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A Tale of Two Controversies: Darwinism in the Debate over “Essays and Reviews”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Josef L. Altholz
Josef L. Altholz
Affiliation:
Mr. Altholz is professor of history in the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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Extract

The intellectual crisis of Victorian faith was a tale of two books. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species was published on 28 November, 1859; a composite volume of biblical criticism, Essays and Reviews, six of whose seven authors were clergymen, appeared on 21 March 1860. Both volumes provoked controversies. The Darwinian controversy is remembered and the biblicalcontroversy is largely forgotten, and perhaps in the longue durŕe of history this ought to be so. But there was no doubt at the time that the biblical controversy was more important, dealing with matters that Victorians regarded as both fundamental and familiar. Richard Church, later dean of St. Paul's, wrote to his American scientist friend Asa Gray in 1861 that Darwin's “book I have no doubt would be the subject still of a great row, if there were not a much greater row going on about Essays and Reviews.” Leslie Stephen, who experienced both controversies as a young man, later regretted that “the controversy raised by Essays and Reviews even distracted men for a time from the far more important issues raised by the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species.” A modern student of press reactions to Darwin found that Essays and Reviews received quantitatively more attention and concluded: “Darwin's book received decidedly less immediate attention in the press than the theological Essays and Reviews … [T]here is little doubt that science was no match for religion in the competition for public interest in Mid-Victorian Britain.” Had Essays and Reviews been published when first advertised in February 1859, or even when rescheduled in October, it, rather than the Origin of Species, would have been the major book of that critical year.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 50 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1994

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References

1. Quoted in Abbot, Evelyn and Campbell, Lewis, The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., Master of Balliol College, Oxford (New York, 1897), p. 291.Google Scholar Church had reviewed Darwin in a manner not condemnatory but disturbed: Guardian, 8 Feb., 1860, p. 134.

2. Stephen, Leslie, “Jowett's Life,” in Jowett's, BenjaminThe Interpretation of Scripture and other essays (London, 1906), p. xii.Google Scholar

3. Ellegård, Alvar, Darwin and the General Reader: the Reception of Darwin's Theory of Evolution in the British Periodical Press, 1859–1872 (Göteborg, 1958), pp. 27, 106.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., Moore, James R., The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A study of the Protestant struggle to come to terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870–1900 (Cambridge, 1979);CrossRefGoogle ScholarWilley, Basil, “Darwin and Clerical Orthodoxy,” in 1859: Entering an Age of Crisis, Appleman, P., Madden, W. A. and Wolff, M., eds. (Bloomington, Ind. 1959), pp. 51–62.Google Scholar Willey concludes that Scripture suffered most not from Darwin but from “theological liberals” such as the Essayists (p. 60).

5. This article is based on my research for a forthcoming book, Altholz, Josef L., Anatomy of a Controversy: The Debate over “Essays and Reviews,” 1860–1864, in which I study this literature.Google Scholar

6. This summary is drawn from my forthcoming work; see also Altholz, Josef L., “The Mind of Victorian Orthodoxy: Anglican Responses to Essays and Reviews, 1860–1864,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 51 (06 1982): 186–197;CrossRefGoogle Scholarreprinted in Parsons, Gerald, ed., Religion in Victorian Britain, Volume 4,: Interpretations (Manchester, 1988), pp. 28–40.Google Scholar

7. There is an analogy between Temple's ontogenetic argument and Darwin's evolution of species, which may have been perceived by scientists, but which was not mentioned in the debate over Essays and Reviews.

8. Jowett, Benjamin, “On the Inspiration of Scripture,” Essays and Reviews (London, 1860), p. 338.Google Scholar

9. Guardian, 2 Jan. 1861, p. 8.

10. Literary Churchman 7 (16 04 1861): 145.Google Scholar

11. In another essay, there is a passing allusion to the evolution of man as a possibility to which “it is a false policy to set up inspiration or revelation in opposition”: Jowett, , “Inspiration of Scripture,” p. 349.Google ScholarThis is noted by Ellis, Ieuan, Seven Against Christ: A Study of “Essays and Reviews” ([Leiden, 1980], p. 100), but seems not to have been mentioned in the debate.Google Scholar Ellis notes that another Essayist, Rowland Williams, privately deplored Darwin as materialistic. The most relevant Essayist, Goodwin, seems not to have read Darwin, as appears from: “unless time can effect transmutation of species, an hypothesis not generally accepted by naturalists.” Goodwin, C. W., “Mosaic Cosmogony,” Essays and Reviews, pp. 214–215.Google Scholar

