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The Autobiography of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

collected with respect to other plants.

My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my
book, a surprising number of papers and separate works on the
fertilisation of all kinds of flowers have appeared:  and these
are far better done than I could possibly have effected.  The
merits of poor old Sprengel, so long overlooked, are now fully
recognised many years after his death.

During the same year I published in the 'Journal of the Linnean
Society' a paper "On the Two Forms, or Dimorphic Condition of
Primula," and during the next five years, five other papers on
dimorphic and trimorphic plants.  I do not think anything in my
scientific life has given me so much satisfaction as making out
the meaning of the structure of these plants.  I had noticed in
1838 or 1839 the dimorphism of Linum flavum, and had at first
thought that it was merely a case of unmeaning variability.  But
on examining the common species of Primula I found that the two
forms were much too regular and constant to be thus viewed.  I
therefore became almost convinced that the common cowslip and
primrose were on the high road to become dioecious;--that the
short pistil in the one form, and the short stamens in the other
form were tending towards abortion.  The plants were therefore
subjected under this point of view to trial; but as soon as the
flowers with short pistils fertilised with pollen from the short
stamens, were found to yield more seeds than any other of the
four possible unions, the abortion-theory was knocked on the
head.  After some additional experiment, it became evident that
the two forms, though both were perfect hermaphrodites, bore
almost the same relation to one another as do the two sexes of an
ordinary animal.  With Lythrum we have the still more wonderful
case of three forms standing in a similar relation to one
another.  I afterwards found that the offspring from the union of
two plants belonging to the same forms presented a close and
curious analogy with hybrids from the union of two distinct
species.

In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on 'Climbing
Plants,' and sent it to the Linnean Society.  The writing of this
paper cost me four months; but I was so unwell when I received
the proof-sheets that I was forced to leave them very badly and
often obscurely expressed.  The paper was little noticed, but
when in 1875 it was corrected and published as a separate book it
sold well.  I was led to take up this subject by reading a short
paper by Asa Gray, published in 1858.  He sent me seeds, and on
raising some plants I was so much fascinated and perplexed by the
revolving movements of the tendrils and stems, which movements
are really very simple, though appearing at first sight very
complex, that I procured various other kinds of climbing plants,
and studied the whole subject.  I was all the more attracted to
it, from not being at all satisfied with the explanation which
Henslow gave us in his lectures, about twining plants, namely,
that they had a natural tendency to grow up in a spire.  This
explanation proved quite erroneous.  Some of the adaptations
displayed by Climbing Plants are as beautiful as those of Orchids
for ensuring cross-fertilisation.

My 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication' was
begun, as already stated, in the beginning of 1860, but was not
published until the beginning of 1868.  It was a big book, and
cost me four years and two months' hard labour.  It gives all my
observations and an immense number of facts collected from
various sources, about our domestic productions.  In the second
volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, etc., are
discussed as far as our present state of knowledge permits.
Towards the end of the work I give my well-abused hypothesis of
Pangenesis.  An unverified hypothesis is of little or no value;
but if anyone should hereafter be led to make observations by
which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have
done good service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can
be thus connected together and rendered intelligible.  In 1875 a
second and largely corrected edition, which cost me a good deal
of labour, was brought out.

My 'Descent of Man' was published in February, 1871.  As soon as
I had become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species
were mutable productions, I could not avoid the belief that man
must come under the same law.  Accordingly I collected notes on
the subject for my own satisfaction, and not for a long time with
any intention of publishing.  Although in the 'Origin of Species'
the derivation of any particular species is never discussed, yet
I thought it best, in order that no honourable man should accuse
me of concealing my views, to add that by the work "light would
be thrown on the origin of man and his history."  It would have
been useless and injurious to the success of the book to have
paraded, without giving any evidence, my conviction with respect
to his origin.

But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the
doctrine of the evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable
to work up such notes as I possessed, and to publish a special
treatise on the origin of man.  I was the more glad to do so, as
it gave me an opportunity of fully discussing sexual selection--a
subject which had always greatly interested me.  This subject,
and that of the variation of our domestic productions, together
with the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, and the
intercrossing of plants, are the sole subjects which I have been
able to write about in full, so as to use all the materials which
I have collected.  The 'Descent of Man' took me three years to
write, but then as usual some of this time was lost by ill
health, and some was consumed by preparing new editions and other
minor works.  A second and largely corrected edition of the
'Descent' appeared in 1874.

