Drawin S Metaphor - Robert M. Young

DARWIN'S METAPHOR: DOES NATURE SELECT?
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I
It is not too great an exaggeration to claim that On the Origin
of Species was, along with Das Kapital, one of the two most signifi-
cant works in the intellectual history of the nineteenth century. As
George Henry Lewes wrote in 1868, 'No work of our time has been
so general in its influence'.1 However, the very generality of the
influence of Darwin's work provides the chief problem for the
intellectual historian. Most books and articles on the subject assert
the influence but remain very imprecise about its nature. 2 It is very
difficult indeed to assess what it was about the Darwinian theory
which was so influential and how its influence was felt. This prob-
lem in Victorian intellectual history intersects with a related one in
the history of science. There has been a tendency on the part of
historians of science to isolate Darwin in two related ways. The first
is to single him out from the mainstream of nineteenth-century
naturalism in Britain and allow 'Darwinism' to stand duty for the
•An abbreviated version of this paper was delivered to the Annual Conference
of the British Society for the History of Science at Leicester in July, 1970.
1 G. H. Lewes, "Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," Fortnightly Rev., 4 (1868), 503.
2 See, for example, G. H. Lewes, The History of Philosophy from Thales to
Comte (3d ed. [2 vols.], London: Longmans, Green, 1867 and 1871), esp. "Pro-
legomena," "Sixth Epoch"—"Eighth Epoch," and "Eleventh Epoch"; articles
on "Evolution in Biology" and "Evolution in Philosophy," in Encyclopedia
Britannica (9th ed.; Edinburgh: Black, 1879), Vol. 8, pp. 744-73; G. H. Mead,
Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1936); J. T. Merz, A History of European Thought in the
Nineteenth Century (4 vols.; Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1896-1912), Vol. 2, Chaps. 8-
11; D. C. Somervell, English Thought in the Nineteenth Century (London:
Methuen, 1929), pp. 123-41; E. M. Everett, The Party of Humanity (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1939), Chap. 4; E. Cassirer, The Problem of
Knowledge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), Chap. 9; J. Passmore, A
Hundred Years of Philosophy (London: Duckworth, 1957), Chap. 2; R. Metz, A
Hundred Years of British Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1938), Chap. S;
W. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1957); H. Grisewood, et al., Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians
DARWIN'S M E T A P H O R : DOES N A T U R E S E L E C T ? 443
wider movement of which it was in fact but a part. 3 T h e second is

the tendency to single out his evolutionary theory and to demarcate
it sharply from those of his predecessors and contemporaries. Ac-
cording to this interpretation Darwin stood alone as a real, empir-
ical scientist and provided the first genuinely scientific hypothesis
for the process by which evolution might have occurred. 4 T h e
theories of the other main evolutionists—Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck,
Chambers, Spencer, and Wallace—were more or less besmirched by
ideological, anthropomorphic, or other 'non-scientific' factors or by
the uses to which they were put by their authors. Charles Darwin is
thus made to stand out as a figure of comparatively unalloyed
scientific status and is treated in relative isolation from the social
and intellectual context in which he worked and into which his
theory was received.
Of course Darwin's theory was based on a more plausible scien-
tific hypothesis than those of the other evolutionists, and he was
much less interested in philosophical, theological, and social issues:
he was primarily a naturalist. 5 But when one tries to relate the
accounts of historians of science to the problem of Darwin's place in
intellectual history one finds a gap between the generality of his
influence and the particularity of his theory. It is hoped that a very
(1949, reprinted New York: Dutton, 1966), pp. 33-45, 71-77, 86-93, 173-243; A.
Briggs, The Age of Improvement, 1783-1867 (London: Longmans, 1959), pp. 394-
402, 479-88. Many historical journals produced Darwin Centenary numbers in
1959, e.g., Victorian Studies, Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, Notes ir Records of the Royal
Society, which contain useful reviews of the literature. See also P. Appleman, et al.
(eds.), 1859: Entering an Age of Crisis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1959), pp. 13-95.
3 See my "The Impact of Darwin on Conventional Thought," in A. Symondson
(ed.), The Victorian Crisis of Faith (London: SPCK, 1970), pp. 13-35.
4 J. S. Wilkie, "Button, Lamarck and Darwin: The Originality of Darwin's
Theory of Evolution," in P. R. Bell (ed.), Darwin's Biological Work (Cambridge,
1959), pp. 262-307; L. Eiseley, Darwin's Century (1958, reprinted N.Y.: Doubleday
Anchor, 1961); W. Irvine, Apes, Angels and Victorians (1955, reprinted Cleveland:
Meridian, 1959); G. de Beer, Charles Darwin (London: Nelson, 1963); M. T.
Ghiselin, The Triumph of the Darwinian Method (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1969). A rather better perspective is provided by J. C. Greene,
The Death of Adam (1959, reprinted N.Y.: Mentor, 1961).
5 See my " 'Non-Scientific' Factors in the Darwinian Debate," Acts of the XIIth
International Congress of the History of Science, 1968 (Paris, in press).
444 ROBERT M. YOUNG
close look at the putatively most scientific aspect of Darwin's theory

will help to shed light on his general influence. T h e paper will
draw almost exclusively on documents which are familiar to histo-
rians of science. I shall concentrate on a very close analysis of the
texts in an attempt to show that the fine texture of the scientific
debate directly involves theological and philosophical issues. These
were constitutive, not contextual, and historians of the philosoph-
ical, theological, and general intellectual history of the period may
find that their interests should lead them to study these documents.
In approaching the problem in this way I hope to show that the
scientific heart of the theory raised fundamental philosophical and
theological issues and that an account of the ways in which the
theory was misunderstood and the process by which Darwin partial-
ly abandoned it can help us to reach a clearer appreciation of its
role in the wider debate. T h e body of the paper consists of an
account of the crucial role which the analogy between 'artificial'
and 'natural' selection played in the development, exposition, and
reception of Darwin's theory. I shall then argue that this analogy
provides an opportunity to show the theological, philosophical, and
scientific difficulties which he encountered in his own writings and
in his correspondence. I hope that this account will provide some
new materials for historians of philosophy and intellectual his-
torians to consider in their examination of three related issues in
the ninteenth-century debate: (1) man's place in nature; (2) the
relationships between man, God, and nature; and (3) the philoso-
phies of science and of nature. 6
II
It is a commonplace that the Darwin-Wallace theory of evolu-
tion by means of natural selection had the effect of changing the
tenor of the evolutionary debate from one of speculation and
heated controversy to an atmosphere in which the controversialists
were at last dealing with a scientific hypothesis which had to be
0 This paper is part of a general study of the debate on man's place in nature in
nineteenth-century Britain in which I am engaged and which follows on from my
monograph on Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century (London:
Oxford University Press, 1970). These form part of a wider historical and
philosophical investigation of the problem of applying the categories of science to
the study of man.
DARWIN'S M E T A P H O R : DOES N A T U R E SELECT? 445
taken seriously.7 Others had provided vague or implausible theories

of how the process of evolution might occur, but Darwin and Wal-
lace provided a genuine mechanism. Darwin put the issue very
clearly in 1860 in a letter to Professor Baden Powell. He said,
No educated person, not even the most ignorant, could suppose that
I meant to arrogate to myself the origination of the doctrine that
species had not been independently created. The only novelty in
my work is the attempt to explain how species became modified,
& to a certain extent how the theory of descent explains certain
large classes of facts; & in these respects I received no assistance
from my predecessors.8
Shortly thereafter and for a period of almost seventy years the
fortunes of the mechanism of natural selection waned, but it
was established in the 1930s as the basis of modern neo-Darwinian
theory. Since 1900 the basis of the mechanism has been progressively
spelled out by the findings of geneticists and molecular biologists.
It is also a commonplace that the debate surrounding the Dar-
winian theory was itself a watershed for related controversies in
geology, psychology, physiology, social theory, politics, anthropol-
ogy, sociology, historiography, biblical exegesis, theology, and scien-
tific methodology. 9 This provides the basis for the claims that
Darwin's work ranks with that of Vesalius and Harvey in the
biomedical and human sciences and that its significance is of a
comparable order to the metaphysical, methodological, and scien-
tific revolution which is associated with the tradition from Tycho
and Copernicus and includes Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and New-
ton. Various aspects of this wider debate have been studied in
detail, but most of those who have attempted to assess the impact of
Darwin on this or that discipline have given suggestive but rather
i Lewes, op. cit. (note 1), Vol. 8, pp. 356, 364; Vol. 4, pp. 475, 502. See also
Huxley's essay "On the Reception of the 'Origin of Species'," in F. Darwin (ed.),
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (3 vols.; London: Murray, 1887), pp. 179-
204, esp. pp. 196-97. (Hereinafter cited as LLD.)
8 G. de Beer (ed.), "Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," Notes &
Records of the Royal Society, 14 (1959), 52-53.
8 See above (note 3) and O. Chadwick, The Victorian Church (2 vols.; London:
Black, 1966,1970) . Vol. 1, pp. 558-72 and Vol. 2, pp. 1-111.
446 ROBERT M. YOUNG
imprecise accounts.10 If one sacrifices scope in the hope of gaining

precision, it may turn out that the study of the vicissitudes of a
phrase—natural selection—can lead from the most internalist, scien-
tific aspect of the theory to general philosophical, theological, and
social issues.
The argument falls into several distinct sections. First, an at-
tempt will be made to reconstruct the problem which Darwin faced
and the pitfalls which he set out to avoid. Next, the path by which
he solved it will be shown, along with the strategy which this
yielded for his attempts to convince others that he had done so.
10 There is a vast literature purporting to assess Darwin's influence in various

fields. I list here a selection of books and articles which I have found useful but
which still illustrate the point. R. Mackintosh, From Comte to Benjamin Kidd:
The Appeal to Biology or Evolution for Human Guidance (London: Macmillan,
1899); J. R. Angell, "The Influence of Darwin on Psychology," Psychol. Rev., 16
(1909), 152-69; J. Dewey, "The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy," (1909),
reprinted in a volume of essays bearing the same title (New York: Holt, 1910), pp.
1-19; J. M. Baldwin, "The Influence of Darwin on Theory of Knowledge and
Philosophy," Psychol. Rev., 16 (1909), 207-18; A. C. Seward (ed.), Darwin and
Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), a collection of
essays by eminent scientists, philosophers, social scientists, psychologists, historians,
etc.; Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge (London: Blackie, 1925),
similar scope to Seward volume; D. T. Howard, "The Influence of Evolutionary
Doctrine on Psychology," Psychol. Rev., 34 (1927), 305-12; C. E. Raven, Science,
Religion, and the Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943), Chaps.
3-4; L. J. Henkin, Darwinism in the English Novel, 1860-1910 (1940, reprinted
New York: Russell & Russell, 1963); M. H. Fisch, "Evolution in American
Philosophy," Philos. Rev., 56 (1947), 357-73; P. P. Wiener, Evolution and the
Founders of Pragmatism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949); R.
Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, revised ed. (Boston: Beacon,
1955); H. G. Wood, Belief and Unbelief since 1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1955), Chap. 3; A. Ellegard, "The Darwinian Theory and
Nineteenth-Century Philosophies of Science," / . Hist. Ideas, 18 (1957), 362-93; W.
Irvine, "Influence of Darwin on Literature," Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, 103 (1959),
616-28; J. Passmore, "Darwin's Impact on British Metaphysics," Vict. Stud., 3
(1959), 41-54; J. H. Randall, Jr., "The Changing Impact of Darwin on Philoso-
phy," / . Hist. Ideas, 22 (1961), 435-62; J. Dillenberger, Protestant Thought and
Natural Science (London: Collins, 1961), Chap. 8; J. W. Burrow, Evolution and
Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966); I. Goldman, "Evolution
and Anthropology," Vict. Stud., 3 (1959-1960), 55-75; J. H. Buckley, The
Triumph of Time (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967). See also
above (note 9) and my "Animal Soul," in P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1967), Vol. 1, pp. 122-27.
Thirdly, it will be shown that his precise solution turned out to be

very fragile: this involves an account of the way in which he
employed the concept of natural selection and the difficulties into
which this got him at the hands of friends, foes, and would-be
interpreters, until a stage was reached where Darwin's theory be-
came hybridized and partially transmuted into a mongrel breed.
Finally, it will be suggested that On the Origin of Species, like the
works of Lyell, Chambers, Powell, and Spencer before it, was really
more effective in eliciting faith in the philosophical principle of the
uniformity of nature than in providing an acceptable mechanism
for evolutionary change.
Ill
T h e main outline of the development of Darwin's theory is so
familiar that it may help to be reminded of the conceptual issues
which he faced. On the voyage of the Beagle he had been struck by
three classes of phenomena: the geographical distribution of living
species along the South American continent, the geological relations
of present to past species there, and the curious fact that different
but very closely allied species co-existed on islands in the Galapagos
group—islands which were identical in climate but slightly sepa-
rated in space from one another and from the mainland. 1 1 It is
worth noticing that the length of Darwin's voyage provided the
kind of perspective in space and time which was conducive to
asking large questions.
There is some evidence that Darwin had doubts about the
stability of species as early as 1832, but this is an unremarkable
claim, since he had knowledge of the theories of his grandfather and
of Lamarck and since he had carried the first volume of Charles
Lyell's Principles of Geology on board the Beagle, and volume two
(containing a careful exposition and analysis of Lamarck's theory)
reached him in Montevideo. 12 It is much more significant that
11S. Smith, "The Origin of 'The Origin' as Discerned from Charles Darwin's
Notebooks and his Annotations in the Books He Read Between 1837 and 1842,"
Advancement of Science, 64 (1960), 391-401, esp. 393. See also below—letter to
Wallace (p. 454) —and C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: Murray,
1859; facsimile ed., New York: Atheneum, 1967), p. 1. (Hereinafter the first edition
of this work will be cited as Origin.)
12LLD, Vol. 2, Chap. 1, etc. See also editor's Foreword and Introduction by
448 ROBERT M. YOUNG
when he returned after five years from his 37,000 mile voyage,
Darwin began a series of notebooks in which he patiently accumu-
lated all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on the
question of the origin of species, a problem which Sir John Herschel
had dubbed the 'mystery of mysteries'. 18 These notebooks provide
such a rich and detailed record of his reflections that Professor
Howard Gruber is attempting to reconstruct the process of discovery
which Darwin underwent. Gruber points out that many times be-
fore the crucial experience of reading Malthus, Darwin refers to
'the theory' and 'my theory', but the meaning of these phrases is
often obscure and changes from day to day. 1 4
Darwin's strategy for unravelling the problem centered on ef-
forts to demonstrate that the species barrier was not, as had been
traditionally thought, absolute. He did this by means of a close
study of domesticated productions in an attempt to show that there
was no practical limit to the changes which breeders could bring
about over successive generations, that, in short, species were only
well-marked varieties. 15 This enquiry was ostensibly secondary to
his main task—that of explaining how new species could come about
by natural means. It turned out, however, that these studies pro-
Francis Darwin in G. De Beer (ed.), C. Darwin and A. R. Wallace, Evolution by

