Darwin’s Presence as Proof in The Origin of Species-2

7 Chapter 1: Webs of Evidence, Appeals to Trust 1.1 Darwin’s “I” As Charles Darwin presents his evidence in The Origin of Species, his voice comes through the text as that of a man with unique and substantive experience in naturalism— experience that has provided him with an authoritative position from which he can present his theory. Below the title, in the first edition of his work, we read: “By Charles Darwin, M.A., Fellow of the Royal, Geological, Linnean, Etc., Societies; Author of ‘Journal of Researches During H.M.S. Beagle’s Voyage Round the World’.” Before Darwin begins to describe his larger argument, he claims the authority of an individual, respected naturalist. His scholarly credentials are impressive; his breadth of his knowledge is wide and diverse (as he belongs to multiple societies); he has traveled around the world; and published an account of his voyages. This attention to Darwin’s self, his position as a gentleman of science, is subtly carried throughout the larger argument of his text. Despite the caliber of his qualifications, Darwin also appears in the text as an individual who understands and shares the perspective of his larger audience. Retaining a familiar, human tone, he frequently acknowledges difficulties, exclaims in astonishment, and addresses his readers intimately. This familiar perspective that Darwin assumes is often complicated as he appears not simply to sympathize with the concerns of his readers and to see, at various moments, through their eyes, but seeks also to guide his readers’ understanding—helping us see what he sees. Darwin’s presence within The Origin is both sympathetic and authoritative, recognizing the challenges that his theory presents to a reader’s mind while firmly correcting his readers’ prior conceptions of the natural world. We will see, too, that Darwin’s intimate presence 8 and reliance on personal point of view form the foundation of his larger arguments and provide persuasive power to his text. Darwin’s persuasive narrative strategies, which I will argue are integral to his argumentation in the Origin of Species are aligned, too, with his interactions with his fellow naturalists, many of whom were essential in collecting the evidence that would later become The Origin. As a respected gentleman of science in Victorian England, Darwin was a noted figure in a community consisting of the geologist Charles Lyell, biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, and botanists Joseph Hooker and Asa Gray, of America. In addition to his interactions with fellow naturalists, Darwin created a network of correspondence that spread throughout England, seeking not solely fellow scientists, but all manner of individuals. As Browne explains: [Darwin] also hunted down anyone who could help him on specific issues, from civil servants, army officers, diplomats, fur-trappers, horse-breeders, society ladies, Welsh hill-farmers, zookeepers, pigeon-fanciers, gardeners, asylum owners, and kennel hands, through to his own elderly aunts or energetic nieces and nephews. (11) He wrote letters to various authorities and experts in networks that stretched around the globe, from India to Jamaica to Australia and China—correspondence that appears in The Origin as Darwin invokes various experts and his interactions with them, occasionally in place of empirical evidence. Darwin learns of the Kattywar breed of striped in India from a Colonel Poole, and is given information of the English racehorse from Mr. W. W. Edwards (140). Furthermore, he asserts: “I may state that I have collected cases of leg and shoulder stripes in horses of very different breeds, in various countries from Britain to East China; and from Norway in the north to the Malay Archipelago in the south” (140). While Darwin presents his assurance in the findings of Poole and Edwards and, similarly, addresses further “cases,” he gives his readers impressionable certainty of others’ findings, rather than direct proof. In this way, the evidence that Darwin began compiling even long before the publication of Origin was often as much 9 experiential—from second-hand reports—as it was directly experimental. Mirroring the great “web of affinities” (Darwin, 343) between living beings that he comes to emphasize in his argument, Darwin created his own social web of evidence and scientific accounts. Years before the publication of The Origin of Species, Darwin’s exchanges with others, along with his own observations and experimental findings, helped form what he called his “big book of species,” an enormous manuscript that would be later edited into The Origin. In compiling this manuscript, Darwin demonstrated influential rhetorical skill with regards to obtaining help and information from various experts. As Browne describes: “Darwin made the most of his position as a gentleman and scientific author to obtain what he needed. He was a skilful strategist…Like countless other well-established figures of the period, Darwin regarded his correspondence primarily as a supply system, designed to answer his own wants” (12). I would argue that Darwin’s persuasive abilities in correspondence are further developed in Darwin’s narrative voice within The Origin. While he often presents himself as intimately part of a collective “we,” we will see Darwin also establish himself as a narrator whose speaks with higher authority when examining the natural world. Amid Darwin’s charismatic exclamations of awe and astonishment, readers