The "American School": A brief timeline of the Monogenist / Polygenist Debate on human origins, variation, and the meaning of race.

Chronology
1809
12 February Darwin is born in Shrewsbury, England, the son of Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood. The same day as the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

1831
Darwin meets Captain Robert FitzRoy and makes preparations for the voyage. Begins Beagle diary.

Rev John Bachman meets James Audubon and begins a life-long friendship and collaboration.

Bachman's wife Maria Martin becomes Audubon's assistant and paints many of the backgrounds, plants, and insects used in Birds of North America.

1832
In mid-January, Beagle reaches St Jago, Cape Verde Islands. Darwin begins the field notebooks that he will continue to use throughout his life. From February 1832 to May 1834 the Beagle surveys the east coast of South America.

1834
Early part of the year is spent surveying in Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. April to May Darwin and Fitz-Roy travel inland along the River Santa Cruz. From June 1834 to September 1835 the Beagle surveys the west coast of South America.

1835
Beagle departs Lima, Darwin spends 16 September to 20 October exploring the Galapagos Archipelago, then traveled on to spend November in Tahiti and New Zealand.

1836
Beagle drops anchor at Falmouth, England, on October 2 and on October 4 Darwin returns home to Shrewsbury. Begins to publish scientific papers.

1837
George Gliddon and Samuel G. Morton begin corresponding. Gliddon obtains several specimens for Morton's work.

Darwin publishes The Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle (1838-43). In July begins his first notebook on the transmutation of species.

1839
Samuel G. Morton, Crania Americana; or a Comparative view of the Skulls of various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America; to which is prefixed an essay on the Varieties of the Human Species (Philadelphia, 1839)

George Combe, Notes on the United States of America during a Phrenological Visit in 1838-1840.

Darwin marries Emma Wedgwood on 29 January; publishes Journal of Researches, later known as Voyage of the Beagle. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

1840
Based upon many errors, the US Census suggests that Negroes are prone to violence and insanity in the North. Despite many efforts of Jarvis to correct the results, Secretary of State John C. Calhoun prevents any challenges and the results remain official. The attempts to overturn the Census result in the founding of the American Statistical Association.

1840-1852
Gliddon undertakes a series of widely popular lectures on Egyptology around the United States using a 800 foot long moving backdrop and many artifacts.

1841
Samuel G. Morton, “Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Man of America,”Annual Address before the Boston Society of Natural History.

George R Gliddon, Ancient Egypt: a series of chapters on early Egyptian history, archaeology, and other subjects connected with hieroglyphical literature.

1844
Samuel G. Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca; or Observations on Egyptian Ethnography, derived from History and the Monuments, dedicate to Gliddon.

Darwin expands an early sketch of the theory of natural selection into a longer essay. He writes a note to Emma Darwin requesting that this essay should be published if he should die unexpectedly, providing some funds as well as the names of possible editors.

1845
Josiah Nott, “On the Pathology of Yellow Fever,” American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 9, new series, 277-293. Nott argues that those “hybrids” of “mixed” race are less likely to contract Yellow fever than Whites or Negroes.

Josiah Priest. Slavery, as it relates to the Negro... and Causes of his State of Servitude ... with strictures on Abolitionism.

Rev. John Bachman, having newly taken over as minister, actively recruits African Americans to join St. John's Lutheran Church in Charleston. Black membership reaches 200. A segregated Sunday School for African-Americans is established with 150 pupils and 30 teachers and staff.

1846
Josiah Nott, “Unity of the Human Race,” Southern Quarterly Review, January 1846.

Louis Agassiz arrives in Boston.

1847
Louis Agassiz in Charleston.

Thomas S. Savage and Jeffries Wyman. "Notice of the External Characteristics and Habits of Trolodytes Gorilla, A New Species of Orang from the Gaboon River." Boston Journal of Natural History. The first anatomical description of a gorilla in the United States, compares its anatomy with that of the Caucasian and the Negro. 

1848
Charles Pickering, a supporter of the polygenic theory, publishes The Races of Mankind and their Geographical Distribution.

Josiah Nott, “Yellow Fever Contrasted with Billious Fever --- Reason for Believing it a Disease of Sui Generis... Probably Insect or Animalcular Origin,” New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. Nott correctly suggests that Yellow Fever is transmitted by an insect.

E. George Squire and Edwin Hamilton Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley: Comprising the Results of Extensive Original Surveys and Explorations.

1849
Josiah Nott, Two Lectures on the Connection Between the Biblical and Physical History of Man.  Nott advances the polygenic argument against Biblical authority and for what he called “free scientific inquiry.”

George Robins Gliddon, Handbook to the American Panorama of the Nile: being the original transparent picture exhibited in London at Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, purchased from its painter and proprietors, Messrs. H. Warren, J. Bonomi and J. Fahey.

John Bachman and John J. Audubon, Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.