My book on the 'Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals'
was published in the autumn of 1872.  I had intended to give only
a chapter on the subject in the 'Descent of Man,' but as soon as
I began to put my notes together, I saw that it would require a
separate treatise.

My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once
commenced to make notes on the first dawn of the various
expressions which he exhibited, for I felt convinced, even at
this early period, that the most complex and fine shades of
expression must all have had a gradual and natural origin.
During the summer of the following year, 1840, I read Sir C.
Bell's admirable work on expression, and this greatly increased
the interest which I felt in the subject, though I could not at
all agree with his belief that various muscles had been specially
created for the sake of expression.  From this time forward I
occasionally attended to the subject, both with respect to man
and our domesticated animals.  My book sold largely; 5267 copies
having been disposed of on the day of publication.

In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near Hartfield,
where two species of Drosera abound; and I noticed that numerous
insects had been entrapped by the leaves.  I carried home some
plants, and on giving them insects saw the movements of the
tentacles, and this made me think it probable that the insects
were caught for some special purpose.  Fortunately a crucial test
occurred to me, that of placing a large number of leaves in
various nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous fluids of equal density;
and as soon as I found that the former alone excited energetic
movements, it was obvious that here was a fine new field for
investigation.

During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my
experiments, and my book on 'Insectivorous Plants' was published
in July 1875--that is, sixteen years after my first observations.
The delay in this case, as with all my other books, has been a
great advantage to me; for a man after a long interval can
criticise his own work, almost as well as if it were that of
another person.  The fact that a plant should secrete, when
properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and ferment, closely
analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was certainly a
remarkable discovery.

During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the 'Effects of
Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom.'  This
book will form a complement to that on the 'Fertilisation of
Orchids,' in which I showed how perfect were the means for cross-
fertilisation, and here I shall show how important are the
results.  I was led to make, during eleven years, the numerous
experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental
observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated
before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact
that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in
the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of cross-
fertilised parentage.  I hope also to republish a revised edition
of my book on Orchids, and hereafter my papers on dimorphic and
trimorphic plants, together with some additional observations on
allied points which I never have had time to arrange.  My
strength will then probably be exhausted, and I shall be ready to
exclaim "Nunc dimittis."

WRITTEN MAY 1ST, 1881.

'The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation' was published in
the autumn of 1876; and the results there arrived at explain, as
I believe, the endless and wonderful contrivances for the
transportal of pollen from one plant to another of the same
species.  I now believe, however, chiefly from the observations
of Hermann Muller, that I ought to have insisted more strongly
than I did on the many adaptations for self-fertilisation; though
I was well aware of many such adaptations.  A much enlarged
edition of my 'Fertilisation of Orchids' was published in 1877.

In this same year 'The Different Forms of Flowers, etc.,'
appeared, and in 1880 a second edition.  This book consists
chiefly of the several papers on Heterostyled flowers originally
published by the Linnean Society, corrected, with much new matter
added, together with observations on some other cases in which
the same plant bears two kinds of flowers.  As before remarked,
no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the
making out the meaning of heterostyled flowers.  The results of
crossing such flowers in an illegitimate manner, I believe to be
very important, as bearing on the sterility of hybrids; although
these results have been noticed by only a few persons.

In 1879, I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause's 'Life of
Erasmus Darwin' published, and I added a sketch of his character
and habits from material in my possession.  Many persons have
been much interested by this little life, and I am surprised that
only 800 or 900 copies were sold.

In 1880 I published, with [my son] Frank's assistance, our 'Power
of Movement in Plants.'  This was a tough piece of work.  The
book bears somewhat the same relation to my little book on
'Climbing Plants,' which 'Cross-Fertilisation' did to the
'Fertilisation of Orchids;' for in accordance with the principle
of evolution it was impossible to account for climbing plants
having been developed in so many widely different groups unless
all kinds of plants possess some slight power of movement of an
analogous kind.  This I proved to be the case; and I was further
led to a rather wide generalisation, viz. that the great and
important classes of movements, excited by light, the attraction
of gravity, etc., are all modified forms of the fundamental
movement of circumnutation.  It has always pleased me to exalt
plants in the scale of organised beings; and I therefore felt an
especial pleasure in showing how many and what admirably well
adapted movements the tip of a root possesses.
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