DARWIN, CHARLES. (1809-1882). English naturalist; first to suggest a theory of evolution by natural selection. Autograph envelope (unsigned). 1p. 24mo. Northampton, April 25, 1876. An envelope addressed in Darwin’s hand to a supporter, Charles Jecks of Northampton bearing Beckenham, Down and Northampton ink cancellations.
From 1831 to 1836, Darwin served as naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle, a Royal Navy brig-sloop commissioned to survey the South American coast. Despite near constant sea-sickness, Darwin collected fossils as well as marine and zoological specimens, making copious notes that contributed to the publication of the five-volume Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle under the Command of Captain Fitzroy, R. N., During the Years 1832 to 1836. Darwin’s achievements brought him fame, added to by his publication of numerous works of natural history, most notably his 1859 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, which outlined his theory of evolution. This work was followed by his most controversial theory – that mankind is descended from the anthropoid group of mammals – published in The Descent of Man in 1871.
Jecks was a scientist and defender of Darwin. He reported his observations on the composition of sandstone in the neighborhood of Northampton at the 1868 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and in February, 1876, he delivered a lecture entitled “On Darwinism” at the Croydon Microscopal Club. In it “he said he believed that Mr. Darwin was a man of retiring, unassuming habits, with a great aversion to what was called publicity. He was gifted, however, with a great amount of perseverance, and amazing power of observation, and an unwearied patience¬¬¬- the result of which, after many years of labour, had been the production of his celebrated theory of ‘The origin of species by natural selection.’ His theory was contrary to the generally received opinions of mankind upon the subject, and Mr. Darwin had met with a great amount of misrepresentation, vituperation, and abuse,” (Report and Abstract of Proceedings of the Croydon Microscopal Club, 1876). He concluded his lecture by stating that “he was more and more convinced that true religion was not opposed to true science, but that both came under the same law-the former being merely the development of the moral and emotional part of their nature, as the latter was that of the intellectual,” (ibid.). In 1879, Jecks’ analysis of the term “Darwinism” was published in Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists’ Society, Volume 3 which concluded “It may surely be affirmed that the ‘Origin of Species by Natural Selection’ is, if not the principal [cause of extinction], at least one of considerable weight and importance.” The Darwin Correspondence Project shows no record of any letter by Darwin to Jecks.