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DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT.
BY
FREDERICK MILLAR.
ISSUED FOR THE
London
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET St.
1
Price One Penny.
��DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT.
Previous to the year 1859 the state of scientific opinionupon the process of development of the organic world,
was one of chaos; men of science were groping in thedark. Everyone who rejected the special creation hypo
thesis found himself in the curious predicament of being,
unable to propose anything in the shape of a theory
which would be acceptable to reasoning minds. Tothe question asked of the Rationalist by the believer in
special creation, “ What have you to propose that can.
be accepted by any cautious reasoner ?” no satisfactory
answer could be given. Professor Huxley says that in
1857 he had no answer ready, and he does not think
any one else had.
*
Darwin came, and there was light. -- From his quiet
Kentish home he launched upon an astonished world
“ The Origin of Species.” The book was a beacon fire,
dispelling the darkness and guiding the benighted.
Throughout the world it shone, illumining the minds of
men with rays of scientific thought.
- During the thirty years which have elapsed since the
publication of “ The Origin of Species”—since the phi
losophy of Evolution presented itself as claimant to,
and seated itself upon, “ the throne of the world of
thought ”—a most remarkable and far-reaching change
has taken place in the religious views of the thinking
section of Christendom. Indeed, history affords no
parallel to the great revolution in religious thought which
has been effected by Darwinism. But yesterday the
creation story in Genesis was accepted even by educated
�2
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
men as unquestionably true; to-day it is regarded as an ex
ploded legend. But yesterday a belief in the government
of the world by a special providence received an all but
universal consent; to-day it is rejected by every thought
ful man as a worthless dogma. But yesterday the timehonoured argument from design in nature satisfied the
majority of thinking people; to-day, in the light of the
law of natural selection, it completely fails to do so.
But yesterday God was conceived to be a terrestrial
potentate who governed the world in accordance with
his own caprice, who moved
“....... in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform,”
and who listened to and answered prayer; to-day God
is the inscrutable power by which “ planets gravitate
and stars shine,” who moves in fixed and immutable
natural laws, and who heeds neither the cry of the
oppressed and the down-trodden, the starving widow
and her orphans, nor the death agony of the countless
millions of creatures who perish annually in the in
exorable struggle for existence which is going on in the
animal world.
It is quite true that many persons, indeed the majority,
calling themselves religious continue to believe in the
superstition and the dogma which Darwinism has ex
ploded. By far the larger proportion of those who make
up the various sects and denominations in Christendom
are of the unthinking class. Born of Christian parents
in a country where Christianity is the popular religion,
they are Christian for just the same reason that they
would have been Mohammedan had they been born in
Turkey, Brahman if in Hindustan, Confucian if in
China. Their so-called belief in the Christian faith is
due solely to geographical antecedents, and not to any
well-reasoned conviction. They never think, study, or
inquire for themselves, but remain content in their own
ignorance, and satisfied with their own credulity. Those
of their co-religionists who do think for themselves inev
itably become heterodox upon most, if not upon all, of
the points of Christianity. And nothing has had such a
vast and stimulating effect upon the minds of the
thoughtful members of Christian sects, nothing has so
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
3
largely contributed t© the swelling of the ranks of hete
rodoxy, as the theory discovered and popularised by
Darwin, and which bears his name.
Anterior to Darwin the belief that species were realities,
that the various forms of animal and plant life had
always been as distinct and separate as they are now,
and that all originated by special creation, was held
firmly on every hand. Man was regarded as a creature
apart by himself; and the human family was believed
to be a separate family. Christians believed that, at
a period not more remote than six thousand years,
Jehovah, the tribal deity of the Jews, had devoted a
week to creating all things. He said, “ Let us make
man ;” and he made man “ of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man
became a living soul.” To disbelieve the account of
creation given by Moses was at once a crime and a
blasphemy, punishable by imprisonment, at one time
death, in this world, and eternal damnation in the next.
