This book offers a new explanation for Charles Darwin’s apparent caution in publishing On the Origin of Species, which appeared more than two decades after he privately developed his first theories of evolution by natural selection. Whereas this restraint is often attributed to Darwin’s fear of admitting that he was an evolutionist, Sponsel argues that what concerned him most was not the topic, evolution, but the transgression of publishing a theoretical book. The one other time he had tried to do so, as a young man using his theory of coral reef formation to offer an ambitious account of the ... More

This book offers a new explanation for Charles Darwin’s apparent caution in publishing On the Origin of Species, which appeared more than two decades after he privately developed his first theories of evolution by natural selection. Whereas this restraint is often attributed to Darwin’s fear of admitting that he was an evolutionist, Sponsel argues that what concerned him most was not the topic, evolution, but the transgression of publishing a theoretical book. The one other time he had tried to do so, as a young man using his theory of coral reef formation to offer an ambitious account of the history of the earth and its inhabitants, the public criticism of his “speculations” distressed him and destroyed his geological publishing strategy. Meanwhile he viewed his private speculations on species as an exhilarating distraction from the challenge of fulfilling his publishing obligations to the geological community. He plotted a conservative course for finishing his geological publications and privately bolstering the species theory that was designed to insulate him (and eventually his species theory itself) from charges of rash speculation. Sponsel’s book is a study of scientific authorship, of theorizing in natural history, and of the importance of mentorship in science. It transforms our understanding of Darwin’s first major theory, on the origin of coral reefs and atolls, as well as his evolutionary theory, and it reveals the important roles played by Darwin’s Beagle shipmates and by the geologist Charles Lyell in shaping his methods of fieldwork, theorizing, and publishing.