Natural Selection (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), esp. p. 23. This
volume contains reprintings of Darwin's "Sketch of 1842," his "Essay of 1844," and
the joint Darwin-Wallace paper of 1858. (Hereinafter cited as Darwin & Wallace.)
is G. de Beer, et al. (eds.), Darwin's Journal and Darwin's Notebooks on
Transmutation of Species, Parts I-VI, Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural
History), Historical Series, 2 No's. 1-6 (1959-1961) and 3, No. 5 (1967); W. F.
Cannon, "The Impact of Uniformitarianism, two Letters from John Herschel to
Charles Lyell, 1836-1837," Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, 105 (1961), 301-14, esp. p. 305;
Origin, p. 1.
14 Professor Gruber has been studying Darwin's notebooks and the other
materials in the Darwin Papers in Cambridge for some years, and his intensive
study of Darwin's intellectual development promises to be very interesting. He has
pointed out that it was an error on my part to claim that Darwin first mentioned
'my theory' after reading Malthus. See my "Malthus and the Evolutionists: The
Common Context of Biological and Social Theory," Past and Present, 43 (1969),
129.
IB Origin, p. 52. See also P. J. Vorzimmer, "Darwin's Questions about the
Breeding of Animals (1839)." / . Hist. Biol., 2 (1969), 269-81.
vided the main path to the discovery of the theory and to its most
effective exposition.
There were very powerful constraints on the kinds of theories
for explaining the origin of species which the scientific community
would be likely to entertain at all seriously. Darwin's intellectual
mentor, Charles Lyell, had provided both the greatest helps and the
greatest hindrances to any attempt to provide a satisfactory theory.
He had insisted that only causes now in operation—and in their
present intensities—could be used to explain the history of the earth
and the history of life. 16 When these stringent criteria were applied
to the question of the mutability of species, Lyell's judicious exposi-
tion and analysis of the evidence led to the conclusion that there
was no evidence that present causes were producing modifications
which, given sufficient time, could accumulate directionally so as to
produce new species. Rather, Lyell supported Cuvier's orthodox
conclusion that there was a definite limit to variations around a
mean. It can be argued that Lyell's choice of the relevant unit of
time and his criterion of significant change (a new sense or a new
organ) were niggardly in the light of his own geological time scale,
but it should be remembered that reference to an extended present
back to mummified Egyptian animals conformed to his main
methodological criterion of considering only causes now in opera-
tion as the basis for analogies for making inferences about the
past, IT
But this was not the main problem. Rather, it was that there
seemed no way of providing unlimited directionality to cumulative
18 Lyell gave a concise statement of his aims in a letter to Roderick Murchison

in 1829; see Mrs. Lyell (ed.) , Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart.
(2 vols.; London: Murray, 1881), Vol. 1, pp. 234-35. See also R. Hooykaas, The
Principle of Uniformity in Geology, Biology and Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1963—a
retitled impression of a work published in 1957 under the title Natural Law and
Divine Miracle); M. J. S. Rudwick, "The Strategy of Lyell's Principles of Geol-
ogy," Isis 61 (1970), 5-33 and "Lyell on Etna and the Antiquity of the Earth," in
C. J. Schneer (ed.), Toward a History of Geology (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press,
1969), pp. 288-304.
17 C. Lyell, Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the Former
Changes of the Earth's Surface by Reference to Causes Now in Operation (3 vols.;
London: Murray, 1830-1833) [citations from first edition of Vols. 1 and 3 but from
second edition of Vol. 2], Vol. 1, Chap. 9 and Vol. 2, Chaps. 1-5, 8, esp. pp. 27-32,
49, 62-63.
450 ROBERT M. YOUNG
change within a naturalist scientific metaphysic. By judicious min-

gling of metaphysical, methodological, and scientific versions of the
principle of the uniformity of nature, Lyell had made a powerful
case against divine, catastrophic, interventions in the course of the
history of the earth. He had also provided a naturalistic account of
the struggle for existence (a phrase which he employed) and the
resulting extinction of species. But when Lyell turned to the ques-
tion of the origin of new species, the Principles of Geology was
nearly silent, and Lyell's own remarks on the subject in volume two
and in his correspondence with Herschel are certainly confusing
and probably confused.18 Indeed, he remained unable to see his
way clearly to a theory of evolution for nearly forty years, and when
he did accept Darwin's theory in 1868, it was with crucial reserva-
tions.19
Darwin wrote in 1844,
I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brain, and
that I never acknowledge this sufficiently; nor do I know how I can
without saying so in so many words—for I have always thought that
the great merit of the Principles was that it altered the whole tone
of one's mind, and therefore that, when seeing a thing never seen
by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes—it would have
been in some respects better if I had done this less... . 20
At one level, then—that of the principle of explanation by small

changes in terms of the uniformity of nature—Lyell was the main
source of Darwin's assumptions. But given that, he provided noth-
ing but difficulties for Darwin. Lyell had made it clear that there
were a number of proposed solutions to the problem of the origin of
species which were inadequate. The Lamarckian idea of an inher-
18 Vol. 2, p. 58 re 'struggle for existence'; Vol. 2, Chap. 8 and pp. 24, 131 sqq. re
new species. See also C. Lyell, Life, Letters and Journals, op. cit. (note 16), Vol. 1,
pp. 467-68. Much light will be shed on the vexed question of Lyell's views on
species by L. G. Wilson's newly-published edition of Sir Charles Lyell's Scientific
Journals on the Species Question (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970),
which I have not yet read.
19 See the Tenth Edition of Lyell's Principles of Geology (2 vols.; London:
Murray, 1867, 1868); cf. [A. R. Wallace], "Sir Charles Lyell on Geological
Climates and the Origin of Species," Quarterly Rev., 126 (1869), 359-94.
20 F. Darwin (ed.), More Letters of Charles Darwin (2 vols.; London: Murray,
1903), Vol. 2, p. 117. (Hereinafter cited as MLD.)
DARWIN'S METAPHOR: DOES NATURE SELECT? 451
ent progressive tendency in living nature was unacceptable. T h e

secondary Lamarckian factor of modifications produced through
striving, which were adapted to ends and were inherited, was con-
sidered to be volitional or quasi-volitional and was also unaccepta-
ble. These two aspects of Lamarck's theory seemed to partake of
Lyell's real bite noire. Preordained or anthropomorphic mechanism,
he feared, placed one on a slippery slope leading to Divine inter-
vention. Although Lyell seems at times to argue for piecemeal
'creation' of new species to replace extinct ones, he was certainly
opposed to what he took to be the reigning theory of wholesale
geological catastrophes and biological extinctions followed by a new
geological era and a new complement of species, Divinely created. 21
Consequently, Darwin was faced with the seemingly impossible
problem of providing directionality without progression. It has
been argued, notably by Professor Hooykaas, that the only source
from which Darwin could draw directionality was from Lyell's
bete noire, catastrophist geology. 22 I think that it can be shown
that Darwin saw the problem in sufficiently Lyellian terms for
this path not to be open to him. Even the least interventionist
versions of catastrophism seemed to Lyell and Darwin to undermine
the very foundations of science. Although Lyell's theory of geolog-
ical equilibrium was exceedingly restrictive and often led him to
take a ridiculously defensive stance and although there are'verbal
similarities between moderate believers in geological directionality
and Darwin's views, 23 my reading of the debate in the crucial
21 Lyell, Principles of Geology, op. cit. (note 17), Vol. 1, p. 153; Vol. 2, Chap. 1
re Lamarck; Vol. 1, Chaps. 1-5 re Catastrophism.
22 R. Hooykaas, The Principle of Uniformity, op. cit. (note 16); see also the
series of articles in which he develops his case: "The Principle of Uniformity in
Geology, Biology, and Theology," / . Trans. Victoria Institute, 88 (1956), 101-16;
"The Parallel between the History of the Earth and the History of the Animal
World," Arch. Internat. Hist. Sci., 10 (1957), 3-18; "Nature and History,"
-> Organon, No. 2 (1965), 5-16; "Geological Uniformitarianism and Evolution,"
Arch. Internat. Hist. Sci., 19 (1966), 3-19. Cf. W. F. Cannon, "The Uniformitarian-
Catastrophist Debate," Isis, 51 (1960), 38-55.
28 M. J. S. Rudwick, "A Critique of Uniformitarian Geology: a Letter from W.
D. Conybeare to Charles Lyell, 1841," Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, 111 (1967), 272-
87; "Uniformity and Progression: Reflections on the Structure of Geological Theory
in the Age of Lyell," in Perspectives in the History of Science and Technology
*• (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, in press).
452 ROBERT M. YOUNG
period between 1830 and 1842 (when Darwin first wrote out his
theory) has convinced me that any available analogy between geo-
logical and biological directionality was metaphysically unaccept-
able to Darwin. In any case, my argument does not depend on this
reading of the evidence. T h e plain fact is that Darwin simply did
not see the problem in these terms. He took a different path—one
which provided him with what appeared to be a completely nat-
uralistic mechanism. My point is that he was so committed to Lyell's
general philosophy of nature that he was unsympathetic to any
alternative basis for geology as the source for an analogy which
would solve his biological problem.
Darwin's approach lay, almost wholly within biology. For him
the crucial analogy lay between the unlimited changes which could
be produced by breeders of domesticated varieties on the one hand
and a similar process occurring in nature on the other. T h e argu-
ment which enabled Darwin to make this analogy was drawn from
T . R. Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population. Since I have
elsewhere considered the role of Malthus' theory in Darwin's think-
ing, I will only sketch the main conclusions. 24 Evidence from Dar-
win's notebooks, his early drafts of the theory, his correspondence,
his published works, and his own retrospective accounts make a
strong case for the conclusion that several crucial warrants were
provided by Darwin's reading of Malthus' Essay for pleasure in late
1838. Malthus' law of population in human society legitimized the
idea of a law of struggle throughout living nature, impressed Dar-
win with the intensity of the struggle, and provided a convenient
mechanism for a natural analogue to the changes which he was
studying in the selection of domesticated varieties. Population pres-
sure in the face of scarce resources allowed Darwin to slide from the
directional intentions of breeders to unlimited directional change
in nature, leading eventually to new species. T h e reading of
Malthus produced a real flash of insight for Darwin (just as recall-
ing Malthus' theory was later to do for Wallace), and after the
excited passages in the notebooks for late September and early
24 Young, "Malthus and the Evolutionists," op. cit. (note 14), esp. pp. 125-30; cf.
P. Vorzimmer, "Darwin and Malthus," / . Hist. Ideas, 80 (1969), 527-42.
October 1838, the phrases 'the theory' and 'my theory' have an
increasingly precise meaning.25
In 1844, six years after conceiving the mechanism of natural
selection and two years after writing out a full sketch of his theory,
Darwin conveyed his sense of the significance of his discovery to his
friend J. D. Hooker.
I have read heaps of agricultural and horticultural books, and
have never ceased collecting facts. At least gleams of light have
come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I
started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder)
immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a "ten-
dency to progression," "adaptations from the slow willing of ani-
mals," &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different
from his; though die means of change are wholly so. I think I have
found (here's presumption!) die simple way by which species be-
come exquisitely adapted to various ends. You will now groan, and
think to yourself, "on what a man have I been wasting my time and
writing to." I should, five years ago, have thought s o . . . . 2 8
In another letter to Hooker, written in the same year, Darwin

reviews the mechanisms which had been proposed by others and
concludes, 'I believe all these absurd views arise from no one hav-
28 See above (note 14) S. Adler writes from the Peace Hotel, Peking to point
out that my interpretation of Malthus' influence on Darwin is difficult to reconcile
with pp. 95-100 of de Beer's Charles Darwin, op. cit. (note 4). De Beer objects to
the view that Darwin's theory was influenced by 'the social and economic
conditions of Victorian England' (p. 100). De Beer did not seem to have
examined the pages which Darwin excised from his notebooks—the more impor-
tant passages which he intended to use in his volume on Natural Selection—when
he wrote his Charles Darwin. In his recent introduction to Robert Chambers'
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844, reprinted Leicester: Leicester
University Press, 1969), de Beer grants that Malthus' theory supplied Darwin with
'exactly what he needed to put the coping stone on his principle of natural
selection.' (Introduction, p. 17). I would continue to argue that Darwin's thinking
drew on a wide context of Victorian ideas. One of the purposes of my writing the
study of Malthus was to help free the history of science from the internalist
approach exemplified by de Beer's work. His introduction to Vestiges reveals the
same bias. The present article and a forthcoming one on "Chambers' Vestiges of
Creation as an experimentum crucis for the Internalist History of Science,"
(Annals of Science, in press) attempt to balance a relatively isolationist view
which prevails in much writing in the history of science.
26 LLD, Vol. 2, p. 23.
454 ROBERT M. YOUNG
ing, as far as I know, approached the subject on the side of varia-

tion under domestication, and having studied all that is known
about domestication'. 27 Fourteen years later, he summarized the
crucial steps in his thought in a letter he wrote to Wallace, after
Wallace had independently discovered the same mechanism:
You are right, that I came to the conclusion that selection was the
principle of change from the study of domesticated productions; and
then, reading Malthus, I saw at once how to apply this principle.
Geographical distribution and geological relations of extinct to re-
cent inhabitants of South America first led me to die subject:
especially the case of the Galapagos Islands.28
In the frantic week in 1858, after receiving the paper in which
Wallace's terms stood as the chapter headings in Darwin's nearly-
completed (but still secret) great work entitled Natural Selection,
Darwin wrote to Lyell that he and Wallace differed 'only, [in] that
I was led to my views from what artificial selection has done for
domestic animals'. 29
T h e path by which Darwin arrived at the mechanism of natural
selection was also the one which he chose to follow in setting out his
argument. The first version was a pencil sketch written in 1842. T h e
section indicating the course of the argument begins with a heading
'On variation under domestication, and on the principles of selec-
tion'. This is followed by one 'On variation in a state of nature and
on the natural means of selection'.so Having established that there
are countless small variations which can be selected by breeders for
man's purposes and which then breed true, he continues, 'Let us see
how far [the] above principles of variation apply to wild
27 LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 29-30.

28MLD,Vol. 1, pp. 118-19.
29 LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 116-18. In the Introduction to the Origin, Darwin wrote, 'At
the commencement of my observations it seemed to me probable that a careful
study of domesticated animals and of cultivated plants would offer the best chance
of making out this obscure problem. Nor have I been disappointed; in this and in
all other perplexing cases I have invariably found that our knowledge, imperfect
though it be, of variation under domestication, afforded the best and safest clue. I
may venture to express my conviction of the high value of such studies, although
they have been very commonly neglected by naturalists.' (p. 4).
80 Darwin & Wallace, p. v.
DARWIN S METAPHOR." DOES NATURE SELECT? 455
animals'. 3 1 Having satisfied himself that they do, he makes the

analogy which will preoccupy us for the rest of this paper. It should
be seen in two ways. The first and obvious one is that he is moving
from the artificial selection of breeders to a natural mechanism.
However, I want to draw attention to another feature of the
analogy. In moving from artificial to natural, Darwin retains the
anthropomorphic conception of selection, with all its voluntarist
overtones. Thus the analogy is not merely a reflection of the process
of discovery. T h e terms in which it is expressed had important
consequences for the nature and the reception of the theory.
In the sketch of 1842, Darwin writes as follows:
But if every part of a plant or animal was to vary . . ., and if a be-
ing infinitely more sagacious than man (not an omniscient creator)
during thousands and thousands of years were to select all the
variations which tended towards certain ends ([or were to pro-
duce causes which tended to the same end]), for instance, if he
foresaw a canine animal would be better off, owing to die country
producing more hares, if he were longer legged and keener sight
—greyhound produced. . . . Who, seeing how plants vary in garden,
what blind foolish man has done in a few years, will deny an all-
seeing being in thousands of years could effect (if the Creator
chose to do so), either by his own direct foresight or by intermedi-
ate means—which will represent die creator of this universe.82
Darwin then produces the concept of natural selection and supports
it with Malthusian arguments—'the pressure is always ready'—and
refers to natural selection as 'rigid and scrutinizing'. 3 3 i n the sum-
mary of this section, he says, 'I conclude it is impossible to say we
know the limit of variation. And therefore with the [adapting]
selecting power of nature, infinitely wise compared to those of man,
I conclude that it is impossible to say we know the limit of races,
which would be true to their kind. . . .'34 In the conclusion of the
sketch, Darwin couples his anthropomorphic language with his
more fundamental commitment to the uniformity of nature (the
81 Darwin & Wallace, p. 43.