But what a change has taken place ! The whole scien
tific and literary world, which held a belief in special
creation in common with the religious world, even the
whole educated public, now accepts, says Dr. Wallace,
“ as a matter of common knowledge, the origin of species
from other allied species by the ordinary process of
natural birth. The idea of special creation or any alto
gether exceptional mode of production is absolutely
extinct.”*
Man and all the higher forms of life upon our globe
are simply the modified descendants of lower forms.
The belief that man was created in the image of God,
that he was aboriginally placed at the top of the organic
scale, and that God gave to him dominion over the
whole animal world, can no longer be held by anyone
who desires to be considered educated. The relation
of man to what is vulgarly termed the brute creation has
been so conclusively established as to completely dispose
of every argument advanced in favour of his divine
origin. “ The mode of origin,” says Professor Huxley,
“and the early stages of development of man are
* “ Darwinism,” p. 9.
�4
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
identical with those of the animals immediately below
him in the scale.” The essential features of agreement
between the structure of man’s body, the close corres
pondence of his blood, muscles, nerves, the struc
ture of his heart, its veins and arteries, his lungs
and his whole respiratory and circulatory systems, with
those of other mammals; the fact that his senses are
identical with theirs, and that his organs of sense are the
same in number and occupy the same relative position ;
*
the possession of rudiments of organs which are fully
developed in other mammals ; the fact of certain diseases
being common to man and other mammals, and that
medical treatment produces precisely the same effect
upon us as upon them, thus showing that our whole
nervous system is the same as theirs :f these, and a
thousand and one equally striking facts given by Darwin,
point to but one conclusion—that man, together with
the animals which are most nearly allied to him, have
descended from a common ancestor.
Seeing that Darwinism deliberately cancelled the theo
logical dogma of creation founded upon the story in
Genesis, it would have been strange indeed had not
those who were paid to defend it, and the creed of which
it is the foundation, assailed it in a manner consistent
with the traditions of their cloth. The historic foes of
truth did just that which one would expect of them
in the circumstances. Powerless to deal with Darwin
in true Christian fashion—to throw him into a dungeon
as their predecessors did Galileo, or to burn him at the
stake as in the case of Giordano Bruno—powerless to con
fiscate and burn his book, the representatives of mental
darkness had to content themselves with making every
pulpit in Christendom ring with yells of pious derision.
For discovering the law of natural selection, for proving
the animal origin of man, Darwin was denounced as a
fool and a blasphemer, in just the same way as was
Galileo for teaching that the world was round, and that
it moved, in opposition to the sanctified ignorance of
the Church of Christ, which proclaimed that the world
* Wallace’s “ Darwinism,” pp. 445, 446.
+ “ Descent of Man,” p. 7.
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
5
was flat and stationary. As Huxley says, the priests
and parsons eked out lack of reason by superfluity of
railing. The case of the curate who was overheard
roundly abusing Darwin and all his works, and who was
gsked if he had read “ The Origin of Species,” or had
taken the trouble to make himself acquainted with the
theory he abused, replied, with clasped hands and the
whites of his eyes turned in the direction of the empty
part of his head, “ No; and I pray to God that I never
shall,” is a good sample of Darwin’s clerical opponents.
But the yelling and the railing have long ceased.
Confronted by unmistakeable evidence that Darwinism
was being accepted by all educated people—by all who
had brains to think and judgment to decide for them
selves—its impotent priestly detractors thought it best
to see if it were not possible for them to go with the
tide, and to patch up their exploded creed in such a
manner as to enable them to maintain their dominion
over the heads and the pockets of the masses of the
people. They have now taken refuge in one of two
courses, says Huxley : they either deny that Genesis
was meant to teach scientific truth, and thus save the
veracity of the record at the expense of its authority; or
they expend their energies in devising the crude in
genuities of the reconciler, and torture texts in the vain
hope of making them confess the creed of science. But
when the peine forte et dure is over, the antique sincerity
of the venerable sufferer always re-asserts itself. Genesis
is honest to the core, and professes to be no more than
it is—a repository of venerable traditions of unknown
origin, claiming no scientific authority, and possessing
*
none.
