Guiding a Train of Discoveries: Charles Darwin, Charles Daubeny, and the Reception of Natural Selection, 1859–1865

Charles Darwin was convinced after the publication of the Origin of Species in late 1859 that evolutionists would soon form “a good body of working men.” Natural selection, he believed, would appeal to workers because it did not only organize existing knowledge but also inspired novel investigation. His optimism proved correct but premature. In the early 1860s, commentators were far more likely to appropriate natural selection as a weapon for their existing cultural or theological agendas than to engage it as a tool for original research. A few naturalists, however, saw its potential and deliberately avoided charged ideological and theological concerns. Charles Daubeny, Oxford’s professor of botany, illustrates this dynamic. In largely overlooked remarks at the 1860 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he evaluated natural selection skeptically but with pointed respect. He made a plea for less debate and more scientific inquiry. Although he never gave his full assent to evolution, in 1865 he insisted that even the “most determined opponents” of natural selection ought to admire a theory that had led Darwin to so many invaluable discoveries. Daubeny’s engagement with natural selection provides a case study in the ways that Victorians naturalists did not just argue about truth but also searched for tools.