82 Darwin & Wallace, p p . 45-46.
88 Darwin fc Wallace, p . 48.
84 Darwin & Wallace, p . 58.
r
456 ROBERT M. YOUNG
curious juxtaposition which provides the subject of much of what

follows in this article):
We must look at every complicated mechanism and instinct, as the
summary of a long history of useful contrivances, much like a work
of art. . . . It accords with what we know of the law impressed on
matter by the Creator, that the creation and extinction of forms,
like the birth and death of individuals should be the effect of secon-
dary [laws] means. It is derogatory that the Creator of countless
systems of worlds should have created each of the myriads of creep-
ing parasites and [slimy] worms which have swarmed each day of
life on land and water on [this] one globe.88
I n the expanded Essay of 1844, the relevant chapter is written in
the same terms and entitled 'On the Variation of Organic Beings in
a Wild State; On the Natural Means of Selection; and On the
Comparison of Domestic Races and True Species'. 36
IV
1844 was also the year in which Robert Chambers' Vestiges of
the Natural History of Creation appeared. This was a work which
set aside all the scientists' reservations and embraced the histories of
the earth, life, and man within the uniform course of natural laws.
Chambers presented a great deal of geological and biological evi-
dence in a way which allowed his critics to dismiss the argument
because of his hopeless scientific blunders. The fate of Chambers'
attempts to support his theory by appealing to the fossil record
convinced Darwin not to present his argument that way round, 8 7
and led him to tuck away the geological issues in Part II of On the
Origin of Species, following the less deliberate procedure of his
early drafts.
Chambers also suffered from a very explicit version of confusion
about the causes of transmutation. His real concern was with the
principle of the uniformity of nature, and the different and loosely-
conceived 'mechanisms' which he mentions in the course of the
SB Darwin & Wallace, p. 86.

se Darwin & Wallace, p. 111.
87LLD, Vol. 1, p. SS3. See also Darwin's complimentary remarks about Vestiges
in the "Historical Sketch" which he added to later editions of the Origin (e.g., 6th
ed.; London: Murray, 1872, pp. xvi-xvii).
book are neither mutually consistent nor developed in detail. Just as

Lyell had done with more precision with respect to the history of
the earth in the Principles of Geology, Chambers seemed to think
that some sort of naturalistic theory had to follow from the meta-
physical principle of the uniformity of nature:
. . . it being admitted that the system of the Universe is one
under the dominion of natural law (natural law being guardedly
defined as a mere term for that order which the Deity observes in
his operations), it follows that the introduction of species into the
world must have been brought about in the manner of natural law
also. The proposition is simply a syllogism: what is granted of the
whole must be granted of a part.88
In the first edition of Vestiges, it all seemed very simple to Cham-
bers:
Thus the whole is complete on one principle. The masses of space
are formed by law; law makes them in due time theatres of
existence for plants and animals; sensation, disposition, intellect,
are all in like manner developed and sustained in action by law.
It is most interesting to observe into how small a field the whole
of the mysteries of nature thus ultimately resolve themselves. The
inorganic has one final comprehensive law, GRAVITATION. The
organic, the other great department of mundane things, rests in like
manner on one law, and that is,—DEVELOPMENT. Nor may even
these be after all twain, but only branches of one still more com-
prehensive law, the expression of that unity which man's wit can
scarcely separate from Deity itself.39
The author of Vestiges (whose name was not made public until
1881) was roundly and vehemently criticised by Herschel, Huxley,
and many others for confusing the general conception of natural
law with the precise cause or causes of evolutionary change. 40 In
contrasting Chambers' hypothesis with Darwin's specific mechanism,
G. H. Lewes wrote in 1868,
88 R. Chambers, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (12th ed.; Edin-

burgh: Chambers, 1884), pp. lxix-lxx.
80 [R. Chambers], Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (London:
Churchill, 1844), pp. 359-60.
40 For the story of the authorship of Vestiges, see 12th ed. (above, note 88), pp.
vii-xxxi ("Story of the Authorship of the 'Vestiges' Told for the First Time") and
458 ROBERT M. YOUNG
The hypothesis put forth in the "Vestiges," though it had the merit
of connecting the organic evolution with the cosmical evolution,
uniting the hypotheses of Lamarck and Meckel with the nebular
hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, laboured under the great disad-
vantage of reposing on two principles which only a metaphysician
could accept as verae causae.*1
Chambers became more clear about his real aims as a result of these
and other criticisms, wrote a less naive sequel entitled Explana-
tions,*2 and added a series of 'Proofs, Illustrations, Authorities,
E t c ' to later editions of Vestiges, where he wrote,
Now the real position of the development hypothesis is this. It be-
ing granted that the world is one of law and order, and consequent-
ly that organic beings must have originated in accordance widi some
law, it becomes us as reasonable beings to look about through na-
ture, in order to see if there be any such law still in operation, or
even any traces of its operation in a past age....
I have done nothing more than suggest the probability of some
such method having been followed by the Creator, after showing
facts in the history of nature which give the idea some coun-
tenance.43
Professor Baden Powell spelled out the underlying theme in the
works of both Lyell and Chambers in his 1855 essay on 'The Philoso-
phy of Creation', 44 and while these writings had the effect of sharp-
ening the question of the precise cause or mechanism of evolution,
they also help to make one of the main points of the present paper,
viz. that the inadequacies of Lyell's Uniformitarianism and Cham-
M. Millhauser, Just Before Darwin: Robert Chambers and Vestiges (Middletown,

Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1959). For criticisms of Vestiges on philosophic
grounds, see "Address by Sir John F. W. Herschel, Bart., F.R.S., &c. &c," British
Association Reports for 1845 (London: Murray, 1846), pp. xxvii-xliv, esp. pp. xlii-
xliii; [T. H. Huxley], "The Vestiges of Creation," Brit. & Foreign Medical Rev.,
13 (1854), 425-39, esp. pp. 428-29; cf. LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 187-189.
41 Lewes, "Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," op. cit. (note 1), Vol. 3, p. 356.
42 [R. Chambers], Explanations: a Sequel to "Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation" (2d ed.; London: Churchill, 1846).
48 Chambers, Vestiges, op cit. (note 38), pp. lvi, xl.
44 B. Powell, Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of
Worlds, and the Philosophy of Creation (London: Longman, Brown, Green &
Longmans, 1855), pp. 313-503.
hers' theory of Development, should be set alongside those of Dar-

win's mechanism of natural selection. All of these theorists confused
metaphysical, methodological and scientific levels of analysis, but as
they retreated from specific scientific explanations, there remained
the influence of their work as contributions to the mainstream of
nineteenth-century naturalism, leading to a growing acceptance of
the philosophical principle of the uniformity of nature, a principle
which could be harmlessly identified with the intentions and the
nature of the Deity, once arbitrary interventions had been banished
from nature (including human nature). Darwin sharply contrasted
his work with that of the author of Vestiges. On the other hand, he
admired Powell's essay which defended it, while replying tartly to a
letter from Powell claiming priority for his discoveries, since (in the
passage quoted above) Darwin saw himself as having showed, once
and for all, how species became modified. 4 5 Once we see the curious
fate of Darwin's mechanism, it would seem that Darwin's work was
not as unlike that of his predecessors as has often been supposed.
The strategy of the remainder of this paper, therefore, will be to
assimilate Darwin's privileged status as a scientist to that of con-
temporaries whose scientific reputations are less secure. But before
doing so it may be useful to give examples of the sorts of views to
which I believe Darwin's position is closer than many students of
the debate have considered to be the case.
Herbert Spencer is second only to Chambers in the degree to
which historians have denigrated his scientific status. He wrote as
follows of his own views on the relationship between the uniformity
of nature and his belief in evolution:
Doubtless my intellectual leaning towards belief in natural causa-
tion everywhere operating, and my consequent tendency to disbe-
lieve alleged miracles, had much to do with my gradual relinquish-
ment of the current creed and its associated story of creation—a
relinquishment which went on insensibly during early manhood.
Doubtless, too, a belief in evolution at large was then latent; since,
little as the fact is recognized, anyone who, abandoning the super-
naturalism of theology, accepts in full the naturalism of science,
tacitly asserts that all things as they now exist have been evolved.
45 See above (note 8) and Darwin's "Historical Sketch," op. cit. (note 37) , p. xx,
where Darwin compliments Powell.
460 ROBERT M. YOUNG
T h e doctrine of die universality of natural causation, has for its

inevitable corollary the doctrine that the Universe and all dungs
in it have reached dieir present forms dirough successive stages
physically necessitated. 46
Lyell h a d confined his arguments to t h e history of t h e earth, a n d

t h e writings of Spencer a n d C h a m b e r s ( b o t h of w h o m expressed
heavy debts to Lyell) simply p o i n t e d o u t that h e could n o t stop
there. I n the key theoretical chapter of volume one of his Principles,
Lyell said,
We have considered, in the preceding chapters, many of the most
popular grounds of opposition to the doctrine, that all former
changes of the organic and inorganic creation are referrible to one
uninterrupted succession of physical events, governed by the laws
now in operation.
As the principles of the science [of geology] must always remain
unsettled so long as no fixed opinions are entertained on this
fundamental question, we shall proceed to examine other objec-
tions which have been urged against the assumption of uniformity
in the order of nature. 47
Powell takes u p this p o i n t a n d applies it to the principles of all
science:
No inductive inquirer can bring himself to believe in the existence
of any real hiatus in the continuity of physical laws in the past eras
more than in the existing order of things; or to imagine that
changes, however seemingly abrupt, can have been brought about
except by the gradual agency of some regular causes. On this prin-
ciple the whole superstructure of rational geology entirely reposes;
to deny them in any instance would be to endanger all science.48
I n e x t e n d i n g this position from t h e history of the e a r t h to the
history of life (by d r a w i n g o n the basic assumptions of Vestiges),
46 H. Spencer, An Autobiography (2 vols.; London: Williams & Norgate, 1904),

Vol. 2, p. 6. For further remarks on Spencer's evolutionary theory and evolutionary
philosophy, see my "The Development of Herbert Spencer's Concept of Evolu-
tion," Actes du XI' Congris International d'Histoire des Sciences (Warsaw:
Ossolineum, 1967), Vol. 2, pp. 273-78; Mind, Brain and Adaptation, op. cit. (note
6), pp. 167-72,186-96.
47 Lyell, Principles of Geology, op. cit. (note 17), Vol. 1, p. 144; cf. p. 165.
48 Powell, Essays, op. cit. (note 44), pp. 354-55.
Powell points out that the argument is 'independent of the sup-

posed mode of introduction of new species'. 49
These remarks were made in 1855, three years before Darwin's
theory became public. As we turn to his correspondence and the
published debate on his theory, it will be interesting to see how
Darwin's supposedly purely scientific hypothesis finds its way back
to the fundamental metaphysical position, partly because of its
anthropomorphic overtones.
V
T h e joint Darwin-Wallace paper read to the Linnean Society in
July 1858 shows that Darwin's anthropomorphic way of writing
about natural selection had become characteristic. His contribution
contains a letter he had written to the American botanist, Asa Gray,
in 1857 which was included in order to establish Darwin's priority
over Wallace. Its three sections move from the principle of selection
by man to the figurative 'wiser being' to the claim that 'I think it
can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in
Natural Selection (the title of my book), which selects exclusively
for the good of each organic being'. He adds that 'Multiform
difficulties will occur to every one, with respect to this theory. Many
can, I think, be satisfactorily answered. Natura non facit saltum
answers some of the most obvious. T h e slowness of change, and only
a few individuals undergoing change at any one time, answers
others. T h e extreme imperfection of our geological records answers
others'. 6 0 In a postscript to the original letter, Darwin says, 'This
little abstract touches only the accumulative powers of natural
selection, which I look at as by far the most important element in
the production of new forms'. 51
Anthropomorphic, voluntarist descriptions of natural selection
occur throughout On the Origin of Species, the abstract of the never-
published larger work, which appeared at the end of 1859. It will
help to sharpen our sense of how remarkable this is if it is recalled
that the rules of scientific explanation which were developed in the
seventeenth century had banished purposes, intentions, and anthro-
*»lbid., p. 420.
50 Darwin & Wallace, pp. 265, 256.
Bi LLD, Vol. 2, p. 125.
462 ROBERT M. YOUNG
pomorphic expressions from scientific explanations. Biologists,

however, had never been very good at confining their explanations
to matter, motion, and number. They had persisted in employing
powers and faculties and had moved on to slightly less septic cate-
gories such as biological properties (e.g., irritability, contractility,
sensibility) in spite of the official paradigm. 5 2 But even by the
loose standards of biological explanation, it is surprising to find
such rank anthropomorphism at the heart of the most celebrated
unifying theory in biology.
T h e practice first appears in the subtitle of the book: On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation
of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Putting the matter
briefly, one would be hard put to find the following terms in a
physics text adhering to the official paradigm of scientific explana-
tion in terms of matter, motion, and number (or, latterly, energy
and force): selection, preservation, favoured, struggle, (or, for that
matter, the concept of life itself).
In the body of Darwin's text there are numerous expressions of
the analogy. T h e second paragraph of the chapter on 'The Struggle
for Existence' says,
We have seen that man by selection can certainly produce great
results, and can adapt organic beings to his own uses through the
accumulation of slight but useful variations, given to him by the
hand of Nature. But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see,
is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably su-
perior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those
of Art.53
In the second sentence of the chapter on 'Natural Selection', Dar-
win writes, 'Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is so
potent in the hands of man, apply in nature? I think that we shall
see that it can act most effectually'.54 He goes on to say, 'As man
521 have discussed some of the philosophical issues raised by the departure ot
the biological, behavioural, and social sciences from the official paradigm ol
explanation of the physico-chemical sciences in a paper on "Persons, Organisms,
. . . and Primary Qualities," delivered to the British Society for the Philosophy of
Science in London, 1969 (in preparation for publication); cf. R. M. Young,
"Animal Soul," op. cit. (note 10).
63 Origin, p. 61.
54 Origin, p. 80.
D A R W I N ' S M E T A P H O R : DOES N A T U R E S E L E C T ? 463
can produce and certainly has produced a great result by his

methodical and unconscious means of selection, what may not na-
ture effect?'55
After the analogy has been made, natural selection is itself
described in surprisingly anthropomorphic terms:
It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutiniz-
ing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; re-
jecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is
good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever op-
portunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in re-
lation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.68
Throughout the book natural selection is described as 'acting', and
'nature's power of selection' is a recurring phrase. 6 7 We find Dar-
win repeatedly writing in florid terms about the 'visual powers'
and 'skills' of this putatively natural mechanism: 'there is a power
always intently watching'; 'natural selection will pick out with
unerring skill each improvement'. 68
In his 'Recapitulation and Conclusion', Darwin reverts to the
analogy:
There is no obvious reason why the principles which have acted so
efficiently under domestication should not have acted under
nature....
If then we have under nature variability and a powerful agent al-
ways ready to act and select, why should we doubt that variations
in any way useful to beings, under their excessively complex rela-
tions of life, would be preserved, accumulated, and inherited? Why,
if man can by patience select variations most useful to himself,
should nature fail in selecting variations useful, under changing con-
ditions of life, to her living products? What limit can be put to
this power, acting during long ages and rigidly scrutinising the
whole constitution, structure, and habits of each creature,—favour-
i ing the good and rejecting the bad? I can see no limit to this power,
in slowly and beautifully adapting each form to the most complex
68 Origin, p. 88.
66 Origin, p. 84.
67 Origin, e.g., pp. 108-109 and 410.
i* 68 Origin, p. 189.
464 ROBERT M. YOUNG
relations of life. The theory of natural selection, even if we looked

no further than this, seems to me to be in itself probable.69
Once again he links his anthropomorphic description of natural
selection with the principle of the uniformity of nature:
As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive,
favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifi-
cation; it can act only by very short and slow steps. Hence the
canon of "Natura non facit saltum," which every fresh addition to
our knowledge tends to make more strictly correct, is on this theory
simply intelligible. We can plainly see why nature is prodigal in
variety, though niggard in innovation. But why this should be a
law of nature if each species has been independently created, no
man can explain.^
Now of course it can be argued that all this is making heavy
weather of something which is rather obvious and innocent. Indeed,
Darwin says at one point in the Origin that he called the principle
'natural selection' 'for the sake of brevity'. 61 Again, when his pub-
lisher objected to the term, Darwin apologised for its being obscure
and wrote to Lyell, 'Why I like the term is that it is constantly used
in all works on breeding, and I am surprised that it is not familiar
to Murray; but I have so long studied such works that I have ceased
to be a competent judge'. 6 2 Breeders used the term to refer to any
agency operating outside the sphere of man's control; it was merely
a convenient way of contrasting unknown sources of change with
deliberate ones. 83 It is certainly arguable that the origins of the
phrase were innocent enough, but it is also clear that its overtones
89 Origin, pp. 467, 469.

