The Final Years

At first in this last period of the lives of Darwin and Fox, every thing continues much as before, although, in fact, we are in a very different world from the frivolous days of riding, shooting and youthful camararderie of Chapters 2 and 3. The period begins with a series of letters, concerning a wealth of subjects. Darwin had just published his two-volume book “The variation of animals and plants under domestication” (1868), but had realised that there was so much more to say. He had long wanted to treat that “holy of holies”, the origin of man, in an evolutionary manner. When Charles Lyell did not take up this challenge in his book “The Antiquity of Man”, in early 1863, Darwin offered his notes to Alfred Russel Wallace (LLiii), but in vain. The origin of the human brain was one thing at which Wallace baulked (Wallace,1871). So Darwin decided to take this on himself, although rather reluctantly. The attraction here was the opportunity of combining of his thoughts on human evolution, on which there was really very little evidence at that stage, with his ideas on sexual selection, which were in ferment. Of course sexual selection was pertinent to man, but it blossomed out into almost every avenue of the evolution of plants and animals. As Wallace pointed out, sexual selection was just a form of evolution itself. It could therefore encompass any aspect of evolution. So Darwin’s book bulged, and eventually Darwin was able to persuade his publisher, John Murray, to publish “The descent of man” (1871) in two volumes, with the second volume - on sexual selection - being by far the larger volume and containing a wealth of information on every subject under the sun, including much from Fox.