Darwin Origin of Species, cit., chapter 15, p. 425–6; but see also the discussion on species, including ‘doubtful’ pp. 36–47. For a concise and bibliographically up-to-date discussion of Darwin’s critique on the search for the essence of the term species, see for example M. Ereshefsky (2009) ‘Darwin e la natura delle specie’ in L. Calabi (ed.) Il futuro di Darwin. La specie (Torino: UTET), pp. 3–21.
See for example E. Mayr (2005) ‘Do Thomas Kuhn’s scientific revolutions take place?’, in particularly pp. 162 ff., and E. Mayr (2005) ‘Darwin’s influence on modern thought’, in particularly p. 97, both in E. Mayr What Makes Biology Unique? Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), where, notwithstanding the severe criticism Kuhn offers of the interpretation of the Darwinian revolution (in my opinion partially justified), he continues nevertheless to interpret Darwin’s theory in terms of a ‘paradigm’. See also
S. Herbert (2005) ‘The Darwinian Revolution Revisited’, Journal of the History of Biology, 38, n. 1, 51–66, pp. 57 ff., and his endorsement of extinction for the ‘Darwinian revolution’, understood as ‘generational shift’: ‘To use Kuhnian language, extinction was the strong anomaly’. For an up-to-date defence of the legitimacy of the concept of ‘revolution’ within the ambit of the history of science and in particular the ‘Darwinian Revolution’, see for example
M. Ruse (2008) Charles Darwin (Malden and Oxford: Blackwell), especially chapter 12, on Kuhn pp. 300 ff.
See T. Kuhn (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962/1970), pp. xi.
T. Kuhn (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, cit., pp. 150 f.; see also
T. Kuhn (1977) ‘The Essential Tension: Tradition and Innovation in Scientific Research’ in T. Kuhn The Essential Tension. Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press), p. 226.
T. Kuhn (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, cit., p. 171 f.
T. Kuhn (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, cit., pp. 19–20, 15; on Franklin, see also
T. Kuhn (1963) ‘The function of dogma in scientific research’ in A. Crombie (ed.) Scientific change (London: Heinemann), pp. 356 ff.
See again E. Mayr (2005) ‘Do Thomas Kuhn’s scientific revolutions take place?’, cit., pp. 164 ff.; on the ‘crisis’ of Darwinism ending with the ‘rebirth’ of evolutionism and in particular the Origin, approved by the Modern Synthesis, see for example
T. Junker (2009) ‘Die große Krise des Darwinismus’ in E. M. Engels (ed.) Charles Darwin und seine Wirkung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp), pp. 231–254.
See T. Kuhn (2002) The Copernican Revolution. Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 4.
He highlighted the implicitly Kantian perspective on Kuhn’s ‘world of appearances’. P. Hoynigen-Huene (1989) ‘Idealist elements in Thomas Kuhn’s Philosophy of Science’, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 6, n. 4, 393–401; see in this regard also
S. Gattei (2007) La rivoluzione incompiuta di Thomas Kuhn (Torino: UTET), especially p. 60.
C. R. Darwin Origin of Species, cit., chapter 15, pp. 426, 427, 429. On the ‘revolution’ caused by Darwin’s genealogical approach also regarding the method of classification, see the recent R. A. Richards (2009) ‘Classification in Darwin’s Origin’ in M. Ruse and R. J. Richards (eds) The Cambridge Companion to the ‘Origin of Species’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 173–193.
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Solinas, M. (2015). Darwin’s Breakthrough. In: From Aristotle’s Teleology to Darwin’s Genealogy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137445773_6
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