60 Origin, pp. 471. Cf. T. H. Huxley, "The Genealogy o£ Animals," (1869)
reprinted in Collected Essays (London: Macmillan, 1893), Vol. 2, pp. 115-16.
61 Origin, p. 127. John Tyndall certainly thought the phrase harmless enough.
One of the main themes of his "Belfast Address" was the elimination of
anthropomorphism from the interpretation of nature. Yet in describing Darwin's
theory he says, 'Can Nature thus select? Mr. Darwin's answer is, "Assuredly she
can." ' Fragments of Science (6th ed.; London: Longmans, Green, 1889), Vol. 2, p.
175.
62 LLD, Vol. 2, p. 153.
63 T. Cowles, "Malthus, Darwin, and Bagehot: A Study in the Transference of a
Concept," Isis, 26 (1936), 843.
DARWIN'S M E T A P H O R : DOES N A T U R E S E L E C T ? 465
and the ways in which Darwin wrote about it both reflected and
raised grave difficulties. After some of these began to emerge, Darwin
wrote to Lyell, 'Talking of "natural selection;" if I had to com-
mence de novo, I would have used "natural preservation." For I
find that men like Harvey of Dublin cannot understand me, though
he has read the book twice'. 84 (It is worth noting in passing that
although the term 'preservation' eliminates some of the voluntarist
overtones from the interpretation of the sources of variation, it still
conveys the impression that active processes with voluntary over-
tones are operative in the accumulation of modifications.)
In later editions of the Origin Darwin tried to escape the impli-
cation that selection was involved in both the occurrence and the
preservation of variations. Once again, however, he used the
analogy to artificial selection. 'When man is the selecting agent', he
wrote, 'we clearly see that the two elements of change are distinct;
variability is in some manner excited, but it is the will of man
which accumulates the variations in certain directions; and it is this
latter agency which answers to the survival of the fittest under
nature'. 6 5 Even so, this left the selecting process voluntaristic, and
in the third edition we find Darwin adding a very significant
passage aimed at extricating himself from the difficulties raised by
the phrase. T h e passage contains Darwin's reply to the problems
•with which the rest of this paper will be concerned.
Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural

Selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection induces
variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such varia-
tions as arise and are beneficial to die being under its conditions of
life. No one objects to agriculturists speaking of the potent effects
of man's selection; and in this case the individual differences given
by nature, which man for some object selects, must of necessity
first occur. Others have objected that the term selection implies
conscious choice in the animals which become modified; and it has
even been urged that, as plants have no volition, natural selection
is not applicable to them! In the literal sense of the word, no doubt,
84 LLD, Vol. 2, p. 346.

65 See A. Ellegard, Darwin and the General Reader: the Reception of Darwin's
Theory of Evolution in the British Periodical Press, 1859-1872 (Goteborg: G8te-
Jborgs Universitets Arsskrift, 1958) , p. 259.
466 ROBERT M. YOUNG
natural selection is a false term; but who ever objected to chemists

speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements?—and yet
an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it in
preference combines. It has been said diat I speak of natural selec-
tion as an active power or Deity; but who objects to an author
speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the
planets? Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such
metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity.
So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but
I mean by Nature, only die aggregate action and product of many
natural laws, and by laws die sequence of events as ascertained by
us. Widi a little familiarity such superficial objections will be for-
gotten.68
Darwin has here raised at least five separate issues. T h e first refers
to the causes of variability and makes it clear that he is not refer-
ring to these but to the preservation of those variations which
happen to be advantageous. His second point is less significant and
merely dissociates his views from those who so misunderstood his
theory as to think that it was a revival of the Lamarckian factor of
striving. Darwin then makes an important claim for biology—that
concepts like his are no more or less mysterious than the physico-
chemical concept of 'affinity'. He had earlier written to Lyell to say
that he felt in good company, since Leibniz had objected to the law
of gravity and claimed that it was opposed to Natural Religion
because Newton could not show what gravity itself is. 6 7 Fourthly,
Darwin again appeals to the physical sciences to say that if gravity
can be said in some sense to rule the movements of the planets, why
do people suspect that natural selection is an active power or deity?
This point is related to very deep issues in nineteenth-century
debates on the philosophy of nature which deserve further study
but which require a very different approach from that being taken
in this paper.68 Finally, Darwin insists that his phrase is merely a
06 Origin, 6th ed.( op. cit. (note 37) , pp. 58-59. See also M. Peckham (ed.), The
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: a Variorum Text (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), p. 164.
67 LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 289-90.
68 Since I have not, in fact, written this paper from the point of view of the
nineteenth-century debate as conducted by philosophers, it would be pointless
merely to list the relevant literature in a footnote. The issues which need careful
metaphorical expression, which is 'almost necessary for brevity*. It is

difficult to avoid personifying natural selection and nature itself,
but these terms really refer only to the aggregate action and product
of many natural laws. Nor are laws mysterious: they, in turn, refer
only to regular sequences of events. This is the nominalist position
which was expounded in the nineteenth century by phenomenalists
and their partial allies among the Positivists. The point of view is at
the heart of the British empiricist tradition, and although Darwin
was very diffident about his grasp of philosophy, he was certain that
his position was allied to this one. 69 Unfortunately, however, his
hope that 'With a little familiarity such superficial objections will
be forgotten' turned out to be false for very good contemporary
philosophical, theological, and scientific reasons.
VI
How had Darwin exposed himself to so much misunderstanding,
and what were the objections against which he was defending
himself and had to go on doing until the end of his life? It seems to
study form a network of concepts which cut across writings in philosophy, science,
theology, spiritualism, and literature. The main ones are 'cause', 'force', 'power',
and 'will', and 'law'. These were involved in an extended debate on the role of
touch in learning and in knowledge of the external world, and those issues, in
turn, were related to an anthropomorphic view of nature which stressed the active,
sustaining role o£ the Deity. Some of the figures whose writings are relevant were
W. Whewell, W. Hamilton, J. S. Mill, A. Sedgwick, G. Combe, W. Kirby, G. H.
Lewes, A. R. Wallace, W. B. Carpenter, and T. H. Huxley. Ellegard has touched on
some of the issues (and refers to some of the relevant literature) in his article,
"Darwin's Theory and Nineteenth-Century Philosophies of Science," op. cit. (note
10) and Chap. 9 of his Darwin and the General Reader, op. cit. (note 65) . Aspects
of the debate which refer primarily to physiological psychology and the mind-
body problem have been discussed in a very interesting doctoral dissertation,
"Physiological Psychology and the Philosophy of Nature in Mid-Nineteenth
Century Britain," by Roger Smith (Cambridge University, 1970), who also gave a
very perceptive paper on Wallace's philosophy of nature to the Annual Conference
of the British Society for the History of Science at Leicester, July 1970 (in
preparation for publication).
69 A. C. Crombie, "Darwin's Scientific Method," Actes du IX' Congris Interna-
tional d'Histoire des Sciences (Barcelona, 1959), pp. 354-62. See also Lewes, "Mr.
Darwin's Hypotheses," op. cit. (note 1), Vol. 3, pp. 359-60, 620 sqq.; [St. G. J.
Mivart], "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," Edinburgh Rev., 167 (1888),
407-47, esp. p. 429; T. H. Huxley, Collected Essays, op. cit. (note 60), Vol. 1, Chap.
4-5, Vol. 2, Chap. 5, Vol. 6, Part 2.
468 ROBERT M. YOUNG
me that there are three related reasons for Darwin's writing as he

did about natural selection and that these led almost inevitably to
the difficulties which he encountered. The first is obvious. We have
seen that it was an accident, a result of the course of his enquiries,
that he made the analogy that he did in the way that he did.
However, his decision to spell out his argument in the same terms is
related to the intellectual atmosphere of his education and the
prevailing theory of the origin of adaptations. T h e second reason,
is, therefore, the strong influence of the tradition of natural
theology on the assumptions of science. In freeing himself from
belief in the static, designed adaptations which he had found so
appealing in his reading of William Paley as an undergraduate, 7 o
Darwin retained the rhetoric of deliberate, piecemeal design. At
one level the distance between the approach of Paley and that of
Darwin is much less than it appears to be. T h e changing context of
the concept of adaptation from that of static design in Paley's
Natural Theology and in the Bridgewater Treatises to that of
dynamic piecemeal natural change deserves a separate study. For
the present it is worth pointing out that Darwin's theory was no less
bound by the principle of utility than was that of Paley. 71 In the
Descent of Man Darwin admitted the extent to which this way of
looking at nature had remained with him: 'I was not able to annul
the influence of my former belief, then almost universal, that each
species had been purposely created; and this led to my tacit assump-
tion that every detail of structure, excepting rudiments, was of some
special, though unrecognized, service'. 72 Like Paley, Darwin began
with artifice and with familiar examples in order to win over his
audience. Like Paley, he employed repeated examples and rhetor-
70 N. Barlow (ed.), The Autobiography of Charles Darwin with original omis-

sions restored (London: Collins, 1958), p. 59, cf. LLD, Vol. 2, p. 219.
71 Origin, p. 201. It was common to refer to natural selection as 'the principle of
utility'. Wallace seems to have become so accustomed to this usage in evolution-
ary theory that he wrote, 'The utilitarian hypothesis (which is the theory of natural
selection applied to the mind). . . .' Natural Selection and Tropical Nature (new
ed.; London: Macmillan, 1891), pp. 199-200.
72 Quoted in M. Mandelbaum, "Darwin's Religious Views," /. Hist. Ideas, 19
(1958), 378. Although Mandelbaum approaches the subject from the complemen-
tary perspective of Darwin's religious views, I have found this article extremely
illuminating for the problem of Darwin's metaphor.
ical questions in order to bring his reader to make the leap of faith
which his theory required. The same cast of mind carried over to
Darwin's writing about natural selection, and others were quick to
point this out.
T h e third reason for Darwin's writing about natural selection as
he did was more straightforwardly scientific. In proposing the
theory of evolution by means of the mechanism of natural selection
he was not really supplying a mechanism at all. Rather, he was
providing an abstract account at a general level of how favourable
variations might be preserved. He had to keep his account at a
certain level of abstraction since, as he confessed, he could neither
specify the laws of variation nor the precise means by which varia-
tions were preserved. 78 T h e acceptability of his account depended
on its plausibility and its ability to explain in very general terms
the sort of process which was involved. He could neither show
evolution at work nor provide a complete example of the stages by
which it had worked. T h e former process was too slow while the
record of its having occurred was too fragmentary. 74 Darwin's task
was to explain away the lack of evidence while repeatedly stressing
the greater plausibility of his theory over that of special creation.
Whenever he was really in trouble he adopted the same tactic as
Lyell, Chambers, and Powell had done—he appealed to the very
principle which was at issue, the uniformity of nature. 7 5 By crea-
73 T h e chapter in the Origin which Darwin rather hopefully calls "Laws of

Variation" is a catalogue of questions and hypotheses, and its summary begins,
'Our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound.' (p. 167) .
74 In his essay "On the Reception of the 'Origin of Species'," (1887, op. cit. note
7, p . 198), Huxley wrote, 'In my earliest criticisms of the "Origin" I ventured to
point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as experiments in
selective breeding had not produced varieties which were more or less infertile;
and that insecurity remains up to the present time.' Darwin said of the geological
record, 'For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the natural
geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, written in a changing
dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or
three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been
preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines.' Origin, p . 311.
75 For example, the passage on the imperfections of the geological record quoted
above (note 74) concludes, 'Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which
the history is supposed to be written, being more or less different in the
470 ROBERT M. YOUNG
tively confusing the metaphysical regulative principle of science

with particular empirical issues, his argument gained plausibility
from its circularity. John Tyndall put the point in the best possible
light in his highly controversial "Belfast Address" in 1874: 'The
strength of the doctrine of Evolution consists, not in an experi-
mental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible to this
mode of proof), but in its general harmony with scientific
thought'. 76
Therefore, the third explanation of Darwin's way of writing
about natural selection was that it allowed him to present his f-
account almost as though it was a real mechanism. I mean to imply
no disingenuousness on his part. Indeed, when it was pointed out
that even at this level of abstraction his theory was insufficient,
Darwin went into a dignified retreat and was left with the very sort
of mixed bag of factors which he had rejected at the outset of his
studies. He was left with only one unalloyed claim to plausibility:
the uniformity of nature.
In the remainder of this paper I shall sketch two classes of
objections to Darwin's treatment of natural selection. There are
worthwhile papers to be written on each of the figures whom I shall
mention, and a detailed study of the whole debate remains to be
done. However, the general picture can be discerned by allusions to
the reactions of those who dwelt on the theological and philosoph-
ical objections to this theory and those (often the same people) who
pointed out the scientific inadequacies of his account.
interrupted succession of chapters, may represent the apparently abruptly changed
forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but widely separated, formations. On
this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disap-
pear" (my italics). Explicit appeals to the principle of the continuity of nature
are made throughout the Origin (e.g., pp. 194,206,210,469); cf. above (pp. 456,460,
464). In his review of the Origin for the Westminster Review in 1860, Huxley
wrote, 'And Mr. Darwin's position might, we think, have been even stronger than
it is if he had not embarrassed himself with the aphorism, "Natura non facit
saltum," which turns up so often in his pages.' (Collected Essays, op. cit., note 60,
p. 77). Huxley seems unaware that Darwin is using the aphorism in both a
metaphysical and a scientific sense. Cf. LLD, Vol. 2, p. 233.
78 Tyndall, "The Belfast Address," in Fragments of Science, op. cit. (note 61), p.
194.
VII
From the outset there were signs that trouble lay ahead at the
Hands of outright opponents of evolution (e.g., Wilberforce),
friendly foes (Sedgwick), and sympathetic critics (e.g., Lyell). In
the most famous review of the Origin, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce
deftly turned Darwin's own language against him.
Nor must we pass over unnoticed the transference of the argu-
ment from the domesticated to the untamed animals. Assuming
that man as die selector can do much in a limited time, Mr. Darwin
argues that Nature, a more powerful, a more continuous power,
working over vastly extended ranges of time, can do more. But why
should Nature, so uniform and persistent in all her operations,
tend in this instance to change? why should she become a selector
of varieties?77
T h e implication is that while nature must operate by uniform laws,
God can intervene in the course of nature to produce new species.
Of course, this sort of reaction was to be expected, and little
purpose would be served by repeating the arguments of those who
opposed Darwin's theory on relatively literalist, interventionist
grounds. There is more to be learned from writers who held inter-
mediate positions.
Moving to the other extreme, important reservations were ex-
pressed from the least likely quarter of all. In the first public
statement of the theory—the joint Darwin-Wallace paper of 1858—
Darwin's co-author wrote, 'We see, then, that no inferences as to
varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of
those occurring among domestic animals. T h e two are so much
opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that
what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other'. 7 8
Many years later Wallace wrote that 'It has always been considered
a weakness in Darwin's work that he based his theory, primarily, on
the evidence of variation in domesticated animals and cultivated
plants'. 7 9 By 1866 the phrase was causing so much trouble that
77
[S. Wilberforce], "Darwin's Origin of Species," Quarterly Rev., 108 (1860),
237; cf. LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 321-23.
7
8 Darwin & Wallace, p. 277.
7
» A.R. Wallace, Darwinism (London: Macmillan, 1889), p. vi.
472 ROBERT M. YOUNG
Wallace wrote a friendly letter in which he attempted to persuade

Darwin to drop it altogether.
I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of numbers
of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, the self-acting and
necessary effects of Natural Selection, that I am led to conclude
diat die term itself, and your mode of illustrating it, however clear
and beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to impress
it on die general naturalist public 80
He gives two examples of writers who had misunderstood Darwin.
T h e first 'concludes with a charge of something like blindness, in
your not seeing that Natural Selection requires the constant watch-
ing of an intelligent "chooser," like man's selection to which you so
often compare it.. ..' T h e second author
considers your weak point to be that you do not see diat "diought
and direction are essential to die action of Natural Selection". The
same objection has been made a score of times by your chief op-
ponents, and I have heard it as often stated myself in conversation.
Now, I think diis arises almost entirely from your choice of die term
"Natural Selection" and so constantly comparing it in its effects
to Man's Selection, and also your so frequently personifying nature
as "selecting," as "preferring," as "seeking only die good of die
species," etc., etc. To die few diis is as clear as daylight, and beauti-
fully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a stumbling-block.81
He adds that 'It is evidently also necessary not to personify "Na-
ture" too much—though I am very apt to do it myself—since people
will not understand that all such phrases are metaphors'. Wallace
suggested that Darwin could avoid the misunderstandings evoked
by 'natural selection' by adopting Spencer's phrase, 'the survival of
thefittest'.82
Darwin replied that he saw the point but added: 'I formerly
thought, probably in an exaggerated degree, that it was a great
advantage to bring into connection natural and artificial selection;
80 MLD, Vol. 1, p. 267.

