Darwin
Darwin and Evolution of Species Eric Northey The history of an idea The debate over the origins of species, not least our own, starts of course with the beginnings of recorded history and many of the central issues of the story are there in the earliest of written texts. ... Erasmus Darwin felt none of Goldsmiths hesitancy in pointing out the implications of the discoveries in geology and he boldly put forward into verse, many of the basic tenets of evolutionary theory: Organic life beneath the shoreless waves, Was born and nursd in Oceans pearly caves; First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; These, as successive generations bloom, New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing. ... Darwin himself remarked in a letter to the American Asa Gray that, "the general facts in the affinities, embryology, rudimentary organs, geological history, and geographical distribution of organic beings" had led to the appearance of evolutionary theories simultaneously in various European countries. And in a footnote to the Historical Sketch at the beginning of the Origin, he remarked on this synchronicity, saying that it "is rather a singular instance of the manner in which similar views arise at about the same time, that Goethe in Germany, Dr Darwin in England and Geoffroy Saint Hilaire. ... Paley put forward the classic argument from design in the mechanistic image of the watch and Darwin himself acknowledged its influence on his early thinking. ... Darwin himself confessed, even in the sixth edition of the Origin, that he had formerly spoke(n) to very many naturalists on the subject of evolution, and never once met with any sympathetic agreement. And in the Autobiographical Chapter in his sons 1887 edition of his letters, Darwin remembers how isolated he was in his views, to which even close, scientific friends could not assent for many years.