Winter of Darwin, Voyaging with Beagle I

Winter of Darwin, Voyaging with Beagle I

1831-1834

After geological ages of reading about evolution pro and con and about Charles Darwin pro and con, I decided to read his “Voyage of the Beagle” and “Origin of the Species.”  My goal is to finish “Voyage” in time to start “Origin” as my son at Thomas Aquinas College begins his spring semester with it. Hopefully we can read it together and compare notes.  But first, “Voyage of the Beagle.”

It was during this voyage, after all, that Darwin got the inspiration for natural selection – supposedly at the Galapagos Islands.  The Galapagos have become a symbol, kind of a Mt. Sinai for devoted evolutionists.  Does the account in “Voyage of the Beagle” warrant this esteem?  What does the book, as a whole, say about Darwin and world he explored and what he made of it?

As background, Darwin was not the first or the last naturalist to take advantage of European navies and colonies to explore the natural world of newly discovered lands: Joseph Banks, Alexander Humboldt, and Thomas Henry Huxley are among the men made famous by such endeavors.  In the excellent “Master and Commander” novels by Patrick O’Brian, the surgeon, Stephen Maturin, is a fictional embodiment of this model.  (O’Brian also made Maturin a master spy and, eventually, very wealthy but he remained an absent-minded naturalist to the end.  And lest anyone think Maturin, as naturalist, is a straight copy of Charles Darwin, let it be pointed out that O’Brian also published a lengthy biography of Sir Joseph Banks.)  The image of Dr. Maturin, however dressed up for dramatic fiction, helped this reader with the context in which Darwin worked.

From December, 1831, to October, 1836, the Beagle sailed around the world, spending the bulk of its time surveying the coast of South America.  Darwin spent most of this South American time ashore, traveling far inland over the pampas and by river, cataloging plants and animals and geology – and observing the people and communities that he encountered.  (Small communities, that is.  He has very little to report regarding any large cities – except how far he had to travel to get to anything of interest to a naturalist.)

Given the controversies that followed publication of “Origin of Species” and all later discoveries and elaborations of the theory of evolution, it is impossible to read the “Voyage” without looking for hints of the later theory.  Actually, the accepted timetable makes this both murkier and more necessary: Darwin is supposed to have thought of the theory of natural selection in 1838; he published the first edition of “Voyage” in 1839; then in 1845 he updated “Voyage” with more developed views and hints at his theory; he did not actually publish “Origin of the Species” until 1859.

But whether placed strategically as foundations for his theory’s later publication or included as natural observations, the questions that the natural world provoked in Darwin’s mind would eventually have been synthesized by someone into something like his origin of the species by natural selection.  (In fact, Alfred Russel Wallace was drawing to similar conclusions concurrent with Darwin.)

My reading of the “Voyage” has reached the middle of the book, the end of 1834 and completion of the Beagle’s South American coastal surveys.  While he has not reached the Galapagos Islands at this point, there are several topics that already hint at natural selection:

• ·         Page 144: in describing a particular “niata” breed of oxen, Darwin notes that during droughts these animals need special attention or they would perish; the structure of their lips do not enable them to browse on twigs and reeds.  He does not use the term here, but this observation suggests fitness for survival in changing conditions.
• ·         On page 164, Darwin notes the relationships, the similarities between extinct species and living species.  Throughout his South American tour, he looks for fossils and speculates on the changes in environment since the animals (often giant sloths) passed away. 
• ·         Considering the fecundity of nature, Darwin speculates that “some check is constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every organized being left in a state of nature.”  (Page 166) He does not here use the term “natural selection” but a basic supporting observation has been made.

Whether these were innocent observations or whether Darwin was deliberately hinting at his synthesis, the modern reader can hardly help but to spot seeds of evolutionary theory.  These observations should also remind us that the facts which Darwin interpreted were there to be seen by anyone who looked.  While he is to be credited with the vision and intellectual courage to grasp and build his theory the facts – those stubborn things – were there.

Interestingly and not surprisingly, Darwin was an Englishman of his times.  One practice that jars modern sensibilities is the casualness with which he kills animals for specimens.  At one point he describes how he snuck up on a fox which was engrossed in watching his companions and dispatched it with a hammer blow to the head.  Of course, one has to gather specimens somehow, but the frank act of killing them brings one up short.  (Those who have seen the “Master and Commander” movie and recall the specimen hunting on the Galapagos Islands will remember that they were all alive in cages – and that Stephen had them all released when the group had to dash back to camp.  I hadn’t previously thought of that episode as possibly anachronistic.  And to digress further in a “the book was better” direction, among Stephen Maturin’s unnatural accomplishments was that he was a dead shot.)

Moreover, as an Englishman Darwin definitely sees things from that perspective:

“The perfect equality among the individuals composing the Fuegian tribes must for a long time retard their civilization…  In Tierra del Fuego, until some chief shall arise with power sufficient to secure any acquired advantage, such as the domesticated animals, it seems scarcely possible that the political state of the country can be improved.  At present, even a piece of cloth given to one is torn into shreds and distributed; and no one individual becomes richer than another.  On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how a chief can arise till there is property of some sort by which he might manifest his superiority and increase his power.”  Page 209

Which states the case for property and hierarchy as the basis of ordered civilization. 

And yet, Darwin can note the downside of civilization:

“The Gausos of Chile, who correspond to the Gauchos of the Pampas, are, however, a very different set of beings.  Chile is the more civilized of the two countries, and the inhabitants, in consequence, have lost much individual character.  Gradation in rank are much more strongly marked: the Gauso does not by any means consider every man his equal; and I was quite surprised to find that my companions did not like to eat at the same time with myself.  This feeling of inequality is a necessary consequence of the existence of an aristocracy of wealth.” Page 232

These sociological observations have little bearing on the origin of species, however latent, except perhaps indirectly: noting the inevitable human adaptations to certain circumstances.  Rather, what make me mark them is the ambivalence these passages reveal in Darwin’s view of civilization.  Who among us hasn’t thought much the same two things: We need order!  We need individuality!

His honest appraisal of humanity – which we can all validate – lends credence to his appraisal of nature – which is more remote to our very evolved, civilized selves.