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"Darwin compared Jenny's gestures, 'his’ favourite orang-outang, with his children's attitudes"

Randall Hume Keynes, Darwin's great grandson

Credited as an author, Scandinavian philologist (he studied with Tolkien's son), writer and environmentalist, Sir Randall is, above all, familiar. Because he descends from two 'sacred' lineages in the United Kingdom: the one from the naturalist Charles Darwin and from the economist John Maynard Keynes (author from ‘general theory of employment, interest and money’, bible of capitalism); and also, because he uses a very warm and intimate tone in his conversations. We interviewed him in Alexandria (Egypt), where he assisted an international summit on Darwin's legacy, organized by the British Council.

Jordi Montaner | 29 December 2009

Randall Hume Keynes

Economy and nature are almost like your father and mother.
Not really. In fact, economy and nature form a morganatic marriage, difficult. Take the Galapagos as an example. Their survival is threatened by the economic pressures looming over a poor country, Ecuador. We are talking about a small paradise that lives exposed to the vagaries of climate change and human activity, but which still preserves species that are unique on each island, not found in any other part of the world.

Darwin's legacy has an efficient supporter in you. You don't only defend nature but you have accomplished that Darwin's old home, Dawn House, has recently been declared World Heritage.
More than the house itself, what motivated me was to save the garden. My grandmother, although she didn't get to know Darwin, kept fantastic memories of the garden at Dawn House, up to the point of building herself an almost identical one in her residence in Suffolk where I grew up. I think that my grandmother's garden caused a great impression in me, similar to the one Darwin's garden must have caused in her. If you'd ask me what unites me most to Darwin in my life I would say that garden…

And what can you tell me about Annie's box? [Annie's box is the title of your latest novel, published in Spain in 2003]
This small treasure inspired my novel. It is about a small writing case, velvet-lined, that I casually found while going along antiques in the attic of the house. Inside it where many scribbles Darwin himself had drawn for his oldest daughter Annie to colour, before she died at the age of 10, probably of tuberculosis. In those drawings, and the notes going with them, I made myself a very different picture of Darwin, very different to the warbler and taciturn naturalist presented in history; a Darwin as father and spouse.

The marriage with Emma, fervent Christian, tested his agnosticism.
In fact it was put to test with Annie's death. It was said that Darwin went to cure before his journey in the Beagle, and that during its curse he changed his mind. It isn't true. Darwin came back from Beagle believing in God, although with doubts about the origin of everything. His wife Emma, who did all his proof-readings of the manuscripts of the origin of species, includes a series of notes where she clearly states her opposition to the Darwinian vision of evolution, mainly related to the origin of the human being.

How did Annie's death alter Darwin's vision about nature and religion?
When Annie died, Darwin was about fifty years old. He alternated the detailed observation of his daughter's growth with the one of a baby orang-outang at the zoo, and everything made him think there were too many similarities in the behaviour, physiology, that pointed out to a common origin and which threw away the biblical thesis. He then started the writing of what I think, would be his masterpiece, more than 'The origin of species'. I'm referring to 'The origin of man and the selection in relation to sex'. Annie's death plunged Darwin into a terrible depression (also his wife Emma). He assumed that the pain of a loss was part of the experience of existing and that the heavenly consolations of religion couldn't reverse the nature of this strong bond. It was then when Darwin started to leave aside his faith, dying as an agnostic.

Annie's death wasn't the end… Darwin and Emma had more children. You come from one of them.
Correct. Darwin decided to fully invest in the care of his other children, as a safety valve, and in a very uncommon way in those days. He played with them, took them along with him in his garden raids in search of bird's nests, would sit them on his lap and make them tell stories, would let them manipulate his microscope and notebooks. But a scientific curiosity also lay behind this candour.

¿?
The naturalist passed hours in the zoo observing Jenny, 'his' favourite orang-outang, and he then compared its gestures and attitudes with the children's. He established many links that left no doubt regarding apes and humans having much in common, not being a work of a pre-established design but of a process of natural selection.

And he stops believing in God.
It didn't happen from one day to another. In fact, Darwin was very shy and never spoke in public nor defended his theories from a podium. He did it, like with Emma, through his notes and letters. In many of them, it is known that he asked for advice about his doubts to many clergy of the surroundings. He refused to remove the 'kind God' from his cosmic
vision, but recognized that everything he evidenced in his observations pointed towards another direction. In his agnosticism, the poetry of Tennyson or Wordsmorth weighed heavily, romantic poets who united the origin of the human being to the earth, the water, the air and the fire.

The Darwinian idea of us being related with all the creatures of the planet has something mystical about it…
Darwin was convinced of it, but it wasn't something he liked to discuss. The defence of his evolutionary ideas, the controversy with the ideologists of the time, where mediated by more scientists like Thomas Huxley, who where even more convinced than Darwin about what he thought.

THE QUAGMIRE OF THE GALAPAGOS The Galapagos are 128 islands of the Pacific Ocean located about 1,100 kilometres west of the coast of Ecuador. It is a living paradise and a laboratory of biodiversity and genetic heritage. But nevertheless, Keynes doesn't feel comfortable talking about the islands.

He acts as the patron of the Charles Darwin Foundation, at the same time as he is the Ecuadorian government advisor. He discusses several proposals to establish cooperation mechanisms amongst the different local actors, improve the life conditions of the ones working at the island's services and, behind these issues, the poor conservation.

Quietly, Keynes fears that everything could fall down at any moment. The pressure of the tourism industry forced him at the time to organise guided tours. Keynes thought it was an opportunity to fix very expensive prices to provide funds for the Foundation he leads, but maybe the idea wasn't so good after all.

“Get lost for a few days in the most intact archipelago of the planet and subscribe to a cruise hosted by these Ecuadorian islands in the bicentenary year of Charles Darwin…". The ad specifies that only 50 lucky ones will be able to come over by paying, at the margin of the cruiser's price (8.000 €), more than 1,000 Euros per person, which will go to the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galapagos Conservation Trust. The bad thing about it is that the tourism company Sanctuary Retreats works all year round and thinks about promoting much more naturalist-guided cruisers during the whole year. It is about the laws of evolution against the law of supply and demand; Keynes against Darwin.

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