Abstract
Charles Darwin was convinced after the publication of the Origin of Species in late 1859 that evolutionists would soon form “a good body of working men.” Natural selection, he believed, would appeal to workers because it did not only organize existing knowledge but also inspired novel investigation. His optimism proved correct but premature. In the early 1860s, commentators were far more likely to appropriate natural selection as a weapon for their existing cultural or theological agendas than to engage it as a tool for original research. A few naturalists, however, saw its potential and deliberately avoided charged ideological and theological concerns. Charles Daubeny, Oxford’s professor of botany, illustrates this dynamic. In largely overlooked remarks at the 1860 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he evaluated natural selection skeptically but with pointed respect. He made a plea for less debate and more scientific inquiry. Although he never gave his full assent to evolution, in 1865 he insisted that even the “most determined opponents” of natural selection ought to admire a theory that had led Darwin to so many invaluable discoveries. Daubeny’s engagement with natural selection provides a case study in the ways that Victorians naturalists did not just argue about truth but also searched for tools.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 3: 254–255) [Hooker to Darwin, 14 September 1845]
- 2.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 7: 449–452) [Darwin to Fox, to Hulxey, 25 December 1859]
- 3.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 6: 372) [Darwin to Hooker, 12 April 1857]
- 4.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 7: 431, 441, 450) [Darwin to Hooker, 14, 21, and 25 December 1859]
- 5.
See Adams (Chap. 8) for a discussion of the persistently complicated relationship between systematic practice and evolutionary theory.
- 6.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 7: 89) [Darwin to Hooker, 6 May 1858]
- 7.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 7: 453, 8: 6–7) [Darwin to Hooker, 26 December 1859 and 3 January 1860]
- 8.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 8: 211) [Darwin to Hooker, 15 May 1860]
- 9.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 8: 287) [Darwin to Bronn, 14 July 1860]
- 10.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 1: 157–158) [Sedgwick to Darwin, 18 September 1831]
- 11.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 5: 67–68) [Hooker to Darwin, November 1851]
- 12.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 13: 430) [Darwin to Daubeny, 1 August 1860]
- 13.
Tattersall (Chap. 14) shows that primate brain structure remains a field for debating larger questions about evolutionary processes.
- 14.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 8: 270) [Hooker to Darwin, 2 July 1860]
- 15.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 8: 270–1, 12: 330–1) [Hooker to Darwin, 2 July 1860, 19 September 1864]
- 16.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 8: 270–1) [Hooker to Darwin, 2 July 1860]
- 17.
Wilberforce’s attachment to the reality of scriptural miracles does not mean he felt any sympathy with attempts to shackle science to a literal reading of Genesis, which he was known to oppose (Taylor 1847). We should not conflate his religious concerns with evolution, rooted as they were in the theological debates roiling the Church of England in the nineteenth century, with the fundamentalism and biblical literalism which Watts (Chap. 16) identifies as key drivers of modern creationism.
- 18.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 8: 264–5, 269) [Darwin to More, 24 and 30 June 1860]
- 19.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 8: 263) [Darwin to Lyell, 20 June 1860]
- 20.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 13: 428–429) [Darwin to Daubeny, 16 July 1860]
- 21.
Adaptation and teleology continue to provoke contention among biologists to this day, as every essay in this volume shows in some way or another. The disagreement between Darwin and Daubeny on “final causes” was a particularly Victorian manifestation of these persistent disputes—were biological adaptations the manifestations of an inherent tendency towards beauty and stability which God built into natural law or were they volatile and contingent products of blind mechanism? The issue at play here is the overall character of natural law, one that transcends biological adaptation. As Delisle points out (Chap. 4), Darwin was a nineteenth-century scholar addressing issues relevant to his scientific culture.
- 22.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 9: 175) [Darwin to Malden, 15–16 June 1861]
- 23.
