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Fleeming Jenkin and The Origin of Species: a reassessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Susan W. Morris
Susan W. Morris
Affiliation:
Department of the History of Science, Medicine & Technology, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md 21218, USA.
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Extract

Early in June of 1867, Charles Darwin turned back the cover of his copy of the respected quarterly North British Review, to find on its opening pages a lengthy essay attacking his theory of natural selection. As with the vast majority of articles in the Victorian periodicals, the review was anonymous, prompting immediate speculation in Darwin's circle as to the author's identity. It was to be about a year-and-a-half before Darwin would learn that the engineer Fleeming Jenkin had written the essay. By then, Darwin had concluded that the critique was the most valuable he had ever read on The Origin of Species.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 313 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1994

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References

I wish to thank Bruce Hunt, John Brooke and two referees for useful criticisms and suggestions.I am particularly indebted to the valuable insight and advice of Sharon Kingsland.

1 ‘The Origin of Species’, North British Review (hereafter NBR) (06 1867), no. 92, 46 o.s., 7 n.s., 277–318 (American edn, pp. 149–71)Google Scholar. Reprinted (as ‘Darwin and the Origin of Species’) in Jenkin, H. C. Fleeming, Papers Literary, Scientific, etc. (hereafter PLS; ed. Colvin, S. and Ewing, J. A.), 2 vols., London, 1887, i, 215–63Google Scholar, and in Hull, D. L. (ed.), Darwin and His Critics, Cambridge, Mass., 1973, 302–44.Google Scholar

2 W. E. Houghton estimates that ‘85 to 90%’ of all review articles were anonymous. See Houghton, , ‘“The Wellesley Index”: uses and problems’, The Victorian Periodicals Newsletter (1968), 1, 13.Google Scholar

3 For examples of this traditional interpretation, see Poulton, E. B., Essays on Evolution, 1889–1907, Oxford, 1908Google Scholar; Willis, J. C., The Course of Evolution, Cambridge, 1940Google Scholar; Eiseley, L. C., Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It, Garden City, 1958Google Scholar; Hardin, G., Nature and Man's Fate, New York and Toronto, 1959.Google Scholar

4 While Darwin's natural selection rested primarily on the mechanism of small, continuous change, the extent of his reliance on other, larger mechanisms of change was ambiguous. Bowler, P., in ‘Darwin's concepts of variation’, Journal of the History of Medicine (1974), 29, 196–212Google ScholarPubMed, discusses this ambiguity, advancing the idea that Darwin entertained, in addition to single variations and individual differences, a ‘third concept’ of variation, namely small but discontinuous changes. For Darwin's reliance on sexual selection, see Cronin, H., The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today, Cambridge, 1991.Google Scholar

5 See, for example, Vorzimmer, P., ‘Charles Darwin and blending inheritance’, Isis (1963), 54, 371–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Vorzimmer, P., Charles Darwin: The Years of Controversy, Philadelphia, 1970Google Scholar; Olby, R. C., ‘Charles Darwin's manuscript of pangenesis’, BJHS (1963), 1, 251–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Geison, G. L., ‘Darwin and heredity: the evolution of his hypothesis of pangenesis’, Journal of the History of Medicine (1969), 24, 375–411Google ScholarPubMed; Burchfield, J. D., ‘Darwin and the dilemma of geological time’, Isis (1974), 65, 301–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Darwin, to Wallace, , 22 01 1869Google Scholar and 2 February 1869, British Library (hereafter BL) Add 46434. See also Burkhardt, F., Smith, S. et al. (eds.), A Calendar of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882, with Supplement, Cambridge, 1994Google Scholar, which lists the published sources and the known archive of each letter.