There is no getting away from the fact that Darwinism
has completely exploded the Christian creed. Upon the
story in Genesis of man’s creation and fall rests the
whole superstructure of the popular religious faith of
Europe. The veracity of that story has been impeached,
and all history and scientific analogy point to its falsity,
.and stamp it as a mere interesting legend, having no
* Vide Huxley’s chapter, “ On the Reception of ‘ The Origin of
Species,”’ in “ Darwin’s Life and Letters.”
�6
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
further value than to illustrate the manner in which
men in the childhood of the human race explained the
mystery of existence. Take away the story in Genesis,
and the Christian creed becomes at once a huge and ludic
rous imposture. This fact,'however, is far from being
generally realised, even by Darwinians themselves. The
writer recently met with a typical illustration of this;
An enthusiastic disciple of Darwin was still a member
of the sect of Wesleyans, and a regular attendant at.
a Wesleyan chapel. On the manifest incongruity of
Wesleyanism and Darwinism being pointed out to him
—when it was explained to him that, the story of the
creation and the fall of man being false, therefore the
sacrifice of Jesus as an atonement for a sin which was
never committed became a farce, he exclaimed : “ Good
heavens! what a fool I have been not to realise this
before.” And the following week there was a pew to
let in the Wesleyan chapel at which he had been an
attendant and a worshipper.
It is only by grasping the full significance of Darwin
ism that its bearing upon Christianity can be understood.
There are thousands to-day attending so-called places of“
worship and calling themselves orthodox Christians who,
if they would only put this and that together, so to
speak, and compare their scientific convictions with their
theological preconceptions, would find themselves in
the same position as the gentleman referred to above;
Take the case of Darwin himself.
He tells us that during the years 1836 to 1839 he
*
was led to think much about religion. When on board
the Beagle he was quite orthodox. But he gradually
came to see that the Old Testament was no more to be
trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. The
question continually arose in his mind, and would not
be banished: Is it credible that, if God were now to
make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it
to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, etc., as
Christianity is connected with the Old Testament?
This appeared to him incredible. By further reflection
upon the matter he saw that the clearest evidence would
* “ Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,” vol. i., pp. 304-317.
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. ■
7
be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles
by which Christianity is supported, and that the more
men knew of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible
miracles became. He saw that the men who wrote the
Bible were ignorant and credulous to a degree ; that the
gospels upon which the Christian Church placed so
much reliance could not be proved to have been written
simultaneously with the events; and that they differed
in many important details—far too important, it seemed
to him, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye
witnesses. And by such reflections as these, he adds,
“ I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a
Divine revelation.”
It may be well to point out here that the oft-repeated
statement, that Darwin was an Atheist, is untrue. There
is not the smallest ground upon which to justify such a
statement being made. Darwin was never an Atheist,
in the sense of denying the existence of a God. His
attitude towards the question of God was identical with
that of all the leading men in science and philosophy of
the present century : it was Agnostic. “ The mystery
of the beginning of all things is insoluble to us,” said
he; “ and I, for one, must be content to remain an
Agnostic.” He had no sympathy with the intellectually
unsustainable theory of Atheism, and said : “ An Agnostic
would be the most correct description of my state of
mind.” Again : “ The whole subject of the existence
of God is beyond the scope of man’s intellect; but man
can do his duty.”
Darwinism is not Atheistic, as it is often alleged to
be. It is not even antagonistic to Theism, except in so
far as it exposes the absurdity of the theological aspect
of that theory. Moreover, it may be urged that Dar
winism, although essentially Agnostic in regard to the
nature and attributes of God, is distinctly Theistic in
character, inasmuch as Darwinians, with few and for
the most part unimportant exceptions, hold that the
process of evolution is the way in which God (the in
scrutable power which the universe manifests to us) has
made things come to pass, and has brought forth man
as the highest and noblest specimen of its handiwork.
The effect which Darwinism has had upon the central
�8
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
and vital point of Christianity—the immortality of man’s
soul—is enormous. Theology and metaphysics, both
regarding man as a special creation, as a being with a
distinct nature and attributes, had done something more
than merely affirm the immortality of the soul: they
had insisted upon it as the greatest of facts. That God
had revealed a future life for man was no more doubted
than was the veracity of the multiplication-table.