1850
Louis Agassiz, “The Diversity of Origin of Human Races” Christian Examiner XVIII.

Josiah Nott, “Ancient and Scriptural Chronology” Southern Quarterly Review.

De Bow, “Physical Characteristics of the Negro" De Bow’s Review IX.

1851
De Bow, “Diversity of the Human Race,” DeBow's Review X.

Samuel G. Morton, “Value of the Word Species in Zoology,” American Journal of Science and Arts, 11, 2nd Series, 275-276, 1851.

Josiah Nott, An Essay on the Natural History of Mankind, Viewed in Connection with Negro Slavery (Mobile, 1851).

Herbert Spencer, originator of the term “survival of the fittest” and advocate of cosmic evolution, publishes his Social Statics.

Samuel G. Morton dies.

John James Audubon dies.

1853
Josiah Nott, “Geographical Distributions of Animals and the Races of Man” New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, IX

John H. Van Evrie, M.D., Negroes and Negro “Slavery”; the first an Inferior Race --- the Latter, its Normal Condition. (Baltimore, 1853)

Josiah Nott “Aboriginal Races of America” Southern Quarterly VIII 1854 - 1855

Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon. 1855. Types of Mankind: or, Ethnological Researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history:/ illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton ... and by additional contributions from Prof. L. Agassiz, LL. D., W. Usher, M. D., and Prof. H. S. Patterson.

John Bachman, “Types of Mankind.” Review, Charleston Medical Journal, IX

1856
Samuel F. Haven, Archaeology of the United States; or Sketches, Historical and Bibliographical, of the Progress of Information and Opinion respecting the Vestiges of Antiquity in the United States. Smithsonian Institution.

1856 - 1857
Darwin begins writing up his views for a projected big book called 'Natural Selection'.

Louis Agassiz, Essay on Classification.

Josiah C. Nott, George R. Gliddon, and Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury, Indigenous races of the earth; or, New chapters of ethnological inquiry; including monographs on special departments. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & co.

George Gliddon dies.

1858
Josiah Nott translates and publishes the first English edition of Gobineau’s Essay on the Inequality of the Races.

1859
Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. It will go through six editions in Darwin's lifetime.

Newberry College, a liberal arts college in Newberry, S.C., is founded by Rev. John Bachman

1860
Rev. John Bachman leads the opening prayer at Institute Hall in Charleston as South Carolina votes for secession. Though opposed to secession and a social reformer in terms of slavery, Bachman fiercely defended the South and lambasted profiteering in wartime writings for South and North Carolina newspapers.

Josiah Nott admits that Darwin's theory is correct and that the polygenic theory has been refuted, but says that “at least it [Darwin's theory] is a capital dig at the parsons.”

At his church in Charleston, Bachman baptizes 67 Euro-Americans & 76 African-Americans and confirms 19 Euro- Americans and 40 African-Americans; African-Americans now constitute 35% of the membership of St. John's Lutheran Church.

1861
Attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, begins Civil War.

John Bachman and Josiah Nott would both lose sons fighting in the opposing armies.

1863
Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln.

1864
John Bachman, Characteristics of Genera and Species, as Applicable to the Doctrine of Unity in the Human Race.

1865
Sherman begins his March to the Sea.

Charleston is evacuated and later is destroyed. Bachman attempts to move his collections and his wife's work to Newberry College for safe-keeping. Most are lost in the destruction of Charleston. Bachman is severely beaten when he encounters a detachment of Union soldiers and left partially paralyzed.

The Civil War ends.

John James Audubon and Rev. John Bachman, The Quadrupeds of North America.

1871
Charles Darwin publishes The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

1873
Louis Agassiz dies.

Josiah Nott dies.

1874
Rev. John Bachman dies, supposedly saying at the end: “Little children... love one another.” He is buried under the alter of St. John's Lutheran Church in Charleston.

1882
Charles Darwin dies at Down House on April 19 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. His supposed last words were "I am not in the least afraid to die."

Asa Gray writes to Darwin on the death of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery.

From Gray's Elements of Botany

Asa Gray writes to Charles Darwin on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, relations between England and the United States, and the end of slavery. 

http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-4833

....You have always been sympathising and just, and I appreciate your hearty congratulations on the success of our just endeavors. You have since had much more to rejoice over, as well as to sorrow with us. But the noble manner in which our country has borne itself should give you real satisfaction. We appreciate too the good feeling of England in its hearty grief at the murder of Lincoln.

Don’t talk about our “hating” you,—nor suppose that we want to rob you of Canada—for which nobody cares.

We think we have been ill-used by you, when you thought us weak and broken.— & when we expected better things. We have learned that we must be strong to live in peace & comfort with England,—otherwise we should have to eat much dirt. But now that we are on our feet again, all will go well, and hatred will disappear. Indeed, I see little of that. We do not even hate the Rebels, and may not even execute so much of justice as to convict of treason & hang their President, whom we have just caught,—but I hope we shall,—hang the leader & spare the subordinates. We are now feeding the south, who starved our men taken prisoners.