7 Olby, , op. cit. (5)Google Scholar; Geison, , op. cit. (5)Google Scholar; Vorzimmer, , op. cit. (5), 389.Google Scholar

8 Darwin, to Hooker, J. D., 16 01 1869Google Scholar, Cambridge University Library, Darwin Archive (hereafter DAR), 94:112–13; Darwin, F. (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols., New York, 1959, ii, 288–9.Google Scholar

9 Typical examples of this linkage can be seen in Willis, , op. cit. (3), 5Google Scholar, who writes ‘the variation would soon tend to be lost by crossing. This was shown by Fleeming Jenkin in a criticism which Darwin considered as the best that was ever made of his work.’ And Eiseley, , op.cit. (3), 209–10Google Scholar, in discussing Darwin's views on variations, says, ‘there is ample testimony…to the effect which Jenkin's criticism had upon him’, and then cites as that testimony the letters to Wallace as well as that to Hooker; this latter, as just noted, says nothing about variations.

10 Burchfield, , op. cit. (5)Google Scholar. Brush, S. G., ‘Science and culture in the nineteenth century: thermodynamics and history’, The Graduate Journal (1966–1967), 7, 477–565.Google Scholar

11 Darwin, C., The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: A Variorum Text (ed. Peckham, M.), Philadelphia, 1959, 728.Google Scholar

12 For example, both Poulton, , op. cit. (3)Google Scholar, and Eiseley, , op. cit. (3)Google Scholar, embed their discussions of Jenkin's influence on Darwin within their chapters on Mendel.

13 For example, Vorzimmer, , op. cit. (5), 387Google Scholar, says of Jenkin's essay: ‘the main attack can be divided into two distinct halves…one against individual differences, the other against saltations’. Hull, , op.cit. (1), 346Google Scholar, says: ‘Jenkin raised two major objections.’ Bowler, P. J., in The Eclipse of Darwinism, Baltimore, 1983Google Scholar, discusses only blending inheritance before noting that Jenkin ‘also argued’ about limits to variation. Similarly, Hardin, , op. cit. (3)Google Scholar, hints at the limits argument but focuses on swamping. Eiseley, , op. cit. (3)Google Scholar, mentions only swamping. Moore, J., in The Post-Darwinian Controversies, Cambridge, 1979CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ruse, M., in The Darwinian Revolution, Chicago and London, 1979Google Scholar, both briefly mention Jenkin's criticisms relating to geological time, but focus on swamping and limits. Geison, , op. cit. (5)Google Scholar, and Burchfield, , op. cit. (5)Google Scholar, and in Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth, New York, 1975Google Scholar, both mention Jenkin's argument about geological time, but do not see it as the essay's centrepiece. Burchfield, for example (Kelvin, p. 73)Google Scholar, asserts that Jenkin's review ‘hinged’ on the swamping argument, and Geison says Jenkin's ‘attack…was directed especially against…heredity’, op. cit. (5), 380. Smith, C. and Wise, M. N., Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin, Cambridge, 1989Google Scholar, focus on Jenkin's argument on geological time. Only Gould, S. J., in ‘Fleeming Jenkin revisited’, Natural History (1985), 94, 14–20Google Scholar, assesses Jenkin's full article.

14 Mivart, St-G., On the Genesis of Species, 2nd edn, London and New York, 1871, 38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Wagner, M., Die Darwin'sche Theorie und das Migrationgesetz der Organismen, Munich, 1868Google Scholar (translated by Laird, J. L. as The Darwinian Theory and the Law of the Migration of Organisms, London, 1873).Google Scholar

16 Romanes, G. J., ‘Physiological selection; an additional suggestion on the Origin of Species’, The Journal of the Linnean Society, Zoology Section (1886), 19, 337–51, see especially 339–40.Google Scholar

17 Herdman, W. A., ‘Inaugural address on some recent contributions to the theory of evolution’, Proceedings of the Liverpool Biological Society (1889), 3, 5.Google Scholar Herdman also quotes the shipwreck story in full.

18 Kellogg, V. L., Darwinism To-Day, New York, 1907, 44–5.Google Scholar

19 Willis, , op. cit. (3), 165Google Scholar; see also 5, 13–14, 25.

20 Fothergill, P. G., Historical Aspects of Organic Evolution, London, 1952, see especially 122, 132–3.Google Scholar

21 BL (Add 46434). Fleeming is pronounced ‘Flemming’, hence Darwin's spelling. Jenkin was named after his father's commanding officer, Admiral Fleeming.