12. For their correspondence, see de Beer, Gavin, “Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 14 (1959): 12–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarIn the “Historical Sketch” prefaced to the third edition of the Origin, Darwin acknowledged his debt to Powell and praised the “masterly manner” of his discussion of the species question: Darwin, Charles, On the Origin of Species, 3rd ed. (London, 1861), p. xviii.Google Scholar

13. Corsi, Pietro, Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800–1860 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPowell, Baden, “On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity,” Essays and Reviews, p. 139.Google ScholarOn Powell's “embrace” of Darwin, see Ruse, Michael, “The Relationship between Science and Religion in Britain, 1830–1870,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, 44 (1975): 505–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. See Altholz, Josef L., “Early Periodical Responses to Essays and Reviews,” Victorian Periodicals Review, 19 (Summer 1986): 50–56.Google Scholar

15. The date of aquisition stamped in the British Library copy is 10 October. Acquisition came generally four to six weeks after publication. Gresley, William, Idealism Considered, chiefly with reference to a volume of ‘Essay and Reviews’ lately published (London, 1860), p. 28.Google ScholarVestiges of Creation (1844), published anonymously by Chambers, Robert, was an amateur anticipation of evolution.Google Scholar

16. Moberly, George, Remarks on “Essays and Reviews”: Being the Revised Preface to the Second Edition of “Sermons on the Beatitudes” (Oxford, 1861). The second edition, with a preface dealing with Essays and Reviews, had been published in 1860.Google Scholar

17. [Harrison, Frederic], “Neo-Christianity,” Westminster Review, n.s. 36 (10. 1860): 326.Google Scholar

18. Savile, Bourchier Wrey, Revelation and Science (London, 1862), pp. vi, 209, 210, 217, 221.Google Scholar

19. In one case the authority cited was not in fact a scientist, but Wilberforce, Bishop Samuel of Oxford, whose anonymous article in the July 1860, Quarterly Review was hailed as “masterly” by the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 84 (06 1861): 524 n.Google Scholar

20. Anon., Scripture Miracles Vindicated (London, 1861), p. 34.Google ScholarThis was one of the Protestant Reformation Society tracts published by Blakeney, R. P. and Gumming, John.Google ScholarOwen was also cited in Lee, William, On Miracles (London, 1861), pp. 46–48, one of the High Church series Faith and Peace.Google Scholar

21. Garbett, Edward, The Bible and its Critics (London, 1861), pp. 350–351, the Boyle Lectures by the editor of the evangelical newspaper The Record.Google Scholar Garbett's other journal, the Christian Advocate, founded in 1861 chiefly to combat Essays and Reviews, published in its first number (April 1861) an anti-Darwinian article on “The Mystery of Life” by an unnamed scientist. Short pieces of “Darwiniana” were published in July and August.

22. Cowie, B. M., An Address on the Chief Points of Controversy between Orthodoxy and Rationalism (London, 1861), p. 22.Google Scholar

23. Davis, C. H., Anti-Essays (Nailsworth, 1861), p. 49 n., cites C. R. Bree.Google Scholar

24. Bullock, Charles, “Essays and Reviews.” The False Position of the Authors (London, 1861), pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

25. Hume, Charles, A Letter to a Friend on the Essays and Reviews (London, 1861), p. 15.Google Scholar

26. Robins, Sanderson, A Defense of the Faith (London, 1862), p. 111.Google ScholarRobins noted that Darwin had been anticipated by De Maillet and Lamarck, who had been disproved by Cuvier (p. 110). This was the characteristic argument of French anti-Darwinians: see Stebbins, Robert, French Reactions to Darwin, (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1965).Google Scholar

27. Carr, Edward Henry, Of Miracles (London, 1861), p. 18.Google Scholar Carr also cited Owen, “supposed to be the most distinguished interpreter of fossil remains now living,” against Darwin.

