The Darwin Complex

Abstract

T hose who undertake a project studying and writing about Charles Darwin are rarely the same afterward. Darwin has a way, that is, of making things seem both permanent and transitory. No matter how deeply immersed one might become in his books, notebooks, letters, and scribblings, the man and his mind still bear enigmas. Indeed, the closer we get, the less adequate our perceptions and analyses seem to be. There is always something that escapes, that melts into distance, no matter which end of the telescope we look through. Many scholars and authors who study Darwin’s work become addicted to their subject. They feel, perhaps, that they have gained only a beginning on higher matters related to the origins of modern science. Others are pursued by the shadows of things they should have said, insights they should have had, ideas they did not pursue for reasons of belated courage or disciplinary loyalty. Still others are drawn to the minutiae of Darwin’s life, hoping to discover under the stone of a small fact some new revelation about how Origin of