The author starts out with the recognition of Boast as the "Hub" at this period as compared to New York, albeit bigger, yet a more raucous version of an American city. Boston reached back to European intellectual elitism whereas New York was starting to become an eclectic American melting pot. Boston sought comfort in lineage, whereas New York had quickly abandoned its Dutch heritage, predating the Pilgrims, and was decade by decade introducing one culture after another, with the conflicts, but working towards an amalgam.
Concord was at this time literally a train ride, at that
time, from Boston, Cambridge a collection of people, high and lower class,
factories and Harvard. Harvard was founded as many Bostonian may recall as a
place to send the graduates from Boston Latin School, the educational
establishment for the local "well-off". Back in Concord were fields
for modest farms as well as a small collection of educated folks who founded
such places as Concord Academy, aside the Concord River and just on the
outskirts of then the center of Concord. Along the adjoin streets were gracious
homes of those who constituted the general Concord society.
Along comes Darwin into this Transcendental soup of Thoreau,
Alcott, Emerson and others and in a strange way the fact based scientific
observations of Darwin and his line of reasoning leading to evolution gets
absorbed by this group who have to then eschewed this very approach to
understanding. Thus sayeth the author.
At first the author introduces Gray and Agassiz. Gray the botanist, and Agassiz the broadly
based naturalist. Gray comes across as the mild manner scientists who sees in
Darwin a way to explain many of the observations concerning nature he has made
in plants. Gray is subdued, and academic. Then there is Agassiz, the Swiss
naturalist, with an ebullient personality, who sees in Darwin the conflicts
with his fundamental religious beliefs. Gray sees the facts and is willing to
follow them, Agassiz sees the conflicts and fights them. Thus is the theme of
the first part of the book.
The second part moves to Concord and the collection of
Transcendentalists. This virtually self-contained community of mid-nineteenth
century thinkers see Darwin as a window onto their world. What would have been
seen as a putative conflict is seen for example in Thoreau's eyes as an
explanation for the natural harmony of his world of nature. It explains why a
small pine tree has managed to survive and prosper far from its source, and how
the squirrels take part in the dissemination of species who survive and the
fact that one sees robins and not parakeets in the Spring and pine trees and
not palm trees in the forests. At least that is what we are led to understand.
Somehow we get John Brown and his assault on Harper's Ferry
in the mix. One nexus is that Brown's two daughters end up at the Alcott's and
attend Concord Academy. This perhaps is the mixing of the abolitionist with the
evolutionist. One can see these individuals seeing in evolution, man from a
common ancestor, being the key element in their strong abolitionist views.
Namely the issue that all humans are from the same stock and thus have the same
rights. Not quite an acceptance of fundamental individualism, the belief that
all individuals have individual rights equally, but a step in that direction.
Now as to some specific observations:
p. 74 the comment on Thoreau adopting methods of science
without a scientific theory is an excellent observation. Thoreau was an
excellent observer of facts, but his core beliefs were more Transcendental than
scientific.
p 85 is an excellent introduction to Agassiz and his
grandiosity. One can even today on Oxford Street see this collection of the
naturalist age. This museum was to Agassiz what the American Museum of Natural
History and stuffed mammals was to Teddy Roosevelt. Namely an expression of what
they felt Nature was.
p 88 is a concise description of the view of Agassiz and his
dispute with the monogenesis view of a single human ancestor. Agassiz was of
the view that the "races" came from differing ancestors and as such
were different species.
pp. 108-109 This is a good discussion of Gray and his
negation of the Transcendental view. What is especially insightful is
understanding that induction was a key element of science. One collected facts
and then using a scientific method, Baconian in nature, assembled the facts and
from them induced a conclusion. That in essence was the heart of Darwin.
p. 111 This is a set of comments from Agassiz. Here he
states there can be no connection between an arctic whale and a tropical tiger.
This is done without basis. Had Agassiz understood DNA, a Century in the
coming, then the evidence would be there. This is a classic example of those
who prognosticate conclusions without the slightest evidence in facts.
Induction is always subject to some missteps, but ex cathedra statements are
often subject to near immediate disproof.
p. 141 This is an attempt to connect Darwin and Thoreau in
his Walden. It is not clear how accurate this may be. Thoreau as a believer in
nature qua nature had to see Nature as a temporal dynamic combative process.
Some elements of this may be culled from Walden but I suspect it may require a
deeper digging to fully justify.
p. 151 Here he states that Alcott invented Darwin's
evolutionary ideas. But this theory had creatures descending from man rather
than man from species. Perhaps this may have been stated differently.
p.247. The author states Thoreau died from influenza gotten
from Alcott. It appears that the generally accepted cause was TB from which
Thoreau had suffered for almost a decade. Perhaps a fact checking would work
here.
In summary, other than the title and some comments above,
the book is well written and well-structured for its purpose. It is not a
discussion of Darwin. Somehow one should come to the book with a good understanding
of Darwin circa 1860. That is missing. It is not a discussion of Darwin in
America, at best as noted just in Concord and Cambridge. Transcendentalism was
not a universally accepted view of the world at the time, in fact it was viewed
by many as idiosyncratic to that small portion of the Commonwealth.
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