28. Griffin, John Nash, Seven Answers to the Seven Essays and Reviews (London, 1862), p. 120. Owen is also cited.Google Scholar

29. Pratt, John H., “Postscript,” Scripture and Science not at Variance, 4th ed., (London, 1861), pp. 1–2.Google ScholarIn a similar vein, “the absolutely unsustained and self-contradictory scheme of Mr. Darwin” was denounced by “S. T.,” “Modern Sceptical Writers—‘Essays and Reviews’,” Journal of Sacred Literature 13 (04 1861): 90. “S. T.” is probably Samuel Tregelles, a noted biblical textual scholar.Google Scholar

30. SirDenison, William, Remarks on “Essays and Reviews” (Madras, 1862), p. 66. Denison, an engineer officer, was governor of Madras and brother of Archdeacon Denison, a leader of the anti-Essayists.Google Scholar

31. Anon., Catholicity and Reason (London, 1861), p. 22.Google Scholar

32. Rorison, G., “The Creative Week,” Replies to “Essays and Reviews” (Oxford, 1862), p. 324.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., 2nd ed., pp. 517–518. Replies already contained supportive letters from the Radcliffe Observer and the reader in geology at Oxford.

34. C. A. Heurtley, “Miracles,” ibid., p. 157. Heurtley, an evangelical, was Lady Margaret professor of divinity at Oxford.

35. Huxtable, Edgar, The Sacred Record of Creation Vindicated and Explained (London, 1861), pp. 81, 79, 57–58.Google Scholar

36. “Dogma in Relation to ‘Essays and Reviews’,” Christian Remembrancer, 41 (04 1861): 466, 469.Google Scholar

37. Record, 3 May 1861, Supplement.

38. Baylay, Charles F. R., Essays and Reviews compared with Reason and Revelation (London, 1861), p. 32.Google Scholar

39. Burgon, John William, Preface, Inspiration and Interpretation (Oxford, 1861) p. xlviii.Google Scholar Other references to Darwin which are probably religious in their grounds are the nonconformist Evangelical Magazine, n. s. 3 (August 1861): 570 (“one of the essayists alludes kindly to the hypothesis of human development from brutal nature”), and the lay weekly London Review, 2 (19 01 1861): 70, in its review of Essays and Reviews.Google Scholar

40. Ainslie, Robert, Discourses on the ‘Essays and Reviews’ (London, 1861), p. 27.Google Scholar

41. Hughes, Thomas, Religio Laici (Cambridge, 1861), p. 27.Google Scholar

42. “Open Teaching in the Church of England,” Spectator, 7 04 1860, p. 332.Google Scholar

43. Quoted in Willey, , “Darwin and Clerical Orthodoxy,” p. 55.Google Scholar

44. Quoted in Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of his Life, ed., MrsKingsley, (New York, 1877), p. 337.Google Scholar

45. Hort to Ellerton, John, 3 04, 1860, in Hort, Arthur F., Life and letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort (London, 1896), p. 416.Google Scholar

46. The mental confusion is compounded by a peculiarly English usage of the word “refute” meaning simply to deny or contradict rather than to disprove by argument.

47. Guardian, 20 March 1861, p. 271, and 27 March 1861, p. 294, the latter noting that it “has been withdrawn.” There are slight textual differences between this and Huxley's copy (Imperial College, London, Huxley Collection 22.63),Google Scholarprinted in Religion in Victorian Britain, Volume 3, Sources, ed., Moore, James R. (Manchester, 1988), pp. 436–57, with a full list of signatories.Google ScholarSee also Ellis, , Seven Against Christ, p. 108.Google Scholar

48. The memorial was drafted by Sir John Lubbock and William Spottiswoode. J. D. Hooker and J. F. Herschel advised against publishing it. Brock, W. H. and Macleod, R. M., “The Scientists' Declaration: Reflexions on Science and Belief in the Wake of Essays and Reviews, 1864–5,” British Journal for the History of Science 9 (03 1976): 45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. The full text is in Ibid., p. 41.

50. Ibid., pp. 39–66. See also Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church, 2 vols. (London, 1966–1970), 2:7–8.Google Scholar