Burkhardt et al. (1985– : 10: 301–2) [Daubeny to Darwin, 5 July 1862]
References
Acland HW, Ruskin J (1859) The Oxford Museum. Smith, Elder, London
Albert, Prince Consort (1860) Presidential address. In: Report of the twenty-ninth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Aberdeen in September 1859. John Murray, London, pp lix–lxix
Alberti SJMM (2003) Conversaziones and the experience of science in Victorian England. J Victorian Cult 8:208–230
Allan M (1977) Darwin and his flowers: the key to natural selection. Farber and Farber, London
Allen DE (2003) George Bentham’s Handbook for the British flora: from controversy to cult. Arch Nat Hist 30:224–236
Anderson J (1860) On human remains in superficial drift. In: Report of the twenty-ninth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Aberdeen in September 1859. John Murray, London, pp 95–97
Anon (1860a) British Association. The Athenaeum no. 1706-1707 (July 7 and 14), pp 18–32, 59–69
Anon (1860b) Professor Owen on the origin of species. Saturday Rev 9:573–574
Anon (1860c) The British Association for the Advancement of Science. Morning Post 26,998 (June 28):4
Anon (1862) The British Association for the Advancement of Science. Daily News 5117(October 3):2
Atlay JB (1903) Sir Henry Wentworth Acland: a memoir. Smith, Elder, London
Ayres P (2008) The aliveness of plants: the Darwins at the dawn of plant science. Pickering & Chatto, London
Barton R (2018) The X-Club: power and authority in Victorian science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Bellon R (2003) The great question in agitation: George Bentham and the origin of species. Arch Nat Hist 30:282–297
Bellon R (2004) Hooker, Frances Harriet (née Henslow) (1825-74). In: Lightman B et al (eds) Dictionary of nineteenth-century British scientists, 4 vols, vol 2 pp 993-994 Thoemmes Continuum, Bristol
Bellon R (2006) Joseph Hooker takes a “fixed post”: transmutation and the “present unsatisfactory state of systematic botany,” 1844-60. J Hist Biol 39:1–39
Bellon R (2009) Charles Darwin solves the “riddle of the flower”; or, why don’t historians of biology know about the birds and bees? Hist Sci 47:373–406
Bellon R (2011) Inspiration in the harness of daily labor: Darwin, botany and the triumph of evolution, 1859-1868. Isis 102:392–420
Bellon R (2013) Darwin’s evolutionary botany. In: Ruse M (ed) The Cambridge encyclopedia of Darwin and evolutionary thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 131–138
Bellon R (2014) There is grandeur in this view of Newton: Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton and Victorian conceptions of scientific virtue. Endeavour 38:222–234
Bellon R (2015) A sincere and teachable heart: self-denying virtue in British intellectual life, 1736-1859. Brill, Boston
Brayley EW (1867–68) Obituary notice of John, second baron Wrottesley. Mon Notice R Astron Soc 28:64–68
Brinkman PD (2009) Charles Darwin’s Beagle voyage, fossil vertebrate succession, and “the gradual birth & death of species”. J Hist Biol 43:363–399
Brock WH (1997) Justus von Liebig: the chemical gatekeeper. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Brock WH, Stark S (1990) Liebig, Gregory and the British Association, 1837-1842. Ambix 37:134–147
Brooke JH (2001) The Wilberforce-Huxley debate: why did it happen. Science & Christian Belief 13:127–141
Browne J (2002) Charles Darwin: the power of place. Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Burkhardt F et al (eds) (1985–) The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 27 vols. Letters also accessible at https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/
Corsi P (1988) Science and religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican debate, 1800–1860. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Cosans CE (2009) Owen’s ape & Darwin’s bulldog: beyond Darwinism and creationism. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Darwin C (1841) Humble-bees. Gardeners’ Chron 34(21 August):550
Darwin C (1859) On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray, London
Darwin C (1860) Fertilisation of British orchids by insect agency. Gardeners’ Chron 23(9 June):528
Darwin C (1862) On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. John Murray, London
Darwin C (1866) On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life, 4th edn. John Murray, London
