{"id":236,"date":"2019-05-09T04:30:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T04:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/?p=236"},"modified":"2019-05-09T04:31:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T04:31:34","slug":"ballarats-response-to-darwins-evolution-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/05\/09\/ballarats-response-to-darwins-evolution-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballarat\u2019s response to Darwin\u2019s Evolution Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Darwin<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCast away all doubt suggested by reason [and pursue] a thorough belief in the assurance contained in the text and a faith in the spirit by which all prayers will be heard and answered.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rev. C Clarke of London, Dawson Street Baptist Church, Ballarat, June 1869\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLife needs something living to produce it; the beginning of life here on this earth must mean that there was life somewhere before. \u00a0We are content.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rev. William Henderson,\u00a0Presbyterian\u00a0minister, Ballarat, 1882\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Charles Darwin published the\u00a0Origin of the Species<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a01859\u00a0he had endured much self-doubt and personal torment over many years at the\u00a0polarizing\u00a0nature of his theory and\u00a0its religious and spiritual implications.<\/p>\n

Whilst not the first scientist to elaborate a theory of evolution or \u201ctransmutation\u201d of species from a common origin, his\u00a0Origin of the Species<\/em>\u00a0was unique for its readability and\u00a0popularity with the public beyond the scientific community. Even\u00a0hostile reviewers\u00a0had to concede its \u201chosts of facts and charming diction\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many of us are familiar with the fall-out that followed its publication in London and on the world stage\u2026.but what was the response a little closer to home, in Melbourne and Ballarat?<\/p>\n

Out of the frying pan and into the fire<\/h3>\n

For Australian society, Origin of the Species\u2019<\/em> release came hot on the heels of the exciting free-for-all that was the gold rush and within a few short years of the formative and bloody conflict at Eureka.\u00a0So, into a heightened mood of social turmoil, Darwin\u2019s big idea added yet more grounds for doubt that threatened to chip away at the religious and social status quo.<\/p>\n

Following a global trend, Australians were engaging with new ideas in the realm of spirituality and religion. \u00a0Freethinkers’ and Spiritualist organizations were drawing in supporters. \u00a0Amateur science was popular in a new mood of enquiry and popular education, spurred on by the building of schools, free libraries and mechanic’s institutes.<\/p>\n

Members of the Ballarat District Book and Tract Society, in June 1869, bemoaned the influence of books of a \u201cnot only trashy, but..positively immoral nature being published at the present time.\u201d\u00a0 They committed themselves to \u201cthe work of disseminating pure literature, especially among the young.\u201d<\/p>\n

When H.S. Earl, a famous American evangelist, visited Ballarat in 1865, 800-1000 people crowded the Mechanics\u2019 Institute on Sturt Street to hear him speak.\u00a0 American spiritualists touting the wonders of mesmerism and s\u00e9ances, drew crowds hundreds-strong in regional centres like Bendigo and Castlemaine.<\/p>\n

Newspapers of the day regularly advertised scientific exhibitions, lectures on geology, zoology, botany and astronomy and fossil-hunting expeditions.<\/p>\n

When the Darwin controversy unfolded in Melbourne, the universities were the main players, but the topic drew commentary from all levels of society.<\/h3>\n

Sir Henry Barkley, then Governor of Victoria [1856-1863] chaired a public lecture on the question of evolution, whilst Frederick McCoy, head of the National Museum (today’s Melbourne Museum) procured three gorillas for the museum and emphasized \u201chow infinitely remote the creature is from humanity\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the University of Melbourne, in July 1863, a professor of anatomy, George Halford, delivered a lecture entitled \u201cThe terminal divisions of the limbs of man and monkeys\u201d. \u00a0In this lecture Prof Halford set about trying to prove that there were significant osseous and muscular differences between the make-up of human feet and what he termed \u201cthe lower extremities of the monkey tribe\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the weeks following Halford\u2019s lecture the evolution debate was the focus of leading articles and letters to the editor in both The Age<\/em> and The Argus<\/em>, with the two papers taking opposing positions on the question.\u00a0 The Argus made use of a favourite debating technique of pro-evolutionists by commenting that Halford \u201csavours far more of the original gorilla than the improved anthropoid\u201d.<\/p>\n

