The Signature of All Things

Problem.
    The answer quickly emerged: he hadn’t.
    Darwin had not solved it because—quite cannily—he avoided the subject of human beings altogether in his book. On the Origin of Species was about nature, but it was not overtly about Man. Darwin had played his hand carefully in this regard. He wrote about the evolution of finches, of pigeons, of Italian greyhounds, of racehorses, and of barnacles—but never did he mention human beings. He wrote, “The vigorous, the healthy and the happy survive and multiply,” but never did he add, “We, too, are part of thissystem.” Scientific-minded readers would arrive at that conclusion for themselves—and Darwin well knew it. Religious-minded readers would arrive at that conclusion, too, and find it an infuriating sacrilege—but Darwin had not actually said it . Thus, he had protected himself. He could sit in his quiet country house in Kent, innocent in the face of public outrage: What harm can exist in a simple discussion of finches and barnacles?
    As far as Alma was concerned, this strategy constituted Darwin’s single greatest stroke of brilliance: he had not taken up the entire question. Perhaps he would take it up later, but he had not done so now, not here, in his careful, initial discourse on evolution. This realization dazzled Alma, and she nearly slapped her own forehead in dumbfounded marvel; it never would have occurred to her that a good scientist need not tackle the entire question right away—on any topic whatsoever! In essence, Darwin had done what Uncle Dees had tried for years to persuade Alma to do: he had published a beautiful theory of evolution, but only within the realms of botany and zoology, thereby leaving the humans to debate their own origins.
    She longed to speak to Darwin. She wished she could dash across the Channel to England, take a train down to Kent, knock on Darwin’s door, and ask him, “How do you explain my sister Prudence, and the notion of self-sacrifice, in the context of the overwhelming evidence for constant biological struggle?” But everyone wanted to talk to Darwin these days, and Alma did not possess the necessary sort of influence to arrange a meeting with the most sought-after scientist of the age.
    As time went on, she gleaned a clearer sense of this Charles Darwin, and it became evident that the gentleman was not a debater. He probably would not have welcomed the chance to argue with this obscure American bryologist, anyway. He probably would have smiled at her kindly and said, “But what do you think, madam?” before shutting the door.
    Indeed, while the entire educated world strove to make up its mind about Darwin, the man himself stayed amazingly quiet. When Charles Hodge, at the theological seminary in Princeton, accused Darwin of atheism, Darwin did not defend himself. When Lord Kelvin refused to embrace the theory (which Alma thought unfortunate, as Kelvin’s would have been such a credible endorsement), Darwin did not protest. He also did not engage his supporters. When George Searle—a prominent Catholic astronomer—wrote that the theory of natural selection seemed to him quitelogical, and posed no threat to the Catholic Church, Darwin did not respond. When the Anglican parson and novelist Charles Kingsley announced that he, too, felt comfortable with a God who “created primal forms capable of self-development,” Darwin spoke not a word in agreement. When the theologian Henry Drummond tried to work up a biblical defense of evolution, Darwin avoided the discussion entirely.
    Alma watched as liberal-thinking ministers took refuge in metaphor (claiming that the seven days of creation, as mentioned in the Bible, were in actuality seven geological epochs ), while conservative paleontologists such as Louis Agassiz went red-eyed with anger, accusing Darwin and his supporters of vile apostasy. Others fought Darwin’s battles for him—the mighty Thomas Huxley in England; the eloquent Asa Gray in America. But Darwin himself kept a gentlemanly English distance from the entire debate.
    Alma, on the other hand, took every attack on natural selection personally, just as she felt secretly buoyed by every endorsement—for it was not merely Darwin’s idea that was being scrutinized; it was hers . She thought at times that she was becoming more distressed and excited by this debate than was Darwin himself (another reason, perhaps, that he made a better ambassador for the theory than she ever could have). But