A Beautiful Mind (Stayed Silent for Love)

Two months ago, February 12, was the 200^th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth· And that brought new attention to his works and his life. Most biographers agree that Darwin came up with his big idea about the evolution of species when he was a fairly young man, a touch under 30. But he didn't publish his theory for another 21 years. That made many people scratch their heads why he waited — and for so long.

There are a number of theories. And I’m considering one of them, Darwin, a beautiful mind, stayed silent for love.

Before the big white bear, before he was famous, before his life of science, when Darwin was just 28 years old, he wondered if he had time to get married. So what did he do? He made a list---of pros and cons. Above the pros and cons Darwin wrote a title. It’s called marry, not to marry, this is a question. So on the side of why I shouldn’t get married, he wrote: lost time, quarreling with wife, anxiety of children, he had to visit relatives what if he didn’t like them. On the pro side, he wrote: he would get a constant companion, and then he said very famously, a wife would be better than a dog anyhow. Did he literally write that? He did--- a wife better than a dog. But the thing is he did loved dog. So basically that was a compliment.

And there was a big question he didn’t put on his list---God. He was really beginning to think about his relationship with God. With religion in general, he knew this gonna be problem for pretty much every woman he would like to marry. Because every woman he would want to marry would worry by a guy who has a doubt with god. So what was the problem? The problem is her husband would go to hell and she would go to heaven. It was a real fear. They would be separated for eternity. That was painful.

Even so. When Darwin got interested in a girl, his religious first cousin, Emma Wedgewood. He decided whatever the problem, she’s the one. So at some point, Darwin finally asked her WOULD YOU? YES. Emma answered him immediately. But actually Emma was shocked. She never saw his notes. She thought they were first cousin, they were friends. They might stay like that for years.      But she knew she wanted to marry him. When Emma said YES immediately, Darwin was shocked too. So he got the headache. They were both feeling miserable. They were both completely shocked at what they had done. But they went ahead and got married.

At first years it was a little bit rocky. Darwin told her his theory about natural selection, which hints that God may not be absolutely necessary. He did tell her some of his doubts and she very, very worried about him. So she wrote him a letter and asked him to try hard to find his faith. Darwin agonized over that letter, actually several letters. He wrote at the edge of that letter, “When I’m dead, I know many times I kissed and cried over this.” Darwin kept all those letters with him all the time.

One question all Darwin’s biographers have to deal with is why he waited for so long, 21 years to publish his idea about evolution.

Like many significant things in life, there is no one answer. One of the reasons is he was likely collecting evidence. But at same time I would think “knowledge, it would hurt her, it would undermine her, it would pain her for him to publish those ideas" is equally powerful. So there was real tension at that time between Darwin’s marriage and Darwin’s theory. And then Annie came along.

Annie was the second child, the oldest daughter, really the apple of the eyes. She was a perfect blend of Emma and Darwin. She was spirited. She was kind. She’s musical like Emma but orderly like Darwin. They were very, very close to her.

Then thing took an opera-like turn, Annie got sick, a sickness kind of mysterious. Doctors in London they went to couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with her. She often cried at night, which was so unlike her. Annie got worse and worse. She finally died. She was ten years old. Darwin did not go to her burial. He didn’t stay for the funeral. He couldn’t bear it. Annie’s death did not sharpen the deep differences between Emma and Darwin, after all they thought so differently about after life. Strangely their differences relaxed.

 I think the death of Annie was pretty much the worst thing that could happen to them, and they survived it, and it was almost like anything else paled in comparison.

Emma went on believing she would see her love one in Heaven. Darwin was pretty much that was it for him. After Annie died, he became more willing to pursue and proclaim his theory. And Emma turned toward him, not away from him.     She wrote to him,” you’re my prime treasury and it has always been”. If you read Darwin’s book, you can feel Annie’s influence on him. He knew so deeply and so personally what death was after Annie’s loss. Yet in his writing you see him affirming over and over this circle, the endless unfolding of life, as he expressed in his On the Origin of Species.

On the very last page of On the Origin of Species, Darwin takes his readers to a beautiful forest, rich with trees and birds singing everywhere. He reminds us of the beauty we see every day, the butterflies, the flowers, and especially, we humans, who can contemplate and enjoy those things. We are all, all of us products of millions of years of competition, struggle, famine and death — This struggle will continue. So, life will keep evolving new forms and new shapes.

That was the worst nature for famine and death, the most exhausted objects, which we are capable of conceiving. Namely the production of higher animals directly follows. Basically what Darwin was saying was exactly what we now call the existential dilemma. He said there are two things that are true: One is that everything dies, and things die for no reason and to no apparent end. And their death is painful. And, that process of living and dying produces something amazing, beautiful and astonishing. And there is grandeur in that.

“…There is grandeur…“, said the final sentence of Darwin’s book. In this view of life, even from death, even random death, “…endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."