Several months ago, I wrote a post introducing Darwin's revolutionary concept of species change through the mechanism of natural selection. This post set the scene for a future series examining the impact of ideas put forth by learned predecessors on Darwin's well-favoured noggin and theory. Let us not take away Darwin's brilliant insight; however, others before him had made discoveries that influenced Darwin's thought processes, culminating in his remarkable theory. But before launching into a survey of the Great Men who had come before, I would like to briefly examine the impact the publication of 'Origins' had on staid, musty but rocksure British Victorian society, with emphasis on the scientific and theological community.
Darwin was forced to rush the publication of his seminal book, 'The Origin of Species,' against his natural inclination. Darwin had been sitting and ruminating on his theory for years, only to be awoken from his somnolent revery of procrastination by the news that a fellow naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, had devised a similar evolutionary theory.
From our modern perspective, it is difficult to understand the impact that Darwin's theory had on Victorian society as a whole and specifically on the scientific and religious establishment. Today, we are the recipients of technological advancements beyond measure. And the improvement continues to accelerate to the extent that new and major innovations are commonplace. In a way, we are inured to the wonderful march of modernisation and expect all at the touch of a button or a swipe of a screen. This is not to say that the 19th century was static in theory and technological development. However, the pace of advancement, though marvellous for its time, was a snail's track compared to those of the 20th and the first 25 years of this century.
Religion and science have been in conflict in the Western Arena for the past 500 years. Theologians were in no doubt about the challenge the march of scientific thought posed to the carefully constructed edifice of Catholicism. An edifice defined by dogma and infallible doctrinal fiction manufactured after centuries of conclaves, conflicts and blood. And yet it survived for centuries, together with a jewel-encrusted Pope- what would the baby Jesus say? With the rise of Protestantism initiated in the early 16th century, Catholicism had weathered its greatest threat. Catholicism survived, battered, but the Nicene creed and associated Greek philosophy remained. Christianity, however, was no longer unified under one doctrinal banner. Christian thought was now up for grabs, and independently minded men could interpret scripture according to their wit and religious inclination; this, no doubt, assured their position in Hell. The Protestants can go to Hell; Catholics were secure under their carapace of spiritual certainty, and Heaven, punctuated by a stint in Purgatory, was an absolute truth. That said, science posed a threat to Protestantism and Catholicism alike. Unlike religion, science was a process put forth by observation and experimentation. It was not static, but subject to change and improvement. In contrast, religious thought is exact and exacting. It is based on revelation from God and faith. Neither revelation nor faith is a path to knowledge. When did religious thought produce a longer-lasting light bulb?
Back to Darwin: Following the publication of the 'Origins', the most obvious problem for theologians of the time was that the theory provided a naturalistic explanation for natural complexity. Before Darwin, free thinkers faced the problem of giving a non-divine explanation for the manifest complexity of the natural world. An 18th-century theologian, Paley, neatly summed up the issue in his watch analogy. Consider the following scenario: If, upon wandering a wind-swept abandoned shopping mall in Tipton, you find a stolen watch, you would immediately note its complexity, even if you had never seen such a timepiece (It's Tipton, remember). The intricacy of the mechanism leads you to conclude that this item must have had a maker; in this case, a human artificer. By extrapolation (note: not logic), the complexity of the Natural World is an evident truth. Even the simplest bacterium is a highly sophisticated biological/biochemical machine. How can such intricate complexity arise naturally? Just as a complex machine, a watch, has a maker, Nature, in all its elements, guises and majesty, is surely constructed by the ultimate artificer that many call God. This argument proved highly persuasive, even before Paley's mechanistic exposition. Intuitively, it works, although it fails if confronted by cold, hard logic; but only logicians will be convinced by this argument. Regardless, the theological argument from complexity is highly compelling from a visceral perspective. However, it does not necessarily support the Christian conception of their deity and the associated theological construct and dogma. Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection provided an elegant naturalistic mechanism for generating complexity from simplicity over vast intervals of time—supernatural intervention was not required.
Darwin's theory immediately impacted the scientific community, and the reception was undeniably and almost universally positive. This apparently simple model, at least on first acquaintance, provided a compelling, and dare I say it, exquisite solution to the ultimate problem. At last, science had closed the last gap available to theology. The Great Question had been resolved, at least to the satisfaction of the scientific community, and religious folk had nowhere to retreat except to their narrow world of irrationality.
The initial reaction from the theological community was disbelief. However, once the implication of Darwin's book was fully digested, thoughtful theologians realised the severe challenge evolutionary theory posed to their conception of Divine Providence and miraculous Creation. The situation was grandly reviewed during a series of lectures at Oxford University in June 1860. The focus of the debate was: Evolution versus Creationism. Two individuals dominated the scene: Thomas Huxley (an undergraduate) and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Sadly, no transcript of the proceedings was kept, and we have to rely on letters and accounts of the debate from those present. The highlight of the meeting unfolded when the good Bishop, 'Ol Soapy Sam', asked: "If Huxley was descended from an ape from his grandfather or grandmother"? This cheap jibe should not have been part of a serious intellectual debate. However, it was meant to sway the audience through tawdry sentiment and to pander to Victorian sensibilities concerning the superiority of Humankind in comparison to the rest of the 'Animal Kingdom'. Although we don't have the exact words of Huxley's rebuttal, a popular report provides the following: "A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be a MAN, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digresions, and skilled appeals to religious prejudice". What a wonderful reply to the Bishop's cheap shot! In response, a lady in the audience fainted. Please note, this is the only comment I'm prepared to make regarding Darwinian theory's effect on Victorian society. Please do not be disappointed. I have neither the inclination, time, nor space in this post to pontificate further. Take the lady's 'touch of the vapours' as a metaphor for the impact on genteel Victorian mores. Either that, or you can blame it on wearing a bustle in the June heat. Did Huxley utter these exact words? Probably not. Nevertheless, we have other reports of the incident, and the gist of what was said is eloquently represented by the above. The rebuttal was harsh, fair and intellectually compelling/telling.
Today, with our gift of historical insight, we can easily state that the Evolutionists carried the day. However, contemporary accounts give a more balanced and nuanced view. Apparently, victory was ascribed to the side as decided by the writer's personal prejudice, at the time, generally not by the intellectual weight of the argument.
Within ten years of the Huxley/Wilburforce debate, Evolutionary Theory had been accepted as mainstream and part of the biological canon. It was a theory that everyone could understand, or so they thought. Even biologists of the time did not fully grasp its mechanism or implications. Even Huxley, the man who doggedly advocated for its acceptance, was a better debater than he was at understanding the underlying theory. But that did not really matter. For Huxley, Evolution was the perfect vehicle for undermining Natural Theology and replacing it with Science.
Tis enough- I must desist as I'm starting to wibble on akimbo. The following post(s) will concern the notables who inspired Darwin. Nuff said, for now.