22 DAR 106/7 (Ser. 2): 75–6.

23 Wallace's rejoinder to Jenkin (and to the Duke of Argyll) was included in Wallace's essay ‘Creation by law’, Quarterly Journal of Science (10 1867), 471–88Google Scholar; reprinted in Wallace, 's Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, London, 1875, 264–301.Google Scholar

24 BL (Add 46434).

25 Bowler, P. J., ‘Alfred Russel Wallace's concepts of variation’, Journal of the History of Medicine (1976), 31, 17–29.Google ScholarPubMed

26 Darwin, , op. cit. (11), 178.Google Scholar

27 In the first two editions of the Origin, Darwin included his own projection of the time that had been required for the denudation of the Weald, an area in southeastern England. His ‘crude notion’of 306662400 years was immediately ridiculed, even by his friends, for the ineptness of the premisses he had used, and Darwin soon regretted ever having included the discussion in his book. Several scholars discuss the changes Darwin made in his Weald argument. Burchfield discusses the role of Lyell and Hooker, in particular. See Burchfield, , op. cit. (5), 303–6Google Scholar; see also Darwin, , On the Origin of Species, London, 1964, 286–87Google Scholar; Darwin, , op. cit. (11), 483–4.Google Scholar

28 Darwin, , op. cit. (11), 264.Google Scholar

29 Darwin, , op. cit. (11), 178.Google Scholar

30 Stevenson's Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin is the only full biography of Jenkin. It is included in Jenkin, , PLS, op. cit. (1), i, pp. xi–clivGoogle Scholar, and was also published separately (New York, 1887) as well as in nine different editions of Stevenson's collected works.

31 Matthews, B. (ed.), ‘Introduction’ to Papers on Acting Vol. III: Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth and as Queen Katharine by H. C. Fleeming Jenkin, New York, 1915, on 16.Google Scholar

32 The Jenkin family had moved from York to Kent during the reign of Henry VIII, although Stevenson writes that the family ‘derived from Wales’, thus some describe Fleeming Jenkin as Welsh. Stevenson, R. L., op. cit. (30) (New York, 1887), 2.Google Scholar

33 Jenkin is a striking example of nineteenth-century interactions between realism, romanticism, science and art, as described by Brush, , op. cit. (10), especially 482–93Google Scholar, and Brush, The Temperature of History: Phases of Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, New York, 1978.Google Scholar

34 Mill, J. S.'s Autobiography (Halifax, 1992, ed. Cockshut, A. O. J.)Google Scholar is replete with allusions to the Austins; see, for example, ch. 3.

35 Jenkin is today more often cited in the economics literature than in the history of science. His contributions were made in five papers, included in PLS, op. cit. (1), and republished in 1931 by the London School of Economics as No. 9 in Series of Scarce Tracts in Economic and Political Science.

36 SirColvin, S., Memories and Notes of Persons & Places, 1852–1912, New York, 1921, 157–8.Google Scholar

37 Jenkin, Charles Frewen to Stevenson, R. L., 9 08 1887Google Scholar, Yale University, Beinecke Library, Robert Louis Stevenson Collection (hereafter Beinecke Collection) no. 4982.

38 Jenkin, F. to Douglas, David, 2 03 1868Google Scholar, letter no. 114, ‘Scrapbook’, Douglas Papers, National Library of Scotland (NLS). Having been introduced by P. G. Tait, Douglas wrote that Jenkin ‘was soon to become one of my most trusted allies’. (Douglas, D., ‘Scrapbook’, ch. 11, p. 143Google Scholar, Douglas Papers, NLS). Jenkin's letter was occasioned by his NBR essay on trade unions (’Trade-Unions: How Far Legitimate’, NBR (March 1868), 48 o.s., 1–34); he and Douglas were considering republishing the ‘Trade-Unions’ and the Origin of Species articles as a book. See Jenkin, to Douglas, , 12 02 1868Google Scholar, letter no. 113, Douglas ‘Scrapbook’, NLS. I am most grateful to Joanne Shattock for personal communication and material about Douglas and the North British Review.

39 Sir William Thomson was not created Lord Kelvin until 1892, well beyond the time period treated in this paper. To maintain consistency with the quotations in the paper, I refer to him throughout as Thomson, rather than Kelvin.