Slavery is thoroughly dead. We have a deal to do, but shall do it, I trust, and deserve your continued approbation. We have a load to carry—heavy, no doubt, but a young & re-invigorated country, with a future before it can do and bear, & prosper under what might stagger a full-grown, mature country of the Old world.

From: Gray, Asa
To: Darwin, Charles.  Sent from: Cambridge, Mass. 
May 15-17, 1865.
CULDAR 165: 147

Darwin Correspondence Project

Darwin, Slavery, and Science (2009)

Darwin, Slavery, and Science (draft)
for The Civil War and Reconstruction Era: 1850s-1877 in the series Conflicts in American History, edited by Brian L. Johnson and Edward J. Blum. Manly, 2009.

In an era of revolutions, tucked away on the Down House estate, Darwin was the most reclusive of revolutionary figures. His theories were based upon direct observation, rather than philosophical speculation. Yet his views on the origin and variation of species transformed our understanding of natural and human history. While Darwin's work is often seen in terms of its conflict with Christian doctrines on creation and design, this was not the controversy that Darwin sought to engage. The Biblical chronology had been under siege for quite some time. The great naturalists that preceded him--- Linneaus, Cuvier, Blumenbach, and Lamarck--- all placed humans in the natural order, and the wide variety of new species of plants and animals, and new varieties of humans, confronting Europeans on their voyages of discovery and conquest, scientific research came to center on what was referred to as the species question. What could explain the rich variety of species found in the world? Why is there such variety to a divinely created and designed world? If the variety of nature was too great to allow one to answer these questions, then humans could serve as a model. If we could understand why humans vary, then we would have the key to the species question. A decade before the publication of the Origin of Species, the American craniologist Samuel G. Morton stated flatly that “the question of the origin of species is of the human species.” In the years between 1830 and 1859, a new scientific theory of human origins known as polygenesis ---which held that humans were divided into races,each with a separate origin and with fixed characteristics--- had come to dominate the understanding of human origins. Advocated most vigorously by a group of naturalists and doctors that came to be known as the American School, the polygenic theory of human origins was used by many as scientific justification for slavery and used against the abolitionists who often turned to the Biblical account of humans as having one single origin, or monogenesis, to support their cause. Although Darwin's work is often associated with the challenge it posed to Christian doctrine, this was not the opponent Darwin had in mind when he wrote the Origin of Species. His scientific intervention was against the polygenic theory and its implicit justification of slavery. To do this, Darwin proposed scientific, and not religious, monogenic theory of the origin and variation of species. Although humans are not mentioned at all in the work, its argument led to an unavoidable conclusion that humans are one species. The scientific foundation for slavery was ripped away, much to Darwin's satisfaction.

The American School, associated with such naturalists and doctors such as Morton, Josiah Nott,George Gliddon, and Louis Agassiz were perhaps the first American scientist to be fully recognized by their European peers. By 1850, the American School's polygenic theory had succeeded in challenging the Biblical chronology of the history of the earth and its inhabitants. Freed from doctrine, the American School hailed a new era of “free scientific inquiry” into human origins was upon us. The proponents of the American School elaborated the polygenic theory with such rigor that it was taken as the accepted scientific truth in the two decades before the publication of the Origin.  

The debate between the monogenists and polygenists was between two powerful explanations human variety. It would be simplistic to think that the polygenic/monogenic debate was between pro and anti-slavery advocates who wanted to wrap themselves in the veneer of scientific respectability. This debate went to the very core of the ethics of scientific inquiry. Supporters of slavery could be found on each side, as could abolitionists. The monogenist and co-author with James Audubon, the Rev. John Bachman of Charleston supported slavery, while those opposed to slavery included George Squire, polygenists and founder of the New York Anthropological Society.  

It is often uncritically accepted that the ideas and concepts Darwin brought together so masterfully in the Origin of Species had been “in the air” as part of the “spirit of the age.” But was everything already neatly in place and pointing to the same inevitable conclusion? Was Darwin's work the mere assembling and making intelligible insights already available? What is certain is that Natural History had reached a crisis amidst the disputes over fixity, variation, and classification. If a puzzle was before Darwin, it had been laid before him by the polygenists.

Darwin purposely avoided the use of the term evolve or evolution until the very last sentence in order to avoid any confusion of his work with the already well know use of the term. Evolution at the time of Origin of Species was most often used in the sense of an inevitable and determined unfolding over time of characteristics already present from the beginning. The homunculus, or the little man  in the head of each sperm, best represented this type of evolutionary view: “all future generations had been created in the ovaries of Eve or testes of Adam, enclosed like Russian dolls, one within the next---a homunculus in each of Eve’s ova, a tinier homunculus in each ovum of the homunculus, and so on.” Darwin redefined evolution to mean indeterminate change over time, i.e., change directed only by the needs of the individual to survive its struggle for existence and its ability of the species to adapt and vary in the course of the struggle for life. Instead of a movement towards an end or a higher stage, the history of nature became the struggle of life to perpetuate itself, in part through “natural selection” ---defined by Darwin as “the preservation of slight changes.”

