We visited Down House on Saturday March 7th 2026. The weather had been really pleasant of late – hence the decision to make the hour-long drive from our home in Sutton. However, on the day, there was freezing rain and fog covering the fields and roads! Still, there was a head of steam that had been built over the last few days – and so when Saturday arrived – we were all up, breakfasted, and ready to hit the road. As anyone with children will know – when things are moving it is best to go with it. The worst case scenario is child apathy and no one moving. After-all, it was a Saturday and technically a lay-in day for the kids! We think the kids liked a) the idea of “fog”, and b) “driving” through it.
If you click here “Darwin & Marx – Down House – 25.05.15” you can read when we first visited Down House in 2015 and discovered evidence of the historical interaction between Charles Darwin and Karl Marx! Darwin’s copy of Das Kapital was on display for a number of years – but then disappeared for a time (it was not on display when we last visited) but it is back today. It was also the case that in the library open to the public at Down House – there was number of hard-back copies of the collected letters (to and from) Charles Darwin – but his written communication with Karl Marx has not been released into the public domain by Darwin’s family. Indeed, the only extracts available stem from this display – where it is clear the two men were respectful and cordial toward one another.
If course, bourgeois scientists often make false claims stating that Darwin never read Das Kapital and that the pages remained “uncut” (new books in those days had to have their pages cut-open with a paper-knife). However, We have a) physically inspected this edition and it is clear the pages have been “cut”. Furthermore, I enquired with a local expert about this matter – and they said ithe book had been opened at some point. Off the record, I have also been told that Darwin was “enthusiastic” about the idea that society could “Revolutionise” as a result of evolutionary processes – and that his family felt that due to the US-induced Cold War – it was prudent not to release Darwin’s positive communication with Marx into the public domain.
When discussing with a Staff member from Down House – I was informed that the co-founder of the “Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection” – Alfred Russell Wallace – was from a modest and non-privileged background, whereas Darwin’s background was opulent by comparison. Wallace had to do everything the hard way and earn his travel around the most remote areas of the world with no financial or class support. Despite this, whilst living in the jungles of Borneo, he wrote to Darwin explaining what he thought had happened throughout nature. Wallace was right, of course, (a slow change in physical structure and function had occurred over long periods of time) – and this prompted Darwin to add him as a “co-author” to the theory. The two did disagree on one issue, however, and I discussed this with a Down House expert yesterday. To be fair, they knew their subject very well. They agreed that Darwin possessed all the social advantages – and Wallace virtually none – but that Wallace’s sheer determination managed to close the gap in opulence (Wallace never lived in a country mansion like Darwin). Darwin (like Marx) believed that “consciousness” was a function of the physical brain in as much as the ability to “think” emerges from the brain – and is the consequence of the functionality of the physical brain. In other word, the ethereal “mind” is a function of the material brain and cannot derive from anywhere else. Wallace had a different opinion. Whilst supporting the idea that the physical body (and brain) had evolved over a long period of time, Wallace was of the opinion that as the physical structures of the brain developed (and become more sophisticated) this structure evolved the ability to “receive” and “sense” consciousness as if it were broadcast (like a radio signal) from an outside source (Wallace never defined this “source” – but many believed his was trying to re-introduce religious thinking into material science – possibly due to the rise of “Spiritualism”). Indeed, perhaps Wallace was influenced by the science of radio-waves when he formulated this idea. Darwin rejected it, (as did Marx) – as they thought it was an attempt to enforce religion via the backdoor. Consciousness, as a special arrangement of matter, developed as a response to environmental conditions and the requirement for the “species” (not individuals) to survive. This might explain why capitalism, and its insistence upon “individualism” – runs counter to human developmental existence and evolutionary science. I suspect that Darwin agreed with Marx on this matter – that this point explains why the correspondance between the two has not yet been fully released.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 