Human Origins: Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859)

The publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is rightly regarded as a landmark for both the natural sciences and Christian belief in Victorian Britain and beyond. On Decem- ber 27, 1831, the sailing ship Beagle set out from the southern English port of Plymouth on a voyage that lasted almost five years. The ship’s naturalist was Charles Darwin (1809– 82). During the voyage, Darwin noted some aspects of the plant and animal life of South America which seemed to him to require explanation, yet which were not satisfactorily accounted for by existing theories.

One popular account of the origin of species, known to Darwin, found wide support within the religious establishment of the early nineteenth century. William Paley, archdeacon of Carlisle, argued that God had created everything more or less as we now see it, in all its intricacy. Paley accepted the viewpoint of his age – namely, that God had constructed (Paley prefers the word “contrived”) the world in its finished form, as we now know it. The idea of any kind of development seemed impossible to him.

Paley argued that the present organization of the world, both physical and biological, could be seen as a compelling witness to the wisdom of a creator god. Paley’s Natural Theology (1802) had a profound influence on popular English religious thought in the first half of the nineteenth century, and is known to have been read by Darwin. Paley was deeply impressed by Newton’s discovery of the regularity of nature, which allowed the universe to be thought of as a complex mechanism, operating according to regular and understand- able principles. Nature consists of a series of biological structures which are to be thought of as being “contrived” – that is, constructed with a clear purpose in mind. Paley used his famous analogy of the watch on a heath to emphasize that contrivance necessarily presup- posed a designer and constructor. “Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature.”