The development of Darwin's theory : natural history, natural theology, and natural selection, 1838-1859 / Dov Ospovat.

  • Ospovat, Dov.
Date:
1995, ©1981
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: The development of Darwin's theory : natural history, natural theology, and natural selection, 1838-1859 / Dov Ospovat. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Notes to pp. 1Q4-8 10 DAR 114:36, postmarked July 1845; see MLD, 1:51. 11 DAR 205.4:19. Darwin observed at the same time, I must give up my crossing notions & advantage of Paucity of individuals. I must stick to new conditions & especially new groupings of organic beings. 12 DAR 205.9:303 (published in Natural Selection, p. 582). 13 This is first clearly stated in the note of September 23, 1856, but Darwin came close to expressing the same idea in a note dated August 19, 1855; Owing to powers of propagation not only as many individuals crowded together, but 'forms' for more can be supported on same area, when diverse, than when of same species (here discuss cases of many genera on several spots & conditions; Trifolium at Lands end. Larch wood. Coral Isl'^. Hookers facts.) as when many individuals crowded together some will die, so will forms. Creation causes extinctions - like birth of young causes death of old - All classification follows frorh more distinct forms being supported on same area (DAR 205.5:157). 14 Natural Selection, p. 254; also pp. 257-60, 266. 15 E notebook, p. 115e; Essay of 1844, pp. 86-7; DAR 47:1, dated June 1840. See also С notebook, p. 25e. 16 DAR 205.3:161, dated November 1854. 17 E notebook, pp. ок-6. 18 Ibid., p. 108. 19 E.g., Essay of 1844, pp. 90-2. In a note dated August 1849 he stated his theory as follows: suppose to make species some change of condition 8c isolation were necessary (my emphasis) (DAR 47:4). 20 Station indicates the peculiar nature of the locality where each species is accustomed to grow, and has reference to climate, soil, humidity, light, elevation above the sea, and other analogous circumstances (Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 5th ed., 2:11 [Bk. Ill, chap. 5]). 21 This is well exemplified in the Essay of 1844, PP- 184-7. I have found one note, however, in which it is suggested that changes in a prey-species could cause a predator to vary. (DAR 47:1, dated June 1840). On Darwin's concept of place, see Robert C. Stauffer, Ecology in the Long Manuscript Version of Darwin's Origin of Species and Linnaeus' Oeconomy of Nature-, and Camille Limoges, La Sélection Naturelle, pp. 131-2. The distinction Peter Vorzimmer makes between station and place does not seem to me to correspond to Darwin's usage either in 1844 or in the Origin (Darwin's Ecology and its Influence upon His Theory, p. 150). 22 LLD, 2:8-9. 23 In the Essay of 1844 he wrote (p. 185): it is certain that all organisms are nearly as much adapted in their structure to the other inhabitants of their country as they are to its physical conditions. In 1854 he wrote: No doubt temperature greatest ruling cause of difference in organisms: but the nature of the associated kinds comes at least next (DAR 205.3:161, dated November 1854). 24 DAR 205.9:315, dated July 27, 1856. He said the same thing to Hooker in November {LLD, 1:445). The occasion for both remarks was Darwin's attempt to justify some parts of his theory of the influence of the glacial 269