Darwin put to rest the scientific discourse on the species question, which dominated the study on human origins. Darwin's work was grounded not only in the elements that he carried forward --- the importance of the fossil record, embryology, and rudimentary organs --- but also in the debates and discourses which he would either transform or destroy. The Origin of Species asks the central question of Darwin's time: What explains the origins and variety of species? That variation exists is obvious to any observer, Darwin notes at the beginning of his work. In 1842, a reviewer of recent polygenic works was led to begin by asking “[i]n surveying the globe in reference to the different appearances of mankind, the most extraordinary diversities are apparent to the most superficial observer.... Hence arises the question ---  Have all these diverse races descended from a single stock?” Human variety held the key to the species question precisely because the question always referred to human variety,and because Linneaus, Cuvier, and Lamarck had the wisdom to place humans in the animal kingdom.  Variation in one could explain variation in all because the process was at work on all. The struggle for life points to a commonality that is fundamentally genealogical. Darwin's theory, though, was neither eugenic nor teleological; and for him genealogy rather than Spirit connected all life.  

The Origin is structured as an argument for the theory. It begins with an exposition on variation as it exists under domestication, and without the intervention of humans. Instead of fixity, Darwin's takes variation to be the norm: individuals, even those classified as belonging to the same species vary across time and space. Variation is the central theme and the essential product of the struggle for life,and variation is generated by the struggle. Natural selection, amongst other forces is the basis of this law of variability. At the heart of nature rests variation. Life, embroiled in the struggle for existence, maintains itself through variation.

The remaining portion of the Origin is given over to anticipating objections to the theory.  Instinct, especially discussed in terms of slave-making ants and mutualistic aphid/ant relationships, hybridity approached as the permanent production of variety, and not as a violation of fixity. Other  problems of the geological record (fossils and catastrophe and extinction); the succession of organic beings (preformism, teleology) and geographic distribution (design and special creation) are addressed as possible areas from which objections will be heard. In spite of these difficulties, or perhaps because of them, Darwin proposes a new science arising from genealogy, morphology (the comparative study of function, behavior, and environment), embryology, and the study of rudimentary organs. This is the structure of the Origin which reveals the transvaluation of Natural History into the science of life. "All true classification is genealogical, that community of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, and not some unknown plan of creation, or the enunciation of general propositions, and the mere putting together and separating objects more or less alike." Darwin’s  genealogical tree of evolution represents the history of Nature, and that species are an expression of continuity, but also of this discontinuity of past extinctions and adaptations. 

History is not the striving of different species for supremacy, but the conflict within one species in particular as it confronts its own conditions of life. To Darwin, the torments of the rest of nature are rare and brief, only humans have learned to make suffering itself into a way of living. To see this, one needed only to observe, he often remarked, the torment of animals under the whip of the driver, or the knife of the vivisectionist,or the wars and enslavement of humans themselves.

Darwin did not engage in the active defense of his theory, leaving it to his friends Thomas Huxley and Asa Gray to respond to the more heated attacks. There were many reasons for this,including his health, which had been severely compromised during the five year circumnavigation of the H.M.S. Beagle.  It was not known at the time what caused his chronic illness and bouts of intense pain, but it is now speculated that he contracted a disease akin to sleeping sickness while on his excursions inland. Much of Darwin's work was shaped by his voyage. He had begun the voyage a believer in fixity and creation, and by the end had already begun to sketch the outlines of the theory. He had also begun the voyage as an ardent opponent of slavery, and related how he was often told that experiences in the slave countries would prove to him the inferiority of the Negro. He wrote to his sister that his experiences in Brazil in particular only hardened his opposition to slavery.  
 
Darwin was not the Beagle's naturalist, but more the social companion for Captain Fitz-Roy. British naval commanders were drawn from the upper class and it was forbidden for them to socialize even with their own junior officers. It was a lonely life for a ships captain, made all the more apparent by the suicide of the Beagle's first Captain while sheltering in a harbor in the Straits of Magellan. Fitz-Roy took Darwin even though he was concern, given his interest in craniology, that the shape of Darwin's nose suggested that he was not up to the hardships of the voyage. Reluctantly, Fitz-Roy took Darwin aboard and they shared the cramped quarters of the ship for five years. The smallness of the cabin became even more pronounced when the two discovered their opposing views of slavery. Fitz-Roy shared the common view that slavery was a necessary evil because of the inherent inferiority of the enslaved races. Slavery would ultimately raise the Negro to civilization, he thought. Fitz-Roy was himself returning three captives taken from Tierra del Fuego during the previous voyage to be trained as missionaries and potential colonial agents. The attempt ended in failure and tragedy.

