Erasmus in Darwin books
04/21/2009 11:57
There’s a rush to publish books on Darwin for his bicentennial. A pile of books on prominent display in the library. Half on Darwin and half on Lincoln. It’s great that people want to call attention to evolution, especially given the rise in Creationism and its cousins. But it’s interesting what people who write about Charles Darwin have to say about his grandfather, Erasmus.
David Quammen, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin (New York: WW Norton, 2006)
Discussing Charles Darwin’s thought process around 1837, Quammen says “As a heading on the first page of [notebook] ‘B’ he wrote “Zoonomia,” in genuflection to a book of that title published forty years earlier by his own grandfather” (27). He goes on to say that Erasmus was a boozy, gouty sire of bastards, and that “Zoonomia, mainly a medical treatise, included a section in which old Erasmus had floated evolutionary ideas of his own, suggesting that ‘all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament,’ and that the common lineage possessed a capacity ‘of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity,’ with those improvements transmissible from parents to offspring.” But “Erasmus Darwin had never pressed this idea too far, nor clarified it, nor supported it with evidence,” all things that Charles now committed himself to do. (28)
Quammen identifies both Erasmus and his son Robert as freethinkers (34), but suggests that Charles was afraid to go that far, because he was worried about an academic career.
Darwin was befriended at Edinburgh by “a dazzling young instructor,” Robert Grant. Grant “venerated” Erasmus Darwin “as an evolutionary pioneer” (72). Quammen doesn’t take the hint, and insists on calling him “old Erasmus” throughout.
Quammen mentions the Vestiges a few times in passing, without ever really explaining it or its place. In his story, it was racy, popular (he says Queen Victoria read it), and unprofessional. Darwin wanted to publish something better. Quammen says Darwin was hng up on the idea of evidence and solid references. Is this accurate, or anachronistic? Does it really stand, as an argument for Darwin’s apparent disrespect – not only for Vestiges, but for Zoonomia?
Cyril Aydon, Charles Darwin (New York: Caroll & Graf, 2002)
Aydon says he writes from a lifelong fascination with Darwin and his work. He describes Erasmus as a giant: “one of the most famous men in England. King George III had offered him the post of Royal Physician…He had written a book called The Botanic Garden, which set out the whole of current botanical knowledge in the form of an extended poem. It had taken literary London by storm. He later wrote a massive work on animal life, entitled Zoonomia, in which he put forward a theory of what would later come to be called evolution. The Zoonomia was one of the most talked-about books of its day. It was paid the complement of being pirated in New York, and the even greater compliment of being placed on the Papal Index.” (3)
“In July 1837, with his Journal ready for the press, [Darwin] opened a small brown notebook, and wrote on its title page the single word Zoonomia. It was the title of the book in which his grandfather Erasmus had set out his ideas on the subject of animal evolution sixty years before. Darwin had read it as a student, and found it unconvincing. His admiration had been reserved for Paley’s Natural Theology, and its Argument from Design. But now, at twenty-eight, as he began to set down his thoughts on the subject of species and their origins, from the perspective of his five-year voyage, Paley was dismissed, and he proudly, secretly, claimed his intellectual inheritance.” (122)
But still secretly. Timid Darwin. And Paley’s argument from design? Give me a break! Aydon blames some of Darwin’s timidity on his wealth, but also on the fact that Vestiges was savaged in the Edinburgh Reiview by Adam Sedgwick, Darwin’s old Geology mentor. Aydon says Darwin imagined his own ideas being treated similarly, concluding “Whatever else ‘Mr. Vestiges’ had achielved, he had made it even less likely that Darwin would ever voluntarily expose his ideas to the risk of similar treatment.” (167)
Others (Michael Shermer) point out that when Charles left Edinburgh for Cambridge, he matriculated in Theology. Still others (Richard Darwin Keynes) suggest that Charles didn’t credit Erasmus, Lamarck, or anyone else because he thought the principle of development he was “proving” for the first time was actually so obvious as not to need acknowledgment. In this sense, Charles is supposed to have perceived himself as the guy who proved a point that should have been obvious to everyone? Doesn’t add up.
