By: Janet Brown, Portico Series. Attic Books and Yediot Books. From English: Broria Ben-Baruch. The third and last part of the first chapter of the book, which describes the process of writing the most influential book in the last 150 years - Darwin's Origin of Species
The five years Darwin spent on the voyage of the ship Beagle shaped his personality. He spent them galloping about on hired horses, setting up camp in a new place every night, hunting animals for dinner in the company of the other ship passengers, talking about news that came from home, having fun; They were a kind of extension of the life of the sparrow who lived as a student in Cambridge. As a matter of fact, it is very likely that he was chosen to go on the journey precisely because of that kindness that later allowed him to take part in the activities on board the ship and blended in nicely with the cultural background from which he came and with his skill in shooting and hunting. And he was given many opportunities where he could demonstrate these abilities. In Montevideo, the passengers of the Beagle marched into the city armed from head to toe to quell a political uprising. In Tasmania they listened to an exquisite concert. At the extremes of the south, their ship almost capsized due to the breakup of a glacier. Once, when they were in the forest near Concepcion in Chile, Darwin felt the ground shake under his feet during a serious earthquake. He swam in coral lagoons, was fascinated by the birdsong in a tropical forest, watched the stars from the top of a mountain pass in the Cordillera de los Andes. In Brazil, he seethed with rage at slavery, which was still legal under Portuguese rule, and he listed several horror stories in his diary: facts so disgusting, he wrote, that if he heard them in England he would think that someone had made them up from his heart to enhance the journalistic impression.
And throughout the entire journey he displayed an enthusiasm that won the hearts of Fitzroy and the other ship's officers. They gave him the nickname "Philos" - short for "the ship's philosopher" - and sometimes also "the fly catcher", and teased him because of the collection of stones he accumulated on board. Throughout the five years, Darwin maintained his good temper and pleasant demeanor - quite an achievement in a small ship crowded with seventy-four men and boys. Only seasickness upset his spirit. He could not in any way get used to the motion of the ship in the middle of the sea, and the nausea put him to bed again and again. The captain and his cabin mates showed great sympathy for his plight.
He was also free to explore all the different branches of his love of nature and took the responsibility he assumed seriously. He collected birds, vertebrates, invertebrates, sea creatures, insects, fossils and stone specimens, as well as a considerable collection of plants. All these collections were sent regularly to Henslowe in Cambridge, who kept them until his return. It was a fine collection that included many unusual and new species, but it is worth noting that it probably would not have been given such a distinguished status in museums and research institutions today if it were not for the publicity that Darwin gained later. He also dissected creatures, observed them through the lens of the microscope in his cell and recorded his findings. He continuously made comprehensive observations and examined places of breeding, behavior patterns, color patterns, distribution, etc., and wrote careful documentation that would later be the basis for several books and articles that he would write at the end of the journey. He wrote to his sisters and friends about the immense satisfaction this activity gave him: "Looking back, I now understand how my love for science slowly and gradually overcame every other taste," he said at the end of his life.
In those years he trained himself to observe - to look at details with great attention - and to document. Looking back, the most important aspect of the journey was perhaps not the huge collection of specimens he brought with him, the sights, the dangers, or even the personal growth and friendships he experienced, but the opportunity to stand on the vast diversity of the natural world and understand it in depth. Upon his return to England he stopped going hunting. As he wrote in his autobiography, "I discovered, albeit in an unconscious and uninformed way, that the pleasure inherent in observation and thinking is much greater than that inherent in agility and skill and sporting activity." The abundance of different places and people he saw, and the encounter with such a huge variety of habitats and forms of life, left an indelible impression on him. The prominent place he later occupied as a naturalist was ultimately based on those long and rigorous days in which he learned to observe and meditate on the extravagant abundance that exists in nature.
Due weight must therefore be given to Darwin's mental development on that journey. Many young people listened to the lectures of Grant and Jameson and Sedgwick, many enthusiasts eagerly collected specimens from nature, but few of them asked the kind of questions Darwin learned to ask. Sometimes he saw creatures admirably adapted to their way of life, just as William Paley had described; But there were also creatures "planned" in a very unsuccessful way. Many of these problems were fully revealed to him only after the return of the ship in 1836. Nevertheless, in the introduction to the origin of species, Darwin stated that three findings from the voyage were the starting point for all his views. These were the fossils he dug up and found in Patagonia, the geographic distribution patterns of the South American ostrich, and the life of the creatures in the Galapagos archipelago.
