Evolution and the Victorians : Science, Culture and Politics in Darwin’s Britain

"Charles Darwin's discovery of evolution by natural selection was the greatest scientific discovery of all time. The publication of his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, is normally taken as the point at which evolution erupted as an idea, radically altering how the Victorians saw themselves and others. This book tells a very different story. Darwin's discovery was part of a long process of negotiation between imagination, faith and knowledge which began long before 1859 and which continues to this day. Evolution and the Victorians provides historians with a survey of the thinkers and debates implicated in this process, from the late 18th century to the First World War. It sets the history of science in its social and cultural context. Incorporating text-boxes, illustrations and a glossary of specialist terms, it provides students with the background narrative and core concepts necessary to engage with specialist historians such as Adrian Desmond, Bernard Lightman and James Secord. Conlin skilfully synthesises material from a range of sources to show the ways in which the discovery of evolution was a collaborative enterprise pursued in all areas of Victorian society, including many that do not at first appear "scientific"."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Cover-Page -- Half-Title -- Series -- Dedication -- Title -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of illustrations -- Timeline -- A note on currency -- Introduction: 'I think' -- Darwin's problem with species -- Evolution after Darwin -- Playing Huxley's game -- PART ONE The Longest Discovery, 1750-1870 -- 1 Natural theology -- Revolutionary appetencies -- Malthus and population -- The invisible hand -- Phrenology and the constitution of man -- 2 Comparative anatomy -- Lamarck and Cuvier -- Crossing the channel -- Reforming the British Museum -- The Owenite settlement -- The Bridgewater Treatises -- 3 Writing The Origin -- The voyage of HMS Beagle -- Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology -- Mental rioting -- Vestiges of Creation -- Alfred Russel Wallace -- 4 Reading The Origin -- 'One long argument' -- Darwin's bulldog -- The Descent of Man -- A Darwinian revolution? -- PART TWO Lines of Descent, 1850-1914 -- 5 Christian evolution? Charles Kingsley's 'natural theology of the future' -- The apostle of the flesh -- The fairyland of science: The Water-Babies -- Reproduce, rinse, repeat -- Dogmatic atheism versus agnosticism -- 6 Imperial evolution? 'Greater Britons' and other races -- Absence of mind? -- Enlightenment and Emancipation -- The Morant Bay rebellion -- Ethnology or anthropology? -- Escape or extinction? -- 7 Progressive evolution? Herbert Spencer, social science and 'Social Darwinism' -- Springs of action: Childhood and youth -- Statics and kinetics -- The laws of development -- Man Versus the State -- The Social Science Association -- Uncle Lenny and British eugenics -- 8 Domestic evolution? Making a home for science -- Reading and rambling -- The Sydenham dinosaurs -- Treasuring and teaching -- 9 Sustainable evolution? Alfred Russel Wallace and the Wonderful Century -- Spiritualist science -- Foundations of agnosticism