Editing Theistic evolution (section)

===''On the Origin of Species''===
{{See also|Religious views of Charles Darwin}}
When [[Charles Darwin]] published ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' in 1859, many [[liberal Christianity|liberal Christians]] accepted evolution provided they could reconcile it with divine design. The clergymen [[Charles Kingsley]] (1819–1875) and [[Frederick Temple]] (1821–1902), both conservative Christians in the [[Church of England]], promoted a theology of creation as an indirect process controlled by divine laws. Some strict [[Calvinism|Calvinists]] welcomed the idea of [[natural selection]], as it did not entail inevitable progress and humanity could be seen as a fallen race requiring [[salvation]]. The [[Anglo-Catholicism|Anglo-Catholic]] [[Aubrey Moore]] (1848–1890) also accepted the theory of natural selection, incorporating it into his Christian beliefs as merely the way God worked. Darwin's friend [[Asa Gray]] (1810–1888) defended natural selection as compatible with design.{{sfn|Bowler|2003|pp=203–205}}

Darwin himself, in his second edition of the ''Origin'' (January 1860), had written in the conclusion:
{{Blockquote|I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the [[Creator deity|Creator]]. |Chapter XIV: "Conclusions", page 428.<ref>
Compare:
{{cite book
 | last1 = Darwin
 | first1 = Charles
 | author-link1 = Charles Darwin
 | year = 1859
 | title = On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=m0g6AQAAMAAJ
 | series = Landmarks of science
 | edition = 5
 | location = New York
 | publisher = D. Appleton and Company
 | publication-date = 1860
 | pages = 431–432
 | access-date = 9 December 2018
 | quote = Page 420, fifteen lines from top, after 'deceitful guide,' [...] omit whole remainder of paragraph, and insert, instead, as follows: Nevertheless, all living things have much in common; in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. [...] Therefore I should infer that probably all organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator.
 }}
</ref>
}}

Within a decade most scientists had started espousing evolution, but from the outset some expressed opposition to the concept of natural selection and searched for a more [[teleology|purposeful]] mechanism. In 1860 [[Richard Owen]] attacked Darwin's ''Origin of Species'' in an anonymous review while praising "Professor Owen" for "the establishment of the axiom of ''the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of living things''".<ref>Owen, Richard. 1860. [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=12&itemID=A30&viewtype=text Review of Origin & other works.] ''Edinburgh Review'' 111: 487–532, p. 500.</ref> In December 1859 Darwin had been disappointed to hear that Sir [[John Herschel]] apparently dismissed the book as "the law of higgledy-pigglety<!--sic, t not d-->",<ref>Letter from Charles Darwin to [[Charles Lyell]] [10 December 1859], Darwin Correspondence Project, [http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/DCP-LETT-2575 Letter no. 2575]", accessed on 10 February 2019,</ref> and in 1861 Herschel wrote of evolution that "[a]n intelligence, guided by a purpose, must be continually in action to bias the direction of the steps of change—to regulate their amount—to limit their divergence—and to continue them in a definite course". He added "On the other hand, we do not mean to deny that such intelligence may act according to law (that is to say, on a preconceived and definite plan)".{{sfn|Bowler|2003|pp=186, 204}} The scientist Sir [[David Brewster]] (1781–1868), a member of the [[Free Church of Scotland (1843–1900)|Free Church of Scotland]], wrote an article called "[[s:The Facts and Fancies of Mr. Darwin|The Facts and Fancies of Mr. Darwin]]" (1862) in which he rejected many Darwinian ideas, such as those concerning vestigial organs or questioning God's perfection in his work. Brewster concluded that Darwin's book contained both "much valuable knowledge and much wild speculation", although accepting that "every part of the human frame had been fashioned by the Divine hand and exhibited the most marvellous and beneficent adaptions for the use of men".<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=D8khAQAAIAAJ Good Words]'' (1862), Volume 3. p. 170.</ref>

In the 1860s theistic evolutionism became a popular compromise in science and gained widespread support from the general public. Between 1866 and 1868 Owen published a theory of derivation, proposing that species had an innate tendency to change in ways that resulted in variety and beauty showing creative purpose. Both Owen and [[St. George Jackson Mivart|Mivart]] (1827–1900) insisted that natural selection could not explain patterns and variation, which they saw as resulting from divine purpose. In 1867 the [[George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll|Duke of Argyll]] published ''The Reign of Law'', which explained beauty in [[plumage]] without any [[adaptation|adaptive benefit]] as design generated by the Creator's laws of nature for the delight of humans. Argyll attempted to reconcile evolution with design by suggesting that the laws of variation prepared [[Vestigiality|rudimentary organs]] for a future need.{{sfn|Bowler|2003|pp=204–207}}

Cardinal [[John Henry Newman]] wrote in 1868: "Mr Darwin's theory need not then to be [[atheism|atheistical]], be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill ... and I do not [see] that 'the accidental evolution of organic beings' is inconsistent with divine design—It is accidental to us, not to God."<ref>{{cite book|chapter = John Henry Newman to J. Walker of Scarborough on Darwin's Theory of Evolution  |title =The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman|editor1-first= C.S.|editor1-last= Dessain |editor2-first= T. |editor2-last=Gornall|volume= XXIV |location =Oxford|publisher= Clarendon Press|publication-date= 1973|pages= 77–78|chapter-url= http://www.inters.org/Newman-Scarborough-Darwin-Evolution|first=John Henry |last=Newman|date=22 May 1868}}</ref>

In 1871 Darwin published his own research on human ancestry in [[The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex|''The Descent of Man'']], concluding that humans "descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears", which would be classified amongst the [[Quadrumana]] along with monkeys, and in turn descended "through a long line of diversified forms" going back to something like the larvae of [[Ascidiacea|sea squirts]].<ref>Darwin (1871), ''The Descent of Man'', p. [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=406&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=text 389]</ref> Critics{{which|date=December 2018}} promptly complained that this "degrading" image "tears the crown from our heads",{{citation needed|date=December 2018}} but there is little evidence that it led to loss of faith. Among the few who did record the impact of Darwin's writings, the naturalist [[Joseph LeConte]] struggled with "distress and doubt" following the death of his daughter in 1861, before enthusiastically saying in the late 1870s there was "not a single philosophical question connected with our highest and dearest religious and spiritual interests that is fundamentally affected, or even put in any new light, by the theory of evolution", and in the late 1880s embracing the view that "evolution is entirely consistent with a rational theism". Similarly, [[George Frederick Wright]] (1838–1921) responded to Darwin's ''Origin of Species'' and [[Charles Lyell]]'s 1863 ''Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man''<ref>{{ws | [[s:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man|''Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man'']]}} 1 vol. 1st edition, Feb. 1863 (John Murray, London)</ref> by turning to Asa Gray's belief that God had set the rules at the start and only intervened on rare occasions, as a way to harmonise evolution with theology. The idea of evolution did not seriously shake Wright's faith, but he later suffered a crisis when confronted with [[historical criticism]] of the Bible.<ref>
{{cite web
 |url= https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/107-wrestling-with-doubt/
 |title= Wrestling with doubt – Christian History Magazine
 |work= Christian History Institute
}}
</ref>