40 The articles appeared individually in the annual Report of the British Association for the years 1862–64 and 1867. They were collected and reprinted in Jenkin, Fleeming (ed.), Reports of the Committee on Electrical Standards, London and New York, 1873.Google Scholar

41 In addition to the obituary, Thomson composed a ‘Note by Sir William Thomson on Fleeming Jenkin's contributions to electrical and engineering science’, included in the posthumous publication of Jenkin's papers and biography (PLS, op. cit. (1)). Colvin, Sidney to Stevenson, R. L., 13 09 [1887]Google Scholar: ‘[Mrs Jenkin and I have] settled a few remaining points as to the memoir, & chiefly, to cut out altogether the two concluding paragraphs of Sir W. Thompson's [sic] note. Left standing, their chilly tone of patronage could not but shock: without them, & headed as we have now headed it, ‘Note by Sir W.T. on F.J.'s contributions to Electrical and Engineering Science’, the thing will read all right and in its place. Mrs Jenkin, when the book comes out, will write to Sir W.T., throwing the responsibility of the deletion on me as editor, and saying that as his (F.J.'s) general intellectual powers & pursuits have been so fully dwelt on in the memoir, it seemed that the reference to them here might be spared. ‘Beinecke Collection, no. 4390. Thomson's obituary on Jenkin is found in ‘Obituary notices of fellows deceased’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (1885), 39, pp. i–iiiGoogle Scholar and was reprinted in Thomson's (Baron Kelvin's) Mathematical and Physical Papers, 6 vols., Cambridge, 1911, vi, 335–8.Google Scholar

42 Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (13)Google Scholar. Part III of this work, ‘The economy of nature: the great storehouse of creation’, contains extensive discussion and explanation of Thomson's work in thermodynamics and its application to the questions of the ages of the sun and earth. See especially chs. 15, 16 and 17, pp. 524–611.

43 Thomson, W. and Tait, P. G., ‘Energy’, Good Words (1862), 3, 601–7, on 606.Google Scholar

44 Thomson, and Tait, , op. cit. (43), 606.Google Scholar

45 The standard work on this subject remains Cannon, W. F. ‘The uniformitarian-catastrophist debate’, Isis (1960), 51, 38–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also useful for understanding the various schools existing in nineteenth-century British geology is Smith, C., ‘Geologists and mathematicians: the rise of physical geology’, in Wranglers and Physicists: Studies on Cambridge Physics in the Nineteenth Century (ed. Harman, P. M.), Manchester, 1985, 49–83.Google Scholar M. J. S. Rud wick points out that ‘the debate [between uniformitarians and catastrophists]… was never sharply polarized into factions or parties’. See his ‘Introduction’ to Lyell, C., Principles of Geology, facsimile of first edition (ed. Rudwick, M. J. S.), Chicago and London, 1990, especially p. liv.Google Scholar

46 Cannon, , op. cit. (45), 38Google Scholar. Ironically, considering its importance to Darwin, Lyell's uniformitarianism was essentially opposed to organic evolution. Indeed Lyell, in the 1830s–40s, denied the possibility of ‘the successive development of animal and vegetable life, and their progressive advancement to a more perfect state’, and by 1850 had modified his views only far enough to say that ‘the popular theory of the successive development of the animal and vegetable world…rests on a very insecure foundation’. Principles of Geology, 2nd edn, 3 vols., London, 1832–1833, ii, 157Google Scholar; 1850 quote from 8th edn, London, 144. The extent to which Darwin adopted Lyell's uniformitarian theory is analysed in Hooykaas, R., The Principle of Uniformity in Geology, Biology and Theology, Leiden, 1963Google Scholar, and in Bartholomew, M., ‘The non-progress of non-progression: two responses to Lyell's doctrine’, BJHS (1976), 9, 166–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Added irony, given William Thomson's opposition to Darwinism, is that Thomson's work, to a large extent, helped ‘lay the ground for a modern, evolutionary view of the earth’ and thus made Darwinian evolution more plausible. See Dott, R. H. Jr, ‘James Hutton and the concept of a dynamic earth’, Toward a History of Geology (ed. Schneer, C. J.), Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1969, 122–41, on 140.Google Scholar