Darwin C (1876) The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom. John Murray, London
Darwin C (1877) The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects, 2nd edn. John Murray, London
Darwin C (1958) The autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882. Barlow N (ed). Collins, London
Daubeny C (1823) Inaugural lecture on the study of chemistry: read at the Ashmolean Museum, November 2, 1822. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Daubeny C (1834) An inaugural lecture on the study of botany: read in the Library of the Botanic Garden, Oxford, May 1, MDCCCXXXIV. H. Parker, Oxford
Daubeny C (1837) Address. In: Report of the sixth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Bristol in August 1836. John Murray, London, pp xxi–xxxvi
Daubeny C (1841) Three lectures of agriculture. J.H. Parker, Oxford
Daubeny C (1850) On the influence of carbonic acid gas on the health of plants, especially those allied to the fossil remains of the coal formation. In: Report of the nineteenth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Birmingham in September 1849. John Murray, London, 1884, pp 56–63
Daubeny C (1853 [1864]) Oxford Botanic Garden; or, A popular guide to the Botanic Garden of Oxford, to which is appended an Address to the members of the University, delivered on May 20, 1853, with an appendix, 2nd edn. Oxford Botanic Garden, Oxford [note: the guide (i) has different pagination to the address, appendix, and a supplement added to the 1864 printing (ii) because why make things easy]
Daubeny C (1857a) Lectures on Roman Husbandry. J.H. and Jas. Parker, Oxford
Daubeny C (1857b) Presidential address. In: Report of the twenty-sixth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Cheltenham in August 1856. John Murray, London, pp xlviii–lxxiii
Daubeny C (1860) Remarks on the final causes of the sexuality of plants, with particular reference to Mr. Darwin’s work on the origin of species. J.H. and James Parker, Oxford
Daubeny C (1865) The president’s address. Rep Trans Devonshire Assoc Adv Sci Lit Art 4:1–29
Daubeny C (1867a) Christianity and rationalism in their relations to natural science: being a protest against certain principles advocated in Mr. Lecky’s History of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in Europe. James Parker, London
Daubeny C (1867b) Miscellanies: being a collection of memoirs and essays on scientific and literary subjects, 2 vols. James Parker, Oxford
Daubeny C (2011 [1848]) A description of active and extinct volcanoes, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Desmond A (1994) Huxley: the devil’s disciple. Michael Joseph, London
Desmond A, Moore J (1991) Darwin: the life of a tormented evolutionist. Warner Books, New York
Endersby J (2001) “From having no herbarium”: local knowledge versus metropolitan expertise: Joseph Hooker’s Australasian correspondence with William Colenso and Ronald Gunn. Pac Sci 55:343–358
Endersby J (2008) Imperial nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Endersby J (2016) Orchid: a cultural history. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Forbes E (1852) The future of geology. Westminster Rev 58:67–94
Fox R (1997) The University Museum and Oxford science, 1850-1880. In: Brock MG, Curthoys MC (eds) Nineteenth-century Oxford, Part I. In: Aston TH (general ed) Vol 6 of The history of the University of Oxford. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 641–691
Goddard N (2004) Daubeny, Charles Giles Bridle, 1795-1867. In: Matthew HCG, Harrison B (eds) Oxford dictionary of national biography. https://www.oxforddnb.com/
Hahn R (2005) Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: a determined scientist. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Harcourt WV (1840) Presidential address. In: Report of the ninth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Birmingham in August 1839. John Murray, London, pp 3–22
Harvey J (2009) Darwin’s “angels”: the women correspondents of Charles Darwin. Intellect Hist Rev 19:197–210
Henslow JS (1835) The principles of descriptive and physiological botany. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, London
Herschel J (1830) A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, London
Herschel J (1831) An address by the president on April 11, 1827. Mon Notices R Astron Soc 1:14–19
Herschel J (1833) A treatise on astronomy. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, London
