Charles Darwin's Notebooks (1836-1844), Barret et al.

(1987)

Introdução: Herbert e Kohn

The seven notebooks lettered alphabetically- Notebooks A, B, C, D, E, Mand N- form the core of this edition. T hey define the centre of the notebook period, summer 1837 to summer 1839, and elaborate its key topics: geology (Notebook A), transmutation of species (Notebooks B to E), and metaphysical enquiries (Notebooks M and N). The other eight manuscripts relate directly to this core. The Red Notebook contains both geological and transmutationist themes and was the predecessor to the later notebooks. The Glen Roy Notebook, while primarily a geological field notebook, contains occasional observations on breeding and instinct. The Torn Apart Notebook was a direct continuation of Notebook E, the brief Summer 1842 Notes being on related themes but later. The Zoology Notes, Edinburgh Notebook were a series of notes running roughly parallel in time and subject matter to the transmutation notebooks. Questions & Experiments carried forward  transmutationist themes by a set of questions on breeding and inheritance and by a record of experiments to be tried on these subjects. The Old & Useless Notes and the Abstract of Macculloch complemented the major themes of Notebooks M and N. 8

In addition to forming the core of this volume, the alphabetically lettered notebooks bear a generative relationship to one another, the subject of transmutation serving as the stimulus for the differentiation of the group. During the years Darwin kept these notebooks he moved from asser ting transmutation as an hypothesis to constructing a full theory of its operation. Before opening these notebooks he knew of the state of opinion on the subject and, while on the Beagle voyage, commented on it, often tangentially. In March 1837 after London zoologists had examined a number of the specimens he had collected on the voyage, he was ready to take up the t ransmutationist hypothesis. Danvin's earliest known explicitly transmutationist statements occur in the Red Notebook, scattered amongst obse1vations and reading notes, primarily on geology. When this notebook was filled, Darwin began  notebooks A and B. Notebook A, devoted primarily to geology, he filled gradually over two years. Notebook B, devoted entirely to the su~ject of the transmutation of species, he filled relatively rapidly. It was succeeded in tum by Notebooks C, D, E and the Tom Apart Notebook all devoted to transmutation. In addition, in the course of keeping Notebook C, Darwin recorded an increasing number of observations on man, behaviour, and the  etaphysical and epistomological implications of transmutation. When Notebook C was filled, Darwin opened a new parallel series of notebooks, labelled sequentially 'M' (possibly for 'metaphysics') and ' N', devoted to exploring his new in terests. Meanwhile, in Notebook D Darwin first formulated the concept of natural selection, which he elaborated in subsequent notebooks. Over time, the scheme of these notebooks can be represented as illustrated in Fig. 1 , page 6. Although Darwin stopped using notebooks to record his views in the 1840s, he continued to make notes on transmutation, which he organized into subject portfolios, through the rest of his career. The formal writing of the Origin went through three stages before publication: two drafts- the 1842 Sketch and the 1844 Essay; a long version of the argument, Natural Selection, never published in his lifetime; and, finally, the Origin itself in its first and subsequent five editions. Darwin's geological notes in the Red Notebook and in Notebook A were incorporated into various of his later publications. Material from Notebooks M and N appea red primarily in The Descent ef Man and The Expression ef the Emotions in Man and Animals. 9

In addition to the fifteen manuscripts included in this volume are others bearing on its subject that were excluded only for practical reasons. The Red Notebook itself has a predecessor in the form of 34 numbered pages at the back of a field notebook from the Beagle voyage labelled 'Santiago Book'. Begun in 1835, these pages contain entries of a theoretical na ture and are directed towards future publication.6 From the post-voyage period the 'St. Helena Model' notebook, begun in 1838, records DaIWin's notes on his observations of Robert Seale's topographical model of that island, as well as some entries directed towards the species question.7 In addition to notebooks, there are in the. Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library a considerable number ofloose notes from the 1836-44 period that bear on the subject matter of the notebooks published here. Among these are notes, catalogued in the library as DAR 29, regarding specimens from the Beagle voyage. Also of interest are Darwin's collection of abst r~cts of books and scientific periodicals similar to the Abstract of Macculloch. 9