47 The phrase, of course, is from the ‘founder of modern geology’, James Hutton (1726–97), in Theory of the Earth, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1795, i, 200.Google Scholar

48 Thomson, W., ‘On mechanical antecedents of motion, heat, and light’, Report of the British Association 1854, Section Transactions, 59–63, on 61Google Scholar; ‘On the mechanical energies of the solar system’, Philosophical Magazine, Ser. 4 (1854), 8, 409–30, on 429.Google Scholar

49 Thomson, , ‘Mechanical antecedents’, op. cit. (48), 61.Google Scholar

50 Thomson, , ‘On a universal tendency in nature to the dissipation of mechanical energy’, Philosophical Magazine, Ser. 4 (1852), 4, 304–6, on 306.Google Scholar

51 Both letters are undated, but from the contents we can deduce that the first letter was written on Tuesday 10 September 1861. Both are in Cambridge University Library, Kelvin Manuscript Collection: the first is no. J37, Add 7342; the second, no. J36, Add 7342.

52 The London Review, 14 09 1861, 348Google Scholar, and The Athenaeum, 28 09 1861, 414Google Scholar, both record the paper on the earth as having been read to Section C, Geology, on Wednesday 11 September 1861. Given Jenkin's comment, we might infer that since Section A (Mathematical and Physical Science) was full, the paper was referred back to Geology. The Times (Thursday 12 09 1861, 7)Google Scholar, Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (13)Google Scholar, and Burchfield, , Kelvin, op. cit. (13)Google Scholar, mention only the paper on the ‘Age of the sun's heat’ in connection with the 1861 BAAS meeting.

53 See, for example, Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (13), 524.Google Scholar Both Burchfield, , Kelvin, op. cit. (13)Google Scholar, and Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (13), especially 497–648Google Scholar, contain thorough discussions of Thomson's participation in this debate, including the philosophical and theological beliefs that stirred Thomson's technical work.

54 Thomson, W., ‘Physical considerations regarding the possible age of the sun's heat’, Report of the British Association 1861, Section Transactions, 27–8, on 28.Google Scholar

55 Anon, ‘“Physical considerations regarding the possible age of the sun's heat” by Professor W. Thomson’, The Athenaeum, 28 09 1861, 412–13.Google ScholarThomson, W., ‘On the age of the sun's heat’, Macmillan's Magazine (03 1862), 5, 388–93.Google ScholarThomson, and Tait, , op. cit. (43).Google Scholar

56 Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (13), 528.Google Scholar

57 Thomson, W., ‘On the secular cooling of the earth’, read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 28 April 1862, published in the Phil. Mag., Ser. 4 (1863), 25, 1–14.Google Scholar

58 Thomson, W., ‘The “Doctrine of Uniformity” in geology briefly refuted’, read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 18 12 1865Google Scholar, published in the RSE Proceedings (1866), 5, 512–13.Google Scholar

59 The Rede Lecture was not published but an extensive account of it appeared in the Cambridge Chronicle, 26 05 1866Google Scholar, and that account was reprinted in Thompson, S. P., The Life of Lord Kelvin, 2 vols., 2nd edn, New York, 1976, i, 437–42.Google Scholar

60 Hopkins's BAAS Presidential Address presents an example of his views regarding the application of thermodynamics to geology; see ‘Address by William Hopkins, Esq.’, Report of the British Association 1853, pp. xli–lvii.Google Scholar

61 Darwin, to Hooker, J. D., 28 02 1866, DAR 94: 31–2Google Scholar. Actually, only one of this group, Thomson, would have been considered a physicist. William Hopkins, while well known as a mathematician, was principally regarded as a geologist, as was the Rev. Samuel Haughton.

