Introduction

In A.N. Wilson's novel "God's Funeral", she writes "the nineteenth century had created a climate for itself -philosophical, politico-sociological, literary, artistic, personal - in which God had become unknowable, His voice inaudible against the din of machines and the atonal banshee of the emerging egomania called 'The Modern' (12) As its titles portray, both Darwin's "Origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man" seemed to emphasize the universe as entirely without purpose, a view that is difficult to coincide with a moral or religious belief. As a result, many Victorians such as Carlyle and Marie Corelli struggled with the ramifications of what this 'emerging world' meant: these fears materialized into an almost Dostoevskian vision ("The Possessed") which saw society as undergoing increasing demonic possession. This blog explores this conceptualization of modern society: both in the Victorian era and also to what extent these 'prophetic' visions can be realized in today's world.

Darwin: His Legacy

In the late 1850s, Darwin was on the verge of publishing "The Origin of Species", an accumulation of his work during the preceding 25 years. Darwin was aware of the fact that the metaphysical implications of his work were hostile to Christian faith. While his own beliefs had changed slowly, he was sensitive to the strong orthodox beliefs of his wife (Wilson, 184). Wilson points out that Darwin's own views were like many of his age: "The Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of Hindoos' not only because of its 'false history of the world' but because of its 'attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant" (qtd. in Wilson, 184).

In "The Origin of Species" Darwin states:

" I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgement of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained — namely, that each species has been independently created — is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species."

Darwin espoused that all organic life forms including man have slowly evolved over generations from various different forms: this idea is hard to reconcile with the myth of Adam and Eve, of man in God's image and living out a preordained path. Darwin repeatedly emphasized, both in " The Origin of Species" and later in "The Descent of Man", that man is no different from an other organic life form on earth, survival for him is 'survival of the fittest' just as it is for any other living matter:

"The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of the porpoise, and leg of the horse, -- the same number of vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, -- and innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with slow and slight successive modifications."

While it may seem that Darwin reduced all living things to merely variating forms of matter, as A.N. Wilson points out in "God's Funeral" Darwin truly distinctive contribution to the nineteenth century world-view was not actually to promote 'materialism' but to 'remove the necessity for a metaphor of purpose' (188). Wilson shows how plenty of scientists and philosophers had already contributed a materialistic view of the world, essentially what Darwin did is he removed the need to personalize the conception of natural history:

"There was no need to pretend that Natural Selection had a view of things, or loved the world, or the people in it, any more than it had once loved amoebas or brontosauruses. The bleak impersonal chain of being rolled on with the inevitability of the other 'laws of nature': there was absolutely no need, if this was an accurate picture of what happened in nature, to posit the existence of a 'Creator" (Wilson, 188)


Wilson, A.N. God's Funeral: A Biography of Faith and Doubt in Western Civilization Ballantine Publishing Group, New York, 1999.

Darwin killed the Genesis not the Deity

If Darwin utterly destroyed the foundation of orthodox religion in 'proving' that the there was no great destiny for man; that essentially man is no different than his fellow creatures in nature and that the Genesis myth is false, is it therefore inclusive that he disproved God, or for that matter, Satan?

Darwin: Progress as Productivity?

In Chapter 5 of The Descent of Man, Darwin had some very interesting things to say about his view on the progress of civilizations:
(link to above)

"It is, however, very difficult to form any judgment why one particular tribe and not another has been successful and has risen in the scale of civilisation. Many savages are in the same condition as when first discovered several centuries ago. As Mr. Bagehot has remarked, we are apt to look at the progress as normal in human society; but history refutes this. The ancients did not even entertain the idea, nor do the Oriental nations at the present day. According to another high authority, Sir Henry Maine, "The greatest part of mankind has never shewn a particle of desire that its civil institutions should be improved."* Progress seems to depend on many concurrent favourable conditions, far too complex to be followed out. But it has often been remarked, that a cool climate, from leading to industry and to the various arts, has been highly favourable thereto. The Esquimaux, pressed by hard necessity, have succeeded in many ingenious inventions, but their climate has been too severe for continued progress. Nomadic habits, whether over wide plains, or through the dense forests of the tropics, or along the shores of the sea, have in every case been highly detrimental. Whilst observing the barbarous inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, it struck me that the possession of some property, a fixed abode, and the union of many families under a chief, were the indispensable requisites for civilisation."

