M I N D 'S EYE A Liberal Arts Journal Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Struggle for a Home By Jim Niedbalski The Gift Of the Falcon By Mary Ellen Cohane Changing Reputations: Nature and Naturalists in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species By wuiiam Montgomery Defining Action in Ibsen and Sibelius By Brian Fitzpatnck In Search of History: Presidencies, Personalities and Policies Book Review By Robert Bence First Bird Poetry By Mark Daniel Miller Drawings by Biiispezeski Spring 1998 A Liberal Arts Journal SPRING 1998 Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Editorial Board Tony Gengarelly Managing Editor Bob Bishoff Sumi Colligan Steve Green Ben Jacques Leon Peters Maynard Seider Meera Tamaya © 1998 The Mind's Eye ISSN 1098-0512 The Mind's Eye, a journal of scholarly and creative work, is edited and published twice annually by the faculty of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. While emphasizing articles of scholarly merit. The Mind's Eye focuses on a general communication of ideas of interest to a liberal arts college. We welcome expository essays as well as fiction, poetry and art. Please refer to the inside back cover for a list of submission guidelines. The Mind's Eye is funded by the office of Dr. Ashim Basu, Vice President for Academic Affairs. Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Formerly North Adams State College 375 Church Street North Adams, MA 01247-4100 MIND'S EYE Spring 1998 The Editor's File 4 Changing Reputations: Nature and Naturalists in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species 5 By William Montgomery First Bird 20 Poetry By Mark Daniel Miller Struggle for a Home 26 By Jim Niedbalski The Gift of the Falcon 37 Fiction By Mary Ellen Cohane Defining Action in Ibsen and Sibelius 42 By Brian Fitzpatrick Drawings 55 By William Spezeski In Search of History: Presidencies, Personalities and Policies 56 Book Review By Robert Bence Contributors 63 On the Cover: Woodcock, Lino-cut by Leon Peters The Editor's File A JL JLs we continue to publish the scholarly and literary efforts of our colleagues, I recall a comment by former Mind's Eye editor Charlie Mclsaac: "Sit at your typewriter and see if you have some- thing to say." Even though, for most of us, the typewriter has been replaced by the keyboard, Charlie's challenge remains as true now as it was then. As the diverse and provocative contributions to this edition suggest, The Mind's Eye continues to inspire our faculty to think and write, to explore those areas of thought and literary expression which revitalize the personal and educational experi- ence. Our stated mission is to nurture this process and to share it with the College and broader academic community. So far, so good: but the challenge as well as the opportunity remain. Submissions are welcome any time; deadline for the Fall edition is July 15. 4 The Mind's Eye Changing Reputations: Nature and Naturalists in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species BY WILLIAM MONTGOMERY j^t is a commonplace that great scientists owe great debts to their predecessors. Newton is said to have remarked that he could see further than others because he stood on the shoulders of giants, and this comment has been accepted as a truism by scientists from his day to ours (Merton). Nevertheless, the relationship between a revolutionary scientist and the people who made his or her work possible is complex. To innovate is to change, to alter, and to modify. The innovator redefines previous work even in making use of it (Kuhn ch. 11). Charles Darwin was just such a figure. In developing his evolutionary ideas he scoured the scientific literature of his day and pursued complete strangers with odd questions about their special knowledge. His obligations to others were enormous, and yet the use he made of this assembled material was frequently quite novel. He was particularly indebted to the geologist Charles Lyell, who influenced some of the earliest research he ever did and who became an important mentor and friend as his career developed. 5 The Mind's Eye William Montgomery Still, as Darwin began thinking about evolution, he grew beyond the more conservative Lyell. He used Lyell's geological ideas but not always in ways that Lyell had intended. Darwin took special care to credit Lyell's thinking, yet even as he acknowledged his friend's work he gave it a new twist. Darwin did not always treat other scientists as generously as he did Lyell. Darwin could be almost negligent in recognizing scientists with whom he did not want to identify himself. He was terse in dismissing the work of his evolutionary forerunner, Robert Cham- bers; and he had little more to say about Robert Malthus, who had inspired his idea of natural selection. They were not personal friends, and Darwin made no extra effort to enhance their reputa- tions; nevertheless, he treated their ideas much as he had Lyell's, altering even as he borrowed. Darwin's great evolutionary book On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, the fruit of a long period of thought and re- search. He first became convinced of the truth of evolution in March of 1837, shortly after his return from a round-the-world voyage of scientific collecting and observation aboard H.M.S. Beagle (Sulloway). In the intervening period he worked steadily, bringing out six books and a number of major articles, mostly on geology. At the same time he was also reading widely, conducting