8
i MLD, Vol. 1, pp. 267-68.
82 MLD, Vol. 1, pp. 269, 268. The philosophical problems raised by the concepts
of 'survival' and 'fittest' deserve further study along lines similar to those adopted
in the present essay.
this indeed led me to use a term in common, and I still think it

some advantage'. He had just completed a new edition of the
Origin which was already in the press. In any case, he added, 'The
term Natural Selection has now been so largely used abroad and at
home that I doubt whether it could be given up, and with all its
faults I should be sorry to see the attempt made. Whether it will be
rejected must now depend "on the survival of the fittest". As in time
the term must grow intelligible the objections to its use will grow
weaker and weaker'. 83 Darwin did not take Wallace's friendly ad-
vice, and two years later Wallace published his reservations in a
section entitled 'Mr. Darwin's Metaphors liable to Misconcep-
tion'^ 4
The most widespread of the misconceptions played a very ironic
part in the debate surrounding Darwin's theory. As Adam Sedgwick
put it in a friendly but profoundly pained letter, 'You write of
"natural selection" as if it were done consciously by the selecting
agent'.85 Sedgwick wanted to insist on the role of final causes in
nature and asserted that natural laws were manifestations of the
will of God. Like so many of those who seized on the anthropo-
morphic use of 'natural selection', Sedgwick wanted to assimilate it
to an active role for the Deity in sustaining and guiding the history
of nature. Sedgwick was himself unable to adopt Darwin's theory,
but many others were able to do so because they interpreted Darwin
in the very sense which Sedgwick was advocating.
Charles Lyell was among Darwin's friendliest critics. It was one
of Darwin's greatest hopes that his mentor would finally accept the
theory, but Lyell vascillated and held back for ten years after the
publication of the theory. His reservations about evolution were not
confined to the difficulties which he had encountered in the Princi-
ples of Geology in reconciling it with his uniformitarian, equilib-
rium theory of the history of the earth. Like many others (some of
whom objected to his geological theory on the same grounds) he
was concerned about the implications of evolution for the special
83 MLD, Vol. 1, pp. 270-71.

84 A. R. Wallace, "Creation by Law," (1868) reprinted in Natural Selection and
Tropical Nature, op. cit. (note 71), p p . 144 sqq. See also Wallace, "Sir Charles
Lyell. ..," op. cit. (note 19), p . 384.
85 LLD, Vol. 2, p . 249; cf. p . 298.
474 ROBERT M. YOUNG
status of man. He had made it very clear that the advent of man's
moral nature was not a part of the ordinary course of the history of
nature. He further guarded himself in saying that even if evolution
could account for the history of life, the analogy could not be
extended to include man. 8 6 Lyell's general position was close to
Darwin's on many matters, but his reservations about Darwin's
theory were characteristically focused on the special status of man.
He wrote about this to Darwin in 1859, and Darwin's reply begins
with a reference to Lyell's worries.
"Must you not assume a primeval creative power which does not act
with uniformity, or how could man supervene?"—I am not sure that
I understand your remarks which follow the above. We must, under
present knowledge, assume the creation of one or a few forms in
the same manner as philosophers assume the existence of a power
of attraction without any explanation. But I entirely reject, as in
my judgment quite unnecessary, any subsequent addition "of new 4
powers and attributes and forces;" or of any "principle of improve-
ment," except in so far as every character which is naturally se-
lected or preserved is in some way an advantage or improvement,
otherwise it would not have been selected. If I were convinced that
I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would
reject it as rubbish, but I have firm faith in it, as I cannot believe,
that if false, it would explain so many whole classes of facts, which,
if I am in my senses, it seems to explain.87
He goes on to argue that the intellectual powers of man could,
according to his theory, have evolved gradually, just as corporeal
structures could. 88
Darwin also attempted to neutralize Lyell's objection by allow-
ing a role for God behind the laws.
86Lyell, Principles, op. cit. (note 17), Vol. 1, pp. 155-56, 163,164.
87LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 210-11; cf. Life, Letters and Journals of Lyell, op. cit. (note
16), Vol. 2, pp. 325-26.
88 Of course, the entire argument of The Descent of Man (London: Murray,
1871), is devoted to this point. Darwin's whole strategy is the same as it is in the
Origin—to explain away apparent discontinuities by a judicious mixture of
anecdotage, rhetorical questions, and appeals to the uniformity of nature. This
approach on Darwin's part was not unusual in the nineteenth century; nor, for
that matter, are current writings in biology and psychology fundamentally differ-
ent. It is difficult to see how they could be so.
DARWIN S METAPHOR: DOES NATURE SELECT? 475
One more word upon the Deification of Natural Selection: attribut-

ing so much weight to it does not exclude still more general laws,
i.e. the ordering of the whole universe. I have said that Natural
Selection is to die structure of organised beings what die human
architect is to a building. T h e very existence of the human architect
shows die existence of more general laws; but no one, in giving
credit for a building to die human architect, diinks it necessary to
refer to the laws by which man has appeared.
No astronomer, in showing how die movements of planets are due

to gravity, diinks it necessary to say diat die law of gravity was de-
signed diat die planets should pursue the courses which they pur-
sue. I cannot believe that there is a bit more interference by the
Creator in die construction of each species than in die course of
die planets. It is only owing to Paley and Co., I believe, diat
this more special interference is diought necessary widi living bod-
ies. But we shall never agree, so do not trouble yourself to answer. 8 '
It is D a r w i n w h o r e t u r n s to the question a year later.

When you come to "Deification," ask yourself honestly whether
what you are dunking applies to die endless variations of domestic
productions, which man accumulates for his mere fancy or use. No
doubt diese are all caused by some unknown law, but I cannot
believe they were ordained for any purpose, and if not so ordained
under domesticity, I can see no reason to believe diat diey were
ordained in a state of nature. Of course it may be said, when you
kick a stone, or a leaf falls from a tree, that it was ordained, before
the foundations of the world were laid, exactly where that stone or
leaf should lie. In diis sense die subject has no interest for me. 90
B u t w h e n Lyell published his views o n t h e subject i n The Antiq-
uity of Man (1863) h e accused D a r w i n of deifying secondary causes.
In our attempts to account for the origin of species, we find our-
selves still sooner brought face to face with the working of a law of
development of so high an order as to stand nearly in the same rela-
tion as the Deity himself to man's finite understanding, a law capable
of adding new and powerful causes, such as the moral and intellec-
tual faculties of die human race, to a system of nature which had
gone on for millions of years without the intervention of any
80 MLD, Vol. 1, p. 154.

90 MLD, Vol. 1, pp. 192-93.
476 ROBERT M. YOUNG r
analogous cause. If we confound "Variation' or 'Natural Selection*

with such creational laws, we deify secondary causes or immeasur-
ably exaggerate their influence.91
Lyell was here attempting to retain a role for the Deity above the
operation of natural laws, and confined his belief in intervention to
such major steps as the establishment of man's special status. 9 2 Of
course, much of the basis for reservations about evolution can be
traced back to the special status of man, and the battlefields of
geology and biology were given special meaning because of their
location as outposts of the crucial central issue. Even so, in the
realm of biology there seemed a relatively small distance separating
Darwin from Lyell. The issue was a matter of how one chose to
interpret natural laws—as self-acting or as expressions of the will of
God.
Darwin had similar correspondences with a large number of
friendly critics, each of whom seized on his language as a basis for
arguing that the course of evolution was, after all, designed. The
topic is one of the most recurrent ones in his correspondence. Again
and again Darwin asks what is so different about his case from
similar ones in the physico-chemical sciences, and again and again
his would-be interpreters try to reconcile his theory with design by
means of the active role played by natural selection. Finally, in a
letter to Hooker, Darwin's exasperation begins to show.
Such men as you and Lyell thinking that I make too much of a
Deus of Natural Selection is a conclusive argument against me.
Yet I hardly know how I could have put in, in all parts of my
book, stronger sentences. The title, as you once pointed out, might
have been better. No one ever objects to agriculturists using the
strongest language about their selection, yet every breeder knows that
he does not produce the modification which he selects. My enor-
mous difficulty for years was to understand adaptation, and this
91 C. Lyell, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks

on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation (London: Murray, 1863), p.
469.
sZLyell's continuing anguish over the special status of man is clear from hia
replies to Darwin's complaints that he had not gone far enough in the Antiquity
of Man toward accepting evolution. See Life, Letters and Journals of Lyell, op. cit.
(note 16), Vol. 2, pp. 361-64, 376, 384-86.
H
made me, I cannot but think, rightly, insist so much on Natural

Selection^
It is clear from this and from many of the foregoing remarks by
Darwin that the path by which he had come to his theory was
causing grave difficulties and that, although he understood many of
the objections, he was very unwilling to alter his mode of expression
about natural selection. Although none of his correspondents was
arguing for divine intervention in the crude form of catastrophist
miracles, they were convinced that the course of evolution was
guided by God's sustaining power and purposes. Darwin could
grant this only if the Deity was identified with the principle of the
uniformity of nature itself. At any lower level of abstraction he
could not make any concessions, no matter how much his correspon-
dents thought they were bringing about a diplomatic reconciliation
between evolution and theology. Darwin had gone as far as he
could in the Origin in arguing that the uniform operation of
natural laws led to a grander view of the Creator. 94 He thought it a
paltry view of God to claim that He should tamper with the details
of species. This point came out clearly in a letter to Sir John
Herschel, who had called for a law of evolution in his correspon-
dence with Lyell in 1837, and had criticized Vestiges for failing to
supply vera causa.®5 Yet when Darwin's book appeared, he criti-
cized natural selection as 'the law of higgeldy-piggedly' and ex-
pressed preference for a law of 'Providential Arrangement'. Darwin
wrote,
I am pleased with your note on my book on species, though ap-
parently you go but a little way with me. T h e point which you raise
on intelligent Design has perplexed me beyond measure; & has been
ably discussed by Prof. Asa Gray, with whom I have had much
»3MLD,Vol. I, p. 213.
M The last two paragraphs of the Origin, along with the quotations in the
frontispiece, provide clear evidence of Darwin's belief that his theory led to a
grander view of the Creator. The same point of view had been expressed in
numerous works before Darwin's, for example, by Charles Babbage, George
Combe, Baden Powell, and Robert Chambers. It was but a small step from this
position to the one held by Darwin's theistic interpreters. See also my "The
Impact of Darwin on Conventional Thought," op. cit. (note 3), pp. 24 sqq.
»« See ibove (notes 18, 40) .
478 ROBERT M. YOUNG
correspondence on the subject. I am in a complete jumble on the

point. One cannot look at this Universe with all living productions
& man without believing that all has been intelligently designed;
yet when I look to each individual organism, I can see no evidence
of this. For, I am not prepared to admit that God designed die -t-
feadiers in the tail of die rock-pigeon to vary in a highly peculiar
manner in order mat man might select such variations & make a
Fan-tail; fe if diis be not admitted (I know it would be admitted
by many persons) men I cannot see design in the variations in
structure of animals in a state of nature, those variations which
were useful to the animal being preserved & those useless or in-
jurious being destroyed. But I ought to apologise for thus trou-
bling you.96
In the remainder of the letter Darwin implies that the real problem
for Herschel is that a new generation of scientists is coming along,
and its members see nature in terms of unalloyed uniformity.
You will think me very conceited when I say I feel quite easy
about the ultimate success of my views, (with much error, as yet
unseen by me, to be no doubt eliminated); & I feel this confidence
because I find so many young & middle-aged truly good workers in
different branches, eiuier partially or wholly accepting my views,
because they find that they can thus group & understand many scat-
tered facts. This has occurred with those who have chiefly or almost
exclusively studied morphology, geographical distribution, system-
atic Botany, simple geology & paleontology. Forgive me boasting,
if you can; I do so because I should value your partial acquies-
cence in my views, more than that of almost any odier human
being."
Darwin could not expect acquiescence from the elder statesman of
science, a man whose view of nature had been formulated in a
period which assumed a perfect harmony between natural theology
and natural science. Darwin and the members of his generation
could accept theism only if its claims were so abstract as not to
interfere with the operations of nature at all.
However, the growing success of evolutionary theory—including
96 de Beer (ed.) , "Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," op. cit. (note
8), p. 35; cf. LLD, Vol. 2, p. 241.
97 ibid.
a lengthening list of converts eagerly compiled by Darwin in the

period after his book appeared 98 —was considerably aided by a
group of scientists and scholars who held an intermediate position.
Lyell's objections were the basis for his inability to embrace Dar-
win's theory, and Herschel's position was similar. Wallace, on the
other hand, was attempting to prevent misunderstanding of the
theory which he had co-authored. There was a group in the middle
who accepted Darwin's theory and eagerly offered their services as
mediators between evolution and a theistic view of nature. The list
is a long one and includes such writers as the Duke of Argyll, whose
The Reign of Law (1867) made a theistic interpretation of evolu-
tion easy to accept." Another would-be ally was Charles Kingsley,
an eminent clergyman and botanist whose satirical Water Babies
was written in the spirit of theistic naturalism. Kingsley wrote to
Darwin in 1859,
I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception
of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self-
development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as
to believe that he required a fresh act of intervention to supply
the lacunas which He himself had made. I question whether the
former be not the loftier thought.100
Darwin was so pleased that he included reference to Kingsley's
remarks in later editions of the Origin, while Kingsley came to see
that 'all natural theology must be rewritten'. This sort of position
was not only held by amateur scientists. Indeed, one of the most
eminent physiologists of the period, William B. Carpenter, took an
active part in the debate, and the constant theme of his writings was
the reconciliation of science with a theistic view of nature. His
»8LLD, Vol. 2, Chaps. 5-8, esp. pp. 243, 291-93, 354-55. Here is a very promising
case study for a devout believer in scientific change by 'paradigm shifts' as
advocated by T. S. Kuhn. See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1962). However, if the argument of this paper is
substantially correct, he should have a certain amount of difficulty in finding the
paradigms from which and to which the shift occurs.
9» G. D. Campbell, Duke of Argyll, The Reign of Law (London: Strahan, 1866;
6th ed., 1871); see also Ellegard, Darwin and the General Reader, op. cit. (note
65), pp. 129 sqq.
100 Mandelbaum, "Darwin's Religious Views," op. cit. (note 72), p. 368. LLD,
Vol. 2, pp. 287-88.
480 ROBERT M . YOUNG
articles on the topic extend from reviews of the Origin to interpre-

tive essays in the 1880s on 'The Force Behind Nature", 'The Doc-
trine of Evolution in Its Relations to Theism', and 'The Argument
from Design in the Organic World'. 1 © 1 On the other side of the
narrowing gap lay the writings of the polymath essayist, George
Henry Lewes, whose books and articles attempted to prevent
any inroads from theism into the domain of nature. For example,
his review of the Duke of Argyll's The Reign of Law recognises
the narrowness of the gap and sets out to widen it, while his
uncompromising, though rambling, series on 'Mr. Darwin's Hy-
potheses' drives the point home. 1 0 2
But perhaps the most interesting of the scientists who attempted
to interpret Darwin as a support for theism was Professor Asa Gray
of Harvard. He was an enthusiastic advocate of Darwin's theory
in America, and Darwin was very grateful for his support. It is in
the correspondence with Gray that Darwin considers the theistic
interpretation most carefully, and a review of it provides considera-
ble support for the interpretation of the debate which is being
urged here, i.e., that Darwin's position was ambiguous and that the
reception of his theory was enhanced by that ambiguity. It will be
recalled that Gray was one of the first people to whom Darwin told
his secret and that a letter of 1857 to Gray was included in the joint
Darwin-Wallace paper a year later. In the period after 1859, Gray
was very active in publishing articles in which he argued that
natural selection was not inconsistent with natural theology. H e
argued for a harmony between evolution and theology and advo-
cated 'Evolutionary Teleology'. 1 03 Darwin at first cautiously wel-
101W. B. Carpenter, Nature and Man (London: Regan Paul, Trench, 1888), p p .
105-13 and Chaps. 6, 12-15; cf. LLD, Vol. 2, p p . 239-40, 262-63, 299. (Darwin
complains somewhere in LLD that Carpenter could not 'take the last bite'.)
[Richard Owen] wrote one of the main reviews of the Origin: "Darwin on the
Origin of Species," Edinburgh Rev., I l l (1860), 487-532. It was a very confusing
argument, but Owen believed in a theory of 'the continuous operation of the
ordained becoming of living things'. In his article on " T h e Gospel of Evolution,"
Contemporary Rev., 37 (1880), 713-40, Charles Elam calls this 'one of the most
philosophic phrases of modern times'.
102 See above (note 1); cf. G. H. Lewes, " T h e Reign of Law," Fortnightly Rev.,
N.S. 2 (1867). 96-111.
103 A. Gray, Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism (1876,
reprinted Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963).
f-
7 DARWIN'S METAPHOR: DOES NATURE SELECT? 481
corned Gray's s u p p o r t a n d expressed considerable uncertainty a b o u t

it* his own position, b u t h e finally concluded t h a t he could n o t share
Gray's hopeful view of n a t u r e . T h e first relevant letter was w r i t t e n
i n 1860.104
i.
With respect to the theological view of the question. This is always
painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write
atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do,
/<m
and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence
on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world.
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God
-*. would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the ex-
press intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Cater-
pillers, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I
> see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed.
On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this
wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to con-
clude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to
look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details,
whether good or bad, left to die working out of what we may call
chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply
that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A
dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man
hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my
views are not at all necessarily atheistical. T h e lightning kills a
man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively com-
plex action of natural laws. A child (who may turn out an idiot) is
born by the action of even more complex laws, and I can see no
reason why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally
^ produced by other laws, and that all these laws may have been
expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every
future event and consequence. But the more I think the more be-
wildered I become; as indeed I have probably shown by this
letter.ios
A year later D a r w i n reverts to the subject in the light of Herschel's

views:
I sent a copy to Sir J. Herschel, and in his new edition of his

A 'Physical Geography' he has a note on the 'Origin of Species', and
10* See also LLD, Vol. 2; pp. 269-73.286-87,286-87,289,296-97,305-06.