Personal accusations flew back and forth between letter-writers and commentators, culminating in accusations that Professor Halford had turned on a visitor to his lab \u2013 \u201cscalpel and forceps in hand\u201d \u2013 believing him to be the writer of letters to The Argus<\/em> under the pen name \u201cOpifer\u201d, which were scathingly critical of Halford.<\/p>\n

It seems, reassuringly, that anonymous \u201ckey board warriors\u201d and trolls are not solely\u00a0 recent phenomena of the online world. The Darwin debates provide evidence that bitter running battles in the Letters to the Editor pages were just as acrimonious – and anonymous to boot –\u00a0 150 years ago!<\/p>\n

The debate in Ballarat<\/h3>\n

Whilst in Melbourne the Darwin debate was very much a scientific one centred on the university, in Ballarat the debate went to the heart of concerns about God, man and morality with the debate firmly in the hands of church leaders and the religious.<\/p>\n

The evolution question was thrust into the position of leading news in early and mid-1867 following a lecture on \u201cThe Philosophy of Creation\u201d, delivered in February of that year in the Ballarat Mechanics\u2019 Institute, by the visiting Reverend Alfred Henderson.\u00a0 The lecture, which seems to be an example of creationist geology was well-received and described as an \u201cintellectual treat\u201d by admirers, but when a local Reverend (another Reverend Henderson) of the St Andrew\u2019s Presbyterian church, offered up a \u201cmild protest on behalf of the Darwinian theory of the origin of the species\u201d a passionate public debate was sparked.<\/p>\n

The second Reverend, a certain Rev William Henderson, argued that one\u2019s acceptance or rejection of evolution theory had \u201cnothing at all to do with a man\u2019s Christianity or theology\u201d and described Darwin\u2019s theory as \u201cbeautiful but insufficient\u201d giving evidence of God having worked \u201daccording to order and by law\u201d as opposed to the notion of \u2018spasmodic\u2019 creation.<\/p>\n

The Reverend A. Henderson expressed astonishment that a fellow Christian minister would apply the term \u2018spasmodic\u2019 to the Divine operation and accused Rev W. Henderson of misrepresenting his arguments on Darwinism.<\/p>\n

\"Rev<\/a>
The Rev William Henderson, portrait by James Swinton Diston, c1906. Housed at Clarendon College, Ballarat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The lecture and Rev W. Henderson\u2019s comments became leading news in the following day\u2019s papers via Ballarat’s Evening Post<\/em>, edited by Mr David Blair.\u00a0 Mr Blair took the opportunity to write a \u2018letter to the Editor\u2019 of the Evening Post (the editor being himself, though he does not say so) in which Reverend W. Henderson\u2019s character and suitability as a Christian minister is called into question.<\/p>\n

\u201c..if Christian ministers are found openly avowing belief in Darwin\u2019s theory, it is time to shut the Bible and close the Christian churches. Darwin\u2019s theory and Christianity hold about the same relation to each other that darkness does to light and falsehood to truth\u201d (David Blair, To the Editor of the Evening Post, 27 February 1867)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr Blair challenged Rev Hendersen to \u201ca friendly public discussion\u201d of the subject in which he hoped to prove Darwin\u2019s theory \u201cfirst, unscientific, secondly, unscriptural; and thirdly distinctly atheistical\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anglicus vs. Publicus<\/h3>\n

In the following days two more Ballarat residents put forward their opinions on the subject.\u00a0 Both residents chose to write under pseudonyms, with \u2018Anglicus\u2019 writing to The Evening Post<\/em> to concur with David Blair, and \u2018Publicus\u2019 writing in support of Reverend Henderson to The Ballarat Star<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On March 1, Anglicus outlines how the Rev W. Henderson\u2019s comments at the lecture in question \u201cmarred\u201d the proceedings and amounted to \u201cnothing short of rationalism\u201d.\u00a0 He asks :<\/p>\n

