charles_darwin

38
CHARLES DARWIN AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Darwin had to prepare a second edition of each one. In addition to
the books, Darwin also wrote more than ninety articles that were
published in scientific journals and natural history magazines. 57
Darwin was a busy researcher and author.
Darwin did retire in one way: he lived in a small, rural village.
(Even today the village of Downe is not easy to reach from London.)
His country life and country location enabled him to escape or be a
little removed from the controversies in London, Cambridge, or
Oxford. He could concentrate on his research and writing in the
quiet of his home and gardens. Even vacations he found too
stressful.
Darwin’s public life did not even end after 1871. The publication
of the Descent of Man was not the climax of Darwin’s work and
certainly not the end of his research and writing on the theory of
natural selection. To use a game-playing analogy, reading through
Darwin’s books and articles written after 1859 is like watching a
game of chess develop. The Origin of Species was more like the first
piece moved in the game. Continuing with this analogy, The Descent
of Man was another piece played in the game, not the final move. 58
Books such as The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
(1872) and Insectivorous Plants (1875) were all part of his larger
strategy of showing that the modification of species is a slow process
based on natural selection, descent or sexual selection, and adaptation
to the surroundings. He even managed to use some of the material
from his manuscript on natural selection in these later books.
The Origin of Species may be one of the most important books in the
history of science, but if ever a person deserved recognition for his
lesser-known books, it is Darwin.
The Death of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin died on 19 April 1882. He was 74. In July 1881,
Darwin had written to Alfred Wallace, ‘‘What I shall do with my few
remaining years of life I can hardly tell. I have everything to make me
happy and contented, but life has become very wearisome to me.’’ 59
Fun-loving student, explorer, naturalist, husband, father, best-selling
author, public figure, and old man: Darwin had lived a full life. From
shy schoolboy to the most prominent scientist of the nineteenth century:
it had been a very ordinary and an extraordinary life.
For some, Darwin’s life had to be recognized. On 21 April, a group
of twenty Members of Parliament suggested to the dean of Westminster
Abbey, George Granville Bradley, that Darwin ought to be buried in one