are often and directly called upon to put their trust in Darwin and his argument—even when he is addressing elements that are uncertain or unobservable. Examining Darwin’s argumentation in The Origin, we see his rhetoric working subtly— often through variations between pronouns (“I” versus “we” versus “he”)—as he leads readers away from the idea that species have been independently created, and instead towards an understanding of his own argument for descent with modification through natural selection. This narrative exchange, one in which Darwin’s language creates authority both by separating himself from his readers and by aligning himself with them, is one that revels in awe, observation, and 10 even confusion, and requires not only reason and comprehension, but sensory and imaginative understanding as well. As scholar Gillian Beer explains: The tone of a single man speaking, the presenter of the evidence, the creator of the theory, is a necessary counterpoise to that speculative extension back through time and change which is also crucial to the argument. And the emphasis upon sense experience, particularly colour and touch, means that our medium of experience is not simply necessarily, but warmly, human. (67) Darwin’s intimate, human voice—a “necessary counterpoise” to the task of describing evolutionary history—draws attention to the vastness of the argument Darwin is attempting to make. While Darwin is contained in the present, in his study at Down House, his garden, his task is to describe natural development taking place over great expanses of a past that he has not been witness to. Through his distinct narrative voice and perspective of a “single man speaking,” Darwin is able to ground the magnitude of his argument in a familiar exchange with his readers from which to build a rapport of belief. In the way he asserts, “We can, perhaps, on these views, understand some facts” (94) we will see Darwin frequently join adopt a collective perspective as he persuades readers of his fuller arguments. In the opening lines of his introduction, Darwin exclaims: “When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle,’ as a naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of the continent” (11). He continues: “These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers” (11). Darwin’s reflection on his Beagle voyage, a trip that began in 1831 and lasted five years, immediately casts a reflective tone upon the Origin’s introduction—a sense that the argument Darwin is about to make is full of personal anecdote and experience. Here we also see glimmers of a complex weaving of direct science or empiricism with poetics or Romantic musings in the 11 combination of “facts” with “mystery.” The facts are extracted from Darwin’s experiences, but are subtly conjoined with a larger sense of wonder, awe, and even uncertainty. Similarly, while his first sentence briefly addresses the subject of geologic time and its expansiveness, topics he will later address in the text (“relations of the present to the past inhabitants”), it is “I” and Darwin’s reactions during his voyage that first catch the reader’s attention. Darwin admits he was “struck,” drawing focus to himself as an impressionable being—an individual capable of surprise, reflection, and realization. As he continues in his introduction, his use of “I” is resounding, as he moves from a humble tone that often characterizes his work to a voice of clear and firm authority. On the first page he notes: After five years’ work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision…My work is now nearly finished; but as it will take me two or three more years to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract. (Darwin, 11) Darwin’s draws our attention to the “personal details” of not only his careful study and reflection over the course of several years, but startlingly to his fragility and mortality. In addition, there is lingers a simultaneous sense of humility and subtle authority, as Darwin expresses he was “urged” to publish his text. Just as readers are given a sense of Darwin’s placement in a greater society of naturalists from his brief biography (“By Charles Darwin, M.A…”), so too are they reminded of a community of authoritative support for Darwin’s work—those who have urged him to publish. Despite the intimacy of this early narrative acquaintance, Darwin’s personable tone maintains an air of authority. Telling us of the five years over which he focused on his subject matter and the way in which his “sketch” developed, Darwin defends himself, asserting: “I have 12 not been hasty in coming to a decision.” He laments, later in the introduction: “This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy.” However, he ends authoritatively, firmly stating that he is “convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification” (12,18). In one way, Darwin’s use of “I” emphasizes his presence as an impressionable being and a familiar, charismatic voice; in another, it presents him as a superior, scientific authority. By being “convinced,” Darwin speaks in the tone of one who has made his observations and hypotheses and who can conclude that his evidence is convincing enough for him to make his case (however imperfect it may be). His readers have not yet seen (nor, as I will later argue, will they necessarily see) all of the evidence that Darwin has, but he conveys his conviction about the authority of evidence he has collected. He may be the “single man speaking” as described by Beer, but he is also a unique and ambitious visionary—a mortal, impressionable being setting out to address that “mystery of mysteries.” 