NATURE 



?45 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 1880 



ERASMUS DARWIN 

 Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from 

 the German by W. S. Dallas. With a Preliminary 

 Notice by Charles Darwin. Portrait and Woodcuts. 

 (London : Murray, 1S79.) 



THE memory of this great man has suffered from the 

 florid and spiteful biography written by Miss 

 Seward. That she was animated by a feeling of bitter- 

 ness towards Erasmus Darwin, engendered by disap- 

 pointment, is clearly shown in these pages ; she was an 

 unsuccessful candidate for the post of his second wife, 

 and she seems never to have forgiven him for his blind- 

 ness towards her merits. A trustworthy life of the author 

 of the " Botanic Garden " was therefore much wanted, 

 and no one could have been better qualified for the task 

 than his grandson, Charles Darwin. He has done his 

 work so well and completely as to leave no room for any 

 subsequent biography ; further criticism there may well 

 be, but the facts of the life of Erasmus Darwin can never 

 be better put together, and they are as fully given as 

 there is any need for. The critical essay by Herr Krause 

 forms only little more than one-third of the modest 

 volume, and is really an appendix to the life by Mr. 

 Darwin. 



Erasmus Darwin was born of a good family at Elston 

 Hall, Notts, on December 12, 1731. He was educated at 

 a school at Chesterfield, from which he went to St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, and subsequently to Edinburgh to 

 study medicine. In 1756 he settled at Lichfield as a 

 physician, and married in 1757, his wife dying in 1770. 

 He married a second time in 1781, when he settled at 

 Derby, where he died in 1S02. From his earliest years 

 he seems to have had a taste for versifying and mecha- 

 nics, and when very young he made experiments in elec- 

 tricity with a rude apparatus of his own invention. Mr. 

 Darwin gives a most amusing letter addressed to his 

 grandfather when at Chesterfield, by Susannah, the sister 

 of the latter, in which she sets down in a very incongruous 

 fashion the details of four days' fasting in Lent. The reply 

 of Erasmus (aetat 16) was characteristic : — 



" I fancy you forget in Yours to inform me y* your 

 Cheek was quite settled by your Temperance, but how- 

 ever I can easily suppose it. For y e temperate enjoy an 

 ever-blooming Health free from all y« Infections and 

 disorders luxurious mortals are subject to, the whimsical 

 Tribe of Phisitians cheated of their fees may sit down in 

 penury and Want, they may curse mankind and impre- 

 cate the Gods and call down y' parent of all Deseases, 

 luxury, to infest Mankind, luxury more destructive than 

 y« Sharpest Famine ; tho' all the Distempers that ever 

 Satan inflicted upon Job hover over y° intemperate ; they 

 would play harmless round our Heads, nor dare to touch 

 a single Hair. We should not meet those pale thin and 

 haggard countenances which every day present them- 

 selves to us. No doubt men would still live their 

 Hunderd, and Methusalem would lose his Character ; 

 fever banished from our Streets, limping Gout would fly 

 y c land, and Sedentary Stone would vanish into oblivion 

 and death himself be slain." 



Even at this early age is seen his leaning towards 

 vegetarianism and abstinence from alcoholic drinks, 

 Vol. xxi.— Ko. 533 



which he subsequently carried into almost regular prac- 

 tice. This was not the only respect in which Erasmus 

 Darwin was far ahead of his own time and even of ours. 

 In sanitary matters he could read a lesson even to our 

 advanced age, and with his mechanical genius he carried 

 out his ideas in this respect into practice as far as the 

 circumstances of the time would permit. He advocated 

 the abolition of intra-mural interments, a rational treat- 

 ment of the insane, radical reform in female education, 

 and the abolition of slavery at a time when all the world, 

 including the Society for the Propagation of the 'Gospel, 

 regarded it as a divine institution. His little work on 

 female education was translated into German, where it 

 was regarded as an authority, and he carried out his ideas 

 on the subject in the case of his own daughters, whom, for 

 example, he taught to swim. He was a radical in politics, 

 and a theist in religion, as his works amply testify, though 

 his indiscriminating and bigoted contemporaries stamped 

 him as an atheist. His friendship was wide, both in 

 England and on the Continent, and included many of the 

 most eminent men of his time. He was a man of great 

 influence among his neighbours, and was specially be- 

 loved by the poor and needy, a common epithet coupled 

 with his name being that of Benevolent. He was slightly 

 irascible in temper, his massive face pitted from small- 

 pox, he wa.ked with a limp, and although he stammered 

 in speech, he was one of the best conversationalists of his 

 time. He soon acquired a good practice in Lichfield, and as 

 a physician his fame reached George III., who wanted him 

 to settle in London ; but Darwin's desires in regard both 

 to fame and income were moderate, and he preferred the 

 quiet of Lichfield. His chief recreation was in tending 

 eight acres of land near the city, which he converted into 

 a botanic garden. Apart altogether from his position in 

 the history of science, it will thus be seen that Erasmus 

 Darwin was a man of unusual originalityand independence 

 of mind, who could rise far above the beliefs and customs 

 of his time. But for us he is mainly interesting for the 

 position his works hold in the history of the doctrine of 

 evolution. We are inclined to think that had Erasmus 

 Darwin not chosen to throw his ideas on this and other 

 scientific matters into the form of verse, the theory itself 

 and his claim to be the originator of it in its modern 

 form would have been much sooner recognised. The 

 works in which he embodied his speculations and theories 

 are "The Botanic Garden," in its two parts, "The Loves 

 of the Plants," and "The Economy of Vegetation," the 

 latter, although the first part, having been published last ; 

 the former probably first appeared in 1788. Then 

 followed the "Zoonomia" in 1794, soon after translated 

 into German, French, and Italian; the "Phytologia" 

 was published in 1800, and "The Temple of Nature, or 

 the Origin of Society," the year after the author's death. 

 In England, at least, where these works first appeared, 

 they were treated mainly as poems, the scientific specula- 

 tions which they contained, if referred to at all, being 

 generally regarded as the mere fancies of a poet, or the 

 dreams of a rhapsodist. As poems they had a reputation 

 which must seem to the readers of to-day wonderful. 

 Such men as Walpole and Edgeworth spoke of them with 

 rapture, though the parody of the " Loves of the Plants,'' 

 known as the " Loves of the Triangles," seems to have 

 done much to destroy the reputation of the original. 



