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Darwin's "Historical Sketch"

By jlynch on February 11, 2007.

The prefatory "Historical Sketch" to Darwin's Origin of Species has traditionally been taken as a later addition that sought to deflect claims by individuals such as mathematician Baden Powell that Darwin plagiarized his ideas. Now, a study by Curtis Johnson of Lewis and Clark College argues that Darwin's personal correspondence
shows that the sketch was actually written prior to the first printing of the book and had actually been begun as early as 1856. As Johnson notes, "Darwin was not reacting to hostile criticism" but why he eventually omitted the preface is a mystery.

Johnson's paper is to appear in the January edition of Journal of the History of Biology (and is not online yet).

Tags
History and Philosophy (often of Science)

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I'm a little perplexed. A line in the "Historical Sketch" pretty clearly identifies it as having been written (at least that line) after 1859:

In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture,' in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself in the 'Linnean Journal,' and as that enlarged in the present volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew very briefly in scattered passages in an appendix to a work on a different subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in the 'Gardener's Chronicle,' on April 7th, 1860.

Does Johnson argue that last sentence is a later insertion?

Since the paper isn't published yet, I can't definitively comment. However, the article I link to states:

The first published version of the preface credited Charles' uncle, Erasmus Darwin; French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck; and 12 others. From the first appearance of the preface in 1860 to the final edition during his lifetime, Darwin made several changes and expanded the list of his intellectual debts to include 36 people.

So, I imagine that the reference to Matthews was not in any 1856 version and instead only appeared after 1860.

By John Lynch (not verified) on 11 Feb 2007 #permalink

John,

I think that is the journalist. I'd imagine the referees for JHB would have picked up that gross an error if it was in the manuscript.

By John Lynch (not verified) on 11 Feb 2007 #permalink