1.2 Unique Empiricist Darwin’s intimate, impressionistic perspective established in the introduction of his text becomes the tone through which he presents his empirical evidence and larger claims about descent with modification and natural selection. In his opening chapter on “Variation under Domestication,” Darwin shares his experience of breeding domestic pigeons, exclaiming that “The diversity of the breeds is something astonishing” (27) and moving on to describe the widely varying features of the birds, from their feathers to jawbones. Levine describes the “effectiveness (and affective-ness)” (20) of Darwin’s prose, explaining: 13 It is one that almost invariably surprises new readers: the quality of ‘personal testimony,’ a voice, however often muted, of a personality, and the intimation in it—even if the intimation is not officially part of the overall argument—of a narrator who loves the natural world and who finds it not only in exotic places, but at home. (Darwin the Writer, 20) While Darwin’s personal voice might not be “officially part” of his argument, I would argue that his voice is key to the argument’s persuasive power. Darwin’s meticulous observations and mounds of evidence may speak for themselves in various instances, but the force of Darwin’s own belief and conviction—“analogy leads me to believe” (243); “these facts alone incline me to believe” (86)—serve to encourage a reader’s belief. Darwin’s personal, narrative reflections are conveyed with immediacy through his point of view. In this way, they often appear as analogous to or interchangeable with a reader’s own experience. Such is the case as Darwin admits: “I have found it difficult, when looking at any two species, to avoid picturing to myself, forms directly intermediate between them” (227). Although he directs readers’ attention to his own difficulties, he continues: “But this is a wholly false view; we should always look for forms intermediate between each species and a common but unknown progenitor” (227). As Darwin argues against a false view that even he admits is difficult to avoid, he uses a personal perspective as a foundation from which to assert, more broadly, what “we should always look for.” Amid many of Darwin’s observations and arguments remains this sense of personal struggle and admission of difficulty in working through the theories being presented. Even after his lengthy and detailed observations, Darwin acknowledges that: I have discussed the probable origin of domestic pigeons at some, yet quite insufficient, length; because when I first kept pigeons and watched the several kinds, knowing well how true they bred, I felt fully as much difficulty in believing that they could ever have descended from a common parent, as any naturalist could in coming to a similar conclusion in regard to the many species of finches, or other large groups of birds, in nature. (Darwin, 33) 14 Along with his customary tone of humility (“insufficient length,” he bemoans), Darwin once again draws attention to his presence as an impressionable human being, sharing with us his admission that, despite all he has presented and argued in favor of descent with modification, he, initially, had difficulty finding the idea true. Like many of Darwin’s moments of doubt, difficulty, and admission of struggle, this confession once again draws attention to his distinctly human point of view—a point of view that sympathizes, frets, and struggles to understand, in the same way that his readers may have felt when first encountering the work. Having previously stated “I am fully convinced that the common opinion of naturalists is correct, namely that all [domestic pigeons] have descended from the rock-pigeon,” (29) Darwin later chides naturalists who can not accept such descent occurring outside domesticity, in the state of nature. Moving beyond those who refuse to see how such modifications under artificial selection could occur in nature, Darwin extends the principle of descent, applying his argument for variation to nature and the process of natural selection. However, by beginning firstly with a nod to his own difficulty in imagining such variation to be possible, Darwin’s first person point of view serves as a persuasive strategy. By grounding his argument firstly in specific, human testimony (even in testimony of struggle), Darwin helps lead his readers from safe proof of domestic examples to the broader, bolder argument of descent and modification of species in nature. While Darwin’s intimate point of view subtly guides and persuades his readers to trust his conviction and, in turn, trust in his larger arguments, the prominence of his personal voice was also the focus of some critical disdain when The Origin was first published. Although his familiar tone was popular with Victorian readers, there were those who condemned it as a problematic element in the work (Browne, 55). Darwin’s contemporary Richard Owen, one of the most distinguished zoologists and paleontologists of the period, established himself as a 15 harsh critic of Darwin’s theory and work, calling attention to the issue of Darwin’s voice itself. As quoted by Browne, Owen expresses distaste: “‘If I must criticise, I shd. say, we do not want to know what Darwin believes & is convinced of, but what he can prove’” (99). In addition, Browne writes: “The charm of the writing, [Owen] said perversely, was