62 For a discussion of Haughton's views, see Burchfield, , Kelvin, op. cit. (13), 100–3.Google Scholar

63 From Houghton, W. E., ‘Periodical literature and the articulate classes’, in The Victorian Periodical Press: Samplings and Soundings (ed. Shattock, J. and Wolff, M.), Toronto and Leicester, 1982, 3–27, on 9.Google Scholar

64 Houghton, , op. cit. (63), 7.Google Scholar

65 Houghton, , op. cit. (63), 4.Google Scholar

66 Houghton, , op. cit. (63), 7Google Scholar, quoting Morley, J. in the Fortnightly Review, n.s. (1867), ii, 292.Google Scholar

67 Lyell's Principles was similarly aimed at a lay audience. See Rudwick, M., op. cit. (45), pp. xi–xii.Google Scholar

68 Jenkin, Anne to Stevenson, Robert Louis, 28 12 [1885?]Google Scholar, Beinecke Collection, no. 4978.

69 Stevenson, , Memoir, PLS, op. cit. (1), i, pp. lxvii–lxviii.Google Scholar In writing the Memoir, Jenkin's widow provided Stevenson with access to ‘two huge portmanteaux of family letters & papers’, Jenkin's notebooks, and other materials (see Jenkin, Anne to Stevenson, , n.d. and 2 09 [1886?]Google Scholar, Beinecke Collection, nos. 4977 and 4979). Moreover, while Anne Jenkin did not actually collaborate with Stevenson in composing the Memoir, as was originally contemplated {see Henry James to Stevenson, 8 December [1885], Beinecke Collection, no. 4926), she did review each chapter as it was completed, writing extensive comments and corrections in the margins, and in places directing Stevenson to consult specific documents. She also reviewed the final proofs before they were printed. Thus it seems unlikely that an error could have been made in something as important to Jenkin, and as easily verified, as the date when he first wrote his Darwin essay.

70 For example, Burchfield: ‘Jenkin had before him the fourth edition of the Origin, from which all reference to the Weald had been removed.’ op. cit. (5), 307. Vorzimmer: ‘Jenkin's review… was based essentially on the fourth edition which had appeared the previous December’, in ‘Blending’ op. cit. (5), 386Google Scholar; and ‘It was the appearance of the fourth Origin… that served as the object of Fleeming Jenkin's review in the NBR the following spring. The delay between the publication of the Origin and the appearance of the review was a sign of the pains taken by the author to gather all his critical evidence’, Controversy op. cit. (5), 148.Google Scholar

71 Jenkin, to Douglas, David, 10 02 1868Google Scholar, letter no. 112, Douglas Scrapbook, NLS.

72 Jenkin, NBR, op. cit. (1), 278.Google Scholar

73 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 278–9.Google Scholar

74 Quote from Balfour, Graham, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, 2 vols., New York, 1901, i, 113.Google Scholar

75 Anon. [F. Jenkin], ‘Fecundity, fertility and sterility’, December 1867, and ‘Trade-unions: how far legitimate’, March 1868. Population was also a concern of Jenkin's father-in-law, Alfred Austin, who had been a Poor Law Inspector.

76 Carnot, S., Reflexions On the Motive Power of Fire: A Critical Edition with the Surviving Scientific Manuscripts (tr. and ed. Fox, Robert), Manchester, 1986, 63.Google Scholar

77 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 281–82.Google Scholar We do not know whether Jenkin, at this point, may also have had in mind the economic notion of diminishing returns. His economics writings are remarkably free of biological and evolutionary metaphors.

78 Mivart, , op. cit. (14); see especially ch. 5.Google Scholar

79 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 282.Google Scholar For all the attention it has received, no one has pointed out an apparent fallacy in this argument: Jenkin's ‘limit in a given direction’ applies to change in one trait only, not to the whole organism, whereas evolution implies changes in a number of traits, each of which, varying in a given direction, could actually have a limit. Using Jenkin's notion of the sphere of variation, it would seem to be specific traits that lie within the spheres, not whole beings, as he imagined.

80 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 288.Google Scholar

81 :‘Studens’, ‘The genesis of species’, Nature, 2 03 1871, 347Google Scholar; The Author of the Article [F. Jenkin], ‘The origin of species’, ibid., 30 November 1871; Davis, A. S., ‘The North British Review and the origin of species’Google Scholar, ibid., 28 December 1871, 161. The corrections in Jenkin's anonymous reply were unfortunately not appended to the essay when it was republished in 1887, leaving readers to puzzle over the calculations, as Darwin perhaps had done.