experiments, and making extensive notes on the subject of species. Darwin kept in close touch with many of the ablest scientists in England and took pains to make sure that his information was complete and up-to- date. Fortunately, he preserved many of his notes, and his corre- spondents usually saved his letters (Barrett; Burkhardt and Smith). Thus, we are unusually well-informed about his opinions of other scientists and their work. One individual who attracted Darwin's attention was the publisher and sometime geologist Robert Chambers, author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. This book, published anony- mously in 1844, had already advanced a theory of evolution. During the 1830s and early 1840s, geologists had discovered a sequence of fossil forms from extremely primitive invertebrates to mammals quite similar to those now living, which could be identi- 6 The Mind's Eye William Montgomery fied with successive layers of sedimentary rock. The oldest, most deeply buried rocks contained the most primitive forms, and as one traced the layers toward the present, the number of modern forms increased and grew more familiar. To Chambers, this was a clear sign of evolutionary development, as he explained to fascinated readers in 1844 (148-150). Chambers reassured his readers that this progress was not the result of any blind, mechanical force. God may not have created each plant and animal individually, but it was through the natural development of His laws that ever higher beings came into existence (152-164). Darwin referred to the Vestiges in the Introduction to the Origin of Species, spelling out his chief reservation about Chambers's idea. In Darwin's eyes it was not enough to offer evidence that species had evolved. A truly successful theory also had to make clear how species were modified to thrive in their environment. The author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' would, I presume, say that, after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird had given birth to a woodpecker and some plant to the misseltoe, and that these had been produced perfect as we now see them; but the assumption seems to me to be no explanation, for it leaves the case of the coadaptations of the organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life, untouched and unexplained. (3-4) Explaining the coadaptations of nature was, of course, one of the major goals of the Origin of Species. The reference to Chambers's book thus served Darwin as a convenient springboard for an expla- nation of his own intentions. He did not name the author since Chambers was still protecting his anonymity and would do so to the end of his life in 1884. However, Darwin had guessed his identity in early 1846 after reading Chambers's anonymous reply to a harsh review of the Vestiges (To J. D. Hooker [Feb. 10, 1846] in Burkhardt and Smith 3:289) A year later Darwin had his guess confirmed, if ever so discreetly, by Chambers himself. Darwin went to see Chambers in London in early March, 1847. Darwin had become embroiled in a dispute over his theory about the origins of the raised beaches that line the walls of Glen Roy in 7 The Mind's Eye William Montgomery Scotland. He hoped to obtain from Chambers more information about Glen Roy and about the views of the Scottish geologist David Milne, who had criticized his work. Darwin and Chambers had never met before, but they got on well, and Darwin evidently considered Chambers's information useful. A punctiliously courte- ous man, Darwin asked no questions about the Vestiges—after all, Chambers would only have answered "no." In mid-April, though, Darwin received an anonymous, but revealing present in the mail, a presentation copy of the sixth edition of the Vestiges. The gift left him quite confident that he was right about its author (To Robert Chambers, Feb. 28, 1847 and To J. D. Hooker, April 18, 1847, in Burkhardt and Smith 4:19 and 36). Scientists had very diverse reactions to the Vestiges. The young explorer Alfred Russel Wallace was immediately converted by Chambers, and started looking for evidence to bolster his views (McKinney 9-12). However, the usual reaction was quite negative. Adam Sedgwick, the pious Cambridge professor of geology, gave it a bitterly hostile review when it first appeared (Secord in Chambers xxxi-xxxii). Darwin, who of course sympathized with Chambers's purposes even if he rejected many of his scientific mistakes, was appalled at the review. It inspired him to move very carefully in revealing his own ideas. Darwin got another jolt in 1854 when Thomas Henry Huxley, whom he had begun to think of as a possible supporter, gave the tenth edition of the Vestiges a cutting review. Huxley had no religious objections to evolution, but he would not forgive the amateurishness of some passages in the book, and he genuinely disagreed with Chambers's belief in geological progress (Richards 148-49). This was awkward for Darwin, who had begun to believe in some measure of progress himself. He gently noted to Huxley, "I am almost as unorthodox about species as the Vestiges itself, although I hope not quite so unphilosophical." (To T. H. Huxley, Sept. 2, [1854], Burkhardt and Smith 5:213) Darwin's comments in the Introduction to the Origin were clearly intended to disarm critics who had disliked Chambers's book. Darwin wanted to make plain at the outset that his own approach to species change was quite different from that of the Vestiges. How- 8 The Mind's Eye