The fossils were an extraordinary find. These remains of extinct giant mammals, discovered near Bahia Blanca (south of Buenos Aires), were later identified by London museum experts as belonging to previously unknown species - Megatherium, Toxodon and Glyptodont. Darwin noted that these extinct animals were more or less modeled on the anatomical structure of modern pampas creatures. It seems that there was a sequence of animal "typing" over long periods of time. Then, at the farthest southern tip of today's Argentina, he collected a species of Rioya (well known to the locals), which was small compared to the common form in the north.
Darwin liked to tell a humorous story about the discovery of this pregnancy. The ship's crew captured one chicken for cooking purposes, and only after half of it was eaten did Darwin realize that it was an unknown species needed for his collection. The remaining parts of that chicken later received, in his honor, the name Rhea darwinii (later they changed the name). Then use the two types of breeding to demonstrate the fact that species that are very close to each other do not usually live in the same area - the presence of one excludes the possibility of the presence of the other. In his opinion, this was to testify that there is a certain type of family ties, on the timeline or in the geographical space. He began to ask himself why such connections should exist.
The ship sailed on and on, and with it Darwin's thoughts. In September 1835, she left South America and went to the expanses of the Pacific Ocean. Her first stop was in the Galapagos Islands. Ironically, during the Beagle's five-week visit to the Galapagos Islands, Darwin did not notice the great diversity of species, even though the representative of the English government on Charles Island (Isla Santa Maria) reported to him that the giant deer were unique to the island. However, he was deeply impressed by everything he saw in the islands. He was fascinated by the iguanas that ran on land and on the beach, the giant deer, mocking birds and boobies. The arid volcanic landscape and the strange trees, covered in lichen, also enchanted him.
The archipelago's fourteen tiny pieces of land are right on the equator, and the cold southern waters have brought fur seals and penguins to their shores. Most of them were within sight of each other, but they were separated by vast expanses of deep water and mountains of danger. The animals and birds were not used to human intruders, and when they came, they treated them with great trust. In the eyes of the Beagle people, it was almost an encounter with the biblical paradise. Darwin rode a sea turtle, held an iguana by the tail, and got so close to one hawk that he managed to drive it off with his rifle from the branch it was sitting on.
All the species of birds collected by Darwin were bundled in one bundle. It did not occur to him that the location of each species was important. He did notice that the species of the mimics differ from island to island and also differ from their counterparts on the continent itself, and the phenomenon seemed important enough to him to note it in his ornithological lists a few months later, on the return voyage. Apparently he thought that the birds were geographical varieties of one or more South American species - and he pondered the problem in one of his ornithological notes:
When I see these islands, which are within sight of each other and contain only a limited stock of animals, islands inhabited by these birds, which differ somewhat in their physical structure but occupy the same place in nature, I should suspect that they are nothing but varieties […] If there is even the faintest basis for these remarks , for then it would be perfectly proper to investigate the zoology of this archipelago; Because such facts may destabilize the species.
In Cape Town, in June 1836, he talked with the great astronomer John Herschel, who was living in South Africa at the time in order to observe the skies of the southern hemisphere. The two may have discussed the creation of species through the laws of nature, although it is difficult to assume that Herschel then brought to his mind the possibility that there is a natural origin for biological species. He had read Lyell's Principles of Geology not long before. Herschel, who knew Lyell personally, wrote to him that in his eyes the origin of species was a divine riddle, "the riddle of riddles", as Darwin would later put it.
Another factor in that journey will be of great significance, even though Darwin does not refer to it at all in the Origin of Species. The diverse human populations he met constantly stirred his mind, and the things he wrote along the Beagle journey include colorful references to the Gauchos, with whom he crossed Argentina, to the Indians of Patagonia, to the robust and peaceful Tahitians, to the courageous Maori and Aborigines of Australia, and of course also to missionaries , for settlers and slaves. Throughout the journey he expressed the view that all human beings are brothers under their skin.