·         Entries in the majority of the fifteen manuscripts in the present collection are directed towards the construction of theory. They represent a series of brief expositions, memoranda and reading notes: theory in the process of gestation. Since the arguments presented in the notebooks were in the early stages of formation, they display the probing and discursive  ogic of discovery ra ther than the coherent and fully articulated logic of final exposition. In addition, to the reader familiar with On the Origin ef Species, the notebooks may initially seem foreign, for where the Origin, at least in its first edition, offered few clues to its antecedents, the notebooks served as Darwin's record of his sources. Also in these manuscripts Darwin frequently reflected on the subject of scientific method with regard to his own work, as, for example, in his comment in [Notebook] D117: 'The line of argument «often» pursued throughout my theory is to establish a point as a probability by induction, & to apply it as hypothesis to other points. & see whether it will solve them.-' 7 9

·         Os cadernos também possuem conexões com a marginalia e apresentam sinais de consulta recorrente.

·         Descrição da vida de Darwin ao longo do período dos notebooks. Muita atividade pública, participações em sociedades, museus, viagens curtas, colaborações com vários naturalistas importantes, publicações das observações da viagem do beagle, muita leitura, casamento e mudanças de casas.

Red Notebook: Herbert e Herbet (1980)

·          O rn apresenta dois aspectos distintos, dando a entender que foi inicado durante a viagem e levado com darwin para londres depois. A primeira parte pode ser facilmente datade de 1836, mas a segunda é mais difícil.

·          O notebook apresenta a primeira intuição mais clara do transformismo de darwin e o marca em março de 1837 (conforme afirmado no jounral)

·          In the Red Notebook are found explicit indications that Darwin was ready to assert the possibility that "…one species does change into another…" (Red Notebook, p. 130). Equally important, Darwin's remarks on the species question in the second part of the notebook are sufficiently extended to allow one to characterize his position in some detail.

·          Sobre espécies fala de distribuição, comparação da distribuição através do tempo e espaço e sobre a geração das espécies.

·          The central theoretical notion to emerge with respect to geographical distribution is that of the 'representation of species' (p. 130), or what Darwin referred to in his autobiography as 'the manner in which closely allied animals replace one another in proceeding southwards over the [South American] Continent…'.7 From this notion Darwin drew the tentative conclusion that such representative species as (to take his example) the two South American rheas had descended from a common parent (p. 153e). It is important to point out that in drawing this conclusion, Darwin chose to avoid a Lamarckian understanding of the bounding of species.8 For Lamarck, species graded indistinguishably into one another. In contrast, Darwin perceived differences between even the most closely related species, a perception captured by his notion of representative species and confirmed by the judgements of taxonomic authorities.9 […] Because he saw species inosculating rather than grading into one another, Darwin believed at the time he wrote this entry that species change, or transmutation, must be produced 'at one blow'' (p. 217), or 'per saltum' (p. 130). 7 19b 1987

·         One such passage argues that 'new creations' of species are independent of the size of the land area inhabited by the species (p. 127). Other statements challenge by way of example the notion that climate entirely determines the distribution of species (pp. 128, 134e) or that species are perfectly adapted to a particular set of physical circumstances (pp. 129, 133). Behind such statements lie broad questions concerning the relation of the history of the earth to the history of life. Yet in these passages the tentative and empirical nature of Darwin's inquiries is paramount. 7-8

·          Sobre a relação da distribuição das espécies no tempo espaço é dado um exemplo relacionando réias, macrauchenia e guanacos relacionado a substituição de uma espécie por outra próxima. Fica claro o “inosculação” das espécies e não uma gradação. 8 19b1987

·         O terceiro tópico é a geração ou reprodução. Although the claim is not made explicitly in this notebook, Darwin presumed that the complementary relationship might also hold, that the birth of new species might be understood by analogy to the birth of individuals. 9 19b1987

·         Foi aproveitado em papers, no jornal, coral ...

·         O rn representa uma mudança entre os cadernos descritivos de viagem para os teóricos pósviagem, contendo um mix dos dois tipos de entradas.