 
But it was in Brazil that Darwin observed slavery for himself, and his experiences never left him. His son Francis remembered that his father was often awaken by nightmares of his Brazilian experiences, and he would become enraged at the mere suggestion that slavery might have any redeeming value. Those who thought so, he wrote, had never put themselves in the position of the slave. When his friend and mentor Charles Lyell wrote to Darwin about the forced separation of a slave family, Darwin's response was brutal, though once he realized that Lyell was only relating the views of another, he excused himself by saying that only the subject of slavery made his emotions get the better of him.  During the period between Darwin's return from the Beagle and the publication of his major works, it could not have been lost on anyone at the time ---especially one who like Darwin maintained a voluminous international correspondence--- that they were seeing the transformation of scientific knowledge --- and the “Spirit of the Age” is really only the structure of knowledge and its disciplines.Physics and chemistry were already becoming the province of specialists. The laboratory was becoming the locale for organizing the production of scientific knowledge. The rapid foundation of new learned associations and societies reflected both the move towards specialization and the speedier dissemination of results and theories. Science had finally turned to the study life. Just one governing principle remained to be overthrown:  the view of Man as the apex of creation. In this regard, the Origin of Species is a profound argument for human humility. The history of the Earth could no longer be thought of as identical with the history of Man, but it was now possible to assert that it was key to understanding the history of life. 

“As all the organic beings, extinct and recent, which have ever lived on this earth have to be classed together, and as all have been connected by the finest gradations,the best, or indeed, if our collections were nearly perfect, the only possible arrangement, would be genealogical. Descent being on my view the hidden bond of connection which naturalists have been seeking under the term of the natural system.”

 The Tree of Life was transformed into the tree of genealogical affinities: “I believe this simile largely speaks the truth” Darwin modestly stated. The Tree of Life, as well as his evocation of the “tangled bank,” represented a dynamic and indeterminate Nature.

Darwin executed more than just a rhetorical maneuver with the naming of The Origin of Species. Darwin choose to avoid the question of human origins, because to do so would have been to play on his opponents board and make his work a part of the monogenic-polygenic debate. To make a break with that controversy, Darwin answered the species question by demanding that we consider humans to be just one of an infinite variety of living organisms, all of which were created by the same processes that could even now be seen at work. Darwin shifts man from a central place in understanding variety in nature, and so produces a break with the polygenic/monogenic debate. If humans can tell us so much about the origins of the vast cacophony of nature, then there was no reason to privilege humans as the special key to knowledge. Any species could answer some or all of the question of origins. Darwin combined the genealogical classification of species with the gradual accumulation of small variations --- “a grain of sand is enough to tip the balance”--- and a theory of  population. With these he destroyed the theory of the fixity of species and the multiple origins of humans. Even Cuvier's theory of a series of creations could no longer be accepted.

Darwin was profoundly materialistic. With his intervention into the monogenic/polygenic controversy, the fixed, closed systems of classification of Natural History could no longer adequately describe the world. Now the Earth could only be seen as a planet where life “from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.” This,the last sentence of the book, is the only instance in the Origin of Species where evolution is used. It is significant that it is used in this passage to juxtapose the fixity of the law of gravity with the plasticity of descent with modification, a plasticity that is due in large part to the workings of chance.  

Most simply put, Darwin made the question of human origins a matter of the origin of any species.  Humans were no longer at the center. Linneaus may have placed Man in the chart of classification and as the measure and explanation for its origins, but Darwin placed humans in the genealogical tree of life, that is, directly in nature itself, and allowed that other species shall now explain the origin of man.  Darwin's work opens us to the infinity of nature, and makes humans just one of many species joined in life's great struggle for existence “whilst this planet has gone cycling according to the fixed law of gravity.” 
 
We should not think of Darwin's intervention as the triumph of reason over false-science, for with the new theory came also new forms of knowledge such as degeneracy and eugenics, and new forms of control that relied on new systems of classification which never quite left behind those of the late period of Natural History. These were not new forms of unreason, and neither was polygenesis merely a false and wretched knowledge that was a perversion of reason. It constituted scientific reason in relation to Man. Our present everyday knowledge of race owes much to it, but so too the the same degree do the sciences of life such as biology and sociology insofar as they came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to buttress the eugenic movement.  
 
Life and its struggle now occupied the center, and the displacement of Man could not be sustained under the guise of Natural History. New fields such as biology, sociology, and ecology would now supplant Natural History with the new study of life. The end of Natural History came along with the end of the dispute between the monogenists and polygenists. The polygenic theory was turned on its head by Darwin's account of a single common line of descent shaped by natural selection, among other conditions of life.

Darwin does not directly refer to polygenism until ten years later in the Descent of Man, and by then the polygenists had already been eclipsed by the combined forces of Darwin's critique and the American Civil War. That we do not remember the monogenic/polygenic debate is what Darwin hoped would be one of his most notable achievements.

