Darwin From Insectivorous Plants To Worms - Worms

Worms

Further information: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Darwin again took up his work on worms. As ever, he corresponded widely, encouraging and helping fund research and collecting anecdotes. Emma supported his commitment, saying that "if it was a condition of his living, that he shd do now work, she was willing for him to die". For their autumn break they visited Horace and Ida in Cambridge, and to spare him the stress of getting between London stations and changing trains Emma arranged a private railway carriage. At Cambridge he showed Emma around the "scenes of my early life".

In September 1880 he completed the proofs of Movement in Plants, his largest botany book at 600 pages with 196 wood-cuts, sighing "I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts & grinding out conclusions." When on 13 October he got the request he had feared from Aveling, for permission to dedicate the Darwin and his Works articles to Darwin in book format, he declined in a four page letter marked PRIVATE emphasising that he confined his writing to science and avoided aiding attacks on religion.

Attacks on Darwin's theory continued, and when the official report of a scientific voyage slighted "the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation guided only by natural selection" he responded in Nature, "Can Sir Wyville Thomson name any one who has said that the evolution of species depends only on natural selection?" and set out multiple causes, including "use and disuse of parts". He called Thomson's criticism appropriate to "theologians and metaphysicians", and was only stopped by Huxley from using "irreverent language".

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