David Quammen, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin (New York: WW Norton, 2006)
Discussing Charles Darwin’s thought process around 1837, Quammen says “As a heading on the first page of [notebook] ‘B’ he wrote “Zoonomia,” in genuflection to a book of that title published forty years earlier by his own grandfather” (27). He goes on to say that Erasmus was a boozy, gouty sire of bastards, and that “Zoonomia, mainly a medical treatise, included a section in which old Erasmus had floated evolutionary ideas of his own, suggesting that ‘all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament,’ and that the common lineage possessed a capacity ‘of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity,’ with those improvements transmissible from parents to offspring.” But “Erasmus Darwin had never pressed this idea too far, nor clarified it, nor supported it with evidence,” all things that Charles now committed himself to do. (28)
Quammen identifies both Erasmus and his son Robert as freethinkers (34), but suggests that Charles was afraid to go that far, because he was worried about an academic career.
Darwin was befriended at Edinburgh by “a dazzling young instructor,” Robert Grant. Grant “venerated” Erasmus Darwin “as an evolutionary pioneer” (72). Quammen doesn’t take the hint, and insists on calling him “old Erasmus” throughout.
Quammen mentions the Vestiges a few times in passing, without ever really explaining it or its place. In his story, it was racy, popular (he says Queen Victoria read it), and unprofessional. Darwin wanted to publish something better. Quammen says Darwin was hng up on the idea of evidence and solid references. Is this accurate, or anachronistic? Does it really stand, as an argument for Darwin’s apparent disrespect – not only for Vestiges, but for Zoonomia?
Cyril Aydon, Charles Darwin (New York: Caroll & Graf, 2002)
Aydon says he writes from a lifelong fascination with Darwin and his work. He describes Erasmus as a giant: “one of the most famous men in England. King George III had offered him the post of Royal Physician…He had written a book called The Botanic Garden, which set out the whole of current botanical knowledge in the form of an extended poem. It had taken literary London by storm. He later wrote a massive work on animal life, entitled Zoonomia, in which he put forward a theory of what would later come to be called evolution. The Zoonomia was one of the most talked-about books of its day. It was paid the complement of being pirated in New York, and the even greater compliment of being placed on the Papal Index.” (3)
“In July 1837, with his Journal ready for the press, [Darwin] opened a small brown notebook, and wrote on its title page the single word Zoonomia. It was the title of the book in which his grandfather Erasmus had set out his ideas on the subject of animal evolution sixty years before. Darwin had read it as a student, and found it unconvincing. His admiration had been reserved for Paley’s Natural Theology, and its Argument from Design. But now, at twenty-eight, as he began to set down his thoughts on the subject of species and their origins, from the perspective of his five-year voyage, Paley was dismissed, and he proudly, secretly, claimed his intellectual inheritance.” (122)
But still secretly. Timid Darwin. And Paley’s argument from design? Give me a break! Aydon blames some of Darwin’s timidity on his wealth, but also on the fact that Vestiges was savaged in the Edinburgh Reiview by Adam Sedgwick, Darwin’s old Geology mentor. Aydon says Darwin imagined his own ideas being treated similarly, concluding “Whatever else ‘Mr. Vestiges’ had achielved, he had made it even less likely that Darwin would ever voluntarily expose his ideas to the risk of similar treatment.” (167)
Others (Michael Shermer) point out that when Charles left Edinburgh for Cambridge, he matriculated in Theology. Still others (Richard Darwin Keynes) suggest that Charles didn’t credit Erasmus, Lamarck, or anyone else because he thought the principle of development he was “proving” for the first time was actually so obvious as not to need acknowledgment. In this sense, Charles is supposed to have perceived himself as the guy who proved a point that should have been obvious to everyone? Doesn’t add up.