Digital Bibliography for the Works Cited in Darwin’s “An Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species”

Digital Bibliography for the Works Cited in Darwin’s “An Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species”

The citations are derived from the first published version of the Historical Sketch, which appeared in the 3rd edition of On the Origin of Species.   Darwin revised it until the 6 edition, which was his last.

Darwin, Charles. 1861. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray. 3d ed. Text Image PDF F381

John van Wyhe, editor. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

This is a bibliography of texts cited in Darwin's Historical Sketch" with links to digital copies.  Note that some of the works are from Darwin's personal library and contain his annotations.  See the complete listing of Darwin's Library at the Biodiversity Heritage Library and Archive.org  Only a few citations are not available and most of those that are come from the following sources:

The Complete Works of Darwin Online

     http://darwin-online.org.uk/

Internet Archive

     Archive.org 

BioDiversity Heritage Library

      http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/images/BHLlogo.png

Gallica  

      http://gallica.bnf.fr/

Bibliothèque nationale de France 

      http://www.amisbnf.org/books.html

Google Books  

      http://books.google.com/

See also Darwin, C. R. 'Books Read' and 'Books to be Read' notebook. (1852-1860). CUL-DAR128.- Transcribed by Kees Rookmaaker (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

*
Bory de Saint-Vincent, M. 1825. Dictionnaire classique d'histoire naturelle, par Messieurs Audouin, Isid. Bourdon, Ad. Brongniart, de Candolle, et Bory de Saint-Vincent. Ouvrage dirigé par ce dernier collaborateur, et dans lequel on a jounté, pour le porter au niveau de la sci. Paris: Rey et Gravier.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/100480

Bory de Saint-Vincent, Jean Baptiste Geneviève Marcellin. 1827. L'homme (homo) essai zoologique sur le genre humain. Paris: Rey et Gravier.  
http://archive.org/details/lhommehomoessai01saingoog

* 
Bronn, Heinrich Georg. 1858. Untersuchungen über die Entwickelungs-Gesetze der organischen Welt während der Bildungs-Zeit unserer Erd-Oberfläche. E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagshandl.

http://books.google.com/books?id=b_gTAAAAQAAJ&ots=_e_p5xDQqw&dq=Untersuchungen%20%C3%BCber%20die%20Entwickelungs-Gesetze&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q=Untersuchungen%20%C3%BCber%20die%20Entwickelungs-Gesetze&f=false

*

Buch, Leopold von. 1836. Description physique des Iles Canaries : suivie d'une indication des principaux volcans du globe. Paris: Levrault.

http://jubilotheque.upmc.fr/fonds-geolhist/GH_000417_001/document.pdf?name=GH_000417_001_pdf.pdf
http://jubilotheque.upmc.fr/ead.html?id=GH_000417_001#!{%22content%22:[%22GH_000417_001_e0000036%22,false,%22%22]}

* 
Burdach, Karl Friedrich. 1837. Traité de physiologie considérée comme science d'observation, v. 2. Paris: J.B. Baillie
http://archive.org/stream/traitdephysiol02burd
http://archive.org/stream/traitdephysiol02burd#page/n7/mode/2up

*

Chambers, Robert. 1847. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 6th ed.

London, J. Churchill. 
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/73549

*

Darwin, C. R. & A. R. Wallace. 1858. Proceedings of the meeting of the Linnean Society held on July 1st, 1858. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Zoology 3: liv-lvi.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1699b&pageseq=1

Darwin, C. R. and A. R. Wallace. 1858. On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. [Read 1 July] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Zoology 3 (20 Aug.): 45-62. Introduction 
http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_TendencyofVarieties.html
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F350&viewtype=image&pageseq=1

http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1858_species_F350.pdf

Darwin, C. R. 1860. Natural selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette no. 16 (21 April): 362-363. London : published for the proprietors,

http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=F1705&viewtype=text

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Darwin, Erasmus. 1794. Zoonomia; or, The laws of organic life. Vol.1, pgs. 500-510. London: J. Johnson

http://archive.org/details/zoonomiaorlawsof1794darw

http://archive.org/stream/zoonomiaorlawsof1794darw#page/500/mode/2up

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Freke, Henry. 1861. The Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity. London: Longman and co.

http://books.google.com/books?id=a944AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Fries, Elias Magnus. 1825. Systema orbis vegetabilis. Lundas. Necker, Albertine Adrienne. 1839
http://archive.org/details/systemaorbisveg00friegoog
http://archive.org/stream/systemaorbisveg00friegoog#page/n4/mode/2up

Fries, Elias Magnus. 1848. Symbolae ad Historiam Hieraciorum. Upsaliae: Leffler et Sebell.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Symbolae_ad_historiam_hieraciorum.html?id=-c5AAAAAcAAJ

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Dr. Freke, 1851, ('Dublin Medical Press,' p. 322).

