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Library at http://darwin-online.org.uk/Complete_Library_of_Charles_Darw... . Use control-F to search:-)

A search for "Mendel" returns the following:

Focke, Wilhelm Olbers. 1881. Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge: ein Beitrag zur Biologie der Gewächse . Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger. [Mendel’s work mentioned on pp. 108 -111 but in Darwin’s copy these pages are uncut]

Hoffmann, Hermann. 1869. Untersuchungen zur Bestimmung des Werthes von Species und Varietät, ein Beitrag zur Kritik der Darwinischen Hypothese . Giessen: J. Ricker’sche Buchhandlung. [with quotation from Mendel 1865 on p. 52. No Darwin annotations are on this page.][Darwin Pamphlet Collection reviews]

Context: Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species" in 1859. The book contains a long appendix with unanswered questions, many of which would have been answered by the discovery of genetics, but the connection between natural selection and genetics wasn't really made until around the 1930s. However, the seminal paper on genetics, Gregor Mendel's "Experiments on Plant Hybridization", was published in 1866, so could in theory have been read by Charles Darwin (who died in 1882). As it was, Mendel's work languished in relative obscurity until the 20th century. I find that one of history's great "what ifs": what if work on genetics had begun nearly a century earlier (like what if Babbage's Analytical Engine had started the computer revolution nearly a century earlier)?

1 comments

>> the connection between natural selection and genetics wasn't really made until around the 1930s.... one of history's great "what ifs": what if work on genetics had begun nearly a century earlier

Considering some of the horrible things that were done shortly after this understanding in the early 20th century, part of me is glad that the understanding did not arise in the 18th, a time when the societal protections learned during WWI were not yet in place.

Actually Darwin himself was writing about natural selection, human breeding, and races in 1871 [1]

> With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Man,_and_Select...

Galton, the "Father of Eugenics" was already proposing eugenics related things in the 1860's, and by the 1900-1910 it was getting into full swing in the US.

At least it is not outright racist (savages vs civilised is not PC, but not "inferior race type thinking) - although he is in other writing.

One reason I wish Wallace got more credit (apart from, you know, deserving it).

> At least it is not outright racist (savages vs civilised is not PC, but not "inferior race type thinking) - although he is in other writing.

Nice try, but the fact that he uses "civilized" and "savages" in the context of natural selection suggests he believes their condition can't be changed by training or education.

I'm other words, calling it savages was probably the PC way of the time to refer to inferior people.

No, not in this particular passage.

Darwin was racist as was usual in his time (Wallace was not) but in this case he is talking about culture, not ancestry.

Where he is wrong is that "savages" also look after the weak. There is even evidence that hominids earlier than modern humans looked after the weak.

> I'm other words, calling it savages was probably the PC way of the time to refer to inferior people.

They were not bothered about being PC at the time. He would not have hesitated to say inferior.