·          Once the Red Notebook was filled, Darwin reorganized his method of taking notes. Where the Red Notebook contained entries on all subjects of interest, subsequent notebooks were more restricted in content. In place of the Red Notebook Darwin opened two new notebooks, one devoted to geology which he labelled 'A'.30 At about the same time Darwin opened a second notebook, 'B', already mentioned, which he devoted to questions pertaining to the mutability of species. 14

·         Reflecting Darwin's enthusiasm for large theoretical issues, Notebook A follows the lead of the Red Notebook with regard to geology. For example, there is in the two notebooks a continuing interest in vertical movements of the earth's crust and an overlapping range of topics generally. Yet there are some differences between the two notebooks. Notebook A has fewer field notes than does the Red Notebook, and indeed the major piece of geological field research Darwin did in the 1837-1839 period he recorded in another notebook.32 Also, Notebook A draws on contemporary journal literature far more than does the Red Notebook, for the obvious reason that Darwin had access to such literature only after his return to England. Another difference between the two notebooks is their relative value as documents for interpreting Darwin's geological views for the period when each was kept. In this respect the Red Notebook is the more revealing document. Yet the lesser import of Notebook A is not due to a declining interest in geology on Darwin's part during the 1837-1839 period. Indeed, in this time Darwin published seven papers on geological topics.33 Two of these papers, that on the formation of mould and that on the 'parallel roads' of Glen Roy in Scotland, involved new field research. Further, during this same period Darwin continued working on his 'grand discussion' of South American geology, and on his studies of coral reefs and volcanic islands.34 However, in quantity and substance Notebook A represents only a small portion, a sampler, of Darwin's geological work during the period, and for that reason it is less essential to interpreting Darwin's early geological views than is the Red Notebook. 15

·          In contrast, Notebook B and its successors represent the bulk of Darwin's theoretical work on the species question during the period when they were kept and are therefore essential in understanding his intellectual development. As is well known, Darwin did not publish his new views on species immediately upon their inception, being well aware of the generally critical attitude of his scientific colleagues towards theories asserting the mutability of species.35 However, from the spring of 1837 on, Darwin himself was convinced of the merits of the transmutationist case and chose to pursue the subject in private without the explicit knowledge or direct support of his colleagues. In Notebook B, begun in July 1837, Darwin continued the inquiries on species begun in the Red Notebook. Once filled, Notebook B gave way to Notebooks C, D, and E, and to at least one other notebook known only from fragments.36 By the close of Notebook C, however, Darwin's search for an explanation for adaptation had focused on the subject of behaviour, and he opened a new set of notebooks, labelled M and N, devoted in large part to the study of behaviour.37 Like his predecessor and fellow transmutationist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Darwin suspected that adaptive change at least in some instances might occur first in the behaviour of the organism, and Notebook M was opened with this hypothesis in mind. For the period July 1838-July 1839, Darwin was thus pursuing three related but distinguishable lines of inquiry. 16

Notebook b (kohn)

·         Primeiro exclusivamente sobre transmutação. 167

·          Darwin não datou B e C quando os abriu, apenas quando abriu D voltou para datar os  outros. 167

o    Scholars have accepted Darwin’s post hoc judgement that ‘This book was commenced about July. 1837’, perhaps without appreciating that this was only an estimate. Since the note is in grey ink, it could only have been made between 29 July and 16 October 1838. Darwin probably estimated the beginning of Notebook B from the first citation of a dated publication. This occurs in B30: ‘July 1837. Eyton of Hybrids propagating freely’. The reference is to Eyton 1837a, which appeared in the July number of the Magazine of Natural History. Unfortunately, this leaves the  Zoonomical essays2 at the beginning of the notebook undated. While the latest opening date is established as after the end of July 1837, the earliest plausible opening date is after the estimated completion date of the Red Notebook in late May to mid June. 167

o    Darwin put his closing date on the inside front cover of Notebook B as ‘probably ended in beginning of February’ since ‘p. 235 was written in January 183[8]’. This retrospective dating he based on the incorrect assumption that Martens 1838 appeared in January, rather than February. Indeed he ignored his deletion of ‘Jan’ on B235. He also overlooked his earlier note on B198 ‘Henslow says. (Feb 1838) that few months since . . .’ The firmest date does appear in B235 and comes from the publication of Martens 1838 in the 24 February issue of Athenaeum. So a closing date for Notebook B of early March is plausible. 1967

o    O meio é datado a partir de citações 167-8

·          O livro começa com uma teoria derivada a partir do Zoonomia.