105 LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 311-12.
•i
482 ROBERT M. YOUNG
agrees, to a certain limited extent, but puts in a caution on design

—much like yours. . . . I have been led to think more on this sub-
ject of late, and grieve to say that I come to differ more from you.
It is not that designed variation makes, as it seems to me, my deity
"Natural Selection" superfluous, but rather from studying, lately,
domestic variation, and seeing what an enormous field of undesigned
variability there is ready for natural selection to appropriate for any
purpose useful to each creature. 106
T h r e e m o n t h s later D a r w i n takes u p Gray's reply:
Your question what would convince me of Design is a poser. If I
saw an angel come down to teach us good, and I was convinced
from others seeing him that I was not mad, I should believe in
design. If I could be convinced thoroughly that life and mind was
in an unknown way a function of other imponderable force, I
should be convinced. If man was made of brass or iron and no
way connected with any other organism which had ever lived, I
should perhaps be convinced. But this is childish writing.
I have lately been corresponding with Lyell, who, I think, adopts
your idea of the stream of variation having been led or designed.
I have asked him (and he says he will hereafter reflect and
answer me) whether he believes that the shape of my nose was
designed. If he does I have nothing more to say. If not, seeing
what Fanciers have done by selecting individual differences in the
nasal bones of pigeons, I must think that it is illogical to suppose
that the variations, which natural selection preserves for the good
of any being, have been designed. But I know that I am in the
same sort of muddle (as I have said before) as all the world seems
to be in with respect to free will, yet with everything supposed to
have been foreseen or pre-ordained. 107
After a n o t h e r three m o n t h s D a r w i n is growing weary b u t w i t h o u t
having seen his way to a clear position.
With respect to Design, I feel more inclined to show a white flag
than to fire my usual long-range shot. I like to try and ask you a
puzzling question, but when you return the compliment I have
grave doubts whether it is a fair way of arguing. If anything is de-
106 LLD, Vol. 2, p. 373; cf. p. 353 and MLD, Vol. 1, pp. 190-93. Darwin wrote to
Lyell, 'I must think that such views of Asa Gray and Herschel merely show that
the subject in their minds is in Comte's theological stage of science.' (p. 192) .
i°7 LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 377-78.
signed, certainly man must be: one's "inner consciousness" (though

a false guide) tells one so; yet I cannot admit that man's rudimen-
tary mammae . . . were designed. If I was to say that I believed
this, I should believe in the same incredible manner as the ortho-
dox believe the Trinity in Unity. You say that you are in a haze; I
am in thick mud; the orthodox would say in fetid, abominable
mud; yet I cannot keep out of the question. My dear Gray, I have
written a deal of nonsense.108
After Darwin had thrashed out this issue with Lyell, Gray, and
many others, it appears that he began to see that what he consid-
ered to be misinterpretations were, in effect, softening the blow of
evolutionism and, paradoxically, gaining him adherents. After
Lyell's Antiquity of Man appeared, he complained about Lyell's
fence-sitting on the question of natural selection but expressed great-
er concern for the more fundamental issue: 'Personally, of course, I
care much about Natural Selection; but that seems to me utterly
unimportant, compared to the question of Creation or Modifica-
tion.' [i.e.,] change of species by descent.1®9
Over the next four years Darwin reached a fairly firm position
and decided that he had to publish a clear statement of his views.
He wrote to Hooker in 1867 that he thought it shabby to evade the
question and that he had made a forthright statement at the end of
his forthcoming book on The Variation of Plants and Animals
under Domestication.^* In two long paragraphs he brings together
the disclaimers which had been developed in his correspondence on
the subject, and when he comes to the question in his Autobiogra-
phy the reader is referred back to that statement. 1 1 1 Characteris-
tically, the argument is developed in terms of the relationship
108 LLD, Vol. 2, p. 382; cf. Mivart's attempt to make capital out of this
admission in his review of "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," op. cit.
(note 69), p. 436.
109 LLD, Vol. 2, p. 371; cf. p. 354 and Vol. 3, pp. 8-25 for other relevant passages
on Lyell's Antiquity of Man and on Darwin's admission that he would be
relatively content if the general doctrine of evolution could be accepted.
no LLD, Vol. 3, p. 62.
ill C. Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (2
vols.; London: Murray, 1868), Vol. 2, pp. 430-32; N. Barlow (ed.), The Autobiog-
raphy of Charles Darwin, op. cit. (note 70), pp. 87-88; cf. G. J. Romanes, Darwin
and After Darwin (3 vols.; London: Longmans, Green, 1892-1897), Vol. 1, pp. 333
sqq. 172-76.
484 ROBERT M. YOUNG
between artifice and the physical causes of the artificer's materials.

Yet within a year the Quarterly Review contained an eloquent
defence of design. It is interesting to notice that evolution and even
natural selection are seen as perfectly acceptable. T h e author in-
sists, however, that these depend on design. An extra principle is
needed over and above the natural laws, and the argument is
supported by reference to Darwin's voluntarist language about nat-
ural selection. Darwin's metaphorical language is acknowledged to
be figurative, but it is said to help us to see the ultimate depen-
dence of evolution on design. 1 1 2 T h e author, J. B. Mozley, con-
cludes,
So on the field of Nature natural selection, supposing Mr. Dar-

win's theory of Progress to be true, cannot relieve us from the need
of some prior principle, some intelligence, however mysterious, which
has worked for an end in Nature, and under whose guidance this
progress has proceeded. . . . He must either make his theory ra-
tional, then, by the admission of design; or by the omission of design
he must leave it a substantially epicurean hypothesis, accounting for
the formation of the animal world by chance.
And so we come round to Paley again.113
There is a double irony in this result. While Darwin grew
increasingly unsympathetic to attempts to couple natural selection
with a conception of design, it was Darwin's language which had
given his interpreters a warrant for their views on designed evolu-
tion. However, their interpretations played an important role in
gaining adherents among the intelligentsia to some theory of evolu-
tion. Although Darwin's original expression of the conception of
natural selection may have been severely battered in the course of
the period 1859-1870, the ways in which Darwin's interpreters pre-
sented the theory was at the same time gaining ground for the more
fundamental principle of the uniformity of nature. Whether the
course of variation and selection was designed or not, it was increas-
ingly accepted that nature acted according to uniform natural laws.
Whether these were designed or not was a secondary matter for
112 [J. B. Mozley], "The Argument of Design," Quarterly Rev., 127 (1869), 161
sqq., 172-76.
u s lbidv pp. 172,176.
science. As Darwin had said in one of his letters to Lyell, at this

level 'the subject has no interest for me'. 1 1 4 He came to see that the
interpretations which others sought to put on his theory were fun-
damentally harmless. As I have argued elsewhere, the views of God's
government of the universe became increasingly identified with the
uniformity of nature, and this was in turn seen as a grander view of
the Creator. 11 ^ Theology ceased to intervene in the course of sci-
ence (leaving the field open to politics and ideology with disastrous
results) and God ceased to be seen as intervening in the course of
nature (leaving men to do so with appalling consequences).
If we look ahead to the mid-1870s, there are signs of the
benevolent tolerance of the victors. When, in 1874, Gray wrote that
Darwin had done a 'great service to Natural Science in bringing
back to it Teleology: so that instead of Morphology versus Teleolo-
gy, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology', Darwin com-
mented, 'What you say about Teleology pleases me especially, and I
do not think any one else has ever noticed the point. I have always
said you were the man to hit the nail on the head'. 11 ® Similarly, the
aggressive tone which was characteristic of the notoriously
provocative addresses of Huxley and Tyndall to the British
Association meeting at Belfast in the same year contain, if we will
look for it, a note of tolerance for the believer as long as science
could be allowed to get on with its 'unrestricted right of search'
throughout nature, including human nature. 1 1 7 Finally, if we look
wider afield to J. S. Mill's essay on "Theism" (1874, written 1868-70
and intended for publication in 1873), we find that he was judi-
cious and gentle in his treatment of natural theology and very gener-
ous and tolerant about the consolations of theism. 11 8 T h e enfant
terrible of the early days of the Westminster Review could afford to
114 See above, p. 475.

115 See my "Natural Theology, Victorian Periodicals, and the Fragmentation of
the Common Context," Victorian Studies (in press) and above (note 94) .
ii« LLD, Vol. S, p. 189; cf. Vol. 2, p. 387.
117 T. H. Huxley, "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata and its
History," (1874) reprinted in Collected Essays, op. cit. (note 60) , pp. 198-250, esp.
p. 245; Tyndall, "The Belfast Address," op. cit. (notes 76 and 61), esp. pp. 160n,
163-69, 195 sqq.
l i s J. S. Mill, Three Essays on Religion (London: Longmans, Green Reader, and
Dyer, 1874), pp. 125-257.
486 ROBERT M. YOUNG
be generous in an age of the triumph of the uniformity of na-

ture. 1 1 9 What Newtonianism and its analogies in psychology, poli-
tics, and social theory had failed to bring about—including man and
society in the domain of natural law—had finally been achieved
by the patience of someone who could somehow integrate Paley
and Malthus (both in their ways representatives of the naturalistic
movement in its utilitarian aspect). If Darwin had cynically de-
signed natural selection as a device for speciously aiding the ad-
vance of the uniformity of nature, he could not have selected a
better contrivance. But, of course, deviousness had no place in
Darwin's character, any more than did the desire to offend sincere
believers. In the last letter he ever wrote to Wallace we find him
warmly recommending a book on The Creed of Science which
raised all the spectres which science had been alleged to have called
forth, only to reassure the reader that all was after all well with
man and God and nature. Darwin recommended the book to his
friends and wrote to the author, William Graham, to say that 'It is
a very long time since any other book has interested me so much'.
And adds, '. . . you have expressed my inward conviction, though
far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the
Universe is not the result of chance'.iso Graham had written,
We are compelled to interpret the course of evolution as being

under guidance; to believe that the final results were aimed at; that
Nature did not stumble on her best works by sheer accident, the
further results of which would have utterly astonished herself had
she eyes to see. Let us freely grant that intention, design, or plan
and purpose which we must read into nature, and which we must
suppose in some way to be there, is and must be very different
from ours, only remotely analogous to ours because we cannot
postulate the existence of a Person in which it resides; but yet we
must use the notion of design, because the only alternative, chance,
is still wider away from the facts. If we must elect between the
two agencies, chance and design, the latter must be nearer the truth.
Design we know already in our case to be a true shaping power,
while chance effects nothing but evil in the long run. Chance, as
U9 G. L. Nesbitt, Benthamite Reviewing: the First Twelve Years of the West'

minster Review, 1824-1836 (New York: Columbia, 19S4).
120 LLD, Vol. 1, pp. 815-17; cf. MLD, Vol. 1, pp. 393-95; Vol. 2, p. 171 and above
(note 5).
an explanation—and if design be denied, chance must be offered

as the explanation—is a word expressing nothing, a word which,
under pretence of explanation, affirms nothing whatever. It is diis;
but it is also much more serious; for it is the express denial of God
and it is thus genuine atheism.121
Before turning to the second aspect of the vicissitudes of Darwin's
metaphor, it may be illuminating to record another vignette reflect-
ing Darwin's ambiguous position. T h e Duke of Argyll recorded a
conversation with Darwin in the last year of his life, in which Argyll
remarked that when he contemplated the remarkable contrivances
recorded in Darwin's books on earthworms and orchids, he found it
impossible to do so 'without seeing that they were the effect and the
expression of mind. I shall never forget Mr. Darwin's answer. He
looked at me very hard and said, "Well, that often comes over me
with overwhelming force; but at other times," and he shook his
head vaguely, adding, "it seems to go away".' 1 2 2
VIII
Having considered some of the theological and philosophical
issues which arose in the scientific debate on Darwin's theory, one
could provide a similarly detailed exposition of a related and
straightforwardly scientific controversy over the mechanism of nat-
ural selection. Fortunately, however, this is largely unnecessary,
since it has received close attention from historians of biology. 128 I
shall therefore confine myself to summarizing the debate and relat-
ing it to the foregoing account. Another way of putting the views of
those who argued on theological and philosophical grounds that
Darwin's theory required or even implied design, was to say that
natural selection was not a vera causa.12* I said earlier that one of
121 w . Graham, The Creed of Science: Religious, Moral and Social (London:
Regan Paul, 1881), pp. 344-45.
122 LLD, Vol. 1, p. 316n.
!23 P. Vorzitnmer, "Darwin and Blending Inheritance," Isis, 54 (1963) , 371-90;
B.G. Beddall, "Wallace, Darwin, and the Theory of Natural Selection," J. Hist.
Biology, I (1968), 261-323; G. L. Geison, "Darwin and Heredity: the Evolution of
his Hypothesis of Pangenesis," J. Hist. Medicine, 24 (1969), 375-411.
124 This is another point of contact with the more straightforward literature ol
nineteenth-century philosophy mentioned above (note 68). Darwin's mechanism
revived questions about the concepts of cause and force, as well as issues about the
488 ROBERT M. YOUNG
Darwin's reasons for pitching his argument in abstract and meta-

phorical terms was that he was frankly and profoundly ignorant of
both the causes of variation and the precise means by which favour-
able variations were preserved and accumulated. That is, he really
had no mechanism at all. 1 2 " A crude and anachronistic way of
putting this is to say that he lacked a particulate theory of heredity,
a distinction between somatic and germ cells, and a concept of
dominance. In short, he lacked genetics and molecular biology.
These deficiencies are too crude to remain unqualified, since at
various times he considered theories which implied adumbrations of
all of these modern conceptions, particularly in the theory of 'Pan-
genesis' which he developed in his book on The Variation of Plants
and Animals Under Domestication. However, the attempts on Dar-
win's part to provide a satisfactory theory of inheritance did not
prevent him from progressively modifying the emphasis of his over-
all theory, and the reader can safely be referred to the discussion by
Vorzimmer and the thorough study by Geison on this topic. 1 2 6 For
present purposes it is sufficient to point out that critics who were
not wholly unsympathetic to Darwin showed that even a metaphor-
ical mechanism could not explain how favourable variations could
get established and accumulate in the history of a given race. T h e
problem was variously described as that of swamping, blending,
dilution, or the uselessness of incipient structures. 1 2 7 It is ironic
that the root objection underlying all these criticisms was the same
as that used by Paley to dismiss Erasmus Darwin's theory of evolu-
tion over half a century earlier. 1 2 8 (In Darwin's time it was even
philosophies of science and of nature, which are associated with the writings of
Whewell, Hamilton, and Mill. Cf. LLD, Vol. 2, p p . 289-90, along with the writings
of A. Bain and Mivart.
125 See above, p . 469.
126 There are a number of qualifications of the following account which should
be considered by anyone particularly interested in Darwin's attempts to make his
mechanism more specific. See especially Vorzimmer, "Darwin and Blending Inheri-
tance," op. cit. (note 123), p p . 880-82, 387-90 and Geison, "Darwin and Heredity,"
op. cit. (note 123), p p . 377, 398 sqq., 404-409.
1^7 For an excellent discussion of these problems in nineteenth-century terras,
including a spirited defence of Darwin, see Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin,
op. cit. (note 111), Vol. 1, p p . 350-62; Vol. 2, Chap. 1.
1^8 W. Paley, Natural Theology (1802) new ed.; London: Baynes, 1816) , p p . 58-
used to criticise the argument of Kingsley's Water Babies.)129