Not available online, although there is this interesting letter:
Freke, J. 1753. A Letter from Mr. John Freke F. R. S. Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, to the President of the Royal Society, Inclosing a Paper of the Late Rev. Mr. Creed, concerning a Machine to Write Down Extempore Voluntaries, or Other Pieces of Music (January 1, 1753). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. London: Royal Society of London

http://archive.org/stream/philtrans06937579/06937579#page/n1/mode/2up

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Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Isidore.1841. Essais de zoologie générale.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/50408

From the library of Charles Darwin

http://archive.org/details/Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire1841ie89H-a_MS

“Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1851, published in the Revue et Magasin de Zoologie Pure et Appliqu´ee. The article contains a section entitled `R´esum´e des lecons sur la question de l’esp`ece’, in which Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire stated his belief that species are subject to limited variability (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1851, pp. 15–20). There is a lightly annotated copy of the work in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL. CD cited the article in the `historical preface’ added to the revised American edition of Origin (see Appendix IV), to the German translation (Bronn trans. 1860), and to the third English edition (1861).”
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2665a

Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Isidore.1859. Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques, principalement étudiée chez l'homme et les animaux. Paris: Libraie de Victor Masson.
http://archive.org/details/histoirenaturel03saingoog

This copy is from the Library of Charles Darwin.

http://archive.org/details/Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire1854if15J-a

http://archive.org/stream/Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire1854if15J-a#page/n5/mode/2up

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Godron, Dominique Alexandre. 1859. De l'espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés et spécialement de l'unité de l'espèce humaine. Paris J.B. Baillière et Fils.

http://archive.org/details/Godron1859xy77H-b
Darwin’s annotated copy from Darwin’s Library

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/106328 

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Grant, Robert Edmund. 1826. Art. VIII: On the Structure and Nature of the Spongilla friabilis. The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Volume XIV., p.283. Printed for Archibald Constable, 1826.

http://books.google.com/books?id=kYxKAAAAcAAJ&lpg=PA113&ots=0zmW6RwYka&dq=Grant%2C%20Robert%20Edmund%20Edinburgh%20Philosophical%20Journal&pg=PA113#v=onepage&q=Grant,%20Robert%20Edmund%20Edinburgh%20Philosophical%20Journal&f=false

Grant, Robert Edmund. 1834. Lectures on Comparative Anatomy. London: The Lancet. Lecture LV “On the Generative System in the Radiated or Cylo-neurose Classes,” pgs. 1001- 1006.

http://archive.org/stream/lecturesoncompa00grangoog

http://archive.org/stream/lecturesoncompa00grangoog#page/n8/mode/2up

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Gray, Asa. 1860. Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology. A Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise on the Origin of Species, and of its American Reviewers. London: Trübner and Co.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0gJVAAAAMAAJ&ots=h9z-NZEnya&dq=Natural_selection_not_inconsistent_with&pg=PR5#v=onepage&q=Natural_selection_not_inconsistent_with&f=false

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Haldeman, S. S. 1843-44. “Enumeration of the Recent Freshwater Mollusca which are common to North America and Europe; with observations on species and their distribution. Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. IV., pgs. 468-484.

http://archive.org/details/bostonjournalofn04bost

http://archive.org/stream/bostonjournalofn04bost#page/n5/mode/2up

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Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1859. On the Flora of Australia. London: Lovell Reeve. Digitized from the copy in the personal library of Charles Darwin
http://archive.org/stream/Hooker1859hb66a_MS#page/n0/mode/2up http://archive.org/details/Hooker1859hb66a_MS

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Herbert, William. 1837. Amaryllidaceae; preceded by An attempt to arrange the monocotyledonous orders; and followed by a Treatise on cross-bred vegetables. London: J. Ridgway and sons.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96576w.r=Amaryllidace%C3%A6.langFR

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Huxley, Thomas. 1859. On the Persistent Types of Animal Life. Proceedings of the Royal Institution. London

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/SM2/PTyp.html

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de Keyserling, Hermann, Graf von. 1853. “Note sur la Succession des etres organises.”

Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France [2ème série, tome 10]

Paris: Société géologique de France

http://jubilotheque.upmc.fr/ead.html?id=GB_000025_001&c=GB_000025_001_e0009265&qid=sdx_q15

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Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste de Monet de. 1809. Philosophie zoologique, ou Exposition des considérations relatives à l'histoire naturelle des animaux. Tome 1. Paris: Dentu.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5675762f/f6.image.r=Lamarck+Philosophie+Zoologique.langFR

Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste de Monet de. 1815-1822. Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres, présentant les caractères généraux et particuliers de ces animaux, leur distribution, leurs classes, leurs familles, leurs genres, et la citation des principales espèces qui s’y rapportent ; précédée d’une introduction offrant la détermination des caractères essentiels de l’animal, sa distinction du végétal et des autres corps naturels ; enfin, l’exposition des principes fondamentaux de la zoologie. Paris: Déterville.

http://www.lamarck.cnrs.fr/ouvrages/docpdf/Histoire_naturelle_vol1.pdf
http://archive.org/stream/histoirenaturell01lama (1837 edition)

