Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 The Origin of the Origin
- 2 Darwin’s Analogy between Artificial and Natural Selection in the Origin of Species
- 3 Variation and Inheritance
- 4 Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection and Its Moral Purpose
- 5 Originating Species: Darwin on the Species Problem
- 6 Darwin’s Keystone: The Principle of Divergence
- 7 Darwin’s Difficulties
- 8 Darwin’s Geology and Perspective on the Fossil Record
- 9 Geographical Distribution in the Origin of Species
- 10 Classification in Darwin’s Origin
- 11 Embryology and Morphology
- 12 Darwin’s Botany in the Origin of Species
- 13 The Rhetoric of the Origin of Species
- 14 “Laws impressed on matter by the Creator”? The Origin and the Question of Religion
- 15 Lineal Descendants: The Origin’s Literary Progeny
- 16 The Origin and Political Thought: From Liberalism to Marxism
- 17 The Origin and Philosophy
- 18 The Origin of Species as a Book
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - “Laws impressed on matter by the Creator”? The Origin and the Question of Religion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2009
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 The Origin of the Origin
- 2 Darwin’s Analogy between Artificial and Natural Selection in the Origin of Species
- 3 Variation and Inheritance
- 4 Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection and Its Moral Purpose
- 5 Originating Species: Darwin on the Species Problem
- 6 Darwin’s Keystone: The Principle of Divergence
- 7 Darwin’s Difficulties
- 8 Darwin’s Geology and Perspective on the Fossil Record
- 9 Geographical Distribution in the Origin of Species
- 10 Classification in Darwin’s Origin
- 11 Embryology and Morphology
- 12 Darwin’s Botany in the Origin of Species
- 13 The Rhetoric of the Origin of Species
- 14 “Laws impressed on matter by the Creator”? The Origin and the Question of Religion
- 15 Lineal Descendants: The Origin’s Literary Progeny
- 16 The Origin and Political Thought: From Liberalism to Marxism
- 17 The Origin and Philosophy
- 18 The Origin of Species as a Book
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In November 1859, on the brink of publication and eagerly anticipating the reaction of the naturalists he most respected, Darwin confided to Alfred Russel Wallace: “If I can convert Huxley I shall be content” (Correspondence, 7: 375). A month later he had apparently succeeded, reporting that Huxley “says he has nailed his colours to the mast, and I would sooner die than give up, so that we are in as fine a frame of mind… as any two religionists” (Correspondence, 7: 432).
The conversion to which Darwin referred was not to an atheistic or materialistic worldview. His goal had been more modest: to corroborate the view that species were mutable and that to explain their appearance it was unnecessary to invoke separate acts of creation. The use of religious language is, however, revealing and was not confined to the metaphor of conversion. Belief in the transmutation of species was described as heretical, as when Darwin thanked Huxley for being “my good and admirable agent for the promulgation of damnable heresies” (Correspondence, 7: 434). After receiving “unmerciful” admonition from his old Cambridge friend Adam Sedgwick, Darwin described himself as a “martyr” (Correspondence, 7: 430). As in religious communities, so in the scientific: Darwin exploited personal testimony.
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- The Cambridge Companion to the 'Origin of Species' , pp. 256 - 274Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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