Just as he had been an early critic of Darwin's analogy between
artificial and natural selection, the co-author of the theory was
among the first to abandon belief in the total efficacy of natural
V selection. However, Wallace's partial defection can best be de-
scribed as a loss of faith in the plausibility of the principle of utility
as an adequate way of accounting for the development of certain
r key structures in man. Wallace went on to advocate creative inter-
vention at crucial stages in the history of nature—the appearance of
organized matter, consciousness, and man's higher faculties. 180
When Lyell finally accepted Darwin's theory in 1868, it was a
hollow victory, since Wallace reviewed the relevant edition of
Lyell's Principles in the Quarterly Review and used the notice as an
occasion for putting his views, on the limits of natural selection as
an explanatory principle, before the general public. 1 8 1 Although
Wallace's views were grievously disappointing to Darwin, they were
not supported by compelling arguments, and Darwin could only
lament his colleague's increasing movement towards spiritualism in
his philosophy of nature and voluntarism in his philosophy of man
and society. 182 Wallace had objected to the anthropomorphism of
Darwin's descriptions of natural selection only to embrace the guid-
ance of a 'superior intelligence' in his later views on the evolution
of m a n . 1 8 8
At an early stage Darwin had seen the difficulties involved in his
theory and the danger that it could not account for the means by
which small variations avoided being swamped in the general popu-
lation, and he had formulated his (ultimately unsuccessful) Pan-
genesis hypothesis before well-developed objections had been pub-
63. 140-41, 157, 175-76, 240, 268-70, 369-79. See also Elam, "The Gospel of
Evolution," op. cit. (note 101), pp. 720-21.
129 Anon., "Kingsley's Water Babies," Anthropological Rev., 1 (1863), 474-75.
130 Wallace, Natural Selection and Tropical Nature, op. cit. (note 71) , Chaps. 7-
9; Darwinism, op. cit. (note 79), Chap. 15; Eiseley, Darwin's Century, op. cit.
(note 4 ) , Chap. 11; Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin, op. cit. (note 111), pp.
20-35.
131 [Wallace], "Sir Charles L y e l l . . . , " op. cit. (note 19), pp. 379-94.
132 LLD, Vol. 3, pp. 116-17. Cf. above (note 68).
183 Wallace, Natural Selection and Tropical Nature, op. cit. (note 71), pp. 188,
204. Wa'lace's spiritualist views grew more explicit in his later writings.
lished. (The problem had been raised in a review of the Origin in

1860 and had worried both Gray and Huxley). 1 8 4 Even so, the
public first became properly aware of the problem in 1867, when
Fleeming Jenkin wrote an unpolemical and closely-reasoned cri-
tique of natural selection, which appeared in the North British
Review.135 This was reinforced four years later by St. George
Jackson Mivart's Genesis of Species, which reiterated Jenkin's argu-
ments. 1 3 6 Jenkin employed an elegant example of a white man
shipwrecked on an island of Negroes and showed by clear probabil-
istic reasoning that it was inescapable that his colour and his other
attributes—however undoubtedly 'superior'—would be swamped by
the rest of the population in a number of generations. 137 Mivart's
volume developed the problem of the inutility of incipient struc-
tures. 1 3 8 Both of these authors noted that Darwin had spoken
metaphorically about natural selection, but this was not their chief
concern. Rather, they were at pains to point out the patent insuffi-
ciency of Darwin's putative causes for evolutionary change. 1 3 9 Fi-
nally, as if Darwin didn't have troubles enough, the physicists set
about robbing him of the limitless draughts of time which Lyell's
geology had provided. Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin)
presented evidence from calculations about the age of the sun
which severely restricted the geological time-scale, and both Jenkin
and Mivart added this point to their already-formidable list of ob-
jections. Thus, even if Darwin's mechanism did not fail because of
blending or the inutility of incipient structures, it did not have
134 This point is stressed by Vorzimmer, "Darwin and Blending Inheritance,"

op. cit. (note 123), p . 386.
135 [F. Jenkin], "Darwin and the Origin of Species," North Brit. Rev., 46
(1867), 277-318. Citations from this paper refer to The Papers of Fleeming Jenkin
(2 vols.; London: Longman, Green, 1887). Vol. 1, p p . 215-63.
138 St. G. J. Mivart, On the Genesis of Species (London: Macmillan, 1871); see
also J. W. Gruber, A Conscience in Conflict: The Life of St. George Jackson Mivart
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1960).
137 [Jenkin], "Darwin and the Origin of Species," op. cit. (note 135), p p . 228-
30.,
188 Mivart, On the Genesis of Species, op. cit. (note 136), p p . 21-62; cf.
Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin, op. cit. (note 111), Vol. 1, p p . 350 sqq.
189 (Jenkin], op. cit. (note 135), p p . 216-19; Mivart, op. cit. (note 136), p p . 14-
17.
enough time to work in. Darwin saw this as one of the most worry-
ing objections which had been put forward. 1 4 0
Darwin had been thinking about the problem of blending since
the 1840s and was making various moves to shore up his theory
when Jenkin's attack appeared. His response was to beat an orderly
retreat by allowing increasing roles for the inheritance of acquired
characters, the direct action of the environment, sexual selection,
and other causes. It is important to see this change in its proper
perspective. Darwin's theory is usually considered to have gained
the attention of the scientific community largely because he had, at
last, specified a cause for evolution. Natural selection set his theory
apart from the theories of all the others. Before Darwin, as Huxley
pointed out in his review of the Origin in the Times, evolution had
been 'a "skeleton in the closet" to many an honest zoologist and
botanist'. 1 4 1 In his fuller treatment of the book in the Westminster
Review, he reflected the change in atmosphere: natural selection
was 'the only extant hypothesis which is worth anything in a scien-
tific point of view'. 1 4 2 T e n years later, G. H. Lewes pointed out
that earlier hypotheses had failed to move most scientists but that
'Minds unconvinced by all such attempts were at once subdued by
the principle of Natural Selection, involving as it did, on the one
hand, incontestable Struggle for Existence, and on the other, the
known laws of Adaptation and Hereditary Transmission'. 1 "
Whatever claims Darwin and others may have made later about the
role of other factors, it is clear both from the title of the book and
from reiteration throughout the text that the success of his theory
depended overwhelmingly on the faith which he could elicit in
natural selection.
Darwin presented a brave, even slightly taunting, front. Paley
had suggested that contemplation of the eye was a cure for atheism:
such a beautiful and complex structure could only have been con-
140 [Jenkin], op. cit. (note 185), pp. 240-41; Geison, "Darwin and Heredity,"
op. cit. (note 123), pp. 381 sqq.; Eiseley, Darwin's Century, op. cit. (note 4), Chap.
9.
141 Huxley, Collected Essays, op. cit. (note 60), Vol. 2, p. 13.
142 76id.,p.74.
lis Lewes, "Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," op. cit. (note 1), Vol. 3, p. 356.
492 ROBERT M. YOUNG
trived by an omnipotent Designer. 14 * Darwin took up this point in

his chapter on the 'Difficulties on Theory' in a section on 'Organs of
Extreme Perfection and Complication'.
To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for
adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different
amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic
aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I
freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells
me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to
one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its pos-
sessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so
slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the
case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever
useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the
difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be
formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagina-
tion, can hardly be considered real.145
In private Darwin was less confident. He wrote to Gray in 1860, 'I

remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold
all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and
now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very un-
comfortable. T h e sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I
gaze at it, makes me sickl' 1 4 6 As he began to give increasing weight
to other factors, he was certainly aware of detracting from the unity
and simplicity of his theory. He wrote to Hooker in 1862 (in a
letter which was later seized upon by a critic), 'I hardly know why I
am a little sorry, but my present work is leading me to believe
rather more direct [sic] in the action of physical conditions. I
presume I regret it, because it lessens the glory of natural selection,
1M Paley, Natural Theology, op. cit. (note 128), Chap. 3, esp. p. 32.
l « Origin, pp. 186-87; cf. LLD, Vol. 2, p. 285 ("Baden Powell says he never read
anything so conclusive as my statement about the eyel"). There were many
objections to Darwin's presumption: Mozley, "The Argument of Design," op. cit.
(note 112), p. 168; Mivart, On the Genesis of Species, op. cit. (note 136), p. 51; cf.
Ellegard, Darwin and the General Reader, op. cit. (note 65), pp. 247-48; above, p.
470.
i«« LLD, Vol. 2, p. 296; cf. Mill, "Theism," op. cit. (note 118), pp. 170-73.
and is so confoundedly doubtful'. 1 4 7 By 1876 he was convinced that

there is an important role for the direct action of the environment
and regretted that he had not seen this in the period in which he
wrote the Origin and for some years after. In the intervening period
he had also allowed an increasing role for the inheritance of ac-
quired characteristics. Indeed, one of his most eloquent defenders
later pointed out that 'Darwin's acceptance of the theory of use-
inheritance was vitally essential to his theory of Pangenesis—that
"beloved child" over which he had "thought so much as to have lost
all power of judging it".' 1 * 8
Once Darwin had decided that he would have to supplement
natural selection with a number of other factors, he was quite
explicit about the change. In the sixth and last edition of the
Origin (1872), he altered the first paragraph of his conclusion to
read as follows:
I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have
thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified, during
a long course of descent. This has been effected chiefly through the
natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable varia-
tions; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the
use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is in
relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct
action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us
in our ignorance to arise spontaneously. It appears that I formerly
underrated the frequency and value of these latter forms of varia-
tion, as leading to permanent modifications of structure indepen-
dently of natural selection. But as my conclusions have lately been
much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the
modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be
permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and sub-
sequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position—namely, at the
close of the Introduction—the following words: "I am convinced
that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive
means of modification." This has been of no avail. Great is die
147 [Mivart], "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," op. cit. (note 69), p.
440.
148 LLD, Vol. 8, pp. 72, 75; Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin, op. cit. (note
111), Vol. 2, p. 11; Geison suggests that Spencer's theory of use-inheritance may
have strongly influenced Darwin's theory of Pangenesis: "Darwin and Heredity,"
op. cit. (note 123), pp. 398 sqq.
power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows

that fortunately this power does not long endure. 1 * 9
i
Having done his best to make his modified position clear in die last
edition of the Origin, he forcefully repeated the point as the only
substantive issue raised in the short preface to the second edition of
The Descent of Man (1874):
I may take this opportunity of remarking that my critics frequently
assume that I attribute all changes of corporeal structure and men-
tal power exclusively to the natural selection of such variations as
are often called spontaneous; whereas, even in the first edition of
die "Origin of Species," I distinctly stated titiat great weight must
be attributed to die inherited effects of use and disuse, widi respect
both to the body and mind. I also attributed some amount of modi-
fication to the direct and prolonged action of changed conditions of
life. Some allowance, too, must be made for occasional reversions
of structure; nor must we forget what I have called "correlated"
growth, meaning, thereby, that various parts of the organisation
are in some unknown manner so connected, that when one part
varies, so do others; and if variations in the one are accumulated
by selection, other parts will be modified. Again, it has been said
by several critics, that when I found that many details of structure
in man could not be explained through natural selection, I in-
vented sexual selection; I gave, however, a tolerably clear sketch of
this principle in the first edition of the "Origin of Species," and I
there stated that it was applicable to man. This subject of sexual
selection has been treated at full length in the present work, sim-
ply because an opportunity was here first afforded me. I have been
struck with the likeness of many of the half-favourable criticisms
on sexual selection, with those which appeared at first on natural
selection; such as, that it would explain some few details, but cer-
tainly was not applicable to the extent to which I have exployed
it. My conviction of the power of sexual selection remains unshaken;
but it is probable, or almost certain, that several of my conclusions
will hereafter be found erroneous; this can hardly fail to be the
case in the first treatment of a subject. 180
T w e n t y years later, i n t h e clearest contemporary exposition of
149 Origin, 6th ed., op. cit. (note 37), p. 395; Peckham (ed.), Variorum Edition,
op. cit. (note 66), pp. 747-48.
150 C. Darwin, The Descent of Man, op. cit. (note 88), 2d. ed., pp. v-vi.
DARWIN'S METAPHOR." DOES NATURE SELECT? 495
the issues as they were seen by scientists in the nineteenth century,

George J. Romanes stressed the later development of Darwin's views
and added that 'the longer he lived, and the more he pondered
these points, the less exclusive was the rdle which he assigned to
natural selection, and the more importance did he attribute to the
supplementary factors above named [the same ones listed above in
this article]. This admits of being easily demonstrated by compar-
ing successive editions of his works; a method adopted by Mr.
Herbert Spencer in his essay on the Factors of Organic
Evolution'.161
Spencer's views pose a revealing contrast to Darwin's. He firmly
believed that the inheritance of acquired characteristics was far
more important in the higher stages of evolution than natural
selection. He related this point to his grand scheme of universal
evolution and its application to man and society; his scheme in fact
depended on the validity of use-inheritance. His essay on Darwin's
retreat was marvellously catty, and he developed the point further
in a series of essays which began with one on 'The Inadequacy of
Natural Selection'. Spencer pointed out the difficulties involved in
making the analogy from artificial to natural selection and repro-
duced the usual objections based on the uselessness of incipient
structures and on swamping, but he had a more basic motive for
opposing natural selection in the evolution of man, and it is for this
reason that he returned again and again to the issue.
I have, indeed, been led to suspend for a short time my proper
work, only by consciousness of the transcendant importance of the
question at issue. As I have before contended, a right answer to
the question whether acquired characters are or are not inherited,
underlies right beliefs, not only in Biology and Psychology, but also
in Education, Ethics, and Politics. 1 ' 2
161 Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin, op. cit. (note 111), Vol. 2, p. 8.
182 H. Spencer, The Principles of Biology (2d ed.; 2 vols; London: Williams and
Norgate, 1898), Vol. 1, p. 650; ct. pp. 630, 690, 695. Spencer also says, 'More than
once I have pointed out that, as influencing men's views about Education, Ethics,
Sociology, and Politics, the question whether acquired characters are inherited is
the most important question before the scientific world.' (p. 672); cf. my
"Malthus and the Evolutionists," op. cit. (note 14), pp. 134-37, and above (note
46).
496 ROBERT M. YOUNG
T h e context within which Spencer—and Wallace—saw the problem

of the mechanism of evolution should be contrasted with that of
Darwin. Wallace and Spencer can be said to have held and modi-
fied their evolutionary views on the basis of philosophical, social,
and political theories. There is no obvious basis for attributing
Darwin's changing views to such factors, but the point to be noted
here is that they did change considerably. Darwin changed at least
as much as the oft-criticised Wallace and a long way in the direction
of Spencer, whose views are usually sharply contrasted with Dar-
win's. 1 5 3 Like the true gradualist that he was, Darwin modified
passages in successive editions of the Origin as the objections arose.
Of course, not all of the textual modifications were concerned with
natural selection, while others contained answers to objections. But
some idea of the amount of modification which his theory under-
went can be seen from the findings of the editor of the variorum
edition of the Origin: 'Of the 3,878 sentences in the first edition,
nearly 3,000, about 75 per cent, were rewritten from one to five
times each. Over 1,500 sentences were added, and of the original
sentences plus these, nearly 325 were dropped. Of the original and
added sentences there are nearly 7,500 variants of all kinds. I n
terms of net added sentences, the sixth edition is nearly a third as
long as the first'.154 T h e editions from the first to the sixth in-
cluded ever-increasing revisions. Of the total, 7 per cent appeared in
the second edition (1859), 14 per cent in the third (1861), 21 per
cent in the fourth (1866), 29 per cent in the fifth (1869), and the
sixth (1872) —including extensive replies to Mivart—had even
more. 1 5 5 It is a useful exaggeration to say that by the sixth edition
the book was mistitled and should have read On the Origin of
163 it is noteworthy that Tyndall's "Belfast Address," op. cit. (notes 76 and 61)
contains lengthy expositions of the contributions of both Darwin and Spencer but
makes no reference to theoretical differences between them on the mechanism of
evolution. The Works of Samuel Butler should also be consulted on the question
of the mechanism and particularly on the changes in Darwin's views: Life and
Habit (1878); Evolution, Old and New (1879); Unconscious Memory (1880);
Luck or Cunning? (1887).
154 Peckham, Variorum Edition, op. cit. (note 66), p . 9; cf. Romanes, Darwin
and After Darwin, op. cit. (note 111), Vol. 2, pp. 2-5.
155 Peckham, op. cit., p p . 20-24.
Species by Means of Natural Selection and All Sorts of Other

