From the Darwin Correspondence Project via Thony Christie and Matthew Cobb, we have an exchange between Charles Darwin and an anxious believer, desperate to understand how she can comport evolution with her faith.
Mary Boole of London wrote Darwin in 1866, seven years after the publication of The Origin:
Dear Sir
Will you excuse my venturing to ask you a question to which no one’s answer but your own would be quite satisfactory to me.
Do you consider the holding of your Theory of Natural Selection, in its fullest & most unreserved sense, to be inconsistent,—I do not say with any particular scheme of Theological doctrine,—but with the following belief, viz:
That knowledge is given to man by the direct Inspiration of the Spirit of God.
That God is a personal and Infinitely good Being.
That the effect of the action of the Spirit of God on the brain of man is especially a moral effect.
And that each individual man has, within certain limits, a power of choice as to how far he will yield to his hereditary animal impulses, and how far he will rather follow the guidance of the Spirit Who is educating him into a power of resisting those impulses in obedience to moral motives.
The reason why I ask you is this. My own impression has always been,—not only that your theory was quite compatible with the faith to which I have just tried to give expression,—but that your books afforded me a clue which would guide me in applying that faith to the solution of certain complicated psychological problems which it was of practical importance to me, as a mother, to solve. I felt that you had supplied one of the missing links,—not to say the missing link,—between the facts of Science & the promises of religion. Every year’s experience tends to deepen in me that impression.
But I have lately read remarks, on the probable bearing of your theory on religious & moral questions, which have perplexed & pained me sorely. I know that the persons who make such remarks must be cleverer & wiser than myself. I cannot feel sure that they are mistaken unless you will tell me so. And I think,—I cannot know for certain, but I think,—that, if I were an author, I would rather that the humblest student of my works should apply to me directly in a difficulty than that she should puzzle too long over adverse & probably mistaken or thoughtless criticisms.
At the same time I feel that you have a perfect right to refuse to answer such questions as I have asked you. Science must take her path & Theology hers, and they will meet when & where & how God pleases, & you are in no sense responsible for it, if the meeting-point should be still very far off. If I receive no answer to this letter, I shall infer nothing from your silence except that you felt I had no right to make such inquiries of a stranger.
I remain | Dear Sir | Yours truly | Mary Boole
43 Harley Street | London W.
Decr. 13th. 1866
There are two footnotes here:
- Boole was the mother of five daughters. She was employed as a librarian in Queen’s College, Harley Street, London, the first women’s college in England. Although she had no formal teaching duties, she gave Sunday evening talks in which she discussed the relationship of different forms of knowledge. She was especially interested in the psychology of learning and her ideas on child psychology and learning were later taken up by educators in America.
- Boole may have come across the remarks on CD’s theory and religion while preparing her book, The message of psychic science to mothers and nurses (Boole 1883; for Boole’s discussion of CD’s theory, see ibid., pp. 33–43). In the preface to Boole’s Collected works (Boole 1931, 1: vii–viii), Ethel Dummer wrote that Boole’s book was a `series of talks to a group of London mothers who, finding their religion threatened by Darwin’s new theories, sought Mrs. Boole’s philosophic wisdom’. Although only published in 1883, Boole’s book was completed in 1868 (see Boole 1931, 1: 81).
Darwin’s attitude toward faith is, of course, a subject of intense speculation, particularly by religious people that want to claim him as a believer. It’s fairly clear that Darwin didn’t believe in a personal God, at least of the beneficent variety, for he couldn’t reconcile that with the palpable evil and suffering he saw in the world. At times he’d refer obliquely to a “creator” (as in some editions of The Origin), but I think that, in the end, Darwin was pretty much of an agnostic. (“Agnostic,” by the way, was a word coined by Darwin’s Bulldog: Thomas Henry Huxley). He didn’t accept any kind of intervening or personal God, but he never said explicitly that he didn’t believe in any god. That’s about as atheistic as you can get in those days.
But above all, Darwin didn’t want his theory, which he so desperately wanted people to accept, mixed up with Christianity, which could prevent that acceptance. Rather than try to reconcile these magisteria, or say that they were in conflict (that was Huxley’s job), Darwin simply made polite noises and punted. That’s evident in his response to Boole, penned the very next day (ah, for the British mail of yore!). He is, as always, perfectly polite:
Down. Bromley. Kent.
Decr. 14. 1866.
Dear Madam.