But in this belief Darwinism does not share. Regard
ing man in his real character, as a highly-developed
animal, whose moral and intellectual attributes are
simply the result of evolution, Darwinism holds out not
even the shadow of a hope that there is anything in
the shape of a conscious existence beyond the grave.
Indeed, the trend of scientific thought upon the question
is distinctly in the direction of declaring the doctrine of
a future life to be at once inconceivable and insup
portable.
There are, it is true, many believers in Darwinism '
who refuse to accept what is called the Materialistic view
of man’s destiny—that the life of the soul ends with the
life of the body. Assuming a purpose in the world—
and the assumption is one not necessarily incongruous
with the doctrine of Evolution—they refuse to believe
that the work which has been done in evolving man
“has been done for nothing;” they refuse, as Professor
Fiske puts it, “ to regard the Creator’s work as like that
of a child who builds houses of blocks, just for the
pleasure of knocking them downand, although they
admit that, for aught Science can tell us, it may be so,
yet they “ see no good reason for believing any such
thing.”*
It must not be understood that Darwinism sanctions
a denial of the immortality of the soul. It only renders
it impossible to dogmatise upon either one or the other
side of the question. As for a revelation, that may be
dismissed as no longer worthy of serious argument, or
of the attention of serious minds. But “ as for a future
life,” says Darwin, “everyman must judge for himself
between conflicting vague probabilities,” No one can
* “ Man’s Destiny,” p. 114.
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
9
reasonably object to a man believing in the immortality
of the soul (that is to say, believing that he believes in
the immortality of the soul; for belief properly so-called
in such a thing is absolutely impossible) so long as he
does not insist upon his “belief” being regarded as
anything more than a mere act of faith. The attitude
of the intellectual mind upon the question must ever
remain one of agnosticism.
If Darwinism has robbed man of his hope in a future
life, it has more than compensated him in that it has
given to him a higher hope and a deeper interest in the
present life. It has effectually disposed of the theo
logical dogma of man’s fall—a dogma which was a
wretched libel on humanity; and it has convinced
man that he is a risen and not a fallen creature, a re
generate and not a degenerate being. It has made him
feel that human progress is not a miserable sham, but a
grand reality; and it has shown to him a nobler view of
human existence, and given to him the promise of a
higher destiny in the future.
This essay ought not to close without reference being
made to the new conception of morality introduced by
Darwinism. Morality is so closely identified with re
ligion, if indeed it may not be regarded as inseparable
from religion (using the term “ religion ” in its widest
sense), that it would be strange if the totally-changed
conception of man’s place in nature should not have
produced along with it a corresponding change in man’s
conception of conduct.
The theological conception of morality, a conception
■which was general before the Darwinian era, was that all
human conduct must be regulated in accordance with
the will of a supposed Deity as declared in the Bible.
All mankind were inherently depraved in consequence
of Adam, the first man, disobeying Jehovah’s command.
And the conduct of every man and woman must be
directed, not towards pleasing themselves, not towards
their own happiness, but towards pleasing and gratifying
the Deity who would reward good conduct by everlasting
felicity, and punish bad conduct by eternal misery. A
man was not exhorted to lead a righteous life because
it was to his earthly interest to do so, but because
�IO
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
righteousness was pleasing in the eyes of the Deity.The same crude ideas of morality and conduct still'
obtain among certain unprogressive religious sects.That portion of the Christian community which believesin moral and religious progress on the lines of Rational
ism has long since abandoned such, as being at once'
childish and incongruous with the established facts of
science and history.
