influence upon geology and evolution in 18th and 19th century Britain

by Andrew Sibley

The first part to this paper showed how, in 18th century France, the influence of non-scientific factors encouraged belief in deep time and a rejection of the Noahic deluge. There was a prior commitment, through Cartesian methodology, to remove the testimony of Scripture from science, and to prefer fallible human inductive inferences. There was also misrepresentation of the geological evidence where it supported Scripture; a growing preference for deep time and evolution, that partly stemmed from Eastern religions; and growing political agitation for revolution. This paper discusses, albeit briefly, how these influences from France shaped beliefs in Britain during the 18th century, specifically through the work of David Hume, Erasmus Darwin and James Hutton. Then it will be considered how these 18th century beliefs were re-shaped by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin for 19th century consumption. The link to France was seemingly written out of the narrative, and the overt paganism was removed, while retaining the flawed naturalistic methodology that arbitrarily rejected biblical testimony. As part of this process a slow and silent attack was used against Christianity to avoid causing open offence, that is until after the publication of Darwin’s Origins.

As discussed in part 1, through the early 18th century in France a belief in deep time gradually developed amongst parts of elite French society, and this fed into the belief that an evolutionary process had shaped life on Earth.1 This development has been described by Lovejoy as the ‘temporalization’ of the Aristotelian concept of a Great Chain of Being.2 It became more pronounced in the middle and latter part of the 18th century. With the placement of this chain within the context of deep time, acceptance of a directly created and designed hierarchical order was undermined. Lovejoy suggests Buffon, Diderot, and Jean Baptiste Robinet3 were major contributors to this change in France, but evidence presented in part 1 shows it extended back to Fontenelle and De Maillet.

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