The year is 1765. The place is Staffordshire, in the heart of England. Horse-drawn wagons trundle along the rutted and potholed roads, carrying the pottery and crockery manufactured by Josiah Wedgwood at his factory in Burslem. Breakages are all too frequent. Appalled at these losses, Wedgwood has an ambitious idea. Why not create a smooth liquid road 鈥� a canal 鈥� to link his manufactory with ports on the coast?
It will require an Act of Parliament, and Wedgwood draws his friends into the campaign. Keenest of them all is Dr Erasmus Darwin (pictured above), a physician at nearby Lichfield. Darwin writes a pro-canal pamphlet, and also wins over his landowning patients along the route. The canal gets the go-ahead in 1766, and work begins at once, directed by James Brindley. His toughest problem will be the Harecastle tunnel, which will have to be cut through more than 2 kilometres of hard wet rocks. And that鈥檚 where the picks and shovels of the excavators unearth evolution.
THE digging at Harecastle yielded a rich haul of fossils, and in 1767 Josiah Wedgwood sent his friend Erasmus Darwin a big box of bones: after all, doctors knew about bones. But not bones like these. Some of them were huge. Darwin was baffled, and resorted to joking: 鈥淭he horn is larger than any modern horn I have measured, and must have been that of a Patagonian ox, I believe.鈥� It was probably a tusk from an extinct variety of elephant.
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After reflecting seriously about the fossils, Darwin soon decided that species must have gradually changed down the ages. He then jumped to what is often called the theory of common descent: that all the life we see today has a common microscopic ancestor 鈥� a single 鈥渓iving filament鈥�, as Darwin called it. And that filament, he thought, must have originated in the sea.
What an idea. He may have felt like shouting out his evolutionary revelation for all to hear. But he lived only a few steps from Lichfield Cathedral, where a different revelation prevailed: God created species. Anyone who denied that would be shunned by the religious establishment.
So Darwin kept quiet. Then he had another good idea. His family鈥檚 coat of arms featured three scallop shells. What about adding the motto E conchis omnia, or 鈥渆verything from shells鈥�. He put the motto on his bookplate in 1771. He also had it painted on his carriage, but this was not such a good idea. Canon Seward of Lichfield Cathedral saw the blasphemous words and penned a few satirical lines complaining that Darwin鈥�
鈥溾�enounces his Creator And forms all sense from senseless matter. Great wizard he! by magic spells Can all things raise from cockle shells.鈥�
Darwin was furious. To avoid offending rich patients, however, he had to paint out the motto on his carriage, though he kept the bookplate. He decided to lie low and develop his evolutionary ideas in private.
So all fell quiet in the evolution war. Twenty years later, Darwin, now 60 years old, had been acclaimed as the leading English poet of the day, after the publication of his long poem The Botanic Garden. Even his sharpest critic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, admitted in 1797 that Darwin was 鈥渢he first literary character in Europe and the most original-minded Man鈥�.
During those 20 years of quiet, Darwin wrote a huge medical tome, which he intended to be published after his death. But his great popularity as a poet emboldened him to publish it while he was still alive. The book was called Zoonomia, and the first volume came out in 1794. Medically, Zoonomia was highly successful, with six American editions and translations into four languages.
But Zoonomia had a wicked sting in the tail. Starting at page 496, Darwin expounded what we now call biological evolution. Species can and do change, he said. Even individual animals changed, 鈥渁s in the production of the butterfly with painted wings from the crawling caterpillar鈥�. Then there were changes produced by 鈥渁rtificial cultivation鈥�, as in the various breeds of dogs. Also 鈥渕onstrosities鈥� (or mutations) were sometimes inherited.
In nature, he said, the changes were driven by 鈥渓ust, hunger and security鈥�. In some species the males had developed weapons such as horns or tusks to combat each other 鈥渇or the exclusive possession of the females鈥�. The outcome of 鈥渢his contest among the males鈥�, Darwin said, was 鈥渢hat the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved鈥�.
The second urge was hunger, and animals had become adapted to their means of procuring food 鈥� parrots 鈥渉ave acquired harder beaks to crack nuts鈥�; others, 鈥渁s the finches鈥�, have beaks for softer seeds. And the need for security had diversified animals鈥� bodies and their colour. He mentioned wings for escape, swiftness of foot, hard shells, camouflage and mimicry.
鈥淲ould it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament?鈥� asked Darwin, 鈥渕illions of ages鈥� ago. And that the living filament 鈥渉as been the cause of all organic life鈥�?
By the time Zoonomia came out, Britain was at war with France. The war was going badly in 1797. Britain鈥檚 navy was beset by mutiny, and the apparently invincible Napoleon had declared his intention to annihilate England. So the government set up a journal to combat subversive ideas, called The Anti-Jacobin, edited by George Canning, a future Prime Minister. Darwin was an obvious target: it was almost treason to suggest that Britons had lower animals, or worse still microscopic specks, as their ancestors. It might even be considered terrorism for this was enough to frighten anyone. In 1798, Canning and two of his cronies wrote a poem called The Loves of the Triangles parodying Darwin鈥檚 earlier The Loves of the Plants, and added notes rubbishing Darwin鈥檚 absurd and blasphemous evolutionary ideas.
No one spoke up for Darwin, so he was forced to go underground. And he did so very effectively by dying in 1802, aged 70, leaving another long poem that he called The Origin of Society. His publisher, Joseph Johnson, had been jailed for seditious libel a few years earlier, and prudently changed the title to The Temple of Nature.
This poem and its notes were Darwin鈥檚 evolutionary testament. He described how life began as microscopic specks in primeval seas and then developed over 鈥渕illions of ages鈥� (that is, hundreds of millions of years) through fishes, amphibians and eventually land creatures to humankind. He calmly announced all this as if it were a true history, and presented it in vigorous verse thick with facts. Hundreds of lines were devoted to the war in nature, the survival of the fittest among animals and plants, and the non-uniqueness of the human animal:
鈥淪toop, selfish Pride! survey thy kindred forms, Thy brother-emmets, and thy sister-worms.鈥�
The Temple of Nature was a fine achievement. The human genome project, with its percentages for the genes we share with cabbages and worms, shows how right he was 鈥� the first person to tell us the truth about where we came from, how we made our way here, and how long it took.
The Temple of Nature was published 200 years ago this month, in April 1803. It deserves a birthday greeting, and much more. Some say it鈥檚 the most important book on the history of life and society. Others scoff at this, often without having read it. Others still may prefer On the Origin of Species, published 56 years later by Erasmus鈥檚 grandson Charles. But that is another story.