What does Darwin mean exactly by ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’. He seems to see ‘savages’ as less civilized because of their lack of contribution to the ‘arts’ or ‘sciences’. English society is, in Darwin’s eyes, the highest level of superiority and progress because of what it has achieved by greater industry and production.

If human progression is based on natural selection: if “it is the selection of the slightly better-endowed and the elimination of the slightly less well-endowed individuals, and not the preservation of strongly-marked and rare anomalies, that leads to the advancement of a species”, then why is this natural selection not effective in the colder climate of the ‘Eskimo’? In Darwin’s view, natural selection has allowed the Eskimo ‘ingenious inventions’ but since the climate held back their ‘industry’, they are considered low on the ‘scale of civilization. Here, Eskimos and other ‘savages’ have not achieved ‘civilization’ because of their lack of industry and property. Progress does not seem to be judged on moral terms or even ‘survival of the fittest’ but on the measured productivity of a particular race.

As A.N. Wilson points out in "God's Funeral", Darwin's 'best endowed' seem to be the 'most ruthless', it is definitely not the meek that shall inherit the earth! Wilson asks "Was this Darwin the naturalist speaking?" Or Darwin the grandson of one of the most famous and successful of capitalists, Josiah Wedgewood - inventor, social climber, aesthete, potter, businessman of genius, who did not allow the loss of a leg in early life to prevent his magnificent, exuberant, energetic rise through society." (emphasis chosen by blog author)

It is an interesting question that perhaps can never be answered but Wilson effectively draws a parallel through Darwin's Natural Selection and the interests of Capitalism.

Wilson, A.N. God's Funeral: A Biography of Faith and Doubt in Western Civilization Ballantine Publishing Group, New York, 1999.

Are We 'The Children of the Victorians'?

A.N. Wilson makes a very interesting comment on Darwin's legacy in todays world:

"By discovering the molecular structure of D.N.A. (1953), Watson and Crick really wrote the final paragraph of the story begun by Wallace and Darwin a hundred years earlier. We could now see, beyond reasonable argument, how it worked; how Darwin's intuition was right, and that all life is related, and could - or, more than could, does - derive from a common source.
One suspects that the question of origins - with which this whole matter has been concerned since Darwin published his most famous book in 1859, with that word in its title - betrays a mistaken picture of the kind of information science could pass on to us. It has been noticeable that once they stop their fascinating analyses of how and begin to attempt to formulate to why, the scientists seem every bit as clumsy as the most amateurish theologians, either falling back on the imagery of science-fiction, with J.B.S. Haldane vision of life climbing out of 'the primordial soup', or succumbing to Francis Crick's own touching but lame view (he is a non-believer in God, one should hasten to say) that 'the origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to be satisfied to get it going'. These days even the most hard-nosed materialists, if they get themselves into conflict with the religious, find themselves wanting to say how awe-struck they are by the complexity and wonders of nature, and end up sounding like Louis Armstrong with his 'wonderful world'.
This is the one area of life where, more than in any other, we seem the children of the Victorians." (179)

What Wilson seems to be saying is that we, like the Victorians, seem to have a desperate need to answer the question of 'why are we here?'. We as human beings are always search for the meaning of our existence. We can try map the path of life to that moment in time when it all began but we will still have no clear answer as to why. Yet what unites science and religion is the search for those answers. Though science may espouse a universe without purpose, a natural history with no First Cause, the random, 'just is' type of mentality still fails to fully answer the question 'why', or at least satisfactorily. In a sense, perhaps it because of the answer is so unsatisfactory: to accept an existence without reason or purpose is, for many of us, like Carlyle said; to accept a future without Hope. It is a dreary, mundane world that we are left with, something that even most scientists do not truly want to accept. Instead they search for that missing ingredient so necessary to a love of life; that 'awe' and wonder of nature that perhaps,was best expressed in the works of Wordsworth:
" For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."
(Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 1978, stanza 3)

It seems, without this sense of something sublime, entirely possible for the universe to become as Carlyle described "void of all Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: It was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. O, the vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the Living banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God?" (The Everlasting No, 88-9).

