Editing Development of Darwin's theory (section)

==First writings on the theory==
In January 1842 Darwin sent a tentative description of his ideas in a letter to [[Charles Lyell|Lyell]], who was then touring America. Lyell, dismayed that his erstwhile ally had become a Transmutationist, noted that Darwin "denies seeing a beginning to each crop of species".<ref name="Lyell 1842">{{cite web | website=Darwin Online |title=British Association for the Advancement of Science: Historical and descriptive catalogue of the Darwin Memorial at Down House|year= 1969| url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=16&itemID=CUL-DAR132.1&viewtype=text | access-date=1 October 2022}}</ref>

Darwin's book ''[[The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs]]'' on his theory of [[atoll]] formation was published in May after more than three years of work, with ''Part 4: Fish'' of ''[[Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle]]'' also going to print. Illness was a continuing problem, and he and Emma left London on 18 May, visiting her parents at [[Maer Hall]] before moving on to [[Shrewsbury]] on 15 June for rest and quiet. Now Darwin "first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in 35 pages", the '"Pencil Sketch"' of his theory. This discussed farmers breeding animals, gave the analogy of overpopulation and competition leading to "Natural Selection" through the "war of nature" and the mechanism of ''descent''. Every living thing was related in a branching pedigree, not ascending a Lamarckian ladder, and this pedigree was the proper basis for classification.<ref>{{Harvnb|Desmond|Moore|1991|p= 292}}<br>{{Harvnb|Darwin|1909|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1556&pageseq=18 xvi–xvii]}}</ref> He thought it "derogatory" to argue that God had made every kind of parasite and worm on an individual whim.<ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1909|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1556&pageseq=85 51]}}</ref> Already, a rough form of the phrasing and ideas which he went on to publish 17 years later in the closing paragraph of ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' can be seen in his conclusion in this first draft:
{{blockquote|From death, famine, rapine, and the concealed war of nature we can see that the highest good, which we can conceive, the creation of the higher animals has directly come. Doubtless it at first transcends our humble powers, to conceive laws capable of creating individual organisms, each characterised by the most exquisite workmanship and widely-extended adaptations. It accords better with [our modesty] the lowness of our faculties to suppose each must require the fiat of a creator, but in the same proportion the existence of such laws should exalt our notion of the power of the omniscient Creator. There is a simple grandeur in the view of life with its powers of growth, assimilation and reproduction, being originally breathed into matter under one or a few forms, and that whilst this our planet has gone circling on according to fixed laws, and land and water, in a cycle of change, have gone on replacing each other, that from so simple an origin, through the process of gradual selection of infinitesimal changes, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been evolved.<ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1909|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1556&pageseq=86 52]}}</ref> }}

===Essay===
[[Image:Gower Street London.jpg|thumb|The Darwins lived in [[Gower Street (London)|Gower Street]] in London.]]
[[File:Approaching Down House - geograph.org.uk - 1196017.jpg|thumb|In 1842 they moved to [[Down House]] in rural [[Kent]].]]
They returned on 18 July to a London seething with [[Chartism|Chartist]] unrest, and Darwin copied and scribbled changes to his "Sketch" until it was almost illegible. He returned to house hunting and found a former parsonage in the rural hamlet of [[Downe]] at a good price. A general strike led to huge demonstrations all over London, but was crushed by troops by the time Darwin moved. On 17 September 1842 the family moved into [[Down House]] (around 1850 the village changed its name to Downe to avoid confusion with [[County Down]] in Ireland, but the house kept the old spelling). After a series of alterations Darwin settled in, and in 1843 returned to writing his ''Volcanic Islands''. In May he began a (mostly geological) country diary he called ''The General Aspect''.

