Reading Human Nature: Literary Darwinism in Theory and Practice

10. The Power of Darwin’s Vision

The Classic Status of The Origin of Species The Origin of Species has special claims on our attention. It is one of the two or three most significant scientific works of all time—one of those works that fundamentally and permanently alter our vision of the world. At the same time, it is one of the few great scientific works that is also a great literary classic. It is written for the educated general reader and requires no specialized scientific training. It is argued with a singularly rigorous consistency, but it is also eloquent, imaginatively evocative, and rhetorically compelling . Although it is now nearly a century and a half old, it remains the single most comprehensive and commanding exposition of its subject, and its subject—the development of life throughout all of time—has a sublime scope and a unique significance. Many fine scientists, scholars, and writers have now dedicated their lives to the subject of evolutionary biology, but none of this work has rendered Darwin’s own contribution obsolete. Ernst Mayr, both a biologist and a historical scholar of the first rank, maintains that modern evolutionists differ from Darwin “almost entirely on matters of emphasis.” Mayr himself is one of the main contributors to the “Modern Synthesis,” that is, the integration of Darwin’s theory of natural selection with Mendelian genetics. Despite the advances in modern technical understanding, he notes that “a modern evolutionist turns to Darwin’s work again and again,” and he observes, rightly, that “Darwin frequently understood things far more clearly chapter 10 , The Power of Darwin’s Vision 197 198 Reading Human Nature than both his supporters and his opponents, including those of the present day.” His summary judgment of Darwin’s lasting historical significance is that “no one has influenced our modern worldview— both within and beyond science—to a greater extent than has this extraordinary Victorian.”1 In confirmation of these claims, we may look to a recent, comprehensive textbook of evolutionary biology, Mark Ridley’s Evolution. Ridley informs his audience that “the classic case for evolution was made in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species” and that Darwin’s “general arguments still apply.”2 Further, on the specific and central topic of the evidence for evolution, Darwin gives “the classic account.” Michael Ghiselin, another distinguished biological theorist and Darwin scholar, also affirms the enduring value of Darwin’s commanding perspective. “To learn of the facts, one reads the latest journals. To understand biology, one reads Darwin.”3 Given such testimony as this, it would not be too much to say that if a student were to read only one book on evolution, the best book to read would still be The Origin of Species. Plan of This Chapter The extraordinary canonical position occupied by the Origin depends on three elements: the subject, the time, and the man. Darwin had a subject full of mystery and power, the one subject of the deepest possible significance for all living things; the time was right for the comprehension of that subject; and Darwin was the right man to achieve that comprehension. In this section of the chapter, I shall explain the sequence of topics for the chapter as a whole, and then in the next three sections I shall take up each of these three elements in turn. After commenting on Darwin’s subject, the historical background to his work, and the character of mind that made it possible for him to discover and develop the theory of natural selection, I describe the one main evolutionary theory that stood as an alternative to Darwin’s—the theory of Lamarck and Spencer. Turning then to the development of Darwin’s own theory, I discuss the inception and gestation of the Origin. I also discuss Darwin’s effort, in The Descent of Man, to incorporate human beings within the phylogenetic order—that is, within the classificatory system that derives from the common descent of all living things. (“Phylogeny” is the evolution of a genetically related group of organisms and is distinguished from “ontogeny,” the devel- The Power of Darwin’s Vision 199 opment of an individual organism.) In locating Darwin in relation to both his sources and his successors, I use the idea of scientific revolutions as a leading theme. I compare Charles Lyell’s revolution in geology with Darwin’s revolution in evolutionary biology, and I examine the complex way in which Darwin...