Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection

Chapter XXVI His Last Illness (1882)

In the last few months of his life, towards the end of 1881 and beginning of 1882, Darwin began to suffer from his heart, causing attacks of pain and faintness which increased in number. On March 7th, 1882, he had one of these seizures when walking, “and this was the last time that he was able to reach his favourite ‘sand-walk’” (“Life and Letters”). After this he became rather better, and on April 17th was able to record the progress of an experiment for his son Francis. The following sentences are quoted from the “Life and Letters”:—

“During the night of April 18th, about a quarter to twelve, he had a severe attack and passed into a faint, from which he was brought back to consciousness with very great difficulty. He seemed to recognise the approach of death, and said, ‘I am not the least afraid to die.’ All the next morning he suffered from terrible nausea and faintness, and hardly rallied before the end came.

“He died at about four o’clock on Wednesday, April 19th, 1882.”

He was buried in Westminster Abbey on April 26th.

Thus died one of the greatest of men, after a life of patient and continuous work interrupted only by ill-health; a man who was, perhaps, more widely attacked and more grossly misrepresented than any other, but who lived to see his teachings almost universally received; a man whose quiet, peaceful life of work, and whose precarious health, prevented that large intercourse with his fellow-men which is generally forced upon greatness, but who was so beloved by his circle of intimate friends that, through their contagious enthusiasm, and through the glimpses of his nature revealed in his writings, he was in all likelihood more greatly loved than any other man of his time by those who knew him not.

And for all those of us who have loved Darwin, although we have never seen him, we can at any rate remember that we have lived in his time and have heard the echoes of his living voice; he has been even more to us than he will be to future generations of mankind—a mighty tradition, gaining rather than losing in force and in overwhelming interest as each passing age, inspired by his example, guided by his teachings, adds to the knowledge of nature, and in so doing gives an ever deeper meaning to his life and work.

Footnotes

A See Professor Meldola’s interesting Presidential Address to the Entomological Society of London (January, 1896) on the use of the imagination in science, printed in the Transactions of the Society and in Nature. See also “The Advancement of Science” (London, 1890), in which Professor Lankester maintains (p. 4): “All true science deals with speculation and hypothesis, and acknowledges as its most valued servant—its indispensable ally and helpmeet—that which our German friends call ‘Phantasie’ and we ‘the Imagination.’” Consult also Professor Tyndall’s essay “On the Scientific Use of the Imagination” (“Fragments of Science,” 1889, vol. ii., p. 101).

B We are told in the “Life and Letters” that the last proof of the “Journal” was finished in 1837. The Diary, as stated above, was written between July, 1837, and February, 1838.

C Professor H. F. Osborn has rightly urged that this essay should be published (“From the Greeks to Darwin,” 1894, p. 235).

D My friend Mr. J. J. Walker, R.N., tells me that the house in which Wallace lived in Ternate, and in which the essay was written, is still pointed out by the natives as one of the features of the place. It is, unfortunately, much dilapidated.

E Wallace has added the following note to the reprint in “Natural Selection and Tropical Nature,” London, 1891, p. 31: “That is, they will vary, and the variations which tend to adapt them to the wild state, and therefore approximate them to wild animals, will be preserved. Those individuals which do not vary sufficiently will perish.”

F Since the above paragraph was written I have again read Professor Newton’s eloquent Address to the Biological Section of the British Association at Manchester in 1887, and find that he says on the same subject—“If in future you should meet with any cynic who may point the finger of scorn at the petty quarrels in which naturalists unfortunately at times engage, particularly in regard to the priority of their discoveries, you can always refer him to this greatest of all cases, where scientific rivalry not only did not interfere with, but even strengthened, the good-feeling which existed between two of the most original investigators” (Report of Meeting, p. 731).

G “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one;...”—(Concluding paragraph of “Origin,” 1860, p. 490.)

H “Life of Lord Sherbrooke,” Vol. II. (pp. 205–206), Longmans & Co. London, 1893.

I Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., Jan. 16th, 1860.

J Presidential address to the British Association at Belfast, 1874. Report, p. lxxxvii.

K See H. F. Osborn, “From the Greeks to Darwin” (1894).

L In “Comparative Longevity.”