1860: Η Συζήτηση για την Εξέλιξη και το Γράμμα του Δαρβίνου

Στις 30 Ιουνίου του 1860, στο Μουσείο Φυσικής Ιστορίας του Πανεπιστημίου της Οξφόρδης, έχει οργανωθεί ένας δημόσιος διάλογος σχετικά με την περιγραφή της Εξέλιξης από το Δαρβίνο. Έχουν περάσει περίπου 7 μήνες από την έκδοση της Καταγωγής (24 Νοεμβρίου 1859).

Ο Δαρβίνος ως γνωστόν απέφευγε γενικά τις αντιπαραθέσεις και ιδιαίτερα τις δημόσιες. Για το λόγο αυτό και απουσίαζε. Υπερασπιστές των ιδεών του, οι φίλοι του Thomas Henry Huxley και Joseph Dalton Hooker, ενώ στο αντίπαλο στρατόπεδο μεταξύ των άλλων ήταν και οι Richard Owen (ανατόμος) καθώς και ‘Soapy’ Sam Wilberforce (ο επίσκοπος της Οξφόρδης). Δύο ενδιαφέροντα στοιχεία επιπλέον:

• στην ομάδα των επικριτών βρισκόταν επίσης ο Robert FitzRoy, ο καπετάνιος του Beagle με τον οποίο ο Δαρβίνος για μία περίπου 5ετία ταξίδευε εμπλουτίζοντας τη συλλογή δεδομένων και αρχίζοντας να σκέφτεται την ιδέα της εξέλιξης διαμέσου της φυσικής επιλογής,
• είναι η συνάντηση όπου μεταξύ των άλλων ο Wilberforce θέλοντας ειρωνικά να επικρίνει την εξελικτική θεωρία ρώτησε δήθεν τον Huxley εάν μέσω του παππού του ή της γιαγιάς του διεκδικούσε την καταγωγή του από έναν πίθηκο, για να του απαντήσει ο Huxley πως δεν θα ντρεπόταν να έχει πίθηκο για πρόγονό του, αλλά θα ντρεπόταν να συνδεθεί με έναν άνθρωπο που χρησιμοποίησε τα μεγάλα δώρα του για να κρύψει την αλήθεια (δεν είναι άλλωστε τυχαίο πως συχνά αυτή τη συζήτηση αναφέρεται ως Huxley–Wilberforce debate ή Wilberforce–Huxley debate).

Περισσότερα για το debate, μπορείτε να διαβάσετε εδώ.

Σε ένα γράμμα του, στις 3 Ιουλίου 1860, ο Δαρβίνος περιγράφει στον Asa Gray τις λεπτομέρειες εκείνης της αντιπαράθεσης (αντιγραφή ολόκληρου του γράμματος, επισημασμένα ορισμένα σημεία που μου φαίνονται αρκούντως ενδιαφέροντα).

To Asa Gray 3 July [1860]

Down Bromley Kent [Sudbrook Park]

July 3d

My dear Gray I received the mathematical papers, for which many thanks, but have not yet had time to try to understand them: Your letter of June 17th has been forwarded to me here (for I am at Water-Cure). I have had an unhappy household of late: my eldest girl has had low fever, 9 weeks in bed, but at last we have moved her: & my health quite broke down. We shall soon have to take her to sea-side & I want a considerable change; for from anxiety & consequent ill-health have done hardly anything for last six weeks.— I am very sorry to hear how extremely hard you are pressed with work. It is a pity that you should spend more time over Reviews of my Book: you have done an immensity & been of incalculable service. I feel very grateful; though I know well that this is not a personal affair: you wish that the subject shd. be fairly treated & discussed. Nevertheless I cannot help feeling deeply obliged to you.— I can now very plainly see from many late Reviews, that I shd. have been fairly annihilated, had it not been for 4 or 5 men, including yourself. The early favourable reviews were highly important in preventing the subject from being “burked.”—