82 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 289–90.Google Scholar

83 Werner Siemens, making the passage with Newall, includes a fascinating account of the shipwreck in his Inventor and Entrepreneur: Recollections of Werner von Siemens, 2nd English edn, London and Munich, 1966, 138–44.Google Scholar A long article also appeared in the Times: ‘The loss of the Alma’, The Times, 7 07 1859, 5.Google Scholar I thank Bruce Hunt for bringing this incident to my attention.

84 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 289–90.Google Scholar

85 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 290.Google Scholar

86 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 291.Google Scholar Modern readers, finding Jenkin's story racist, might consider it in the context of language common in his era. The Times story on the Alma, for example, in describing how some 200 native crewmen and 200 European passengers and crew got safely off the sinking ship, boasted that ‘the Anglo-Saxon race again proved that pre-eminence in courage and determination which have won for them a moral superiority over the whole world’. The Times, op. cit. (83).Google Scholar

87 Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (13), 580.Google Scholar

88 Thomson, , op. cit. (57), 3.Google Scholar

89 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 297–98.Google Scholar

90 Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (13), 536.Google Scholar

91 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 296–7.Google Scholar

92 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 296.Google Scholar

93 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 300.Google Scholar

94 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 305.Google Scholar Jenkin had also stated the 500 million figure on p. 301, properly crediting it to Thomson. Ruse, , op. cit. (13), 223Google Scholar, errs when he states that Jenkin's essay gives the earth, ‘a span of 20 to 400 million years, with 98 million as the most probable figure (Jenkin, 1867)’. These figures are in Thomson's ‘Secular cooling’ paper of 1863 (see note 57); they do not appear in Jenkin's article.

95 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 300.Google Scholar

96 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 300.Google Scholar

97 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 302.Google Scholar

98 An example of Thomson's arrogance is displayed in his 1862 paper ‘On the rigidity of the earth’ where, after referring to G. B. Airy as a ‘naturalist’ Thomson sneered in a footnote, ‘“Naturalist: A person well versed in Natural Philosophy.” -Johnson's Dictionary. Armed with this authority, chemists, electricians, astronomers, and mathematicians may surely claim to be admitted along with merely descriptive investigators of nature to the honourable and convenient title of Naturalist.’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1863), 153, 573–82, on 577.Google Scholar

99 Martineau, H., History of the Peace, Boston, 1866, iii, 185.Google Scholar

100 The point is made, for example, in Hull, D. L., ‘Certainty and circularity in evolutionary taxonomy’, Evolution (1967), 21, 174–89, on 175.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

101 Wallace, , op. cit. (23), 295.Google Scholar

102 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 313.Google Scholar

103 Ellegard, Alvar, Darwin and the General Reader, Chicago and London, 1990Google Scholar, Hull, , op. cit. (1)Google Scholar, and Moore, , op. cit. (13)Google Scholar, contain helpful discussions of the religious objections to Darwinism.

104 Jenkin, , NBR, op. cit. (1), 293.Google Scholar

105 Hooker, J. D. to Darwin, , 18 06 1867, DAR 102: 167–8.Google Scholar ‘Tate’ refers to Peter Guthrie Tait, who was known to contribute to the North British Review.

106 Wallace, to Darwin, , 25 09 1867Google Scholar, DAR 106/7; Kingsley, Charles to Darwin, , 6 06 1867Google Scholar, DAR 169.

107 Darwin, to Lyell, , 9 06 1867Google Scholar, American Philosophical Society (APS), 329.

108 Darwin, to Kingsley, Charles, 10 06 1867, APS 330.Google Scholar

109 Kingsley, to Darwin, , 6 06 1867Google Scholar, DAR 169.

110 Darwin, to Kingsley, , op. cit. (108).Google Scholar

111 Darwin undoubtedly refers not to ‘mathematicians’ per se, but to practitioners of the school of ‘mathematical geology’, of which William Hopkins had been a founder. See Smith, , op. cit. (45).Google Scholar

112 This quote is from a draft (DAR 96: 9, 32) of Darwin's letter of 10 June. One sheet (of four) of the finished letter (op. cit. (108)) is lost, but the extant draft is complete. I thank the Darwin Project, Cambridge University, for providing a transcript of the draft. Since we do not know that the completed letter was identical to the draft, it is probably more appropriate to take the draft as revealing Darwin's immediate reaction to Jenkin's essay.

