Darwin From Descent of Man To Emotions - Emotions

Emotions

Through the spring Darwin pressed on with The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, pointing to shared evolution in contrast to Charles Bell's Anatomy and Physiology of Expression which claimed divinely created muscles to express man's exquisite feelings. Darwin drew on world wide responses to his questionnaires, hundreds of photographs of actors, babies and "imbeciles" in an asylum, as well as his own observations, with particular empathy for the grief following a family death. The proofs, tackled by Henrietta and Leo, needed major revision which made him "sick of the subject, and myself, and the world". It was to be one of the first books with photographs, with seven heliotype plates, and Murray warned that this "would poke a terrible hole in the profits".

Wallace now wrote enthusing about H. Charlton Bastian's The Beginnings of Life claiming the spontaneous generation of life, but Darwin told him that "I have taken up old botanical work, and have given up all theories". By the end of September he was again near collapse, but Emma arranged three weeks away to rest, which worked well though he was still "growing old and weak".

Hooker's collections at Kew were threatened with government cuts under Acton Smee Ayrton. The X Club petitioned Gladstone. When Richard Owen was found to be involved, possibly trying to bring Kew under his British Museum, Darwin commented that "I used to be ashamed of hating him so much, but now I will carefully cherish my hatred & contempt to the last days of my life". In October Hooker sent sun-dews and Venus fly-traps for Darwin's experiments, then was devastated when his bedridden mother died. In his hot-house Darwin experimented, giving such plants from around the world a variety of foods and poisons, and began writing insectivorous Plants.

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals proved very popular, selling over 5,000 copies, but an exhausted Darwin became a "confirmed invalid" and at his brother Eramus's over Christmas 1872 sat drawing up his will.