Things.
T h e scientific difficulties in the way of natural selection con-
tinued to increase. When one of its most ardent exponents, Profes-
sor A. Weismann, wrote an article in 1893 entitled "The All-
Sufficiency of Natural Selection," Spencer happily pointed out that
it contained the following 'admission which he has himself itali-
cised, "that it is really very difficult to imagine this process of natural
selection in its details; and to this day it is impossible to demonstrate
it in any one point." '166 As a result of successive theoretical and
experimental developments in biology which seemed inconsistent
with Darwin's mechanism of natural selection, this aspect of his
theory went into increasing decline, so much so that Nordenskiold's
standard History of Biology (written 1920-24 and still in print)
included long chapters chronicling the decline of Darwinism, in the
same period as evolution was being increasingly accepted. 'To raise
the theory of selection, as has often been done, to the rank of a
"natural law" comparable in value with the law of gravity estab-
lished by Newton is, of course, quite irrational, as time has already
shown; Darwin's theory of the origin of species was long ago aban-
doned'. 1 6 7 Within ten years, however, biologists were generally
convinced that Darwin had been right in the first place, and nu-
merous Nobel Prizes have been awarded to scientists who have
worked out the details of the finer mechanisms of the theory of
evolution by natural selection, and natural selection alone. 1 5 8 But
in the period which lay between the mid-1860s and the 1930s, it
became increasingly unorthodox to object to evolution per se: the
uniformity of nature was progressively assumed to apply to the
history of life, including the life and mind of man. There was an
ongoing debate about the mechanism or mechanisms by which this
occurred, but the basic point was accepted.
156 Spencer, Principles of Biology, op. cit. (note 152), Vol. 1, p . 651.
157 E. Nordenskiold, The History of Biology (1920-1924, New York: Tudor,
1928),p. 476.
158 For expositions of the neo-Darwinian theory, see J. Huxley, Evolution: the
Modern Synthesis (London: Allen & Unwin, 1942); G. G. Simpson, The Meaning
of Evolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949); J. M. Smith, The Theory
cf Evolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958) ; J. D. Watson, The Double Helix
(New York: Atheneum, 1968).
498 ROBERT M. YOUNG
IX
Beginning in 1863, with the publication of Lyell's Antiquity of
Man and Huxley's Man's Place in Nature, the debate increasingly
focused on the question of the applicability of evolution to man.i<*9
When Darwin's Descent of Man appeared in 1871, there was a brief
revival of the intense controversy which had raged over Vestiges in
the late 1840s and over the Origin in the early 1860s. This con-
troversy should be studied in its own right, but for present purposes
it should be noticed that the main reviews of Descent used all of the
available objections to Darwin's mechanism—and welcomed Wal-
lace's defection on the subject of man's origins. 1 8 0 However, it is
noteworthy that neither W. B. Dawkins in the Edinburgh Review
nor Mivart in the Quarterly concentrated their attacks on the
theory of evolution itself: it was the adequacy of natural selection
and the application of evolution to man's mental nature that they
opposed. But the vehemence of their opposition on these issues is
complemented by tacit acceptance of evolution in general. 1 8 1 In
the Contemporary Review, Alexander Grant expressed milder ob-
jections to natural selection as an explanation of man's higher
intellectual powers, but he could still claim that Darwin's work
'might be described as a system of Natural Theology founded on a
new basis'. 1 6 2 Most of the antagonists in the debate had ceased to
question evolution well before Darwin's Descent of Man appeared.
G. H. Lewes' passionate defence of "Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses" in
the Fortnightly Review had not insisted on natural selection, only
evolution itself, while a highly critical answer to Lewes by J. B.
Mozley in the Quarterly (as we have formerly remarked) accepted
those two propositions and only added the need for design. 1 63
159 Lyell, Antiquity of Man, op. cit. (note 91); T. H. Huxley, Man's Place in
Nature (1863, reprinted Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959).
160 See above (note 131).
181 [W. B. Dawkins], "Darwin on the Descent of Man," Edinburgh Rev., 134
(1871), 195-235; [St. G. J. Mivart], "Darwin's Descent of Man," Quarterly Rev.,
131 (1871), 47-90. See also [Mivart's] "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,"
op. cit. (note 69), pp. 438 sqq., 443,446.
162 A. Grant, "Philosophy and Mr. Darwin," Contemporary Rev., 17 (1871),
275, 279.
163 Lewes, "Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," op. cit. (note 1), Vol. 3, p. 355; see above
(notes 112,113).
Furthermore, the deliberations of some of the most eminent scien-

tists, philosophers, editors, and men of affairs in the period at the
meetings of the Metaphysical Society (1869-80), led to the common
conclusion that 'The uniformity of Nature is the veil behind which,
in these latter days, God is hidden from us'. 1 6 4
But what remains to be said about Darwin's metaphor? In the
only comprehensive study of the reception of Darwin's theory, Elle-
gard points out that natural selection was not crucial to the general
acceptance of evolution and that there was very little mention of it
in the popular press. 165 I hope that I have shown that Ellegard's
claim is only true in a very complex sense. Those who interpreted
Darwin for the intelligentsia made a very close analysis of natural
selection, but Darwin's mode of writing about it made it possible
for them to present the theory of evolution in a way which was near
enough to their theological beliefs to allow acceptance of the uni-
formity of nature as applied to the history of life. There were
important demarcation disputes about the extent to which the
theory could be applied to man and mind, but the message which
was passed to the popular press was, in the end, fundamentally
reassuring. The so-called 'mechanism' was essential in finally gain-
ing a fair hearing for evolution in 1859 and was again essential after
the establishment of the modern neo-Darwinian theory over half a
century later. Of course, the interpretations which Darwin's lan-
guage permitted were, at bottom, inconsistent with the basis of his
theory in chance and trial-and-error and Mivart was quite right to
point out in his review of Darwin's Life and Letters that 'it is clear
and indisputable that the Darwinian hypothesis was one essentially
opposed to the assertion of a purpose or design in nature; . . .' 1 6 8
Nevertheless, the fortunes of evolutionism certainly benefitted from
a sort of creative confusion on the part of Darwin's readers and to
some extent on his own part.
is* R. H. Hutton, "The Metaphysical Society: a Reminiscence," Nineetenth

Century, 18 (1885), 196; A. W. Brown, The Metaphysical Society: Victorian Minds
in Crisis, 1869-1880 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1947); see above (note
115).
165 Ellegard, Darwin and the General Reader, op. cit. (note 65), pp. 24, 1S8,
Chap. 12.
168 [Mivart], "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," op. cit. (note 69), pp.
437-38.
500 ROBERT M. YOUNG
It is clear that Darwin's putative mechanism of natural selection

suffered grievously for philosophical, theological, and scientific rea-
sons—and often for all three—at the hands of critics who combined
their reservations and/or their enthusiasms. But, as they concen-
trated on skirmishes the main issue was settled. Putting the matter
another way, Darwin's mechanism—in its nineteenth-century form
and in its nineteenth-century context—turned out to be a very frail
reed, but in bending with the winds it allowed his real commitment
to the uniformity of nature to contribute to the general movement
of nineteenth-century naturalism. If we notice the extent to which
the special status of natural selection was weakened by scientists,
theologians, and philosophers, Darwin's achievement turns out to be
much more like that of Lyell and of the other evolutionists: to-
gether, by a rather confused mixture of metaphysical, methodolog-
ical, and scientific arguments which depended heavily on analogical
and metaphorical expressions, they brought the earth, life, and man
into the domain of natural laws.
Looking at the issue from the point of view of the intellectual
history of the period, I hope that I have provided evidence for the
utility of probing deeper into the scientific debate in order better to
understand the wider issues in the thought of the period. If we begin
with the most straightforward and 'scientific' aspect of the theory
and go on to look at its vicissitudes in the scientific controversy and
the interpretations which it is given in the wider debate we are led
by insensible stages from the supposedly internalist facts and
theories of science to psychological, theological, social and related
issues in the philosophies of God, man, and nature. At a more
general level, it is worth considering whether or not any funda-
mental scientific theory can be accurately represented as a pure,
positivist discovery, free from the sorts of factors which are clearly
involved in the case of natural selection. If we ask this question
persistently enough, we may learn something about the nature of
science itself.
X
As an epilogue I should like to relate Darwin's influence to
wider issues by means of renderings by three of the most sophisti-
cated writers of the period which conveyed the meaning of evolu-
tion to the reading public. These remarks may help to show how far-
reaching was the influence of evolutionary theory and illustrate the

claim that the main thrust of the argument—support for the philo-
sophical principle of the uniformity of nature—was the message
which was most pervasively felt at all levels of the thought of the
period.
In 1847, three years after the appearance of Vestiges, Benjamin
Disraeli p u b l i s h e d a novel entitled Tancred (the last of his 'Young
E n g l a n d ' trilogy). T h e eponymous h e r o calls o n y o u n g Lady Con-
stance, a n d t h e following conversation takes place:
After making herself very agreeable, Lady Constance took up a book
which was at hand, and said, "Do you know this?" And Tancred,
opening a volume, which he had never seen, and then turning to
its title-page, found it was "The Revelations of Chaos", a startling
work just published, and of which a rumour had reached him.
"No," he replied: "I have not seen it."
"I will lend it you, if you like; it is one of those books one must
read. It explains everything, and is written in a very agreeable
style."
"It explains everything!" said Tancred; "it must, indeed, be a
very remarkable book!"
"I think it will just suit you," said Lady Constance. "Do you
know, I thought so several times while I was reading it."
" T o judge from the title, die subject is radier obscure," said
Tancred.
"No longer so," said Lady Constance, "It is treated scientifically;
everydiing is explained by geology and astronomy, and in that way.
It shows you exactly how a star is formed; nothing can be so pretty!
A cluster of vapour—die cream of the milky way—a sort of celes-
tial cheese—churned into light—You must read it, 'tis charming."
"Nobody ever saw a star formed," said Tancred.
"Perhaps not. But you must read the 'Revelations'; it is all ex-
plained. But what is most interesting, is the way in which man has
developed. You know, all is development. T h e principle is per-
petually going on. First, there was nothing, then diere was some-
thing; dien—I forget the next—I diink there were shells, dien fishes;
then we came—Let me see—did we come next? Never mind diat;
we came at last. And die next change will be something very
superior to us—something widi wings. Ah! that's it: we were fishes,
and I believe we shall be crows. But you must read it."
"I. do not believe I ever was a fish," said Tancred.
502 ROBERT M. YOUNG
"Oh! but it's all proved: you must not argue on my rapid sketch;
read the book. It is impossible to contradict anything in it. You
understand, it is all science; it is not like those books in which one
says one diing and another die contrary, and bodi may be wrong.
Everydiing is proved—by geology, you know. You see exactly how
everydiing is made; how many worlds diere have been; how long
diey lasted; what went before, and what comes next. We are a link
in the chain, as inferior animals were that preceded us: we in turn
shall be inferior; all that will remain of us will be some relics in a
new red sandstone. This is development. We had fins—we may
have wings."167
In garbling the details and satirising the Vestiges, Disraeli still
conveys the essential sweep of Chambers' argument.
Thirty years later, G. H . Lewes pointed out the close affinity
between Chambers' views and the Duke of Argyll's gloss on Dar-
win's theory in The Reign of Law:
I am perfectly serious, and very far from implying a shadow of doubt
respecting the Duke's orthodoxy, in dius likening die "Reign of
Law" to die "Vestiges". What die dieological creed of die anony-
mous audior of die "Vestiges" may have been we cannot decisively
affirm; nor have we any concern with it. The idea which alarmed
theological Britain—and justly alarmed it—was die idea which runs
dirough die Duke of Argyll's work, namely, diat everywhere
throughout Nature—including therein all moral and social phenom-
ena—the processes are subordinated to unchangeable Law; and that
the whole universe, physical and moral, is the Development of a
Plan, or Creative Purpose, which may—to some extent at least—be
ascertained by Science. Not only is this the fundamental thesis of
both works, it leads both writers to conclusions which in die "Ves-
tiges" excited bitter wrath, and in the "Reign of Law" (perhaps be-
cause less salient, perhaps also because no longer novel) leave die
public unagitated.168
Finally, if we look opposite Lewes as he wrote, we find the woman
who put these remarks into the mouth of Dorothea Brooke's loqua-
cious uncle:
16TB. Disraeli, Tancred: or, The New Crusade (S vols.; London: Colburn,
1847), Vol. 1, pp. 224-26.
168 G. H. Lewes, "The Reign of Law," Fortnightly Rev., NS. 2 (1867), 97; ef.
pp. 98,99,101,104, 111; cf. above, p. 480.
'I went into science a great deal myself at one time; but I saw it
would not do. It leads to everything; you can let nothing alone'. 169
ROBERT M. YOUNG
KING'S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND
160 George Eliot, Middlemarch: a Study of Provincial Life (3 vols.; Edinburgh:

Blackwood, 1871-1872, reprinted Harmondsvrorth: Penguin, 1965), p. 39; cf. G. S.
Haight, George Eliot: a Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 1968) ; B. J.
Paris, Experiments in Life: George Eliot's Quest for Values (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1965); A. T. Kitchel, George Henry Lewes and George Eliot: a
Review of Records (New York: Day, 1943) .

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DARWIN'S METAPHOR: DOES NATURE SELECT?

wider movement of which it was in fact but a part. 3 T h e second is

close look at the putatively most scientific aspect of Darwin's theory

taken seriously.7 Others had provided vague or implausible theories

imprecise accounts.10 If one sacrifices scope in the hope of gaining

10 There is a vast literature purporting to assess Darwin's influence in various

Thirdly, it will be shown that his precise solution turned out to be

Francis Darwin in G. De Beer (ed.), C. Darwin and A. R. Wallace, Evolution by

18 Lyell gave a concise statement of his aims in a letter to Roderick Murchison

change within a naturalist scientific metaphysic. By judicious min-

At one level, then—that of the principle of explanation by small

ent progressive tendency in living nature was unacceptable. T h e

In another letter to Hooker, written in the same year, Darwin

ing, as far as I know, approached the subject on the side of varia-

27 LLD, Vol. 2, pp. 29-30.

animals'. 3 1 Having satisfied himself that they do, he makes the

81 Darwin & Wallace, p. 43.

456 ROBERT M. YOUNG

curious juxtaposition which provides the subject of much of what

SB Darwin & Wallace, p. 86.

book are neither mutually consistent nor developed in detail. Just as

88 R. Chambers, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (12th ed.; Edin-

M. Millhauser, Just Before Darwin: Robert Chambers and Vestiges (Middletown,

hers' theory of Development, should be set alongside those of Dar-

T h e doctrine of die universality of natural causation, has for its

Lyell h a d confined his arguments to t h e history of t h e earth, a n d

46 H. Spencer, An Autobiography (2 vols.; London: Williams & Norgate, 1904),

Powell points out that the argument is 'independent of the sup-

pomorphic expressions from scientific explanations. Biologists,

can produce and certainly has produced a great result by his

relations of life. The theory of natural selection, even if we looked

89 Origin, pp. 467, 469.

Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural

84 LLD, Vol. 2, p. 346.

natural selection is a false term; but who ever objected to chemists

metaphorical expression, which is 'almost necessary for brevity*. It is

me that there are three related reasons for Darwin's writing as he

70 N. Barlow (ed.), The Autobiography of Charles Darwin with original omis-

73 T h e chapter in the Origin which Darwin rather hopefully calls "Laws of

tively confusing the metaphysical regulative principle of science

Wallace wrote a friendly letter in which he attempted to persuade

80 MLD, Vol. 1, p. 267.

this indeed led me to use a term in common, and I still think it

83 MLD, Vol. 1, pp. 270-71.

One more word upon the Deification of Natural Selection: attribut-

No astronomer, in showing how die movements of planets are due

It is D a r w i n w h o r e t u r n s to the question a year later.

80 MLD, Vol. 1, p. 154.

analogous cause. If we confound "Variation' or 'Natural Selection*

91 C. Lyell, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks

DARWIN'S METAPHOR: DOES NATURE SELECT? 477

made me, I cannot but think, rightly, insist so much on Natural

correspondence on the subject. I am in a complete jumble on the

a lengthening list of converts eagerly compiled by Darwin in the

articles on the topic extend from reviews of the Origin to interpre-

7 DARWIN'S METAPHOR: DOES NATURE SELECT? 481

corned Gray's s u p p o r t a n d expressed considerable uncertainty a b o u t

A year later D a r w i n reverts to the subject in the light of Herschel's

I sent a copy to Sir J. Herschel, and in his new edition of his

10* See also LLD, Vol. 2; pp. 269-73.286-87,286-87,289,296-97,305-06.

agrees, to a certain limited extent, but puts in a caution on design

signed, certainly man must be: one's "inner consciousness" (though

between artifice and the physical causes of the artificer's materials.