It would have gratified me much if I could have sent satisfactory answers to yr. questions, or indeed answers of any kind. But I cannot see how the belief that all organic beings including man have been genetically derived from some simple being, instead of having been separately created bears on your difficulties.— These as it seems to me, can be answered only by widely different evidence from Science, or by the so called “inner consciousness”. My opinion is not worth more than that of any other man who has thought on such subjects, & it would be folly in me to give it; I may however remark that it has always appeared to me more satisfactory to look at the immense amount of pain & suffering in this world, as the inevitable result of the natural sequence of events, i.e. general laws, rather than from the direct intervention of God though I am aware this is not logical with reference to an omniscient Deity— Your last question seems to resolve itself into the problem of Free Will & Necessity which has been found by most persons insoluble.
I sincerely wish that this note had not been as utterly valueless as it is; I would have sent full answers, though I have little time or strength to spare, had it been in my power.
I have the honor to remain dear Madam. | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin.
P.S. I am grieved that my views should incidentally have caused trouble to your mind but I thank you for your Judgment & honour you for it, that theology & science should each run its own course & that in the present case I am not responsible if their meeting point should still be far off.
In other words, Darwin wanted to wash his hands of the whole science-and-religion issue, but he wasn’t about to admit of a personal God. Note that he claims that a) the issue of free will is insoluble, b) there is no obvious meeting point between science and faith, c) the problem of conflict is not alleviating by saying that humans were created instead of evolved from simpler creatures, and d) the pain and suffering in the world are not consistent with an omniscient deity (he probably should have added “omnipotent and benevolent” as well).
While looking up Huxley, I found that despite his attacks on faith and on preahers, he himself seemed to be a bit of an accommodationist. This quote, from his The interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature (1885), could have easily been mouthed by Stephen Jay Gould. It’s the precursor of NOMA—that is, up to the very last word!
The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious — fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science – theology – with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance.
I expect that, in light of the above, someone (I can guess who) will fault me for admiring Huxley despite his accommodationism. All I can say is that I can admire someone despite their having views with which I disagree. Is that so hard to understand? And one can’t forget that word “ignorance” in Huxley’s quote, hanging there like an ironic exclamation point.
[EDIT: As poster thonyc points out below, this correspondence was ferreted out by J F Derry, author of Darwin in Scotland. He made the discovery whilst researching his forthcoming book The Dissent of Man, and his name got lost in retweeting and mailing – MC]
Also relevant is Darwin’s interaction with the campaigning atheist Edward Aveling.
As recounted by Darwin’s son, Francis Darwin: “Darwin had, toward the end of his life,
with the atheists Edward Aveling and Ludwig Buchner. Darwin asked them why they called themselves atheists. They replied that they neither denied nor affirmed God. Then Darwin gave what his son Francis
described as a ‘thoughtful response’, concluding, “I am with you in thought, but I should prefer the word Agnostic to the word Atheist.” When Aveling replied that ‘Agnostic’ was but ‘Atheist’ writ respectable, and ‘Atheist’ was only ‘Agnostic’ writ aggressive, Darwin “smiled and responded, ‘Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind? It is all very well for educated, cultured, thoughtful people; but are the masses yet ripe for it?”
Also, Aveling wrote to Darwin asking for permission to dedicate a book on atheism to him (Note, this is often falsely stated as a request from Karl Marx). Darwin’s reply included:
“Moreover though I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follow from the advance of science. It has, therefore, always been my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biased by the pain which it would give some members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion.”
(The last if of course a reference to Darwin’s wife Emma, who was a devout Christian, and who was pained by Darwin; lack of faith.)
“As recounted by Darwin’s son, Francis Darwin: “Darwin had, toward the end of his life,
with the atheists Edward Aveling and Ludwig Buchner.” – was something missing in that sentence? ‘an exchange’?
Yes, sorry, bad editing!
Actually, it is my information that Darwin’s wife was a Unitarian.
Unitarianism has traditionally been a Christian denomination. It still is in Transylvania. It is only since the 1960s in the US whn the Unitarians and Universalists merged that UUs have become more pluralistic.
Erasmus Darwin (Charles’ grandfather) remarked that Unitarianism was a featherbed to catch a falling Christian.
I took “ignorance” here to merely mean “not knowing” without any ‘spin’ intended by Huxley
I suspect otherwise. Regardless of how you construe the word “ignorance,” the sentence seems a tad pejorative to me.
It’s the use of the construction ‘content with..’ and ‘ignorance’ that I think makes it seem pejorative. Which may have been the intention.
Fascinating glimpse of a person struggling to come to terms with the developing understanding of the world & want to accept Science, but still struggling to fit the new evidence in with her personal beliefs. Also a typical Darwin response from what I have read of his correspondence.