113 Darwin, , op. cit. (112).Google Scholar

114 Darwin, , Draft letter, op. cit. (112).Google Scholar

115 Darwin to Lyell, APS 346; see also Carroll, T. (ed.), An Annotated Calendar of the Letters of Charles Darwin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society, Wilmington, Del., 1976, 129.Google Scholar

116 By its return address, scholars in the Darwin Project know that the letter was written during one of three time periods: September 1867, 1–10 March 1868, or September 1868. The March date has been privileged on the assumption that the letter was provoked by Thomson's paper, read on the evening of 27 February 1868. This assumption seems unlikely, in that it requires that Darwin, in London, acquire an actual copy of Thomson's paper from Glasgow, digest the contents of that lengthy, technical paper, confess his worry to Lyell, and then that Lyell develop and write a ‘long letter’ addressing Thomson's arguments, all in the few days allowed by the March dates. Moreover, one page of Lyell's letter was not mailed with the rest, making it incomprehensible to Darwin until he received the missing sheet. The time required for all this would seem to render improbable that Darwin's letter, if written in March, was caused by Thomson's address. September 1868 is unlikely for other reasons not germane to this paper.

117 See Hooker, to Darwin, , 22 06, 12, 25 and 29 07 and 6 08 1868Google Scholar; Darwin to Hooker, 6 June, 14, 17 and 28 July and 17 August. The 17 August letter notes Hooker's visit to Down. Hooker's letters are in DAR 102, Darwin's in DAR 94.

118 Hooker, J. D., ‘Address of Joseph D. Hooker, President’, Report of the 28th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Norwich, August 1868, London, 1869, pp. lxxi–lxxii.Google Scholar

119 See, for example, Darwin, Charles to Darwin, George, 9 12 1868Google Scholar, DAR 210.1.1; Darwin, George to Darwin, Charles, 6 02 1869 and 14 02 1869Google Scholar, DAR 210.2, which discuss Darwin's concerns regarding the age of the earth.

120 Croll, to Darwin, , 4 02 1869, DAR 161.Google Scholar

121 Darwin, to Croll, , 31 01 1869Google Scholar, APS 361. Reprinted in Irons, J. C.Autobiographical Sketch of James Croll, with Memoir of his Life and Work, London, 1896, 216.Google ScholarCroll, to Darwin, , 4 02 1869Google Scholar, DAR 161.

122 Croll, to Darwin, , 4 02 1869, DAR 161.Google Scholar

123 Croll to Darwin, 4 February, DAR 161.

124 See Burchfield, , op. cit. (5)Google Scholar, for an exposition of Darwin's response.

125 Darwin, , op. cit. (11), 178–9.Google Scholar

126 Darwin, to Wallace, , 5 02 1869Google Scholar, reprinted in Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences (ed. Marchant, James), New York and London reprint edn, 1975, 204.Google Scholar Darwin was replying to a letter from Wallace in which Wallace had announced, ‘I have written a paper on Geological Time, which will appear in Nature, and I think I have hit upon a solution of your greatest difficulties in that matter’. Wallace, to Darwin, , 4 12 1869Google Scholar, ibid., 204.

127 Darwin, , op. cit. (11), 513.Google Scholar Note Darwin's expression ‘great mutations of life’ when he appears to mean ‘individual differences’ or its alternative, ‘insensible variations’, as an example of how his wording could confuse readers.

128 Darwin, , op. cit. (11), 513.Google Scholar

129 Jenkin, F., ‘Submarine telegraphy’ NBR (12 1866)Google Scholar; ‘The origin of species’ (June 1867); ‘Fecundity, fertility, and sterility’ (December 1867); ‘Trade-unions: how far legitimate’ and ‘The atomic theory of Lucretius’ (both in March 1868).