·          If the rich species passages of the Red Notebook mark Darwin’s first statements as a transformist, with Notebook B he launches into the systematic search for an explanatory theory that will support his new convictions. Indeed the notebook begins with a full-blown theory derived from reading Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia. In this Zoonomical essay of about 36 pages, Darwin formulates the fundamental questions and establishes the answers not only for Notebook B but for his whole enterprise.4 Darwin’s questions: how do species produce adaptations to a changing world, how do new species form, and how does the hierarchy of relationships in the natural system of classification form? form the basis of evolutionary theory; adaptation, speciation, and phylogeny. Darwin’s first question, how do species adapt to changing circumstances, reflects a synthesis of problems Darwin recognized in William Paley’s natural theology and Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian geology. Hence, the key question of the transmutation notebooks is formulated: how to explain adaptation over time by natural means. 167

·          Geração sexual permite varição e a assex não. Geração como meio de variação ou adaptação. Darwin assume a variação adapta o ser ao meio. Não é mais explicativo que os predecessores mas explora mais. Darwin responde a questão da formação das espécies concectando a adaptação por geração sexual com especiação explicando a constância das espécies sobre grnades regiões. 168

·          Darwin se preocupa em mostrar que a formação das esps é possível sem isolamento completo influencia no princípio da divergência formulado na década de 1850. Mas no caderno B o isolamento é mais importante, B7 168-9

·         Casamento entre sua teoria e classificação através da árvore da vida. Extinção explica lacunas e os tipos ancestrais as similiridades. Darwin traduziu a visão da criação especial para uma transformista. 169


Nb c (Kohn)

·          Datação mais correta:  março-agosto. 42/55 encontradas 237

·          Mais longo e rico 238

·          the hereditary transmission of form, the distribution of local and wide-ranging species, the distinction between systematic affinity and analogy, and the relation between habit (behaviour) and structure. With respect to heredity, the major themes are reversion, the presence or absence of intermediacy in the offspring of crosses, and the notion that ereditary characters become fixed with time. The latter view underlies Darwin's interest in Yarrell's law, which becomes his leading hereditary generalization. According to Darwin's transformist reworking of the ideas of William Yarrell, older varieties should predominate in crosses with newer ones, likewise natural species should predominate over domesticated varieties. Yarrell’s law suits Darwin's transformism because it guarantees the stability of hereditary change. Darwin's exploration of heredity is paralleled by a growing exposure to such writers on the laws of animal breeding as Sebright and Wilkinson (C133—134). For the time being this exposure does not undermine his conclusion that ‘picking varieties [is an] unnatural circumstance' (C120). With respect to distribution, we find Darwin intensively studying the results of voyages of exploration, notably the French reports such as Lesson and Garnot 1826—30 (C16—28). This study yields a rich harvest of examples of geographic isolation, and it also leads Darwin to tentative generalizations on whether local species and genera or wideranging ones are the principal vehicles of transformist change (C59—60). In the field of systematics, Darwin's careful analysis of the quinarian school of MacLeay and Swainson, a school which Darwin roundly rejects (C170), nevertheless leads him to formulate a transformist version of their distinction between affinity and analogy (C61). Taxonomic affinity reflects descent. Analogy is the taxonomic mark of evolutionary adaptations to similar environmental circumstances. With respect to behavioural adaptations, which become a major concern of Notebook C, Darwin's thinking is shaped by his view that behaviour, including instinct and thought, are hereditary. He formulates the idea that adaptive, changes in habit precede changes in. structure as a guiding theme (C63) This Lamarckian law is an important extension of the adaptive mechanism developed in Notebook B and becomes the dominant expression of Darwin's search for a transformist explanation in the latter part of Notebook C. The related questions of behaviour and materialism become so important that upon completing Notebook C, Darwin establishes Notebooks M and N as a separate series of 'metaphysical enquiries'. 238

·          It should be noted that the four major fields of interest summarized above are often discussed simultaneously. The laws of heredity, distribution, systematics and behaviour are treated as related dimensions of a common problem. And the problem that dominates Notebook C is the relationship between adaptation and heredity, between evolutionary change and evolutionary continuity. In the process, the framework of Notebook B is expanded in range and its explanatory mechanism is transformed in direction. 238


Nb d (Kohn )

