Tanghe (2018)

On The Origin of Species: The story of Darwin's title

·         Crítica a Darwin industry por não ter um diretório central, tornando mais difícil a identificação de tópicos pouco estudados.

·         Os accounts nas biografias de browne e Desmond superestimam Murray e não discutem o período maior de dinamicidade do nome

·         This binary structure [na qual a explicação das seleções toma apenas 4 capítulos e a reinterpretação das disciplinas toma 7] of his argumentation reflected, on the one hand, the importance he attached to this reinterpretation and, on the other hand, the relative unimportance of his theory of natural selection for his ‘one long argument’ (in favour of transmutation). As he declared in a letter to Asa Gray from 11 May 1863: ‘Personally, of course, I care much about Natural Selection; but that seems to me utterly unimportant compared to question of Creation or Modification 86

·         The binary division of the Sketch and the Essay was implicitly preserved in the ‘big Book’ that he began writing in May 1856 and, later, in The Origin.28 It is somewhat puzzling, therefore, that the former manuscript was entitled Natural Selection. Why did Darwin call it after its least important part (i.e. the part about natural selection)? It seems that it had gained somewhat in importance, since Darwin’s notes for Natural Selection suggest that the second part would only have been as long as the first part.29 Still, his later remarks indicate that his transmutational reinterpretation of mid-nineteenth-century static natural history or ‘biology’ remained the main part of his argument. The question therefore remains: why did he call his big ‘Species Book’ after the least important part of his argument? Part of the answer undoubtedly is that ‘he care[d] much about Natural Selection’. Also, since 1839, natural selection had been ‘the enduring core element’ of his evolutionary theorizing.30 Lyell may also have been a motivating factor behind Darwin’s choice. After Darwin had explained to Lyell his theory of evolution and had shown him his pigeon breeds, during a visit in April 1856, Lyell noted in his scientific journal: ‘With Darwin: On the Formation of Species by Natural Selection’.31 He realized that what he called the natural selection theory explained the pattern, observed by Alfred Russel Wallace, that new species are most allied to those immediately preceding in time, and used ‘natural selection as a shorthand for Darwin’s theory of evolution’.32

·         Ver nota 28 p. 87 sobre estrutura

·         O título proposto quando ele começou a escrever o origin era An Abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties Through Natural Selection, conforme enviaod a lyell. Abstract é pra deixar claro que não está complete e essay se refere ao natural selection, embora seja um misnomer

·         Another question is why Darwin did not simply choose the title ‘Abstract of an Essay on Natural Selection’. Why did he replace the phrase ‘natural selection’ with the longer phrase ‘(an essay) on the origin of species and varieties through natural selection’? This is, without a doubt, the main and most intriguing change in the trajectory between Natural Selection and The Origin of Species (1872). It confronts us with two questions: why did Darwin decide to refer to the question of the origin of organic beings and why did he first refer to the origin of both species and varieties? 90

·         Pode ter sido inspirado pelo público maior tentando ser mais explicativo; mas também por outros títulos ‘On certain areas of elevation and subsidence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as deduced from the study of coral formations (1837); ‘On the Formation of Species by Natural Selection’ de Lyell (marcaso em seu diário 1856, ver p. 87); On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection’.

·         A inclusão de varieties era importante para darwin 90-91

·         Darwin’s original title underwent seven modifications (figure 2). One word was replaced (‘through’ became ‘by means of’) and four terms or phrases were deleted (‘an abstract of’, ‘an essay’, ‘and varieties’ and ‘on’). Lastly, Darwin added a subtitle. The first version read ‘the preservation of favoured races’, the second ‘the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life’. Only three of these modifications were inspired by a (known) criticism from John Murray, although it must be added that these were the three most important modifications.

·         The letter that Darwin sent to Lyell on 30 March shows that Murray did indeed object to the term ‘abstract’, as pointed out by Browne, but he did not object to the words ‘essay’ and ‘varieties’.50 Also, his objection to the phrase ‘natural selection’ was, in contrast with what Browne suggests, not constructive: he did not suggest that Darwin explained the term but simply objected to it. That may be the reason why Darwin, at a certain point in time, toyed with the idea of a completely different title, ‘On the Mutability of Species’, as suggested by a tentative title-page sketch (figure 3).51 91-2

·         Darwin agreed to delete the term ‘abstract’ but he hoped to retain the phrase ‘natural selection’, ‘with Explanation, somewhat as thus,—Through Natural Selection or the reservation of favoured Races’.52 The reason why he thought that the phrase ‘natural selection’ was not problematic is that it was ‘constantly used in all works on Breeding, & I am surprised that it is not familiar to Murray’.53 Both statements make it clear that his full subtitle, ‘the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’, was not conceived and intended as an alternative for the main title ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’, as Richard Dawkins claims, but as an explanation of the, at the time, relatively novel phrase ‘natural selection’ (although it did have implications for the meaning of the phrase ‘origin of species’, as will become clear below).54 The explanation, through a subtitle, of the phrase ‘natural selection’ was also, without a doubt, the most important and most remarkable modification of the original title of Darwin’s abstract. I will first concentrate upon the specific words of which it is composed and subsequently discuss the possible reason why Darwin chose this particular definition of natural selection. 93-4

·         Preservation era o termo padrão de darwin; Pq raça no título ao invés de um sinônimo, possivelmente devido as raças domésticas e por significar bem grupos divergentes de organismos; struggle of life importante na todo da toeira; de modo geral o subtítulo está relacionado com o princiipio da divergência; Darwin decide retirar ‘varieties’ em carta a murray e após conversar com lyell; means of provavlemte inspiração; e drop de on pode ser uma maturação.

·         Conclusão

Darwin certainly had good reasons to call his big ‘Species Book’ Natural Selection. Natural selection may not have been the most important component of his one ‘long argument’ but it was definitely its most brilliant component. It was also the common thread in his evolutionary theorizing. When he was forced to write swiftly an ‘Abstract of an Essay on Natural Selection’, instead of Natural Selection he made the historically crucial choice of inserting the phrase ‘the origin of species and varieties’ in his title. There are several nonexclusive factors that may have inspired this insertion: didactic reasons, the title of the article in which he elaborated his highly successful coral theory, the title of the Darwin– Wallace paper and/or Lyell’s qualification, in 1856, of his theory as ‘On the Formation of Species by Natural Selection’. The main influence of John Murray was the addition of a subtitle to this title: ‘or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’. This referred to the kind of preservation or selection that was associated with the second keystone of Darwin’s book: the principle of divergence. Other modifications were less crucial. Most enigmatic, maybe, was the replacement of ‘through’ with the longer phrase ‘by means of’.