Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II Part 45

I am grieved to hear of the death of my old and kind friend, though I knew that it could not be long delayed, and that it was a happy thing that his life should not have been prolonged, as I suppose that his mind would inevitably have suffered. I am glad that Lady Lyell (Lady Lyell died in 1873.) has been saved this terrible blow. His death makes me think of the time when I first saw him, and how full of sympathy and interest he was about what I could tell him of coral reefs and South America. I think that this sympathy with the work of every other naturalist was one of the finest features of his character. How completely he revolutionised Geology: for I can remember something of pre-Lyellian days.

I never forget that almost everything which I have done in science I owe to the study of his great works. Well, he has had a grand and happy career, and no one ever worked with a truer zeal in a n.o.ble cause. It seems strange to me that I shall never again sit with him and Lady Lyell at their breakfast. I am very much obliged to you for having so kindly written to me.

Pray give our kindest remembrances to Miss Lyell, and I hope that she has not suffered much in health, from fatigue and anxiety.

Believe me, my dear Miss Buckley, Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 25 [1875].

My dear Hooker,

Your letter so full of feeling has interested me greatly. I cannot say that I felt his [Lyell's] death much, for I fully expected it, and have looked for some little time at his career as finished.

I dreaded nothing so much as his surviving with impaired mental powers.

He was, indeed, a n.o.ble man in very many ways; perhaps in none more than in his warm sympathy with the work of others. How vividly I can recall my first conversation with him, and how he astonished me by his interest in what I told him. How grand also was his candour and pure love of truth. Well, he is gone, and I feel as if we were all soon to go... I am deeply rejoiced about Westminster Abbey (Sir C. Lyell was buried in Westminster Abbey.), the possibility of which had not occurred to me when I wrote before. I did think that his works were the most enduring of all testimonials (as you say) to him; but then I did not like the idea of his pa.s.sing away with no outward sign of what scientific men thought of his merits. Now all this is changed, and nothing can be better than Westminster Abbey. Mrs. Lyell has asked me to be one of the pall-bearers, but I have written to say that I dared not, as I should so likely fail in the midst of the ceremony, and have my head whirling off my shoulders. All this affair must have cost you much fatigue and worry, and how I do wish you were out of England...

[In 1881 he wrote to Mrs. Fisher in reference to her article on Sir Charles Lyell in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica':--

"For such a publication I suppose you do not want to say much about his private character, otherwise his strong sense of humour and love of society might have been added. Also his extreme interest in the progress of the world, and in the happiness of mankind. Also his freedom from all religious bigotry, though these perhaps would be a superfluity."

The following refers to the Zoological station at Naples, a subject on which my father felt an enthusiastic interest:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO ANTON DOHRN. Down, [1875?].

My dear Dr. Dohrn,

Many thanks for your most kind letter, I most heartily rejoice at your improved health and at the success of your grand undertaking, which will have so much influence on the progress of Zoology throughout Europe.

If we look to England alone, what capital work has already been done at the Station by Balfour and Ray Lankester... When you come to England, I suppose that you will bring Mrs. Dohrn, and we shall be delighted to see you both here. I have often boasted that I have had a live Uhlan in my house! It will be very interesting to me to read your new views on the ancestry of the Vertebrates. I shall be sorry to give up the Ascidians, to whom I feel profound grat.i.tude; but the great thing, as it appears to me, is that any link whatever should be found between the main divisions of the Animal Kingdom...

CHARLES DARWIN TO AUGUST WEISMANN. Down, December 6, 1875.

My dear Sir,

I have been profoundly interested by your essay on Amblystoma ('Umwandlung des Axolotl.'), and think that you have removed a great stumbling block in the way of Evolution. I once thought of reversion in this case; but in a crude and imperfect manner. I write now to call your attention to the sterility of moths when hatched out of their proper season; I give references in chapter 18 of my 'Variation under Domestication' (volume ii. page 157, of English edition), and these cases ill.u.s.trate, I think, the sterility of Amblystoma. Would it not be worth while to examine the reproductive organs of those individuals of WINGLESS Hemiptera which occasionally have wings, as in the case of the bed-bug. I think I have heard that the females of Mutilla sometimes have wings. These cases must be due to reversion. I dare say many anomalous cases will be hereafter explained on the same principle.