In response to a request from [[George Robert Waterhouse]] for advice on classification, Darwin replied that it properly "consists in grouping beings according to their actual ''relationship'', ie their consanguinity, or descent from common stocks".<ref name="Letter 684">{{Citation | title=Letter 684 – Darwin, C. R. to Waterhouse, G. R. (26 July 1843)| publisher =Darwin Correspondence Project | url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-684 | access-date=9 February 2016}}</ref> He followed this up with another letter expressing belief that "all the orders, families & genera amongst the Mammals are merely artificial terms highly useful to show the relationship of those members of the series, ''which have not become extinct''",  before cautiously asking for the letter to be returned.<ref name="Letter 685">{{Citation | title=Letter 685 – Darwin, C. R. to Waterhouse, G. R. (31 July 1843) | publisher =Darwin Correspondence Project | url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-685 | access-date=9 February 2016}}</ref> Waterhouse was influenced by Owen and in a paper attacked such heresies, setting his species in the symbolic circles of the [[Quinarian system]], not hereditary trees.{{sfn|Desmond|Moore|1991|pp=310–312}} Darwin sent a sharp response about these "vicious circles".<ref name="Letter 718">{{Citation | title=Letter 718 – Darwin, C. R. to Waterhouse, G. R. (3 or 17 Dec 1843)| publisher=Darwin Correspondence Project | url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-718 | access-date=9 February 2016}}</ref>

Darwin became a close friend of the botanist [[Joseph Dalton Hooker]], and on 11 January 1844 wrote to with melodramatic humour that he was "almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a "tendency to progression" “adaptations from the slow willing of animals" &c,—but the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his—though the means of change are wholly so— I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends."<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 729 – Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., (11 Jan 1844) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-729.html | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 10 October 2009 }}</ref> Hooker's reply was cautious but friendly, saying that "There may in my opinion have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject."<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 734 – Hooker, J. D. to Darwin, C. R., 29 Jan 1844 | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-734.html | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 10 October 2009 }}</ref>

Darwin worked up his "Sketch" into a 189-page '"Essay"' and in July entrusted the manuscript to the local schoolmaster to copy. He then wrote a difficult letter to be opened by his wife in the event of his death requesting that the essay be published posthumously. He started his ''Geological Observations on South America'', and corresponded with Hooker about this, feeding in questions related to his "Essay". The copied "Essay", now 231 pages, was returned to him for corrections in September. Then one day he brought it to Emma and asked her to read it. She went through the pages, making notes in the margins pointing out unclear passages and showing where she disagreed.

The Reverend [[Leonard Jenyns]], a naturalist Darwin had known since his time at the [[University of Cambridge]], had at Darwin's request contributed the volume on ''Fish'' in ''[[Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle]]'', and was now working on a book of notes on observations of plants and animals. On 12 October Darwin wrote to tell him that "work on the species question has impressed me very forcibly with the importance of all such works, as your intended one, containing what people are pleased generally to call trifling facts. These are the facts, which make one understand the working or œconomy of nature&nbsp;.... namely what are the checks & what the periods of life, by which the increase of any given species is limited." He told Jenyns that he had "continued steadily reading & collecting facts on variation of domestic animals & plants & on the question of what are species; I have a grand body of facts & I think I can draw some sound conclusions. The general conclusion at which I have slowly been driven from a directly opposite conviction is that species are mutable & that allied species are co-descendants of common stocks. I know how much I open myself, to reproach, for such a conclusion, but I have at least honestly & deliberately come to it. I shall not publish on this subject for several years."<ref>{{Citation | title =Letter 782 – Darwin, C. R. to Jenyns, Leonard, 12 Oct (1844) | url =http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-782.html | publisher =Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date =9 October 2009 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20070901014041/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-782.html | archive-date =1 September 2007 | url-status =dead }}</ref> In November he thanked Jenyns for sending a detailed note, and told him "With respect to my far-distant work on species, I must have expressed myself with singular inaccuracy, if I led you to suppose that I meant to say that my conclusions were inevitable. They have become so, after years of weighing puzzles, to myself alone;; but in my wildest day-dream, I never expect more than to be able to show that there are two sides to the question of the immutability of species, ie whether species are directly created, or by intermediate laws, (as with the life & death of individuals)." He outlined the events that had led him to these ideas, and while cautious about "numerous immense difficulties on my notions" told him that he had "drawn up a sketch & had it copied (in 200 pages) of my conclusions; & if I thought at some future time, that you would think it worth reading, I shd. of course be most thankful to have the criticism of so competent a critic."<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 793 – Darwin, C. R. to Jenyns, Leonard, 25 (Nov 1844) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-793.html | archive-url = https://archive.today/20120731183252/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-793.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = 31 July 2012 | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 }}</ref> Jenyns never took up this offer to read the "Essay", but did advise Darwin on possible issues with the term "mutation". Darwin replied "it will be years before I publish, so that I shall have plenty of time to think of better words".<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 828 – Darwin, C. R. to Jenyns, Leonard, 14 Feb (1845) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-828.html | archive-url = https://archive.today/20120729163834/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-828.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = 29 July 2012 | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 }}</ref>