\u201cWould the Reverend have humanity acknowledge our ancient lineage from mammoths and mastodons and be haunted by the baleful shadows of extinct monsters?\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The next day David Blair again writes a letter to his own paper, impatient at the fact that Reverend Henderson has not responded to the challenge of \u201c a friendly public discussion of the subject\u201d made in late February.<\/p>\n

Publicus then responds beginning what is to be a recurring and bitter debate directly between himself and David Blair. Publicus writes with an implicit familiarity with Mr Blair, suggesting an animosity that pre-dates the Darwin debate.\u00a0 He refers to David Blair as \u201ca person of so dilapidated a reputation\u201d, ridiculing Blair\u2019s \u201csensational appearances as a letter-writer to his own paper\u201d. As an \u201coccasional hearer\u201d of the Reverend W. Henderson he defends the Reverend\u2019s reputation, listing off his many virtues as a Christian minister, and finishes by describing Blair as proof of the Darwinian hypothesis by being \u201ca new and singularly repulsive species of the old disreputable genus<\/em> humbug\u201d.<\/p>\n

After several months of silence in the Ballarat papers on the question of evolution, David Blair held a lecture for the Young Men\u2019s Christian Assocation in the Mechanic\u2019s Institute entitled \u201cDarwin\u2019s Theory Exposed and Refuted\u201d.<\/p>\n

In another exercise in anonymous editorializing, Blair dedicated the leading news column of The Evening Post<\/em> of the following day to an account of his lecture of the night before.\u00a0 He describes it as attended by \u201ca very intelligent and respectable audience\u201d.\u00a0 He returns to the question of the Reverend Henderson\u2019s silence regarding a public discussion of Darwin\u2019s theory and suggests that the Reverend lacks the courage to debate him.\u00a0 He criticizes \u201cthe anonymous slanderous personal attacks\u201d by Publicus and refers to The Ballarat Star<\/em> as a \u201cdisreputable Ballarat paper\u201d.\u00a0 Blair claims to know perfectly well who Publicus is and suggests that at the repetition of his lecture on Darwin he \u201cmay take the occasion to unmask this stabber in the dark\u201d to force him to defend his \u201cathetistical principles, on the public platform\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Ballarat it is to be held a crime against society for any man to stand up and avow his belief in the plain teachings of the Bible and the common faith of all Christians.\u00a0 In Ballarat a man\u2019s personal reputation shall be assailed in the public journals by coward hands wearing the mask of the anonymous, if he dares publicly to express his dissent from the brutalizing doctrines of atheistical science, falsely so-called.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Publicus responds to David Blair in two more lengthy letters to the The Ballarat Star<\/em>.\u00a0 Again, Publicus provides great detail of the ways in which he believes David Blair to be a prime example of the evolutionary hypothesis: \u201cHere we have a lecturer-cum<\/em>-editor absolutely and incontrovertibly sui generis<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Blair says I must refute all the writers he quotes before I must say I think Darwin and his disciples (of whom I have distinctly said I am not one) may not be atheists. Well, I am a protestant.\u00a0 Must I, then, refute the Pope and all the papists in Christendom? Mr Blair is a Presbyterian.\u00a0 Has he refuted all the Episcopalians, and all the Wesleyans, Congregationalists, &c?\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Ballarat and Melbourne the Darwin debates drew out some of the differences between the two cities.\u00a0 A rising university-based intellectual elite in Melbourne had come to replace the cities\u2019 religious leaders as authorities on this question.\u00a0 In Ballarat the debate encapsulated the continued centrality of church and religion in all matters of social importance.<\/p>\n

Helen Hunter is a historian and researcher based at Federation University Australia\u2019s Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI)<\/a>. For further information on this topic email h.hunter@federation.edu.au<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCast away all doubt suggested by reason [and pursue] a thorough belief in the assurance contained in the text and a faith in the spirit by which all prayers will be heard and answered.\u201d\u00a0 Rev. C Clarke of London, Dawson Street Baptist Church, Ballarat, June 1869\u00a0 \u201cLife needs something living to produce it; the beginning … Continue reading Ballarat\u2019s response to Darwin\u2019s Evolution Theory<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[7,54,56,55,53,58,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}