And since natural selection shares so many features with play, we may, with some justification, maintain that life, in a most fundamental sense, is playful. At Cambridge University Library, along with all the books, maps, and manuscripts, there’s a child’s drawing that curators have titled “The Battle of the Fruit and Vegetable Soldiers.”
The drawing depicts a turbaned cavalry soldier facing off against an English dragoon. It’s a bit trippy: The British soldier sits astride a carrot, and the turbaned soldier rides a grape. Both carrots and grapes are fitted with horses’ heads and stick appendages.
‘The Battle of the Fruit and Vegetable Soldiers,’ a drawing on the back of a manuscript page from Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species,’ attributed to Darwin’s young son Francis. Cambridge University Library, CC BY-ND
It’s thought to be the work of Francis Darwin, the seventh child of British naturalist Charles Darwin and ...