===''Vestiges'' published===
In October 1844 Transmutation became a middle class talking point with the anonymous publication of ''[[Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation]]'' by [[Robert Chambers (journalist)|Robert Chambers]] presenting [[Lamarckism|Lamarckian]] views. It brought the notion of transmutation out into the public arena and was a sensation, quickly becoming a best-seller in fashionable society circles and going into new editions. Darwin read it in November,<ref name=readinglist>[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=CUL-DAR119.-&pageseq=70 15v–16v]</ref> and when questioned by Hooker in January he admired its prose, but wrote that the "geology strikes me as bad, & his zoology far worse". The book was liked by many [[Religious Society of Friends|Quaker]]s and [[Unitarianism|Unitarians]]. Darwin's friend the Unitarian physiologist [[William Benjamin Carpenter|William Carpenter]] called it "a very beautiful and a very interesting book", and helped Chambers with correcting later editions. Critics thanked God that the author began "in ignorance and presumption", for the revised versions "would have been much more dangerous". ''Vestiges'' paved the way for discussion, but emphasised the need for secure mastery of awkward facts.

Hooker became Darwin's mainstay in the search to find and explain anomalous facts, though Darwin was greatly disappointed in February 1845 when Hooker was invited to teach botany at Edinburgh. Others helping included [[Francis Beaufort|Captain Beaufort]] of the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]] who invited Darwin to list any facts he wanted checking, for investigation by ship's surgeons (naturalists) when their ship was in the appropriate part of the world. In March Darwin followed his father's investment advice and became owner of a farmhouse and estate in [[Lincolnshire]], where the Reverend [[Samuel Wilberforce]] advised local squires to take education in hand lest the countryfolk learn "a smattering of science" and forget their God-given duties.

The publisher [[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]] made an offer of payment for a revised second edition of ''Journal and Remarks'', diverting Darwin's attention from ''South America''. On 25 April Darwin began extensive revisions incorporating his latest information and interpretations, including several hints about his species speculation. He now saw the [[Galápagos Islands|Galápagos Archipelago]] as "a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists," where we were "astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range", and "seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact – that mystery of mysteries – the first appearance of new beings on this earth." On 5 August Darwin began reading Lyell's ''Travels in North America'', and was horrified that it saw no harm in slavery. He added two new paragraphs to his ''Journal'', cataloguing atrocities after stating "I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country", and finished his revisions on 26 August.<ref name=readinglist/><ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|2006|pp=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=CUL-DAR158.1–76&pageseq=44 23 verso: 1845]}}<br>{{harvnb|Darwin|1845|pp=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F14&pageseq=390 377–378]}}; {{harvnb|Darwin|1909|pp=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F14&pageseq=512 499–500]}}</ref>