I hinted at this explanation in the extraordinary case of the blac-shouldered peac.o.c.k, the so-called Pavo nigripennis given in my 'Variation under Domestication;' and I might have been bolder, as the variety is in many respects intermediate between the two known species.

With much respect, Yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

THE VIVISECTION QUESTION.

[It was in November 1875 that my father gave his evidence before the Royal Commission on Vivisection. (See volume i.) I have, therefore, placed together here the matter relating to this subject, irrespective of date. Something has already been said of my father's strong feeling with regard to suffering both in man and beast. It was indeed one of the strongest feelings in his nature, and was exemplified in matters small and great, in his sympathy with the educational miseries of dancing dogs, or in his horror at the sufferings of slaves. (He once made an attempt to free a patient in a mad-house, who (as he wrongly supposed) was sane. He had some correspondence with the gardener at the asylum, and on one occasion he found a letter from a patient enclosed with one from the gardener. The letter was rational in tone and declared that the writer was sane and wrongfully confined.

My father wrote to the Lunacy Commissioners (without explaining the source of his information) and in due time heard that the man had been visited by the Commissioners, and that he was certainly insane. Sometime afterwards the patient was discharged, and wrote to thank my father for his interference, adding that he had undoubtedly been insane, when he wrote his former letter.)

The remembrance of screams, or other sounds heard in Brazil, when he was powerless to interfere with what he believed to be the torture of a slave, haunted him for years, especially at night. In smaller matters, where he could interfere, he did so vigorously. He returned one day from his walk pale and faint from having seen a horse ill-used, and from the agitation of violently remonstrating with the man. On another occasion he saw a hors-breaker teaching his son to ride, the little boy was frightened and the man was rough; my father stopped, and jumping out of the carriage reproved the man in no measured terms.

One other little incident may be mentioned, showing that his humanity to animals was well-known in his own neighbourhood. A visitor, driving from Orpington to Down, told the man to go faster, "Why," said the driver, "If I had whipped the horse THIS much, driving Mr. Darwin, he would have got out of the carriage and abused me well."

With respect to the special point under consideration,--the sufferings of animals subjected to experiment,--nothing could show a stronger feeling than the following extract from a letter to Professor Ray Lankester (March 22, 1871):--

"You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere d.a.m.nable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it, else I shall not sleep to-night."

An extract from Sir Thomas Farrer's notes shows how strongly he expressed himself in a similar manner in conversation:--

"The last time I had any conversation with him was at my house in Bryanston Square, just before one of his last seizures. He was then deeply interested in the vivisection question; and what he said made a deep impression on me. He was a man eminently fond of animals and tender to them; he would not knowingly have inflicted pain on a living creature; but he entertained the strongest opinion that to prohibit experiments on living animals, would be to put a stop to the knowledge of and the remedies for pain and disease."

The Anti-Vivisection agitation, to which the following letters refer, seems to have become specially active in 1874, as may be seen, e.g. by the index to 'Nature' for that year, in which the word "Vivisection,"

suddenly comes into prominence. But before that date the subject had received the earnest attention of biologists. Thus at the Liverpool Meeting of the British a.s.sociation in 1870, a Committee was appointed, which reported, defining the circ.u.mstances and conditions under which, in the opinion of the signatories, experiments on living animals were justifiable. In the spring of 1875, Lord Hartismere introduced a Bill into the Upper House to regulate the course of physiological research.

Shortly afterwards a Bill more just towards science in its provisions was introduced to the House of Commons by Messrs. Lyon Playfair, Walpole, and Ashley. It was, however, withdrawn on the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole question. The Commissioners were Lords Cardwell and Winmarleigh, Mr. W.E. Forster, Sir J.B.

Karslake, Mr. Huxley, Professor Erichssen, and Mr. R.H. Hutton: they commenced their inquiry in July, 1875, and the Report was published early in the following year.

In the early summer of 1876, Lord Carnarvon's Bill, ent.i.tled, "An Act to amend the Law relating to Cruelty to Animals," was introduced. It cannot be denied that the framers of this Bill, yielding to the unreasonable clamour of the public, went far beyond the recommendations of the Royal Commission. As a correspondent in 'Nature' put it (1876, page 248), "the evidence on the strength of which legislation was recommended went beyond the facts, the Report went beyond the evidence, the Recommendations beyond the Report; and the Bill can hardly be said to have gone beyond the Recommendations; but rather to have contradicted them."

