Internalism and Laws of Form 327
by so identifying him in the Origin and other writings—and Darwin cannot be
entirely blamed for this mischaracterization. For Owen, never the clearest of
writers, and ever the diplomat in an aristocratic world where he hobnobbed with
skill as a social climber and a seeker of support for his Museum, could be
infuriatingly opaque in his stated commitments. In fact, Darwin, although
characteristically genial and conciliatory to a fault in his writings, permitted
himself a rare burst of trenchant irony in expressing his frustration at Owen's
slippery attitude toward evolution. In the historical sketch added to later editions of
the Origin, Darwin wrote:
When the first edition of this work was published, I was so completely
deceived, as were many others, by such expressions as "the continuous
operation of creative power," that I included Professor Owen with other
paleontologists as being firmly convinced of the immutability of species;
but it appears that this was on my part a preposterous error. In the last
edition of this work, I inferred, and the inference still seems to me perfectly
just,... that Professor Owen admitted that natural selection may have done
something in the formation of a new species; but this it appears is
inaccurate and without evidence. I also gave some extracts from a
correspondence between Professor Owen and the editor of the "London
Review" from which it appeared manifest to the editor as well as to myself,
that Professor Owen claimed to have promulgated the theory of natural
selection before I had done so; and I expressed my surprise and satisfaction
at this announcement; but as far as it is possible to understand certain
recently published passages I have either partially or wholly again fallen
into error. It is consolatory to me that others find Professor Owen's
controversial writings as difficult to understand and to reconcile with each
other, as I do (Darwin, 1872b, pp. xvii-xviii).One can certainly appreciate Darwin's frustrations. Owen did tailor his
statements to circumstances and audiences, appearing cautious or critical as the
case warranted, and always taking as much credit as possible. For example, Owen
wrote a particularly nasty notice of the Origin in the April 1860 issue of the
Edinburgh Review (published anonymously, following the tradition of several
leading journals at the time. Guessing the identity of reviewers—not at all difficult
in this case—became a favorite Victorian intellectual pastime).
In this commentary, Owen did proclaim the origin of species as the greatest of
biological problems: "The origin of species is the question of questions in zoology;
the supreme problem which the most untiring of our original laborers, the clearest
zoological thinkers, and the most successful generalizers have never lost sight of,
whilst they have approached it with due reverence" (Owen, 1860, in Hull, 1973, p.
77).
Writing anonymously, Owen praised himself as Darwin's unacknowledged
predecessor in accepting the fact of evolution, but more cautious, and therefore
more worthy and philosophical, on the question of mechanisms: