Darwin at Orchis Bank: Selection after the Origin Kathryn Tabb * Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, 708 Philosophy Hall, MC: 49711150 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, United States article info Article history: Received 11 June 2014 Received in revised form 10 October 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Charles Darwin Orchids Natural selection Sexual selection Teleology Natural theology abstract Darwin’s first publication after the Origin of Species was a volume on orchids that expanded on the theory of adaptation through natural selection introduced in his opus. Here I argue that On the Various Con- trivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects (1862) is not merely an empirical confirmation of his theory. In response to immediate criticisms of his metaphor of natural selection, Darwin uses Orchids to present adaptation as the result of innumerable natural laws, rather than discrete acts analogous to conscious choices. The means of selection among polliniferous plants cannot be neatly classed under the Origin’s categories of artificial, natural, or sexual selection. Along with Darwin’s exploration of sexual selection in his later works, Orchids serves to undo the restrictive metaphor so firmly established by the Origin and to win over those of Darwin’s contemporaries who were committed advocates of natural law but suspicious of evolution by natural selection. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 1. Introduction “My dear Sir,” wrote Charles Darwin to the French-Swiss botanist Alphonse de Candolle in 1862, “You kindly enquire about my larger work; it does make progress, but very slowly owing to my own weak health & ill-health in my family. I have, also, been seduced to publish a small work on the Fertilisation of Orchids, which has taken up nearly ten months.” 1 It was almost three years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species to explosive effect. At the heart of that work was the law of natural selection, which states that “any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and some- times varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of sur- viving” than other members of its species (Darwin, 1859, p. 5). Soon after the publication of the Origin it became clear that se- lection would be a sticking point for even Darwin’s most sympa- thetic readers. In a letter from December 1859 Joseph Dalton Hooker, Darwin’s close friend and confidant, addressed the matter bluntly: “You certainly make a hobby of Nat. Selection & probably ride it too hard.” 2 Darwin’s immediate post-Origin challenge was to prove the power and efficacy of selection, and its capacity to generate adaptation in the natural world. Letters to friends and colleagues from 1859 and onwards (as well as the Origin itself) promised a comprehensive follow-up volume that would supply the necessary evidence to defend his claims about variation (1859, p. 508). Yet two years later Darwin hovered over the specimens in his greenhouse, recording the minutiae of their procreation and ostensibly showing little interest in defending his beleaguered thesis that “groups of species have descended from other species, and have been modified through natural selection”dabout which, he had promised, one could yet “obtain some light” (Darwin, 1859, p. 547). In fact, Darwin’s preoccupation at so pivotal a moment in his career shows that the product of this research, On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing, is more than a cat- alog of admiration for the “many beautiful contrivances” that would, Darwin was certain, “exalt the whole vegetable kingdom in most persons’ estimation” (1862, p. 2). Orchids played a crucial role E-mail address: kct2121@columbia.edu. * Tel.: þ1 212-854-4802. 1 17 June 1862, Letter 3608, Darwin Correspondence Database. 2 20 December 1859, Letter 2589, Darwin Correspondence Database. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsc http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.11.008 1369-8486/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 55 (2016) 11e20