Unfortunately Huxley never really got on with Natural Selection did he? He never allowed for its full consequences as the main process of evolutionary change. I admire Huxley immensely, but then I also admire Owen despite his hostility to the whole thing (but he seems to have been quite envious of others and allowed that to dominate what he accepted).
The provenance of Huxley’s coinage is interesting.
‘…I had the good fortune to find a place among the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists, long since deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or another; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of “agnostic.” It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the “gnostic” of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took; and when the Spectator had stood godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people, that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened was, of course, completely lulled.
That is the history of the origin of the terms “agnostic” and “agnosticism”; and it will be observed that it does not quite agree with the confident assertion of the reverend Principal of King’s College, that “the adoption of the term agnostic is only an attempt to shift the issue, and that it involves a mere evasion” in relation to the Church and Christianity.’
From “SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION” 1889 (ha!)
It’s kind of the opposite of Neil deGrasse Tyson, who eschews isms of all stripes. 🙂
all organic beings including man have been genetically derived from some simple being
Is that a typo for “generically”? It could just about make sense using the “of origins” meaning of the word “genetic”, but it’s a bit of a stretch.
I think it must be mustn’t it? Wasn’t ‘gene’ first used in the early 1900s?
Wasn’t ‘gene’ first used in the early 1900s?
Yes. But in Darwin’s day the word “genetic”, derived from “genesis”, meant “pertaining to origins” . . . which is why I said it was just about possibly correct!
Oh, hang on: Just noticed Mike Di Paola’s comment below. So it is correct!
Well, I’ve learnt something new today . . .
Gene is Danish – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Johannsen
From Online Etymology Dictionary:
genetic
“pertaining to origins,” coined 1831 by Carlyle from Gk. genetikos “genitive,” from genesis “origin” (see genus). Biological sense first recorded in Darwin, 1859. Related: Genetically. Genetical is attested from 1650s.
Blimey! I never knew it has that long a history of use
In Roman society, one’s “Gens” was IIRC one’s family-just-beyond-the-immediate bloodline, cousins, second-, third-, n’th- cousins etc.
So, the various “gen-” words have a very long Latin usagge in relation to matters of inter-relatedness.
By the time you’re back in the 1600s, pretty much everyone who could read and write had at least some degree of familiarity if not fluency in Latin, regardless of their native tongue, so the etymology of the words gets really fuzzy before then.
It’s sort of like trying to work out the cladistics of a network of related objects when the early members had extensive horizontal gene transfer ; applying a node-and-leaf topology really doesn’t fit the actuality.
Oh, the browser is working now ; it heard me bitching!
OED online, which I think is most reliable has this –
With respect to genesis, origin, or development.
1800 T. Churchill tr. J. G. Herder Outl. Philos. Hist. Man vii. 180 The parts that first grow black in him are evident signs, that the miasma of his change, which the external air merely devolopes, acts genetically [Ger. genetisch].
a1856 W. Hamilton Lect. Metaphysics (1860) IV. xxiv. 13 Only those notions can be genetically defined, which relate to quantities represented in time and space.
1869 J. D. Baldwin Pre-hist. Nations (1877) iii. 91 Genetically related dialects and forms of speech constitute one family group.
1883 A. Roberts O.T. Revision xii. 269 Our Authorised Version is genetically connected with all the previous English versions.
Then this meaning –
Originally: as regards breeding or heredity. In later use: as regards genes; by the agency of genes; according to genetics.
1902 W. Bateson & E. R. Saunders Rep. Evol. Comm. Royal Soc. I. 134 An organism can be strictly defined as genetically pure if all its gametes when united with similar gametes reproduce the parent identically.
1912 Science 17 May 763/1 There are also two genetically distinct types of ‘eye’, the data concerning the inheritance of which have recently been published.
My favorite Huxley quote (1863):
“So far as I can venture to offer an opinion on the matter, the purpose of our being in existence, the highest object that human beings can set before themselves, is not the pursuit of any such chimera as the annihilation of the unknown; but it is simply the unwearied endeavour to remove its boundaries a little further from our sphere of action.”
This is somewhat like Newton’s picking up pebbles on the sea shore while the great ocean remains unknown. Both Huxley and Newton set boundaries for themselves with the unknown “out there”. They do not consider the possibility that their knowledge may be represented by a myriad of islands that cover the ocean. This raises the possibility that one might indeed become aware of “the big picture.”
Yes, Virginia, there are non-overlapping magisteria.
So the discoverer if the most important concept of the 19th Century – and possibly ever – was a warm gentleman as well. What a great exchange.
