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Darwin's search for a theory of the earth: symmetry, simplicity and speculation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Frank H. T. Rhodes
Affiliation:
Cornell University, 300 Day Hall, Ithaca, New York, 14853–2801, USA.
Frank H. T. Rhodes
Affiliation:
Cornell University, 300 Day Hall, Ithaca, New York, 14853–2801, USA.

Extract

1990 marked the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's first major scientific theory. The paper, first presented by Darwin to the Geological Society of London on 7 March 1838, was entitled ‘On the Connexion of Certain Volcanic Phenomena and on the Formation of Mountain-Chains and the Effects of Continental Elevations.’ The paper was a remarkable attempt to develop a global tectonic synthesis. It was the culmination of a period of intensive geological activity by Darwin – then twenty-nine – who had returned from the Beagle voyage only eighteen months previously. The present article reviews the development of Darwin's views, their impact upon his contemporaries, their role in shaping his later views on the origin of species, and their significance in scientific theory-making. It draws, in part, on Darwin's unpublished geological notes and jottings. This paper, and the papers by Sandra Herbert and James Secord that accompany it, were delivered at a symposium which I organized at the Geological Society of London on 31 October 1988 to mark the 150th anniversary of the reading of Darwin's paper.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1991

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References

1 DAR 41, fol. 36, Manuscript collection, Cambridge University Library.

2 Darwin, C., ‘On the connexion of certain volcanic phenomena in South America, and on the formation of mountain chains and volcanos, as the effects of the same power by which continents are elevated’, Transactions of the Geological Society of London, (1840) 2d ser., pt 3, 5: pp. 601–31, 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar text figure.

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38 Herschel, J., ‘Letter to Lyell’, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (ed. Babbage, C.), London, 1837, pp. 202–17.Google Scholar Also Babbage, C., ‘On the action of existing causes in producing elevations and subsidences in portions of the earth's surface’, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise: A Fragment, Appendix G, London, 1837, pp. 187–8.Google Scholar

39 The other topic, in addition to the more specific question of the origin of mountain chains, that occupied the attention of Darwin's contemporaries was the legitimacy of any theoretical reasoning and mechanistic speculation in relation to what was then known of the structure of the earth. Sedgwick, for example, in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society (Sedgwick, A., ‘Address to the Geological Society, delivered on the evening of the anniversary, Feb. 18, 1831’, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. (1831), 1, pp. 281316)Google Scholar, cautioned, ‘Geology is a science of observation; and it is a humiliating fact…that the material combinations we investigate in an attempt to classify are too rude and ill-defined to be regarded as the appropriate results of any simple law of nature’. But, in spite of this admonition, Sedgwick proceeded in some ways to ignore his own advice; noting the connection of the laws of physics with the structure of the earth, he speculated expansively on an original molten state of the earth, with a high temperature and subsequent refrigeration, reflected amongst the fossils of ‘the ancient strata’. He also speculated on a contracting earth, ‘planetary perturbation’, changes in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and ‘returning cycles’ in earth history (ibid., pp. 298–301). After a lengthy review, he concluded, ‘Of the origin of volcanic forces we know nothing: but we do know that they are the irregular secondary results of great masses of matter obeying the primary laws of atomic action – and are aggravated or constrained by an endless number of causes, external and purely mechanical’ (ibid., p. 301). This mixture of admonition to theoretical restraint and indulgence to personal speculation was not uncommon in scientific writings of the period. Thus, Whewell, in his 1838 Presidential Address to the Geological Society, reviewed competing hypotheses in geological dynamics – including Darwin's – and distinguished between the ‘proximal’ effects (elevation, subsidence, vulcanism, etc.) and the ‘ulterior’ causes (Whewell, , ‘Address to the Geological Society’Google Scholar, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. (1838), 2, pp. 624–49)Google Scholar, which involved ‘subterraneous machinery’. He concluded that this ‘mighty maze’ was not without a plan that may allow the development of sound geological theory, but: Those who aspire to the felicity of knowing the causes of things, must not only trample underfoot the fears of a timid unphilosophical spirit, which the poet deems so necessary a preparation, but they must look with a steady eye on difficulty as well as violence. They must regard the terrors of the volcano and the earthquake, the secret paths by which hot and cold and moist and dry ran into their places, the wildest rush of the fluid mass, the latent powers which give solidity to the rock, – as operations of which they have to trace the laws and measure the quantities with mathematical exactness.

40 Darwin, C., op. cit. (3), p. 658.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 660.

42 See also Rudwick, M. J. S., ‘Darwin and the world of geology’ (Commentary) in The Darwinian Heritage (ed. Kohn, D.), Princeton, NJ, 1985, pp. 511–18Google Scholar and Herbert, S., ‘Darwin as a geologist’, Scientific American, (1986), 254, no. 5, pp. 116–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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52 Ibid., p. 625.

53 Ibid., p. 625.

54 Ibid., p. 623.

55 Ibid., p. 605.

56 Ibid., p. 606.

57 Ibid., p. 606.

58 Ibid., p. 607.

59 Ibid., p. 608.

60 Ibid., p. 619.

61 Ibid., p. 615.

62 Ibid., p. 619.

63 Michell, J., ‘Conjectures concerning the cause, and observations upon the phenomena of earthquakes, particularly of that great earthquake of the first of November 1755, which proved so fatal to the city of Lisbon, and whose effects were felt as far as Africa and more or less throughout almost all of Europe’, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. (1760), 50, pt 2, p. 580.Google Scholar

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66 ibid., p. 624.

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82 Woodward, H., The History of the Geological Society of London, London, 1907, p. 146.Google Scholar That policy has deprived us of what might have been valuable information. On some occasions, informal records were kept of the conversations, and I have approached Dr John Thackray, Archivist of the Geological Society, to enquire about such a possibility on 7 March 1838. He tells me that he knows of no such record. I have examined the Geological Society minutes of the meeting, and they provide no useful commentary. The role of the Geological Society in the overall development of the science during this period is also discussed by Sandra Herbert, James A. Secord and Martin J. S. Rudwick.

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