Chapter the Second
Visitors

Darwin Explained

Being an associate of Hooker's, Sam Giddings may be forgiven if he presents a somewhat one-sided account of Hooker's famous refutation of Wilberforce. At the time, this Oxford debate had much less impact than the subsequent retellings of the tale, and, as Mendel's ignorance shows, Darwin's work took a lot longer to penetrate Europe than it did either in England or America.

Klacel, however was fascinated. "I know a little of -Herr Darwin's work," he said, "mainly what I have read in the popular press. Is it true that Herr Darwin believes that humans and apes are closely related?"
It took some moments before Brown could adequately translate Klacel's question into English, and Giddings appeared agitated by both the questions and certain nuances of the answer. Eventually Brown replied.
"Mister Giddings would like to answer your question with one of his own. Is it true that you and your cousin are related?" Almost everyone in the room looked surprised at this response, but Klacel grasped the point almost at once.
"Of course," he said cautiously.
"How is that?" asked Brown.
"Well," said Brother Matthew, thinking carefully, "We are joined by blood. I and my cousin are related to one another because my father and my cousin's father are brothers. They in turn were sired by my grandfather."
"But do you look alike?"
"Not much, -I am far more handsome." At that the room laughed, but Brown continued.
"So you and your cousin -share a common ancestor; your grandfather. Is that not so?" Klacel had to agree that was so.
"Such is Herr Darwin's thesis about the relationship between humans and apes. Once, a long long time ago, humans and apes shared a common ancestor. Since that time changes have accumulated in the shape and form of both species, so that they now take on the forms we see today. But once, the distant progenitor of our line and the ape line of descent were one and the same creature."

Such ideas had been hotly debated in -England during the six years since the publication of Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in 1859, but in Europe his ideas had been much slower to penetrate.
"So," added Mendel, "Herr Darwin would agree that plant and animal life was at first very crude and simple of form, but later developed more and more abundantly, with the older forms giving way to more perfect forms?"
"In general, yes," admitted Brown.
"I myself have held such views for some time," Mendel concurred, thinking back to what he had written on his assessment essay in 1850. An essay that had been savaged by the examiner, zoologist R. Kner.
"But it is -the mechanism whereby this change comes about that interests Mr. Darwin," Brown went on, turning to Sam Giddings, "Correct me if I am wrong, but does not Darwin say that Nature is acting as a good farmer acts when he selects the best stock for cultivation?"
"Indeed yes," agreed Giddings, "just as a farmer selects the strongest calves from those born to his herd and breeds from them, so -Nature selects the strongest and fittest from among all those born and only allows them to breed again in their turn."

Son of farmer Anton Mendel and pupil of Father Screiber, fruit-tree culturalist, Brother Gregor Mendel was very familiar with the artificial selection methods used by breeders to improve their stocks. While in school and later when he helped Father Schreiber, one of his tasks had been to select the most abundant plants; those that gave the greatest harvests. These individual plants had then been used to pollinate next year's seed stock. In this way the village crops had steadily produced more and more food for the growing Heinzendorf families.