The early part of the nineteenth century was conspicuously a theological age in England and America. Religious beliefs were sharply defined, and had changed little since the Reformation. Personal salvation was the keynote of religion. Right or wrong, religious dogma played a large part in the life. The authority of the Bible was accepted; it was acknowledged to be an inspired book, from Genesis to Revelation; any doctrine that could be supported by texts from the Bible was bound to be given consideration. Sunday was rigidly observed; churchgoing was universal. Communion was celebrated monthly. Family worship was conducted in every home. Faith in a personal God was very real; the reality of heaven and hell was doubted by none except skeptics and atheists, who were regarded with horror.
The liberalism of the French Revolution came into America but slowly. Up to 1823 atheist writers were liable to prosecution. The influence of the French and American Revolutions upon religious life was largely held in check by the Great Awakening that occurred during the early part of the nineteenth century. The years from 1800 to 1845 were known as a period of religious revival. In 1810 the first foreign mission was established. Religious fervor culminated in the advent movement begun by William Miller in 1831. All over the world the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation were preached, and multitudes expected to see the return of Christ to this world.
French rationalism was in the meantime steadily gaining ground, and in 1835 German. Biblical criticism was "exploded" upon America. Thus the literalism of the Adventists and the liberalism of the skeptics developed simultaneously. When the Adventists were disappointed in the spring and again in the autumn of 1844, there was a sudden revulsion of feeling, and the critical influences in theology rapidly replaced the attitude of implicit faith that had characterized the advent movement. During the fifteen years between the "disappointment" and the publication of the "Origin of Species" in 1859, the Protestant churches became practically converted to the critical interpretation of theological questions.
A study of the factors leading up to the acceptance of Darwin's theories reveals two other conditions besides the one just mentioned. Summarizing them all, we have: (1) the rejection of literalism, as already explained; (2) the growth of uniformitarian ideas; and (3) the great array of evidence presented by Darwin in favor of natural selection. The latter two we should notice in some detail before we continue with the historical phases of the subject.
The idea of uniformity in natural forces had been growing for two or three centuries preceding Darwin, but it remained for Sir Charles Lyell of England to offer to the world what seemed to be convincing evidence. In 1830 he published his "Principles of Geology." From that time onward the catastrophic view rapidly gave way to the uniformitarian; and by the time of Darwin the scientific world was ready to accept a natural explanation of the origin of species, inasmuch as they had become practically committed to the idea of a uniform progression of natural phenomena in the geological field.
As to the third point, the evidence presented by Darwin in favor of natural selection, we must recognize the fact that the public mind was in a receptive state. The psychology of the masses made the acceptance of the theory easy. Scientific and industrial advance had undermined religious and social life to such a point that a revolution was bound to come. Darwin's "Origin of Species" came as a psychological coup d'etat that removed the last great objection to the acceptance of the uniformitarian cornerstone upon which the modern evolutionary theory has been built. Whetham says:
"Converging streams of evolutionary thought —cosmological, anatomical, geological, and philosophic—which, blocked by the prejudice in favor of the fixity of species, were yet collecting deeper and deeper behind the dam. Darwin's great torrent of evidence in favor of natural selection broke the barrier with irresistible force."—"History of science," p. 297.
When the theory of natural selection was thrown open for discussion at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, on June 28, 1860, it was plain that a theological rather than a scientific debate was to take place. Bishop Wilberforce and several others of the clergy who had scientific standing were on the platform. Huxley had reluctantly consented to attend, and to him the champions of Darwin looked for support.
The debate was a complete victory for the advocates of evolution. Wilberforce could only appeal to ridicule, directing his principal arguments against the idea of ape ancestry of man. Huxley's cool logic was invulnerable, and the dogmatism of the theologians fell fiat.
Church authorities held out for a while against the new ideas, but a complete collapse of the theological opposition to Darwinism was not long in coming. Aided by the powerful agnosticism of Haeckel and Huxley, free thought won its way rapidly, and in 1887 Huxley triumphantly said that theologians had ceased to oppose evolution; they either denied the reality of Genesis or tried to reconcile it with evolution.
The theologians lost their fight against Darwinism for two reasons: In the first place they did not know what they were fighting, and could not match scientific argument with scientific. They tried to drown scientific facts under a flow of rhetoric, and as is always the case, they failed. The chief objections to Darwin's theories were the anthropological implications; the clergy objected to the idea of animal ancestry. Being so attentive to this point, they overlooked the logic and cumulative proofs of the theory of natural selection, and made practically no impression upon the theory as a whole. They wasted their strength charging the windmills of ape ancestry, while the real lines of argument in regard to the factors and methods of selection were overlooked by them completely.
I do not mean to imply that the question of ape ancestry is not an important one. It is. But it was not the question at issue in 1860, and all the arguments of the clergy were directed at this point, leaving Darwin's evidence in regard to the origin of species by natural selection entirely untouched. Its victory swept away the last vestiges of scientific objection to evolution, and eventually the idea of ape ancestry became an integral part of the whole theory. The loss of the argument in 1860 left the proponents of the divine origin of man with no standing in the scientific world.
The second reason why the theologians lost their fight in 1860 is of more interest to us than the first. The Reformation was based on the Bible as an inspired book, and with this went a literal interpretation of the Genesis record of creation. But by the middle of the nineteenth century the growth of geological ideas had forced many of the theologians to revamp their views in regard to the days of creation; and when Darwin introduced his theories, the clergy were very much at sea as to the interpretation to put on the book of Genesis. They had no consistent line of argument, and could not present a united front to what they felt to be destructive elements in the new ideas.
As Haeckel put the case, there were only two logical views: (1) mechanistic, denying the existence of God; and (2) vitalistic, involving a special creation. Holding as they did to the vitalistic views, the clergy looked upon the evolutionary views of Darwin as rank heresy. But they had themselves virtually accepted all the elements of the mechanistic interpretation, for in 1844 they rejected the literalism of the advent movement, and had introduced critical scholarship into their theology. In other words, they had introduced the scientific method of dealing with theological questions, which they preferred to the dogmatic method of proving questions by reference to the authority of the Bible, and being on the same basis as the scientists, they had to meet them in their own way.
Much more detail might be given if space permitted, but these few facts will bring to our minds the point that the liberalism of the churches has been their downfall. The rejection of the literalism of the advent message in 1844 left the Protestant churches with no protection against the great modern apostasy that the evolution philosophy has brought in. The "fall" of Babylon portrayed in Revelation 14 is not only a spiritual fall, but also a theological fall of major significance. By their rejection of the literal interpretation held by the Adventists, the other Protestant churches cut themselves off from the possibility of faith in the literal return of Jesus to this earth, and opened the way for a full acceptance of the evolutionary philosophy with all the erroneous ideas that it embodies.
Angwin„ Calif.
Bibliography
Bacon, L. W., "A History of American Christianity," 13 vols., 1897. Christian Literature Company, New York.
Darwin, F., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," 1889. Appleton, New York.
Harris, G., "A Century's Change in Religion," 1914. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
Robertson, I. M., "A History of Freethought in the Nineteenth Century," 1929. Watts, London.
Sweet, W. W., "The Story of Religions in America," 1930. Harpers, New York.
Ward, H., "Charles Darwin," 1927. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis.
Whetham, W. C., "A History of Science," 1929. Cambridge University Press.
