Darwinism as religion: what literature tells us about evolution

329 Pages·2017·1.96 MB·English

by  Michael Ruse

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Darwinism as Religion
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Darwinism as Religion
What Literature Tells Us About Evolution
MICHAEL RUSE
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Ruse, Michael.
Title: Darwinism as religion : what literature tells us about evolution / Michael Ruse.
Description: [Oxford]; New York : Oxford University Press, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015048181 | ISBN 9780190241025 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: English literature-1 9th century- History and criticism. |
Literature and science- Great Britain- History. | Religion and
literature- Great Britain- History. | Evolution (Biology) in literature. |
Nature in literature. | Religion in literature. | Religion and science. |
Darwin, Charles, 1809– 1882- Influence.
Classification: LCC PR878.E95 R87 2016 | DDC 820.9/ 356- dc23 LC record available at
http:// lccn.loc.gov/ 2015048181
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
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For my children:
Nigel
Rebecca
Emily
Oliver
Edward
“Happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them.”
“In all civilised countries man accumulates property and bequeaths
it to his children.”
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Prologue xv
1. The Eighteenth Century 1
2. Before Darwin 18
3. The Darwinian Theory 43
4. Reception 59
5. God 82
6. Origins 102
7. Humans 114
8. Race and Class 128
9. Morality 148
10. Sex 167
11. Sin and Redemption 192
12. The Future 208
13. Darwinism as Background 222
14. Darwinian Theory Comes of Age 237
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15. The Divide Continues 252
16. Conflicting Visions 266
Epilogue 281
Bibliography 285
Index 299
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PREFACE
In 1873, some fourteen years after Charles Darwin had published his Origin of
Species and two years after the Descent of Man appeared, a perceptive if unsym-
pathetic critic wrote of Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin’s self- styled “bulldog”:
He has the moral earnestness, the volitional energy, the absolute con-
viction in his own opinions, the desire and determination to impress
them upon all mankind, which are the essential characteristics of the
Puritan character. His whole temper and spirit is essentially dogmatic
of the Presbyterian or Independent type, and he might fairly be de-
scribed as a Roundhead who had lost his faith. He himself shows the
truest instinct of this in calling his republished essays ‘Lay Sermons.'
They abound, in fact, with the hortatory passages, the solemn personal
experiences, the heart- searchings and personal appeals that are found
in Puritan literature. (Baynes 1873, 502)
That insight is one end of the Thread of Ariadne that leads to the center of this
book. I argue that evolutionary thinking generally over the past 300 years of its
existence, and Darwinian thinking in particular since the publication of the two
great works mentioned above, has taken on the form and role of a religion. One
in opposition to the world system, Christianity, from which in major respects it
emerged. “Religion” is a somewhat elastic term, and I do not claim that evolu-
tionists are committed to a god-h ypothesis, or to a formal hierarchical system—
although amusingly and perhaps revealingly in the popular press Darwin’s
supporter was known as “Pope” Huxley. But I shall argue that in the way that
evolution tries to speak to the nature of humans and their place in the scheme
of things, we have a religion, or if you want to speak a little more cautiously a
“secular religious perspective.”
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