David Kohn, “Introduction: A High Regard for Darwin,” in The Darwinian Heritage, ed. David Kohn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 1-5.
Of The Darwinian Heritage, David Kohn writes, “The common thread of the essays in this volume is a sensitivity to the pressing need to place Darwin in the context of Victorian science” (pg. 1). He continues, “It was not historians who rediscovered the eminence of Darwin, but rather biologists. Darwin became a focus of detailed study only after the evolutionary synthesis, which enshrined Darwinian natural selection, was consolidated and widely diffused. In other words, only after biologists legitimated Darwin did historians rush to study him” (pg. 2).

Silvan S. Schweber, “The Wider British Context in Darwin’s Theorizing,” in The Darwinian Heritage, ed. David Kohn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 35-69.
Silvan S. Schweber writes, “I see the dynamical explanations that Darwin advanced in the Origin as the amalgamation of two great insights. The first occurred in the Summer of 1838, and consisted in the apprehension of the Malthusian mechanism. It led to natural selection, and was the high point of Dawrin’s theorizing following his voyage on the Beagle. The second was gleaned in the mid 1850s and resulted in the principle of divergence” (pg. 35). In this way, “Darwin’s evolutionary biology reflects a characteristically British intellectual outlook in its conception” (pg. 38). He continues, “There is another, more important source for Darwin’s usage of maximalization principles: the literature on scientific agriculture and the related writings on political economy” (pg. 52).

Frank J. Sulloway, “Darwin’s Early Intellectual Development: An Overview of the Beagle Voyage (1831-1836),” in The Darwinian Heritage, ed. David Kohn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 121-149.
Frank J. Sulloway writes, “Darwin’s conversion to the theory of evolution – once thought to have been a typical ‘eureka’ experience stemming from his famous visit to the Galapagos Archipelago – is now generally seen as a slow and largely post-voyage development in his scientific thinking (Sulloway 1982c). Deprived of Darwin’s conversion (perhaps the most famous symbol of its transforming role in Darwin’s life), the Beagle voyage remains, more than ever, a seemingly epic event lacking sufficient visible signs of the hero’s remarkable transition” (pg. 123). Sulloway performs content analysis of Darwin’s letters and finds that “the first two years of Darwin’s voyage correspondence with Henslow reflect his underlying conception of himself as an insufficiently trained naturalist who had been sent out to collect specimens by the real scientists back in England” (pg. 129). He continues, “In recent years the myth of the Beagle conversion, long upheld by Darwin’s biographers, had finally been laid to rest by Darwin scholars. It is now known, for example, that Darwin left the Galapagos Archipelago in October 1835 without fully realizing or accepting the evolutionary evidence offered by these famous islands” (pg. 145). In this way, “What’s remarkable about Darwin’s conversion to the theory of evolution was that it occurred on the basis of evidence that remained sketchy and ambiguous at best” (pg. 145).

Richard W. Burkhardt, Jr., “Darwin on Animal Behavior and Evolution,” in The Darwinian Heritage, ed. David Kohn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 327-365.
Discussing the history of science, Richard W. Burkhardt writes, “Historians of science insist, quite properly, that historical studies of science should be undertaken fro their own interest and not be guided by a ‘Whiggish’ concern with the concepts and issues of modern science. It remains the case, however, that contemporary developments do, for better or worse, stimulate historical studies” (pg. 328). He argues, “Darwin did not simply apply his evolutionary theory, once he constructed it, to behavior. On the contrary, at various stages in the development of his thinking, Darwin’s attention to behavioral phenomena was of considerable importance for his deepening appreciation of the means by which organic change takes place. His understanding of behavior thus both reflected and reflected back upon his understanding of the evolutionary process. His comprehension of each was informed and enriched through his interaction” (pg. 330). Further, Burkhardt argues, “Fitness for Darwin was…not defined in terms of reproductive success, although the two of these often went together” (pg. 354).

James A. Secord, “Darwin and the Breeders: A Social History,” in The Darwinian Heritage, ed. David Kohn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 519-542.
James A. Secord writes, “Almost from the very beginning of his career as a transmutationist, Darwin looked to the work of animal and plant breeders for clues to the mysterious process underlying reproduction, and as is well known, he founded the argument of the Origin upon an extended analogy between selection by man and selection by nature. From their factual grounding to particular innovations in theory, from their underlying metaphysics to their argumentative structure, the Origin and its offshoots reflect in a variety of ways Darwin’s immersion in the world of the Victorian plant and animal breeders” (pg. 519). He continues, “Important links often tied practice and science, and Darwin used these connections in elaborating his transmutation theory. But for the most part domestic breeding and the sciences of life were pursued by separate individuals, in separate organizations, and in separate publications. Those occupying the borderland between the two spheres frequently lamented the lack of interchange between them” (pg. 522). Finally, “Despite these established interactions, naturalists and breeders viewed the world with different eyes and from very different perspectives. Thus for Darwin to apply the results of human artifice to the study of nature in a truly comprehensive fashion, he had first of all to build bridges between these two distinct social groups; approaching the issue as a naturalist, Darwin would have to extend lines of communication far into the separate world of the breeders” (pg. 528). ( )