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Life of Charles Darwin. Bettany George Thomas
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Автор произведения Bettany George Thomas
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On December 19th New Zealand was sighted. Our traveller’s observations here are of much value, as relating to a late period before civilised government was effectively established. At Waimate he was delighted with the effects produced by the religious teacher. “The lesson of the missionary is the enchanter’s wand,” and he rejoiced as an Englishman at what his countrymen had effected. The remarkable absence of land mammals, the late enormous increase of the imported Norway rat, the dock spreading far and wide, its seeds having been sold as tobacco seeds by a rascally Englishman, the huge Kauri pines, were all full of import to the inquiring mind; but New Zealand proved on the whole less attractive, as seen by Darwin, than most other countries he had visited. December 30th saw the Beagle on the way to Sydney, and Port Jackson was reached on January 12, 1836. An interesting excursion to the Blue Mountains and to Bathurst showed many aspects of colonial life, as well as the strange duckbill or platypus in its native haunts. Tasmania, with which island Darwin was greatly pleased, was visited in February. In April the Keeling Islands furnished much of the material for the future book on coral reefs, the essence of which is, however, included in the Journal. Mauritius, Cape Town, St. Helena, Ascension, Bahia, Pernambuco, Cape Verde, and the Azores were the successive stages of the homeward journey, and on October 2, 1836, anchor was cast at Falmouth, where the naturalist, equipped for his life work, was landed.
The high opinion Captain Fitzroy formed of Darwin during this long voyage is shown by many passages in his own narrative, and by many other references. He paid him the marked compliment of naming no fewer than three important geographical localities after him, namely, Mount Darwin and Darwin Sound (Tierra del Fuego), and Port Darwin in North Australia, thus connecting his name for future generations with two lands whose inhabitants were subjects of Darwin’s unceasing interest and investigation throughout life, and served in no small degree to elucidate the history and rise of mankind in Darwin’s mind and for a world’s instruction. Fitzroy complimented his friend markedly when himself receiving the medal of the Royal Geographical Society; and in one of his papers, speaking of him as a zealous volunteer in the cause of science, observed that his perseverance might be estimated from the fact that he never ceased to be a martyr to sea-sickness; while his interest in science and his public spirit were evident from his having presented his valuable collections to the public.
The concluding pages of the Journal are both eloquent and instructive. Everywhere there had been fascinating visions, and attractive problems remained unsolved. Was it not significant of future studies that the contrast between barbarian and civilised man should have been so impressed upon the future author of “The Descent of Man”? He writes thus on this subject, “Of individual objects, perhaps no one is more certain to create astonishment than the first sight in his native haunt of a real barbarian, of man in his lowest and most savage state. One’s mind hurries back over past centuries, and then asks, could our progenitors have been such as these? Men, whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible to us than those of the domesticated animals; men, who do not possess the instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or at least of arts consequent on that reason. I do not believe it is possible to describe or paint the difference between savage and civilised man. It is the difference between a wild and tame animal: and part of the interest in beholding a savage, is the same which would lead every one to desire to see the lion in his desert, the tiger tearing his prey in the jungle, the rhinoceros on the wide plain, or the hippopotamus wallowing in the mud of some African river.”
We have dwelt thus at length upon the history of this eventful voyage, not only because it filled an important space in Darwin’s life, but also because it undoubtedly gave rise to the thoughts and speculations which impelled him to devote his life to the study of problems of evolution. It has been shown to some extent, how he saw, without pre-arrangement, just those phenomena which could stimulate his mind, already fit, to its highest flights. We have seen, too, how universal was Darwin’s interest in nature, and how sympathetic a heart went with his scientific insight. He had yet to show how masterly was his patience, to work for yet twenty years, in order that he might not by premature publication of a crude theory risk defeat and throw science backward rather than forward. This long patient work was to be the triumph of his genius.
CHAPTER III
ON his return home, Darwin speedily placed himself in communication with the leaders of scientific progress, and, in consequence of the valuable results of his voyage, he soon found himself in a most advantageous position. On November 20, 1836, he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society, and before the end of the year he had sent the manuscript of one of his early papers to Lyell, who writes to him (December 26, 1836): “I have read your paper with the greatest pleasure… What a splendid field you have to write upon.” He strongly advised the young man not to accept any official scientific place, but to devote himself to his own line of work. But Darwin was overpersuaded, and became a member of the Council of the Geological Society in the following February, and secretary in February, 1838. This office he held with success for three years. Lyell referred in considerable detail to the young traveller’s views in his presidential address to the Society in 1837.
Darwin’s geological papers soon became numerous. In 1837 he discussed in succession the recent elevation of the coast of Chili, the deposits containing extinct mammalia in the neighbourhood of the Plata, the areas of elevation and subsidence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as deduced from the study of coral formations, and the formation of mould (the precursor of a work he issued more than forty years later). Papers on the connection of certain volcanic phenomena, and on the formation of mountain chains, and other geological notes on South America, were read in 1838; the interesting Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, in Scotland, which he believed to be of marine origin, were described in 1839; the erratic (glacial) boulders of South America, in 1841; and coral reefs in 1842: a full record, one would imagine, of busy years, occupied also with secretarial work. Lyell, writing to Sir John Herschel (May 24, 1837), says: “I am very full of Darwin’s new theory of coral islands, and have urged Whewell to make him read it at our next meeting. I must give up my volcanic crater theory for ever, though it costs me a pang at first.” In March, 1838, Lyell describes the reception of the paper on volcanic phenomena at the Geological Society. “He opened upon De la Beche, Phillips, and others, his whole battery of the earthquakes and volcanoes of the Andes; and argued that spaces of a thousand miles long were simultaneously subject to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and that the elevation of the Pampas, Patagonia, &c., all depended upon a common cause.” In fit acknowledgment of such services to science, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on January 24, 1839.
Early in 1839 Darwin married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, daughter of his uncle Josiah Wedgwood: a union which, though consanguineous, proved in the highest degree congenial and fortunate. In succeeding years a numerous family of sons and daughters surrounded the happy parents. After considerable delays by the Admiralty, though it had long been ready, the Journal appeared, in 1839, as the third volume of Fitzroy’s “Voyages of The Adventure and Beagle.” The Quarterly Review (lxv. 224) said that there could be no two opinions of its merits. “We find ample materials for deep thinking; we have the vivid description that fills the mind’s eye with brighter pictures than painter can present, and the charm arising from the freshness of heart which is thrown over these virgin pages of a strong intellectual man, and an acute and deep observer.” Its merits, however, were somewhat slow to become known to the general public, owing to the original expensive form of publication; and it was not till 1845, when the second and enlarged edition appeared as “The Journal of Researches,” that the popular ear was gained. Later, under the title, “A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World,” the book has become very widely known and appreciated.
The publication of “The Zoology of the Voyage of The Beagle,”