·         Jul 15-0ct2 parece correto 329

·         Notebook D was filled in three months, by far the most accelerated pace of the transmutation series. The dominant theme of the notebook is reproduction. It includes a detailed abstract of Hunter’s Animal Economy edited by Richard Owen3 (D112−116 and D154−161) and several attempts to bring the complex laws of generation under a unified view. In so far as the notebooks on transmutation are a record of the conceptual growth of Darwin’s theory, Notebook D is the climactic document of the series. While Darwin constructed the basic framework of his theory in Notebook B and deepened and extended that theory in Notebook C, by the end of Notebook D he formulated a new answer to the fundamental question of his theoretical enterprise: what is the origin of adaptation? In evocative language, Darwin expresses a metaphorical yet decisive grasp of the adaptive role of competition that attends ‘the warring of species as inference from’ the Malthusian law of population: ‘One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force ‹into› every kind of adapted structure into the gaps ‹of› in the oeconomy of Nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones.’ (D134−135).4 The full articulation of the theory of natural selection from this first formulation takes place over the subsequent months and is to be found in notebook E, but the image of natural selection as a wedging force persists through the Origin.5 By his reliance on the classical political economy of Malthus as a resource Darwin made competition in man the model for his understanding of nature.6 Moreover, Darwin conceives of  his wedging force in teleological terms. ‘The final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure & adapt it to change.—’ (D135). However, from the beginning of Notebook B Darwin sought a strictly naturalistic solution to the problem of adaptation. While he formulates his new theory in Notebook E, he examines at the same time its metaphysical significance in his abstract of Macculloch to conclude that final causes are ‘barren virgins’.7 Darwin’s ‘theory by which to work’8 is rooted in a teleology that relies on utilitarianism rather than on providence. Just as the problem of adaptation, inherited from Paley and Lyell, has theological and political underpinnings, so does Darwin’s solution to the problem: natural selection. 329-30


Nb e (Kohn)

·         39/28. Oct 2 é uma data aproximada já q n tem no caderno que sobrou pra nós, fim em10 julho

·         Sumário interessante de Darwin: 1 netos como avôs; 2 tendencia a varia~ções pequenas; 3 grande fertilidade em proporção ao suporte dos pais. E58 395.

·         But this summary is not expanded into an essay. Rather Darwin explores some of the implications of his new mechanism and its compatibility with his prior assumptions. Four leading issues emerge: the relationship between variation and adaptation, the rate and pace of transformist change, the separation of sexes, and the analogy between selection in nature and under domestication. 395

·         Trabalha o malthusianismo em relação a luta pela existência, variação hereditária, adaptação. 395

·         Reafirma o contexto geológico gradual para a transformação trabalhado em B e o  eq. Entre adaptação e hereditariedade em C. Tbm fala que é dependente do ambiente logo pode ficar estável por mto tempo

·         Much attention is devoted to the problem of the separation of sexes. His conclusion that the ‘formation of sexes is rigidly necessary’ (E49) has roots in early Notebook B and derives from his work in Notebook D on the broader subject of generation, but it is crystallized in Notebook E as a major deduction from his new theory, with its stress on populations: ‘it was absolutely necessary that Physical changes should act not on individuals, but on masses of individuals . . . this could only be effected by sexes’ (E50). As always with Darwin’s secondary laws, the ramifications are wide ranging. The necessity of separate sexes determines the formation of social instincts and this Darwin hopes ‘to show is the foundation of all that is most beautiful in the moral sentiments’ (E49). 396

·         In Notebook E Darwin clarifies the analogy between the formation of species in nature and under domestication.2 In Notebooks C and D he recognizes that domestic varieties produced by man’s art are the analogues of species produced by nature, but he vigorously rejected the idea that they are formed by analogous means: ‘One can perceive that Natural varieties or species, . . . more conformable to the structure which has been adapted to former changes, than a mere monstrosity propagated by art’ (D107). They are analogous effects not  roduced by analogous causes. In Notebook E he reverses his position: ‘It is a beautiful part of my theory, that «domesticated» races, of ‹a› organics are made by precisely same means as species—but latter far more perfectly & infinitely slower.’ (E71). Here he constructs an analogy that flows, as did the development of his thinking, from nature to art and his former objection is subsumed as a qualification. Finally, in E118 he inverts the analogy and sketches the strategy of exposition in the Origin: ‘greyhound. & poutter Pidgeons «race-horse» . . . produced by crossing & keeping breed pure.— «& so in plants effectually the offspring are picked & not allowed to cross.—» Has nature any process analogous . . . Then give my theory.— excellently true theory’.

·         O e ainda é especulativo, viria a se cristalizar em 1842 e 44.



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