That Christianity exercises an enormous influence in
the interests of morality cannot be denied. There are
hundreds of thousands of men and women living in our
midst to-day the outward morality of whose lives isentirely due to the fact of their minds being under the
influence of Christian dogma. The bribe of an eternal
Paradise on the one hand, and the threat of everlasting
damnation on the other, restrain these men and women
from following their own evil inclinations and adopting
the vices of society. And there can be no doubt that,in the absence of such restraint, the criminality in this
and other civilised lands would be considerably greater
than it is at present. But, while admitting all this, it
remains to be said that the position taken up on the
general question of morality and religion by certain
writers of eminence, who protest that the cancelling of
theological dogmas, and the substitution of a Rationalist
philosophy in the place of a supernatural faith, are
certain to undermine and overthrow morality, is one
w’hich is both absurd and untenable. Morality does
not depend on the acceptance of theological dogmas, or
on a belief in a particular phase of religious faith, but
on the very laws and conditions of life; and while the
observance of these laws and conditions continues it
matters little, if anything, what the religious or theo
logical bias of mankind may be. The laws which govern
the moral life are as eternal and immutable as those
which govern physical being; and in just the same way
as a breach of physical law results in pain or in death,
so also a breach of moral law results in unhappiness and
evil.
Darwinism has placed the whole question of human
conduct upon a firm and comprehensive basis. It has
revealed man in his real character as a social animal,
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
11
explained how his progenitors became social, and has
shed a flood of light upon the origin and development
of man’s moral sense or conscience.
*
Moral science
has enabled us to determine with exactness and preci
sion how and why certain conduct is good and certain
other conduct bad. (Good conduct consists in a
course of action which results in the well-being and
happiness of the individual and of the race; bad
conduct consists in a course of action which results
in evil and pain.) It has defined morality as being a
condition which makes social life possible, and it has
enabled us to deduce from the laws of social life and
the conditions of social existence what kinds of action
necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds
to produce unhappiness.f Happiness, considered as
the ultimate aim of human life, has been made more
possible of realisation by the new conception of morality
which Darwinism has introduced. And while the theo
logical dogma of man’s inherent depravity, and his
inability to do good without the help of a Deity who
cursed the human race, has been finally disposed of,
science has clearly demonstrated man’s capacity for
virtue and for moral progress, and has made it possible
to accept as a logical certainty that not only the moral
but also the physical and mental perfectibility of man
will eventually be attained.
There are, of course, those, preferring to dwell in the
realms of illusion and unreality rather than give credence
to the teachings of science, to whom the immeasurable
effect which Darwinism has had upon religious thought
will ever appear as a matter for deep lamentation. But
to thinking men and women, to those who are prepared
to fearlessly embrace the truth and to conform to the
realities of human life, it must always be a subject
for great rejoicing. The theological libel, of man’s hope
less degeneracy, has been exposed and exploded; and
the clarion voice of Science has proclaimed that man
has risen—risen from barbarism to civilisation, from
*
“Descent of Man,” pp. 97-127.
+ Vide Herbert Spencer’s letter to J. S. Mill in Bain’s “ Mental
and Moral Science,” pp. 721, 722.
�12
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT,
ignorance to enlightenment, from depravity to culture.
And while the past history of man has been revealed to
us, and the present life has been rid of the doubts and
the fears which for ages had overshadowed it, we have
been afforded a glimpse of the hopeful future that
lies before our race. Just as we believe that the
present generation excels in moral dignity and intel
lectual grandeur the generations that preceded it, so
must we believe that, assuming the human race con
tinues and the conditions of life remain the same, future
generations shall excel all that precede them. As
Emerson has said, we are but at the cockcrowing of
civilisation. The day of Humanity has hardly dawned.
In the great light of its glorious noontide, when the
brute inheritance will be finally thrown off, and when
manhood and womanhood shall be developed in all
their fullness and in all their beauty, then will the
religion of human love and human duty, to which the
intellectual movement of the present century has given
birth, find a living utterance in every heart and in everv
mind.
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Darwinism and religious thought
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Millar, Frederick [1865-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Issued for the Propagandist Press Committee. Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. 'The blasphemy depot'. Publisher's advertisements on back cover. Advertisement for the Propagandist Press Committee and the Liberty of Bequests Committee inside back cover. inside back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1891]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N487
Subject
The topic of the resource
Evolution
Religion
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Darwinism and religious thought), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Darwinism
Evolution-Religious Aspects-Christianity
NSS