[[Anglican]] clergymen / naturalists had been slow to respond to ''Vestiges'', not wanting to give its vile ideas of transmutation publicity, but it sold increasing numbers to polite society. In the July ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' a lengthy and scathing attack by [[Adam Sedgwick]], who had taught Darwin geology at university, predicted "ruin and confusion in such a creed" which if taken up by the populace would "undermine the whole moral and social fabric" bringing "discord and deadly mischief in its train." On 8 October Darwin wrote telling Lyell that the review was "far from popular with non-scientific readers. I think some few passages savour of the dogmatism of the pulpit, rather than of the philosophy of the Professor chair". Nevertheless, it was "a grand piece of argument against mutability of species; & I read it with fear & trembling, but was well pleased to find, that I had not overlooked any of the arguments, though I had put them to myself as feebly as milk & water."<ref name=letter919>{{Citation | title = Letter 919 – Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, Charles, 8 Oct (1845) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-919.html | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080605141658/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-919.html | archive-date = 5 June 2008 | url-status = dead }}</ref>
[[File:Darwins Thinking Path.JPG|thumb|right|In 1846 Darwin rented land from his neighbour [[Sir John Lubbock, 3rd Baronet|John Lubbock]] to plant woodland and lay out the "sandwalk" at [[Down House]] which became his usual "Thinking Path".<ref>{{harvnb|Freeman|1978|pp=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A27&pageseq=132 125], [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A27&pageseq=258 251]}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1887|pp=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1452.1&pageseq=132 114–116]}}</ref> ]]
In correspondence Darwin continued to discuss his species work with Hooker, and he took it personally when Hooker remarked of another naturalist "that no one has hardly a right to examine the question of species who has not minutely described many." However, even [[Richard Owen]] who was opposed to any mutability in species had told him it was "a very fair subject" with a mass of facts to be investigated, "& though I shall get more kicks than half-pennies, I will, life serving, attempt my work."<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 915 – Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., (10 Sept 1845) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-915.html | archive-url = https://archive.today/20120803035418/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-915.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = 3 August 2012 | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 }}</ref> Early in November Darwin, hinting that "geographical distrib: will be the key which will unlock the mystery of species", invited Hooker to "look over a rough sketch (well copied) on this subject" while fearing this was "too impudent a request".<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 924 – Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., (5 or 12 Nov 1845) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-924.html | archive-url = https://archive.today/20120729090716/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-924.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = 29 July 2012 | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 }}</ref>

Darwin's researches led to a meeting on 23 November with [[Charles James Fox Bunbury]], in which he discussed the geographical distribution of plants and animals, particularly in the Galapagos islands where they strikingly showed "a South American character as it were stamped on them all, while nearly all the species are peculiar." As Bunbury recalled, "He avowed himself to some extent a believer in the transmutation of species, though not, he said, exactly according to the doctrine either of Lamarck or of the ''Vestiges''. But he admitted that all the leading botanists and zoologists, of this country at least, are on the other side."<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 901 – Lyell, Charles to Darwin, C. R., (after 2 Aug 1845) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-901.html | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070901013751/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-901.html | archive-date = 1 September 2007 | url-status = dead }}<br>Bunbury, Charles James Fox (1906) [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A716&pageseq=1 Recollections of Darwin.] The life of Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury, Bart. Edited by his sister-in-law Mrs Henry Lyell [Katharine Murray Lyell]; with an introductory note by Sir Joseph Hooker. 2 vols. London: John Murray.</ref> Darwin was familiarising the "most rising naturalists" with the idea, and on 6 December enjoyed having Hooker, [[Edward Forbes]], [[Hugh Falconer]], and [[George Robert Waterhouse]] visit Down for dinner and "raging discussions".<ref>{{Citation | title = Letter 930 – Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., (25 Nov 1845) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-930.html | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070901161518/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-930.html | archive-date = 1 September 2007 | url-status = dead }}<br>{{Citation | title = Letter 935 – Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., (10 Dec 1845) | url = http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-935.html | publisher = Darwin Correspondence Project | access-date = 9 October 2009 }}{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

In the following year potato blight brought famine which impinged on the Darwins' servants and workmen, and led to overthrow of the [[Corn Laws]]. Darwin welcomed this, but as a landowner now found that it affected his income from rent and he wrote to his agent that "Although I am on principle a free-trader, of course I am not willing to make a larger reduction than necessary to retain a good tenant." Despite his own illness recurring, Darwin pressed on with ''South America'', having to jointly subsidise it with the publisher when the Treasury grant ran out, and it was completed by October 1846.