Yesterday I had letter from Hooker at B. Assocn. at Oxford; & he tells me that there was one day a savage fight on my Book between Owen & Huxley; & subsequently a discussion of utmost warmth of 4 hours duration(!) on a paper by Draper of U. States on some subject, in which somehow (I know not how) my book became subject: Bishop of Oxford, one of most eloquent men in England, ridiculed me at great length & with much spirit; & Hooker answered him, I imagine, with wonderful spirit & success.—

Owen will not prove right, when he said that the whole subject would be forgotten in 10 years. My book has stirred up the mud with a vengeance; & it will be a blessing to me if all my friends do not get to hate me. But I look at it as certain, if I had not stirred up the mud some one else would very soon; so that the sooner the battle is fought the sooner it will be settled,— not that the subject will be settled in our lives’ times. It will be an immense gain, if the question becomes a fairly open one; so that each man may try his new facts on it pro & contra.—

Very many thanks about N.Y. Times; I daresay you will be disappointed with the Article; & I cannot for the life of me tell what it is that struck Lyell & me on it— I hope I may find it at home when I return there in 3 or 4 days.— I will order the two numbers of the Atlantic when I know which months contain your Articles;8 as I shall be very anxious to see them.

I have just reread your letter: in truth I am myself quite conscious that my mind is in simple muddle about “designed laws” & “undesigned consequences”.—9 Does not Kant say that there are several subjects on which directly opposite conclusions can be proved true?!

I forgot to say that in Fraser’s Magazine for July, there is strong article by our great man W. Hopkins. It is written with very fair spirit & with not more of the arrogance of a mathematician, than might have been expected. I have remonstrated with him for so coolly saying that I base my views on what I rank as great difficulties.—

Anyone by taking these difficulties alone can make a most strong case against me. I could myself write a more damning Review than has as yet appeared! On question of Hybridity he passes over the insensibly fine gradation from utter sterility to complete fertility—,—the fertility (W. Herbert) of some hybrids,—& the sterility of the vars. of Verbascum (Gärtner) & of the vars. of Tobacco (Kölreuter), which latter facts you, by the way, never notice.—Your letters are great pleasure to me, but pray do not write whilst so overworked.—

I have this minute had letter from Lyell; who is just starting for continent; on his return he is going to investigate reported cases of Hippopotamus subsequent to Glacial epoch: he finds Falconer & Prestwich now believe in this remarkable fact; if so there has probably been in Europe a period subsequent to Glacial warmer. Do you remember my saying that I hoped I shd be proved wrong to punish me for disbelieving in you; & it seems that my punishment is at hand!—14 Not being able lately to work I have amused myself about Orchids. I have been struck with amazement at beauty of contrivances with respect to fertilisation by insects. The insects led me to find that two horns (I subsequently dissected out pollen-tube) in Gymnadenia conopsea are the stigmas & you never saw anything so pretty as the contrivances are.

Do you know Hookers paper in Phil. Transact on Listera;15 he misapprehended meaning of his facts. I find the rostellum so delicate that the explosion takes place by touch of human-hair, & the fluid sets hard in under two seconds. It was really beautiful to see a little Sphex licking the labellum, & as soon as its head touched the rostellum the explosion took-place, & the insect crawled out with the 2 pollen-masses cemented to its forehead, ready to impregnate next flower into which it crawled.

One word more on “designed laws” & “undesigned results”. I see a bird which I want for food, take my gun & kill it, I do this designedly.— An innocent & good man stands under tree & is killed by flash of lightning. Do you believe (& I really shd like to hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this; I can’t & don’t.— If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat that God designed that that particular swallow shd. snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man & the gnat are in same predicament.— If the death of neither man or gnat are designed, I see no good reason to believe that their first birth or production shd. be necessarily designed. Yet, as I said before, I cannot persuade myself that electricity acts, that the tree grows, that man aspires to loftiest conceptions all from blind, brute force.

Your muddled & affectionate friend | Ch. Darwin

https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2855.xml

O Richard Owen είχε προβλέψει πως το θέμα θα ξεχαστεί σε περίπου 10 χρόνια. Ήδη έχουν περάσει περισσότερα από 160 χρόνια και η Καταγωγή των Ειδών αποτελεί από τα πιο σπουδαία και κομβικά σημεία της ανθρώπινης διανόησης…