One of the essential factors in his increasingly solidified views on the unity of humanity was his strong opposition to any form of slavery. Political opposition to slavery was an inseparable part of his family's worldview: Erasmus Darwin I worked vigorously for the emancipation of the slaves in Britain, and his poems publicly praised Josiah Wedgwood's famous medal, on which was engraved the motto "Am I not a man and a brother?". Darwin's father, his sisters and his cousins - all were partners like him in the movements of the early nineteenth century for the abolition of slavery. The Beagle's journey took place at the exact time when these philanthropic mass movements reached their peak in Britain, with the "Emancipation Act" of 1832.
The only time Darwin was really angry with Captain Fitzroy was during an event at one of the largest estancias (estates) in Brazil, where the slave owner called his slaves together and asked if they aspired to be free. No, they all answered. When Fitzroy and Darwin discussed this in their cabin after the fact, Fitzroy believed that their response was completely authentic, while Darwin warmly replied that there was not a slave in the world who would dare to say otherwise. The captain stormed out of the cabin and said that they would never be able to live together again. In another case, Darwin had a random glimpse into the world of slaves: one day, in Brazil, he crossed the river on a ferry held by a black man. When he unwittingly waved his arms to direct the boat, he was astonished to see the man cower in fear, because he thought he was about to hit him.
But Darwin's most shocking encounter was with the indigenous inhabitants of the Land of Fire, Tierra del Fuego, canoeists who seemed to him to have no resources except the ability to light fire, the same ability for which Magellan gave the region his name. He was shocked when he first saw them in their dilapidated tents: "The sight of a naked slave in his native land is an event that will never be forgotten," he wrote in his autobiography. The shock he experienced on that occasion only increased when he compared these people to the three natives of Tierra del Fuego whom Fitzroy had brought with him to England on the previous voyage of the Beagle, and who were now returning to their homeland on board the same ship to man a mission station that Fitzroy was about to establish in the region from which they had been taken, in the heart of Tierra del Fuego. During their stay in London, the three quickly picked up the language and customs accepted in Europe, acquired an education from a priest, and even joined the Anglican Church. Darwin was amazed at the difference between them and the tribes they came from. Darwin wrote in his travel diary: "I could not believe how vast the difference between the wild man and the civilized man was." It is greater than the difference between a wild animal and a domesticated animal." The fact that almost complete savages could undergo a process of civilization (as Darwin saw it) reinforced his belief that beneath the skin, all humans are members of the same biological species. And this belief continued to be a central commitment in his life. And here, during the Beagle's visit to the far south, Darwin and Fitzroy were disappointed when they discovered that the three Christians born in Tierra del Fuego quickly returned to their aboriginal state. The outward signs of civilization are nothing more than a passing phenomenon, the two travelers reflected.
But most important was Darwin's focus on geology. He enjoyed reading the great theoretical schemes that appeared in Lyell's Principles of Geology, and was moved to discover that Lyell did not see the Bible as a source of authority to explain the geological development of the earth. Many believed that this is a theologically radical book. Henslow recommended Darwin to read it but was careful to advise him "not to accept in any way the views presented in it". What bothered Henslow - and what was going to pull Darwin's heart so much - was Lyell's decisive statement that the changes taking place on the face of the earth are not necessarily progressive in nature. The surface of the earth, Lyell believed, is constantly changing, but the changes are not the result of a particular intention directed by God towards some future point. At the time, only very few geologists believed that the earth was indeed created in the six days of creation. They saw the biblical story as a metaphor for the stages that the earth probably went through from its earliest days until today. But most geologists linked this sequence to the general outline of the earth's history according to the Judeo-Christian tradition - that is, the view according to which the earth was created according to the word of God and shaped step by step during six or seven stages in order to inhabit it in humans.
