Marzieh Ghiasi

November 24th, 2009 marked the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. The book, along with Marx’s The Communist Manifesto is the most important work of the 19th century. Like the other, Origin challenged both the scientific establishment and the social establishment, and as a result, generated a lot of controversy, which it continues to do so to this day.

Origin of Species must also be considered one of the most influential books of all time. I can’t think of any work that has so rapidly and in a such a way shifted the prevailing paradigm and changed humankind’s perception of the world and itself– so it’s no surprise that the book is said to have brought about a revolution in science, much like Copernicus’ On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. Unlike Copernicus, however, Darwin himself foresaw this and wrote in the last pages of Origin:

When the views advanced by me in this volume, and by Mr. Wallace, or when analogous views on the origin of species are generally admitted, we can dimly forsee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history. -Chapter XV, On the Origin of Species

In the words that follow, I explore the origins of Origin and pose that the revolution in fact started a year and some months earlier with the publication of the Linnean papers. I also examine the brilliant naturalist and elusive figure, “Mr. Wallace”, and his role in putting forward evolutionary theory.

The Linnean Papers
Darwin, Wallace & A Nascent Revolution

By Marzieh Ghiasi (Nov 2009)

n July 1st, 1858, in a special meeting of the Linnean Society, held in London, two brief papers describing natural selection as a mechanism of evolution were read. The Linnean papers, published later in August 20th as part of the society’s proceedings, were the start of a movement in science that became known as the Darwinian revolution. One essay was by Charles Darwin, an English naturalist whose name has become the cornerstone of evolutionary theory. The other essay was by Alfred Russel Wallace, an English naturalist whose name has become largely restricted to the annals of history. The traditional approach has been to set Darwin and Wallace as rivals in a fight for priority of publication, one which the majority of literature has argued Darwin won. The Linnean papers, however, can be examined as an outcome of a cooperative trajectory in which a common theory of evolution was developed by two vastly different individuals. This paper focuses on the association between Darwin and Wallace with respect to the Linnean papers, arguing that the interactions of the two naturalists offered them mutual benefits that would have been unlikely otherwise. As well, the interactions between the two men created a cohesion and unity critical in a field at its nascent stages.

Two Men Worlds Apart

Victorian Britain was highly class-conscious and its science was viewed as a domain of the upper class. Charles Darwin, born in 1809 into a prestigious and wealthy English family and educated in the University of Edinburgh and University of Cambridge, was an ideal representative of these values. Alfred Russel Wallace, conversely, was born in 1823 to a low income family and class relations played a tremendous role throughout his life.^[1] Although his father was a lawyer, he never practiced and the family had to learn to rely on self-sufficiency. Wallace never received formal schooling beyond the age of thirteen, when he was withdrawn and sent to an apprenticeship because his family no longer could pay for his education. By the time he was fourteen, he joined his brother as an apprentice land surveyor. However, Wallace was precocious and determined, and began to teach himself many subjects including taxonomy for which he had grown a great affinity.^[2] Unlike Darwin, who was well positioned for a life in pursuit of science, Wallace’s challenge was to break through rigid social barriers and prove himself as a scientist.

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I read this magnificent piece a couple of weeks ago and it left me with a lot to digest, and so I wanted to share it. In a world where scientific theories like evolution still have not found widespread acceptance in the public, it seems that many are still unwilling to face, what Bacon calls in Sphynx or Science, questions on the nature of things and the nature of man. After reading this passage, I was left with a truly deep appreciation for the curiosity of every child, and for every woman and man who has ever dared approach the sphinxes that guard the incognito, and face the riddles of the universe and our humanity.

“Sphynx or Science”
Sir Francis Bacon’s The Wisdom of the Ancients (1619)

phinx, says the story, was a monster combining many shapes in one. She had the face and voice of a virgin, the wings of a bird, the claws of a griffin. She dwelt on the ridge of a mountain near Thebes and infested the roads, lying in ambush for travelers, whom she would suddenly attack and lay hold of; and when she had mastered them, she propounded to them certain dark and perplexing riddles, which she was thought to have obtained from the Muses. And if the wretched captives could not at once solve and interpret the same, as they stood hesitating and confused she cruelly tore them to pieces. Time bringing no abatement of the calamity, the Thebans offered to any man who should expound the Sphinx’s riddles ( for this was the only way to subdue her ) the sovereignty of Thebes as his reward.

*Image Source

The greatness of the prize induced Œdipus, a man of wisdom and penetration, but lame from wounds in his feet, to accept the condition and make the trial: who presenting himself full of confidence and alacrity before the Sphinx, and being asked what kind of animal it was which was born four-footed, afterwards became two-footed, then three-footed, and at last four-footed again, answered readily that it was man; who at his birth and during his infancy sprawls on all fours, hardly attempting to creep; in a little while walks upright on two feet; in later years leans on a walking stick and so goes as it were on three; and at last in extreme age and decrepitude, his sinews all failing, sinks into a quadruped again, and keeps his bed. This was the right answer and gave him victory; whereupon he slew the Sphinx; whose body was put on the back of an ass and carried about in triumph; while himself was made according to compact King of Thebes.

The fable is an elegant and a wise one, invented apparently in allusion to Science; especially in its application to practical life. Science, being the wonder of the ignorant and unskillful, may be not absurdly called a monster. In figure and aspect it is represented as many-shaped, in allusion to the immense variety of matter with which it deals. It is said to have the face and voice of a woman, in respect of its beauty and facility of utterance. Wings are added because the sciences and the discoveries of science spread and fly abroad in an instant; the communication of knowledge being like that of one candle with another, which lights up at once.
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This story is just precious.

How it Happened
Isaac Asimov

My brother began to dictate in his best oratorical style, the one which has the tribes hanging on his words.

“In the beginning,” he said, “exactly fifteen point two billion years ago, there was a big bang and the Universe–”

But I had stopped writing. “Fifteen billion years ago?” I said incredulously.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m inspired.”

“I don’t question your inspiration,” I said. (I had better not. He’s three years younger than I am, but I don’t try questioning his inspiration. Neither does anyone else or there’s hell to pay.) “But are you going to tell the story of the Creation over a period of fifteen billion years?”

“I have to,” said my brother. “That’s how long it took. I have it all in here,” he tapped his forehead, “and it’s on the very highest authority.”

By now I had put down my stylus. “Do you know the price of papyrus?” I said.

“What?” (He may be inspired but I frequently noticed that the inspiration didn’t include such sordid matters as the price of papyrus.)

I said, “Suppose you describe one million years of events to each roll of papyrus. That means you’ll have to fill fifteen thousand rolls. You’ll have to talk long enough to fill them and you know that you begin to stammer after a while. I’ll have to write enough to fill them and my fingers will fall off. And even if we can afford all that papyrus and you have the voice and I have the strength, who’s going to copy it? We’ve got to have a guarantee of a hundred copies before we can publish and without that where will we get royalties from?”

My brother thought awhile. He said, “You think I ought to cut it down?”

“Way down,” I said, “if you expect to reach the public.”

“How about a hundred years?” he said.

“How about six days?” I said.

He said horrified, “You can’t squeeze Creation into six days.”

I said, “This is all the papyrus I have. What do you think?”

“Oh, well,” he said, and began to dictate again, “In the beginning– Does it have to be six days, Aaron?”

I said, firmly, “Six days, Moses.”

-Source