that is was the ‘voice of Darwin himself’” (99). Similarly, an anonymous review published in 1860 points out Darwin’s reliance on personal conviction, noting: Mr. Darwin does not pretend to have any direct evidence that a species, or even a variety, ever did originate by the process of Natural Selection…He only believes that certain ‘varieties’ have originated under a very different though analogous process…and he has imagined,—for that is the word rather than discovered, — he has imagined a corresponding though dissimilar method, through which ‘varieties’ might be established by natural means alone.” (Living Age, 486) Over the course of revision—from his first edition in 1859 to his sixth and final in 1876— Darwin’s edits reveal sensitivity to such complaints about the prominence of his personal conviction in the argument. In addition, they point to a degree of controversy with his rhetorical strategy as an impressionable narrator rather than a certain, objective presenter of facts. From the first to the final edition, “I do not think it is possible” becomes “it is not possible”1; “Nevertheless I am strongly inclined to believe” becomes “Nevertheless there is reason to believe”2; and, in numerous other instances, Darwin’s belief or perception is removed in favor of more objective certainty. And yet, as I will continue to argue, it is Darwin’s rhetorical strategy of personal witness and attention to perception, intuition, and belief throughout the first edition which guide his readers along, not only helping them trust Darwin as a naturalist, but trust in his fuller argument. 1 Respectively, Origin 1st ed., 25; Origin 6th ed., 13 2 Origin 1st ed., 86; Origin 6th ed., 76 16 1.3 Trusting Darwin We have seen a sense of intimacy in Darwin’s narration throughout the first edition of Origin, in the way he relies on personal testimony to create a sense of familiarity with his readers, as well as a sense of persuasion. By moving from acknowledgement of difficulty to expression of belief in the validity of his argument, Darwin creates a rhetorical stance heavily reliant on personal conviction and assertion of his belief. His argument is filled with vivid and extensive examples of the natural phenomena he has personally observed—from the “uniformly white fantails with some uniformly black barbs” of his domestic pigeons to the “Lobelia fulgens” with its “infinitely numerous pollen-granules” in his own garden (Darwin, 31, 69). In this way, his readers are able to see the great lengths to which Darwin has carefully observed and collected pieces of intricate evidence to help build his greater arguments. In the same way that Darwin speaks directly of his credentials and his assurance of belief, he presents the domestic examples that he has collected, not as detached evidence, but as natural phenomena he has witnessed. Darwin’s first person point of view, his reliance on subjective expressions of trust in his convictions, ushers in his empirical evidence. Yet at moments, Darwin moves rhetorically beyond his own perceptions as the means to make his argument, and appears to join with a collective “we”—aligning himself with his readers, and us with him. After his descriptions of his pigeons’ “fantails,” Darwin acknowledges that “We can understand these facts, on the well-known principle of reversion to ancestral characters, if all the domestic breeds have descended from the rock-pigeon” (31). The subtle use of “we” and our ability to understand is aligned with Darwin’s argument for descent with modification. In other words, we can understand the details he describes only through an acknowledgement of descent and natural selection. The subtle power with which he pushes his argument is seen also in his 17 nod to the “well-known principle of reversion.” The structure of Darwin’s argument here presents a simple, but almost inescapable, logic. The argument for descent hinges on that of a familiar principle that we know well—making the shift to believing in the principle of descent seamless. While Darwin appears to adopt a collective view, it ultimately serves as a persuasive strategy, a way to assert his own argument. In addition, from the opening lines of his first chapter, Darwin declares, “When we look to the individuals of the same variety…When we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals…I think we are driven to conclude” (17). In this way, Darwin appears to ‘look’ with us, to conclude with us, and, in doing so, creates a sense of common understanding with his readers. By alternating between “I look” or “I conclude” and “we look” and “we…conclude,” Darwin persuades readers to identify with him and, furthermore, to trust in him. Levine more broadly addresses this rhetorical strategy: Darwin becomes a narrator of his scientific argument who knows what it feels like to encounter the sometimes overwhelming facts and ideas he describes, who has experienced what readers, confronted by these facts and ideas, will be thinking and feeling, and who seeks ways to lead them through their doubts and reluctance, as he had moved himself, to his own exhilarating sense of the world newly perceived. (Darwin the Writer, 78) Levine rightly addresses the frequency with which Darwin conveys to his readers a sense that he has shared and overcome the difficulties they may face. Darwin marvels that his pigeons could have descended from the same source, although he ultimately argues that they have. In addition, he expresses: “I have sometimes felt much difficulty in understanding