The legislation which my father worked for, as described in the following letters, was practically what was introduced as Dr. Lyon Playfair's Bill.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO MRS. LITCHFIELD. (His daughter.) January 4, 1875.

My dear H.

Your letter has led me to think over vivisection (I wish some new word like anaes-section could be invented (He communicated to 'Nature'

(September 30, 1880) an article by Dr. Wilder, of Cornell University, an abstract of which was published (page 517). Dr. Wilder advocated the use of the word 'Callisection' for painless operations on animals.) for some hours, and I will jot down my conclusions, which will appear very unsatisfactory to you. I have long thought physiology one of the greatest of sciences, sure sooner, or more probably later, greatly to benefit mankind; but, judging from all other sciences, the benefits will accrue only indirectly in the search for abstract truth. It is certain that physiology can progress only by experiments on living animals.

Therefore the proposal to limit research to points of which we can now see the bearings in regard to health, etc., I look at as puerile.

I thought at first it would be good to limit vivisection to public laboratories; but I have heard only of those in London and Cambridge, and I think Oxford; but probably there may be a few others. Therefore only men living in a few great towns would carry on investigation, and this I should consider a great evil. If private men were permitted to work in their own houses, and required a licence, I do not see who is to determine whether any particular man should receive one. It is young unknown men who are the most likely to do good work. I would gladly punish severely any one who operated on an animal not rendered insensible, if the experiment made this possible; but here again I do not see that a magistrate or jury could possibly determine such a point.

Therefore I conclude, if (as is likely) some experiments have been tried too often, or anaesthetics have not been used when they could have been, the cure must be in the improvement of humanitarian feelings. Under this point of view I have rejoiced at the present agitation. If stringent laws are pa.s.sed, and this is likely, seeing how unscientific the House of Commons is, and that the gentlemen of England are humane, as long as their sports are not considered, which entailed a hundred or thousand-fold more suffering than the experiments of physiologists--if such laws are pa.s.sed, the result will a.s.suredly be that physiology, which has been until within the last few years at a standstill in England, will languish or quite cease. It will then be carried on solely on the Continent; and there will be so many the fewer workers on this grand subject, and this I should greatly regret. By the way, F. Balfour, who has worked for two or three years in the laboratory at Cambridge, declares to George that he has never seen an experiment, except with animals rendered insensible. No doubt the names of Doctors will have great weight with the House of Commons; but very many pract.i.tioners neither know nor care anything about the progress of knowledge. I cannot at present see my way to sign any pet.i.tion, without hearing what physiologists thought would be its effect, and then judging for myself.

I certainly could not sign the paper sent me by Miss Cobbe, with its monstrous (as it seems to me) attack on Virchow for experimenting on the Trichinae. I am tired and so no more.

Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, April 14 [1875].

My dear Hooker,

I worked all the time in London on the vivisection question; and we now think it advisable to go further than a mere pet.i.tion. Litchfield (Mr. R.B. Litchfield, his son-in-law.) drew up a sketch of a Bill, the essential features of which have been approved by Sanderson, Simon and Huxley, and from conversation, will, I believe, be approved by Paget, and almost certainly, I think, by Michael Foster. Sanderson, Simon and Paget wish me to see Lord Derby, and endeavour to gain his advocacy with the Home Secretary. Now, if this is carried into effect, it will be of great importance to me to be able to say that the Bill in its essential features has the approval of some half-dozen eminent scientific men. I have therefore asked Litchfield to enclose a copy to you in its first rough form; and if it is not essentially modified may I say that it meets with your approval as President of the Royal Society? The object is to protect animals, and at the same time not to injure Physiology, and Huxley and Sanderson's approval almost suffices on this head. Pray let me have a line from you soon.

Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN.

[The Physiological Society, which was founded in 1876, was in some measure the outcome of the anti-vivisection movement, since it was this agitation which impressed on Physiologists the need of a centre for those engaged in this particular branch of science. With respect to the Society, my father wrote to Mr. Romanes (May 29, 1876):--