Carlyle, Thomas Sartar Resartus : The Everlasting No 1838, qtd in
Buckler, William E. Prose of the Victorian Period Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1958.

Wilson, A.N. God's Funeral: A Biography of Faith and Doubt in Western Civilization Ballantine Publishing Group, New York, 1999.

Darwin and "The Descent of Man" : Thought's on 'Human Nature'

What is 'Human Nature'?

Does such a thing exist? Can we use such a term to generalize the habits and attributes of all human beings? Do all human beings even share the same or similar attributes?

In the Victorian Era, John Stuart Mill "On Nature" explained how the words nature and natural had become so entangled with foreign meaning and association, so foreign from the actual meaning of the words that they became sources of false philosophy and worse, false morality. What are laws of Nature? One could propose that a fairly reliable law could be that all animal life needs air and food to sustain it or perhaps the law of gravity. But can we assign any fixed conditions to human behavior? Mill's view of common use of the term Human Nature is that it often tends to refer to ethical behaviour rather than actual behaviour: the way human beings should act over the way they actually do. Any mode of thinking, feeling, or acting that is considered 'according to nature ' is usually accepted as a strong argument for its goodness.

However, Mill's view of real Nature was not the ideal standard to which human morality should be attributed, but a cruel world without mercy or discrimination in which all animals are tortured, or murdered and are (shudder) dirty. Mill stated "Conformity to nature, has no connection with right and wrong." (Buckler, 340) It is irrational to connect the two for "all human action whatever, consists in altering, and all useful action in improving, the spontaneous course of nature" (Buckler, 342). Moreover it is immoral because anyone who actually acted in accordance to nature would end up acting as the 'wickedest of men'. Nature is instinct, whereas society is man's control over instinct.

This is interesting in how it relates to what Darwin said in the The Descent of Man: http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/chapter-04.html

"My object in this chapter is to shew that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties"...
Darwin continues to explain that most of the mental faculties that many men ascribe to only human beings actually also exist in many animals:

"All have the same senses, intuitions, and sensations,- similar passions, affections, and emotions, even the more complex ones, such as jealousy, suspicion, emulation, gratitude, and magnanimity; they practice deceit and are revengeful; they are sometimes susceptible to ridicule, and even have a sense of humor; they feel wonder and curiosity; they possess the same faculties of imitation, attention, deliberation, choice, memory, imagination, the association of ideas, and reason, though in very different degrees."

He goes on to include the attributes of progressive development, language, a sense of beauty and even a belief in God as something that man shares with his fellow animals. Overall, man is essentially no different from his fellow animals in Nature. In fact, even animals have moral capabilities.

What is interesting is what Darwin prescribes about some of the more persistent human attributes:

"* Enmity or hatred seems also to be a highly persistent feeling, perhaps more so than any
other that can be named. Envy is defined as hatred of another for some excellence or success; and Bacon insists (Essay ix.), "Of all other affections envy is the most importune and continual." Dogs are very apt to hate both strange men and strange dogs, especially if they live near at hand, but do not belong to the same family, tribe, or clan; this feeling would thus seem to be innate, and is certainly a most persistent one. It seems to be the complement and converse of the true social instinct. From what we hear of savages, it would appear that something of the same kind holds good with them. If this be so, it would be a small step in any one to transfer such feelings to any member of the same tribe if he had done him an injury and had become his enemy. Nor is it probable that the primitive conscience would reproach a man for injuring his enemy; rather it would reproach him, if he had not revenged himself. To do good in return for evil, to love your enemy, is a height of morality to which it may be doubted whether the social instincts would, by themselves, have ever led us.