the origin of simple parts,” and again, “I will not here enter on these several cases, but will confine myself to one special difficulty, which at first appeared to me insuperable” (Darwin, 163, 194). And yet, Darwin’s attention to what he does not find to be difficulties in comprehension outweighs his focus on what he has struggled with. In a chapter explicitly titled “Difficulties on Theory,” Darwin addresses possible objections to his argument, while continually asserting his own conviction. “I 18 can see no difficulty…in the continued preservation of individuals” (152), Darwin argues, similarly declaring, “Nor can I see any insuperable difficulty in further believing it possible that the membrane-connected fingers and fore-arm of the Galeopithecus might be greatly lengthened by natural selection” (153). Such repetitions of Darwin “see[ing] no difficulty” throughout his argument once again draw attention to the importance of his own point of view as a necessary persuasive tool in his argument. Because of such persuasive strategies, the idea of Darwin ‘leading’ his readers is complicated. Darwin’s rhetoric often creates an analogous and empathetic relationship with his readers—whether through admission of shared difficulty or attention to what “we” see and understand—but reliance on his readers to trust him often allows for gaps in evidence and leaps in reasoning. Although his readers are led to new understandings of the general laws of nature that Darwin describes, they are not always invited to follow exactly the steps in Darwin’s process of arriving at his conclusions. Instead, readers are implored to trust in authorities they do not know and evidence they do not see. In his chapter on variation, Darwin establishes that “after deliberation,” he has “taken up domestic pigeons” (27), furthering asserting: “I have kept every breed which I could purchase and have been most kindly favoured…especially by the Hon. W. Elliot from India, and by the Hon. C. Murray from Persia” (27). In this way, Darwin subtly presents, not only his own experience, but also figures of distinction that help bolster his evidence and create a global community of authority, supplementing his own argument. Once again, we are reminded of Darwin’s position as a gentleman of science, interacting with individuals of honored ranks and societal positions. Describing international networks of exchange between breeders and keepers of pigeons in which he has a place, Darwin begins a practice that continues through Origin: that of noting 19 and synthesizing the studies and observations of other naturalists and scientific authorities, as well as describing his interactions with them. We are often introduced to a variety of authorities and, whether we recognize their names or not, we are struck and persuaded by Darwin’s invocation of them. As Steven Shapin describes in A Social History of Truth: “No scientist, however expert, encompasses the knowledge of his or her science as an individual” (25). Darwin is no exception. Compiling his evidence through networks of correspondence, he weaves an argument in Origin that is highly dependent on human networks and trust in the experiences of others. Describing the process of pollination of trees, Darwin tells us: “and at my request Dr. Hooker tabulated the trees of New Zealand, and Dr. Asa Gray those of the United States, and the result was as I anticipated” (89). What Darwin gives his readers is not an account of second-hand findings, but rather his own assurance that what was found aligns with and advances his own argument. Persuasion, in this way, is as much reliant on the personal and social networks that Darwin references, as it is on his empirical findings. We are required to trust not only in Darwin, but in Darwin’s trust of others. Darwin’s text is uniquely social in this way. Having built evidence through networks of correspondence with various experts, Darwin synthesizes the information he has received and presents his own conclusions. As Shapin proposes: “Trust is a creative as well as a conservative force in science. Since each acceptance of authoritative knowledge at the same time modifies existing usage, trusting is an unending means for the extension and modification of knowledge” (25). From the geologist Charles Lyell to John James Audubon and Frederick Cuvier, Darwin’s invocation of other noted figures allows him to utilize a community of authority that furthers his argument beyond what he has observed and noted— despite the fact that the evidence that Darwin himself has collected is vast and detailed. 20 The idea that Darwin patiently ‘leads’ his readers through their “doubts and reluctance,” as Levine suggests, is not the only way that Darwin makes his argument. We have seen Darwin’s invocation of various authorities stand, in his text, in place of explicit evidence. “[I]t would appear from information given me by Mr. Watson, Dr. Asa Gray, and Mr. Wollaston,” Darwin notes, “that generally when varieties intermediate between two other forms occur, they are much rarer numerically than the forms which they connect” (149). Yet Darwin does not give a broader account of the information. He instead states: “If we may trust these facts and inferences…then, I think, we can understand why intermediate varieties should not endure for very long periods” (149). In this way, Darwin’s presence as a careful and respected naturalist comes to stand in, at various moments, for the evidence he has collected (or the evidence his correspondents