Herschel J (1840) Terrestrial magnetism. Q Rev 66:272–274
Herschel J (1851) Outlines of astronomy, 4th edn. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London
Hesketh I (2009) Of apes and ancestors: evolution, Christianity, and the Oxford Debate. University of Toronto Press, Toronto
Hodge J (2009) The notebook programmes and the projects of Darwin’s London years. In: Hodge J, Radick G (eds) The Cambridge companion to Darwin, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 40–68
Hooker J (1853–55) The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships ‘Erebus’ and ‘Terror’ in the years 1839-1843. Part II: Flora Novæ-Zelandiæ. Lovell Reeve, London, 2 vols
Hooker J (1860) Introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniæ. In: The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships ‘Erebus’ and ‘Terror’ in the years 1839–1843. Part III: Flora Tasmaniæ, 2 vols. Lovell Reeve, London, vol 2, pp i–cxxviii
Hooker J, Thomson T (1855) Introductory essay. In: Flora Indica: being a systematic Account of the plants of British India, together with observations on the structure and affinities of their natural orders and genera. Pamplin, London
Hoquet T (2010) Darwin teleologist? design in the Orchids. Comptes Rendus Biologies 333:119–128
Hoquet T (2014) Botanical authority: Benjamin Delessert’s collections between travelers and Candolle’s natural method (1803–1847). Isis 105:508–539
Hull DL (2003) Darwin’s science and Victorian philosophy of science. In: Hull DL, Radick G (eds) The Cambridge companion to Darwin. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 168–191
Huxley L (1900) Life and letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. D. Appleton, New York, 2 vols
James FAJL (2005a) An “open clash between science and the church”? Wilberforce, Huxley and Hooker on Darwin at the British Association, Oxford 1860. In: Knight DM, Eddy MD (eds) Science and belief: from natural philosophy to natural science, 1700-1900. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 171–193
James FAJL (2005b) On Wilberforce and Huxley. Astron Geophys 46:1.9
Janssen M (2019) Arches and scaffolds: bridging continuity and discontinuity in theory change. In: Love AC, Wimsatt WC (eds) Beyond the meme: development and structure in cultural evolution. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp 95–199
Jensen JV (1988) Return to the Wilberforce–Huxley debate. Br J Hist Sci 21:161–179
Jensen JV (1991) Thomas Henry Huxley: communicating for science. University of Delaware Press, Newark
Leifchild JR (1859) On the origin of species. The Athenaeum 1673 (19 November):659–660.
Liebig C (1838) On the products of the decomposition of uric acid. In: Report of the seventh meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Liverpool in September 1837. John Murray, London, pp 38–41
Liebig L (1840) Organic chemistry in its applications to agriculture and physiology. Playfair L (ed) Taylor and Walton, London
Lindley J (1834) Review of An inaugural lecture on the study of botany by Charles Daubeny. The Athenaeum 344 (May 31):401–402
Lyell C (1860) On the occurrence of works of human art in post-Pliocene deposits. In: Report of the twenty-ninth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Aberdeen in September 1859. John Murray, London, pp 93–95
Lyell K (1881) Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell. John Murray, London, 2 vols
Maienschein J (1991) Transforming traditions in American biology, 1880-1915. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
McOuat G (2001) Cataloguing power: delineating “competent naturalists” and the meaning of species at the British Museum. Br J Hist Sci 34:1–28
Mercer W (1855) The church psalter and hymn book. Jewell and Letchford, London
Morrell J, Thackray A (1981) Gentlemen of science: early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Clarendon, Oxford
Mozley JB (1853) The Oxford Commission. Q Rev 93:152–238
Oldroyd D (2004) Daubeny, Charles Giles Bridle (1795-1867). In: Lightman B et al (eds) Dictionary of nineteenth-century British scientists, vol 2. Thoemmes Continuum, Bristol, 4 vols, pp 543–547
Owen R (1860) Darwin on the origin of species. Edinb Rev 111:487–532
