What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe

Author:Daniel Walker Howe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OXFORD University
Published: 2007-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

49. William Paley, Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (Boston, Mass., 1831), 19–38. For context, see John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion (Cambridge, Eng., 1991), 192–225; D. L. LeMahieu, The Mind of William Paley (Lincoln, Neb., 1976), 153–83.

50. Quotation from John C. Greene, “Protestantism, Science, and the American Enlightenment,” in Benjamin Silliman and His Circle, ed. Leonard Wilson (New York, 1979), 19; idem, The Death of Adam (New York, 1961), 23. See also Chandos Brown, Benjamin Silliman (Princeton, 1989), the first volume of a projected two.

1844, anticipating Darwin’s theory of evolution, he still argued that evolution was compatible with intelligent design. The scientific community rejected this theory of evolution until Charles Darwin supplied a theory of natural selection to explain how it worked. But Louis Agassiz of Harvard, the renowned discoverer of past ice ages, defended the theory of special creation even after Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859. His Harvard colleague botanist Asa Gray led the American fight to accept the theory of evolution, but argued (contrary to Darwin’s own opinion) for evolution’s compatibility with intelligent design.51

The early nineteenth century distinguished two branches of science: natural history (biology, geology, and anthropology, all then considered mainly descriptive) and natural philosophy (physics, chemistry, and astronomy, more mathematical in nature). Scientific activity in the United States emphasized natural history, the collection of information about flora, fauna, fossils, and rocks. Exploring parties like those of Lewis and Clark in 1804–6, Army Major Stephen Long across the Great Plains in 1819–23, and Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes through the Pacific in 1838–42 contributed to this knowledge. Many scientists were actually amateurs who earned their living in other ways, frequently as clergymen, physicians, or officers in the armed forces. Science figured in the standard curriculum of both secondary and higher education, and the subject enjoyed a broad base of interest in the middle class. Science, like technology, benefited from the improving literacy and numeracy of nineteenth-century Americans. Popular magazines carried articles encouraging interest in the natural history of the New World. The perceived harmony between religion and science worked to their mutual advantage with the public. As the industrial revolution reflected the ingenuity of innumerable artisans, so early modern natural history profited from the dedicated curiosity of many nonprofessional observers and collectors— women as well as men.52

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