At the moment of action, man will no doubt be apt to follow the stronger impulse; and though this may occasionally prompt him to the noblest deeds, it will more commonly lead him to gratify his own desires at the expense of other men."

Here, Darwin states that hatred is only natural, for why would you love someone who does you wrong? The edicts of Christianity such as 'love thy neighbor' and 'turn the other cheek' hardly seem in keeping with Darwin's dog eat dog kind of world.

Darwin does go on to say that it is likely that man will feel remorse after committing an act against a neighbor, because he wishes the good opinion of his other fellow men. However, one wonders if that is necessarily remorse or simply the appearance of it in order to secure one's place in society.

In addition, there is also the more troubling question of whether the society itself is unchanging in its moral structure. For example, what happens when you have a society, not unlike today, where self-serving, individualistic attitudes are embraced and even celebrated? Many modern day celebrities or businessmen could be viewed in this light. Today, a person that goes after what they want, is aggressive and domineering (sometimes even to the point of injuring others) is often celebrated as successful and a go-getter.

It seems as though Mill and Darwin were saying very different things. Mill was saying that we are better for going against nature, every action that is sane and progressive in human beings is so because it deviates from a 'natural' path. Darwin seemed to say that all animals show some degree of human attributes, including morality. Human beings are no different than other animals in nature, other than perhaps being slightly more complex due to the evolution of our race as a whole (our society).

Today's world could be seen as everything Mill celebrated, or at least the western world with its extreme cleanliness, its advances in medical care, technology and industry. Yet in our efforts to increase technology and industry, we have had almost completely disregard for the preservation of Nature, the results of which are the loss of species, destruction of natural resources and a looming environmental collapse. One wonders what Darwin, or for that matter Mill, would say about progress and Human Nature now.

Religious or Irreligious: The Devil In Thomas Carlyle's "Everlasting No"

A question that can be brought forward after reading Thomas Carlyle’s “Everlasting No” is, if the narrator has renounced his belief in God, and embraced free will or defiance and indignation then why does he feel the need to profess his hatred of the Devil, who presumably does not exist? In other words, if one does not believe in God, does it then follow that they do not believe in the devil, or vice versa?

This is a very open question, and must be narrowed down in order to shed light on the subject. Carlyle writes, “Full of religion, or at least of religiosity as our Friend has since exhibited himself, he hides not that, in those days, he was wholly irreligious: “Doubt had darkened into Unbelief,” says he; “shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, till you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black” (Carlyle 86). It seems that he has lost all hope; he states that he is wholly irreligious; however, it seems that he has not renounced the negative aspects of religion, but the positive components (ie. God, his light, and all the positive aspects that he represents). This is a point of view that is common in today’s society also. People constantly ask questions like “if God truly exists, then why are there so many terrible events that take place everyday?” In this shade of understanding, NE is not irreligious; rather, he has simply given up all hope in the world.

In addition, perhaps the narrator is utilizing the devil as a metaphor for misery, and as a result, he may in fact be irreligious. He has denounced God and all that is positive in the world, and if he is “wholly irreligious” as the reading illustrated, then it would follow that his only remaining belief or ‘truth’ is all that is miserable in the world, which is not necessarily the product of the devil. Carlyle explains later that people’s belief or need of religion is more a means to justify their actions or the actions of others: “Faith is properly the one thing needful; how, with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; and without it, Worldlings puke-up their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxery” (86). This corroborates the statement that he is wholly irreligious.

On the other hand, the reader could also come to the conclusion that NE is not traditionally devout or irreligious, rather worships the devil as his ‘idol’. Though on first appearance this may lead one to believe that he is not religious, but in fact he is just not religious in the traditional sense (ie. If you believe in any form of God, then you are considered religious). Nevertheless, by blaming the devil the NE is unequivocally religious as belief in the devil or whatever God you may believe in, is the essence of religion.

There are valid points to be made confirming NE as both religious and irreligious. My opinion is that NE is not religious and the devil references do not make him so. The devil is a metaphor for misery only, and in the narrator’s depressed state, he believes in nothing more than the constant misery of the world.