have collected). In such moments, his own judgment—an impressionistic and subjective instrument— is enough to advance the arguments he is forming. The prominence of Darwin’s voice and human perceptions allows for moments when Darwin subtly keeps from showing his evidence, despite his assertion of its validity. At one point, in reference to the number of differences between a certain species, he asserts, “I have endeavored to test this numerically by averages, and, as far as my imperfect results go, they always confirm the view” (Darwin, 56). Later, speaking on the subject of hybrids, he notes, “Lastly, and this is another most remarkable case, a hybrid has been figured by Dr. Gray (and he informs me that he knows of a second case)” which limits our access to the evidence he is describing within the parenthetical (Darwin, 141). His empirical presence is suddenly challenged as he replaces visible evidence with an assumption that his readers will trust evidence that is not before them, instead relying on Darwin’s own expressions of conviction in his conclusions. At such moments, Darwin’s belief in the evidence he has observed and collected mediates our 21 exposure to the evidence itself. We see Darwin’s conviction, but not his empirical findings. In addition, in his chapter on Natural Selection, Darwin calls attention to “a short digression” into a discussion of the reproduction of hermaphrodites, of which he says, “I am strongly inclined to believe that with all hermaphrodites two individuals…concur for the reproduction of their kind” (Darwin, 86). He continues, however, “I must here treat the subject with extreme brevity, though I have the materials prepared for an ample discussion,” concluding: What reason, it may be asked, is there for supposing in these cases that two individuals ever concur in reproduction? As it is impossible to enter on details, I must trust to some general considerations alone. In the first place, I have collected so large a body of facts, showing…that with animals and plants a cross between different varieties…gives vigour and fertility to the offspring…these facts alone incline me to believe that it is a general law of nature (utterly ignorant though we be of the meaning of the law) that no organic being self-fertilises itself for an eternity of generations. (Darwin, 86) What this body of facts leads Darwin to describe is his belief in a “general law of nature.” And yet, his audience never sees the facts he has collected; in fact, Darwin tells us there is no room for all the details. But Darwin’s following claim, that “ On the belief that this is a law of nature, we can, I think, understand several large classes of facts…which on any other view are inexplicable,” is presented with such firm authority that we scarcely question his withholding evidence (87). In fact, Darwin enters a broader, common perspective when he says, “we can, I think, understand.” Despite the lack of directly empirical evidence, Darwin has “led” his readers to a new understanding—one of a “law of nature” (87). The repetition of “belief” emphasizes the need for a human, even intuitive, reception of the “general law.” Darwin’s first expression of belief is subjective: “these facts alone incline me to believe.” Yet, he expands the affective quality of belief by later expressing, more broadly: “On the belief.” Furthermore, he draws his readers in, rhetorically, through his use of “we can,” but our understanding is only possible through Darwin’s reasoning, as it hinges on “I think.” 22 In this manner, Darwin’s argument does not consistently guide the reader through the same steps of observation he has taken. In discussing the laws of variation, Darwin laments, It is hopeless to attempt to convince any one of the truth of this proposition without giving the long array of facts which I have collected, and which cannot possibly be here introduced. I can only state my conviction that it is a rule of high generality. I am aware of several causes of error, but I hope that I have made due allowance for them. (129) The word “hopeless” can be seen as a genuine gesture of humility or, perhaps, recognition of the real difficulty facing him. And yet, Darwin’s continuous refusal to present all of the proof he has collected, instead resting on his own assurance in what he knows, gives him a unique authority. It requires that readers believe in Darwin’s conclusions, even if they aren’t shown the evidence he has seen. Darwin’s own convictions, then, come to stand, at moments, in place of empirical proofs. In his chapter on Instinct, Darwin explains, “I am well aware that these general statements, without facts given in detail, can produce but a feeble effect on the reader’s mind. I can only repeat my assurance, that I do not speak without good evidence” (177). As Darwin’s argument develops throughout the Origin, readers are called upon, not to simply comprehend the evidence that Darwin has placed before them; they are called upon to trust him. The withheld empiricism that Darwin demonstrates, as he repeatedly reminds us of evidence he has and gestures toward it (without showing it) invokes a sense of imagination on the part of his readers. We are asked, in other words, to trust what Darwin is telling us, but we must also—in order to reasonably understand the processes of change he is describing—fill in the gaps for ourselves. Instead of solely being an empiricist who relies on illustrations of experiential evidence in order to make his argument, Darwin becomes a unique empiricist