“The great question in agitation”: George Bentham and the origin of species

Abstract

George Bentham initially expressed reservations about Darwin's Origin of species (1859). What most troubled Bentham was the potentially disruptive nature of Darwin's ideas for natural history. Bentham, renowned even among other naturalists for always proceeding with the utmost intellectual caution, decided to ignore Darwin's theory. This reticence disappointed Darwin, who pressured Bentham unsuccessfully to give an assessment of the Origin. Bentham did, however, publicly praise Darwin's work on the fertilisation of orchids as an ideal model for natural history research. Finally, in his 1863 presidential address to the Linnean Society, Bentham directly addressed “the great question in agitation”, evolution. His judicious praise of the Origin would, Darwin was convinced, “do more to shake the unshaken & bring on those leaning to our side, than anything written directly in favour of transmutation.” Bentham's tentative conversion to evolution came only after Darwin's work, particularly on orchids, convinced him that evolution would add “stability” to systematic work. As a result, evolution's influence on systematic botany was largely conservative. It validated, rather than challenged, the method, systems, world view and intellectual authority of established experts like Bentham.

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