Lyel opposed this view, and in his book Principles of Geology he claimed that the surface of the earth does not show such phases. The land is constantly undergoing countless tiny, cumulative changes, as a result of the forces of nature acting in a uniform manner over very long periods of time. For the most part, these changes are so small that the person is usually not able to notice them. But as they repeat themselves again and again for many ages, they add up to a rule of considerable change. Layel amazed his colleagues with the firm statement that the Earth is infinitely ancient, that it has no beginning and no sign of a second, and that it will continue to exist indefinitely in endless geological cycles, characterized by the rise and fall of land masses relative to sea level. There is no direction or progress from the hands of heaven. The great philosopher William Yoell from Cambridge, who showed great interest in geology, called this approach to the earth "uniformitarianism".
According to Lyel's assessment, geology also includes what we call today "biology". He claimed that there are also no continuous groups of animals and plants, and that each biological species was created slowly, step by step. This concept placed him head-on in front of a logical dilemma. From gradualism in geology comes gradualism in biology - if the rocks change slowly in a network of changes that has no defined boundaries, then such a change may also appear in animals and plants. But since Lyell was unwilling to accept any form of transmutation in living beings, he soon became embroiled in a tangle of contradictions. And to prove that he does not believe in evolutionary matters, he launched a long and fierce attack on Lamarck.
All the evidence shows that Darwin read this attack with increasing interest: in the negative way he was exposed through it to evolutionary information that would play an important role in his intellectual development. From Robert Grant's enthusiastic attitude in Edinburgh to Charles Lyell's opposition in Patagonia, Darwin recognized the strong feelings—and hostility—that the idea of transmutation was able to arouse in people.
He continued to avidly peruse Lyell's writings and used his geological ideas to explain the land forms he saw; They provided him with the foundation for the three books he later wrote on the geology of South America. Here and there he found bold explanations for geological structures that he believed were more successful than Lyell's ideas. One of these was the theory about the origin of coral reefs. Another explanation tried to justify the relatively new elevation of the Cordillera mountain chain. At a deeper level he also adopted Lyell's principle of gradual change. "The science of geology owes an enormous debt to Lyell, I believe, more than to any other man who ever lived," he wrote in his autobiography. And he also acknowledged Layel's contribution in a private letter he wrote after the Beagle's return:
One could perhaps say that if it hadn't been for Yael there would have been no Darwin: there would have been no intellectual insights, there would have been no Beagle Voyage as it is perceived today. Darwin's thoughts began to revolve around the idea of small changes adding up to create big changes. In doing so, he made one of the most important perceptual steps in his personal journey. Until the end of his days he believed in the power of small and gradual changes. In the following days, when working on the theory of evolution, he used the same concept of small and cumulative changes as a key to the origin of species.
At last the Beagle set out on its journey home, and Darwin began to review the ideas he had acquired during the journey. All the evidence shows that he did not develop a theory of evolution during the journey itself. But he returned with his head full of scientific ideas and ambitions, determined to bring order to the wealth of information he had acquired. There are few young people who were privileged to see the whole world like him. He was deeply impressed by the congestion of nature, the colors, the variety and the abundance on the one hand, and the hard struggle and cruelty on the other hand. Although he gradually began to doubt that the Bible is a source of authority documenting events that actually took place, he was not ready to completely give up his religious faith, perhaps precisely because of that deep awe at the wonders of nature. When he stood in the heart of the Forest of Witness in Brazil, he declared: "There is no way to adequately convey the sublime feelings of wonder, admiration and devotion that fill the heart."
He also thought about the future. During the greater part of the journey he still apparently intended to start a career as a country priest, although the idea appealed to him less and less as his confidence in his ability as a naturalist grew. And really near the end he wrote to his sisters that he hopes to pursue natural history as a profession and that he hopes to be accepted in the scientific community as an equal among equals. Like Lyell, he aspired to be an independent scholar-gentleman whose time it was to write books and engage in topics that interested him, without being bound to a particular university like Henslow, nor to church patronage like Fox. While the image of the rural community in the heart of the green fields of England was dissolving, a new possibility was hinted at in the person of Lyell. "It seems to me that doing the little that a person can do to increase the pool of knowledge - this is a more beautiful goal than any other that a person can have in his life," he wrote in another letter. This change in his ambitions rests on the confidence that he has new and worthy things to say. And this change was also based on his father's good will to hand over the inheritance intended for him.
Darwin disembarked at Falmouth Harbor in October 1836, a different man from the one who had boarded the Beagle five years earlier, but not yet an evolutionist.