and voice of a guide within his text. He implores his readers to believe in evidence he cannot adequately present in his text, requiring us to follow the inferences that take Darwin’s argument 23 from mounds of evidence he reports to have collected, to the descriptions of general laws of nature he presents in his text. As Darwin presents his diagram for the divergence of species, we explicitly see his attention to empirical argument combined with a subjective belief in the argument he is making. After asking his reader to turn to his diagram, he explains: “The accompanying diagram will aid us in understanding this rather perplexing subject” (Darwin, 107). Figure 1 Diagram representing the divergence of species, first appeared in On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, 1859. By acknowledging the “perplexing subject,” Darwin once again places himself in a sympathetic rhetorical position that appears to level him with his readers. The diagram is there to help “us”— Darwin apparently included. And yet, as Darwin describes the complex processes of divergence, we are reminded of the way in which understanding of the evidence is situated deeply in 24 Darwin’s subjective belief—a narrative position that functions persuasively because of the relationship of trust Darwin emphasizes throughout his text. He gives detailed explications about the variations and divergences of species, explaining: “After a thousand generations, species (A) is supposed to have produced two fairly well-marked varieties, namely a1 and m1” (Darwin, 104). And yet, Darwin frequently comes to rest on the mechanism of his own belief in asserting his claims. Amid his careful and incisive attention to the processes of varieties diverging from species, Darwin furthers his argument through his own perception, asserting: “I do not suppose that the process ever goes on so regularly as is represented in the diagram”; and, similarly, “I do not doubt that the process of modification will be confined to a single line of descent” (106). We see this situating of scientific, even mathematical, explanations within a subjective expression of belief: “By continuing the same process for a greater number of generations…we get eight species, marked by the letters a14 and m14, all descended from (A). Thus, as I believe, species are multiplied and genera are formed” (Darwin, 107). Rhetorically, what the argument for descent here rests on is not the explanations alone, but Darwin’s belief that it is so. Unlike his vivid descriptions of pigeons and bees, Darwin’s chart is not a description of reality, but rather an imagined reality that he has invented. In this way, his expressions of belief are not empty gestures, but rather continuous and persuasive strategies that allow his readers to follow the leaps he must make from the evidence he has collected to that which he can infer. In fact, it is through Darwin’s diagram that we see examples of Darwin’s use of analogy and imaginary illustrations to move beyond the evidence he has collected. Empirical evidence can only take him so far; it is merely a piece of the whole in his argument for natural selection. “The other nine species…of our original species,” Darwin tells us, “may for a long period continue transmitting unaltered descendents; and this is shown in the diagram by the 25 dotted lines not prolonged far upwards from want of space” (Darwin, 107). He emphasizes, with regard to the diagram, “these breaks are imaginary,” and, similarly: “In the diagram I have assumed that a second species (I) has produced, by analogous steps…either two well-marked varieties” (Darwin, 107). In this way, we are reminded of Darwin’s need to express his argument through means that extend far beyond empirical proofs. What he can visibly demonstrate in the chart is only a portion of the argument. In fact, we are reminded: “In the diagram, each horizontal line has hitherto been supposed to represent a thousand generations, but each may represent a million or hundred million generations” (Darwin, 109). We have seen Darwin gesturing towards evidence he has collected, but cannot adequately show (and so must rely on our trust in its validity). We see, too, the lingering presence of evidence that Darwin cannot truly observe or prove—evidence that is, in this way, invented in order to illustrate a natural law. Darwin’s ability to extract arguments of general laws from empirical evidence is often replaced by a need to address processes that can’t be observed because they are beyond the reach of empiricism. Throughout the Origin, the presence of Darwin’s intimate voice and attention to “I” creates a sense of familiarity and trust between himself and his readers. This persuasive strategy, grounded in Darwin’s perceptions and personal convictions, rests greatly on Darwin’s synthesis of the findings of others; domestic examples; and assertion to his readers that the pieces of evidence he has collected, both directly and from others, help build larger arguments about processes in nature. However, we will come to see Darwin gesturing even more broadly at the topics of time and complexity in nature and, in doing so, poetically addressing processes neither he nor his readers is directly witness to. As the branching lines in of descent in his divergence chart drop from the edges of the page, this “lack of space” points more broadly to the need for a 26 larger leap of faith that Darwin requires: faith in evidence that Darwin must conjure and imaginatively illustrate for his readers.