Charles Darwin was such a lovely person that even his worst enemies liked him.
Trying to juxtapose today’s religous values on people who lived hundreds of years ago is a futile endeavor. They were not living in a society that had any tolerance at all for atheism. We still have discrimination today but not to the extent that people in the 19th century had to live under. I’m also sure that their opinions would be different if they were present today and were witnessing the ignorance that has infested today’s society as a result of religion. Either way who is to say which side of the gulf they would full on.
Around the time that Darwin wrote OTOoS, most of the laws concerning banning Catholics from public office were recently taken off the statute books, Disraeli was in the process of winning the right for Jews to enter Parliament (the sticking point was that there was an oath to the Xtian god involved in swearing alleigance to the queen ; Disraeli got them to accept a personal affirmation in place of the religious oath) ; however in the 1880s they were still banning avowed atheists (Charles Bradlaugh, MP for Northampton) from taking their seats solely on the grounds of their atheism, and despite their willingness to make an affirmation of loyalty.
It wasn’t modern society ; but it wasn’t wildly unrecognisable either. It’s rather comparable to modern American society, AFAICT.
The footnote fails to point out that Mary Everest Boole was the niece of George Everest who led the Great Survey of India for over thirty years and after whom Mount Everest is named and that she was also the wife of the mathematician George Boole the creator of Boolean algebra the fundament of both computer software and hardware.
That footnote is borderline ridiculous. She’s been deemed important enough to have her own Wikipedia page!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Everest_Boole
She seems to have had a remarkable number of scientists and mathematicians, many female, descended from her.
The Boole family tree is indeed very impressive scientifically
In all fairness it should be pointed out that the Boole/Darwin correspondence was originally discovered by J F Derry author of Darwin in Scotland whose name somehow got lost in a series of retweets. He made the discovery whilst researching his forthcoming book The Dissent of Man
I expect that, in light of the above, someone (I can guess who) will fault me for admiring Huxley despite his accommodationism.
JAC is speaking in puzzles. Enlightenment?
Alas, im not hip enough to know what NOMA is.
In the age of Google, nobody should want for factual information anymore.
Stephen Jay Gould made a (not very convincing) case that Science and “Religion” could be considered as “Non-Overlapping Magesterial Authorities”, “NOMA”.
Science is authoritative in it’s domain : nuts, bolts, (in the words of Douglas Noel Adams), the wheel, New York, wars and so on.
“Religion” is authoritative in it’s domain : touchy-feely, life-after-death, why god allows wars and (again, after D.N.A.) mucking around in the seas having a good time.
If those two areas of authority don’t overlap, then there’s no reason for conflict between Science and “Religion”. Similarly, there is no reason for conflict between the non-overlapping authorities of Auchtermuchty Town Council in Scotland and the Ulan Bataar Yak Parking Council in Mongolia.
Where NOMA falls down is that Science is steadily encroaching on areas that “Religion” considers to be it’s magesterium (e.g. origin of humans ; consciousness and the [non-]existence of free will) while “Religion” has always considered some parts of Science’s magesterium to be it’s territory (e.g. what is over the horizon, can X be built, how to cure any specified disease). So, although NOMA has a superficial appeal to someone wanting to avoid a fight, it was stillborn and it’s health has worsened since then.
I assume there’s a Wiki article on this, but I like to think how to answer this sort of question for myself. It’s not that I find them intelectually interesting (the “he’s dead, Jim” school of mourning), but they do come up regularly, and it’s useful to have your ideas straight so you can present them succinctly (see Bone’s medical prognosis above).
Great write-up!. thanks gravelinspector!
I would also point out that SJG was himself, an atheist.
Very likely so (IMHO ; I don’t recall him mentioning it, but I’ve not read any of his stuff for years.), but not relevant. The NOMA pipe of peace is broken on the rational realist grounds I described earlier, regardless of the opinion of the night chef on the importance of garlicking snails, or indeed of any of the views SJGould held before he died. Once it’s broken (on realistic grounds), it need not be considered further – there being more important things to do.
“psychological” – that would probably be one of the earlier uses of that word in a recognisable modern context. I think.
Reading Boole’s letter, I got thedistinct impression that she was expectingsomething a bit more fulsome and congratulatory from Mr. Darwin — praise for the clever insight into how beautifully his theory meshes with her motherly instict and piety, perhaps. She’s doing the “poor little me” act a bit too much for my taste. And it doesn’t sound to me like she’s asking a real and honest question, either. She’s practically feeding him the answer she wants and expects from him.
I must be in an uncharitable mood.
§
This is my favourite bit, which would you rather, facts or promises?