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Matthew, P. 1831. On naval timber and arboriculture; with critical notes on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green; and Edinburgh: Adam Black.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A154&viewtype=image&pageseq=1

Matthew, P. 1860. Nature's law of selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (7 April): 312-13. London: published for the proprietors,

http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=A143&viewtype=text

Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 13 April. London: published for the proprietors,
http://archive.org/details/mobot31753002318076

Letter, Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 12 May. London: published for the proprietors,

http://archive.org/details/mobot31753002318076

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Naudin, C. V. 1852. "Considérations philosophiques sur l'espèce et la variété", Rev. Hortic. 4th ser. 1 (1852): 102–9.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2867150;view=1up;seq=130

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Oken, Lorenz. 1809. Lehrbuch der naturphilosophie. Jena: F. Frommann.

http://archive.org/stream/lehrbuchdernatu02okengoog
http://archive.org/stream/lehrbuchdernatu02okengoog#page/n7/mode/2up

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d'Omalius d'Halloy, J. -J. 1846. “Note sur la succession des etres vivants.” Académie Royale des Sciences des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Vol. 13 (Part 1), Bruxelles. pg., 581-591.

http://archive.org/stream/bulletindelacad13acad#page/n599/mode/2up

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Owen, Richard. 1849. On the Nature of Limbs. A Discourse delivered on Friday, February 9, at an evening meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. London John Van Voorst.

This copy is from the Library of Charles Darwin.
http://archive.org/details/Owen1849br46D

Owen, Richard. 1858. Address to the British Association, Leeds.

or
Owen, Richard. 1859. Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. London: John Murray.
http://archive.org/stream/reportofbritisha59adva
http://archive.org/stream/reportofbritisha59adva#page/n51/mode/2up

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Pander, von Dr. Chr. und Dr. E. D'Alton. 1821. Das Riesen-Faulthier, Bradypus giganteiis, abgebildet, beschrieben, und mit verwandten Geschlechtem verglichen. Bonn.
X 8vo, torn. viii. 1836, pp. 331-370.

Unable to locate complete digital text.

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Poiret, Jean Louis Marie. 1789. Voyage en Barbarie : ou lettres écrites de l'ancienne Numidie pendant les années 1785 & 1786, sur la religion, les coutumes & les moeurs des Maures & des Arabes-Bédouins: avec un essai sur l'histoire naturelle de ce pays, v.1. Paris, Chez J.B.F. Née de la Rochelle.

http://archive.org/details/voyageenbarbarie01poir 
http://archive.org/stream/voyageenbarbarie01poir#page/n5/mode/2up

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Powell, Baden. 1855. Essays on the spirit of the inductive philosophy, the unity of worlds and the philosophy of creation. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
http://archive.org/stream/essaysonspiritof00powerich

http://archive.org/stream/essaysonspiritof00powerich#page/n3/mode/2up

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Rafinesque, Constantine Samuel. 1836. New flora and botany of North America, or A supplemental flora, additional to all the botanical works on North America and the United States. Containing 1000 new or revised species. In four parts. 1. Lexicon and monographs. 2. Neophyton &c. 3. New sylva &c. 4. Neobotanon &c. with introductions, sketches, notes, indexes, &c. Philadelphia [Printed for the author and publisher]

http://archive.org/details/newflorabotanyof00rafiuoft
http://archive.org/stream/newflorabotanyof00rafiuoft#page/n5/mode/2up

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von Schaaffhausen. H. 1853. Decheniana Naturhistorischer Verein der preussischen Rheinlande und Westfalens, vol. 10. Verhandlungen. Bonn, Naturhistorischen Vereins der Rheinlande und Westfalens. “Ueber Bestandigkeit und Umwandrung der Arten.” pgs. 420-452.

http://archive.org/details/decheniana00unkngoog

http://archive.org/stream/decheniana00unkngoog#page/n429/mode/2up

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Spencer, Herbert. 1855. The Principles of Psychology. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.

http://archive.org/details/principlespsych04spengoog

http://archive.org/stream/principlespsych04spengoog#page/n6/mode/2up

Spencer, Herbert. 1858.  Essays : scientific, political and speculativeLondon : Williams and Norgate [1891 ed.]
Volume I: https://archive.org/details/spenceressayssci01spen

Essays : scientific, political and speculativeLondon : Williams and Norgate.
Volume II:  https://archive.org/details/hspenceressayssc02spen

Essays : scientific, political and speculativeLondon : Williams and Norgate.
Volume III: https://archive.org/details/spenceressayssci03spen


See also the selections in Essays : Moral, Political and Aesthetic: A selection from the essays in the first and second series of "Essays: scientific, political and speculative". London, 1858-63
http://archive.org/details/essaysmoralpolit00spen

http://archive.org/stream/essaysmoralpoli02spengoog#page/n8/mode/2up