Pauly PJ (2000) Biologists and the promise of American life: from Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Peel R (1841) An inaugural address delivered by the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, Bart. M.P., President of the Tamworth Library and Reading Room, 2nd edn. James Bain, London
Phillips J (1868–9) Charles Giles Bridle Daubeny. Proc R Soc Lond 17:lxxiv–lxxx
Powell B (1859) The order of nature considered in reference to the claims of revelation. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, London
Powell B (2000 [1860]) On the study of the evidences of Christianity. In: Shea V Whitla W (eds) Essays and reviews: the 1860 text and its readings. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, pp 233–273
Robb-Smith AHT (1997) Medical education. In: Brock MG, Curthoys MC (eds) Nineteenth-century Oxford, Part I. Aston TH (general ed) Vol 6 of The history of the University of Oxford. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 563–582
Rupke NA (1994) Richard Owen: Victorian naturalist. Yale University Press, New Haven
Rupke NA (1997) Oxford’s scientific awakening and the role of geology. In: Brock MG, Curthoys MC (eds) Nineteenth-century Oxford, Part I. Aston TH (general ed) Vol 6 of The history of the University of Oxford. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 543–562
Ruse M (1979) The Darwinian revolution: science red in tooth and claw. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Secord A (1994) Corresponding interests: artisans and gentlemen in nineteenth-century natural history. Br J Hist Sci 27:383–408
Secord JA (2000) Victorian sensation: the extraordinary publication, reception, and secret authorship of Vestiges of the natural history of creation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Secord JA (2014) Visions of science: books and readers at the dawn of the Victorian age. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Stott R (2003) Darwin and the barnacle. W.W. Norton, New York
Tabb K (2016) Darwin at orchis bank: selection after the Origin. Stud Hist Philos Sci Part C Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 55:11–20
Taylor WC (1847) Review of Pride a hindrance to true knowledge by Samuel Wilberforce. The Athenaeum. 1028 (July 10):727–728
Todhunter I (1876) William Whewell, D.D. Master of Trinity College Cambridge: an account of his writings with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence, 2 vols. Macmillan, London
Van Riper AB (1993) Men among mammoths: Victorian science and the discovery of human prehistory. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Watson HC (1847–59) Cybele Britannica; or British plants, and their geological relations. Longman, London, 4 vols
Whewell W (1831) Lyell’s principles of geology. Br Critic 9:180–206
Whewell W (1833) Astronomy and general physics considered with reference to natural theology. William Pickering, London
Whewell W (1834) Mr. Whewell’s reply to the Edinburgh Review. Br Mag 5:263–268
Whewell W (1837) History of the inductive sciences, from the earliest to the present times. John W. Parker, London, 3 vols
Whewell W (1838) Presidential address. Proc Geol Soc Lon 2:624–649
Whewell W (1849) On the fundamental antithesis of philosophy [read 5 February 1844]. Trans Camb Philos Soc 8:170–181
Whewell W (1857a) History of the inductive sciences, from the earliest to the present times, 3rd edn. John W. Parker, London, 3 vols
Whewell W (1857b) Spedding’s complete edition of the Works of Bacon. Edinb Rev 106:287–322
Wilberforce S (1860) Darwin’s Origin of Species. Q Rev 108:225–264
Wilberforce S (1861) Essays and reviews. Q Rev 109:248–305
Wrottesley J (1861) Presidential address. In: Report of the thirtieth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Oxford in June and July 1860. John Murray, London, pp lv–lxxv
Yanni C (2005) Nature’s museums: Victorian science and the architecture of display. Princeton Architectural Press, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bellon, R. (2021). Guiding a Train of Discoveries: Charles Darwin, Charles Daubeny, and the Reception of Natural Selection, 1859–1865. In: Delisle, R.G. (eds) Natural Selection. Evolutionary Biology – New Perspectives on Its Development, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65536-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65536-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-65535-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-65536-5
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)