of the Scottish Enlightenment, when Humehad demolished the rational arguments forthe existence of a Creator and an afterlife,but instead was in thrall to Calvinist bigots.While Chambers was no atheist or evenagnostic, the Vestigeswas perceived as im-plying Deism, with no role for divine inter-vention in the course of nature. The pre-vailing contemporary mindset is reflected inthe almost apoplectic response to theVestigesfrom the Edinburgh North BritishReview, as quoted by Secord (p. 275) ‘If itbe a received view that the Creator hasrepeatedly interposed in the government ofthe universe, and displayed his immediateagency in miraculous interpositions, it is aninsult to any reader to tell him that beingslumbers on his throne…’. It is small won-der that Chambers remained anonymous,and Darwin hesitated so long to publish hisviews.

While Darwin may have been have beendeterred from publishing his ideas by thereception of the Vestiges(p. 433), the youngand impecunious Alfred Russel Wallacewelcomed its exposition of the principle ofevolution, which he regarded as an hy-pothesis that urgently needed further test-ing against the facts of natural history.According to Wallace’s biographer, ‘theinfluence of the Vestiges...can scarcely beoverestimated’ (H. L. McKinney, Wallaceand Natural Selection, Yale UniversityPress, 1972, p.12). Wallace’s subsequentillustrious career as a naturalist and co-inventor of the theory of natural selectionunquestionably owes a good deal to thissource.

Secord makes a strong case that the Vestigeshas had some enduring though indirect in-fluence, and that its dissemination andreception by the reading public illuminatesa good deal about mid-Victorian Britain.Like many historians, he goes in for what, tothe lay reader, seems like inordinate detail.His style is often ponderous, and lacks anyapparent sense of humour. For instance, theepisode of the 85 page hostile review byAdam Sedgwick in the Edinburgh Review,which seems to have dismayed even theVictorians with their love of long-windedliterary productions, has great comic po-tential that is unrealized by the author.Overall, the topic is a worthy one, the bookis scholarly and packed with interesting de-tails, but I suspect that most of its audiencewould have preferred a more succinct andlively work.

Brian Charlesworth

Disseminating Darwinism:

The Role of Place, Race, Religion,

and Gender

edited by Ronald L. Numbers and John StenhouseCambridge University Press, 2000.£35.00/$54.95 hardback (xi � 300 pages)ISBN 0 521 62071 6

Historians of science have spent much inkidentifying subtleties within debates overDarwinian evolution, showing that therewas no simple polarisation between scien-tific acceptance and religious rejection ofDarwinian theory, but a multitude of variedresponses. Over forty years ago in Darwinand the General Reader1, Alvar Ellegardidentified patterns of response in the gen-eral periodical literature. Many readers,

including religious readers, were willing to accept slow evolutionary change, but not Darwin’s mechanism of natural se-lection; a much smaller group was willingto accept natural selection, but not that theappearance of ‘man’ could be completelyexplained in this framework. Ellegardcorrelated these opinions on evolution withthe level of education of the audience, andthe religious orientation and political

viewpoint of the journals. More recently,Peter Bowler, in numerous works, hasstressed that even among leading 19th-century scientists, natural selection wasoften rejected in favour of more goal-directed processes of evolution. Morerecently again, focussing on the religiousaspects of the debate in Science andReligion2, John Brooke argues persuasivelythat the religious responses to the Darwin-ian challenge are remarkable for theirdiversity.

Disseminating Darwinismbelongs in thistradition of interpretation, emphasisingvariety and avoiding the polarisation of thegrand narrative of ‘the conflict of sciencewith religion’ so deeply embedded incommon knowledge. The chapters examineevolutionary debate in relation to place,race, religion and gender. Educational level,which Ellegard emphasised, is neglectedand only a few of the papers refer to thepolitical commitments of the participants inthe discussion. Religious considerationspredominate.

In drawing attention to the role of place,Disseminating Darwinismbelongs to re-cent emphases within history of science on ‘local studies’. This is the most in-novative aspect of the book. Suzanne Zellershows that, in contrast to the well-knownopposition of eminent Canadian geologists,less-eminent botanists quickly took upDarwin’s biogeographical research pro-gramme, which gave significance to fieldstudies of their vast northern spaces. Shesuggests that in the harsh Canadian climatethere was a general appreciation of therelationship of environment to survival. InNew Zealand’s more temperate climatethere was a belief that the recent migrantfauna, including humans, were displacingindigenous forms, and this was readilyinterpreted as a ‘struggle for existence’. Intheir respective chapters on New Zealandand Australia, John Stenhouse and BarryButcher show that, in the small commu-nities of settlers, powerful individuals had a strong influence on local opinion. In theAustralian colonies many scientists owedtheir positions, and their education, to menwho became leading opponents of Darwin;in the New Zealand colonies, where culturalinstitutions were established decades later,leading scientists were more open to evo-lutionary ideas.

Geography is an expansive concept thatincludes religion, as shown in DavidLivingstone’s study of the Presbyterianresponses to Darwin in Edinburgh, Belfast

Endeavour Vol. 24(4) 2000 183

In drawing attention to the roleof place, Disseminating

Darwinismbelongs to recentemphases within history ofscience on ‘local studies’

and Princeton. Livingstone shows that theresponses cannot be simply related totheological position but include the localconcerns and controversies. In Belfast,where John Tyndall’s address to the BritishAssociation in 1874 created a backlash in religious communities, evolutionarytheory was attacked on narrow biblicalgrounds. In Edinburgh, sides were takenaccording to positions on issues oftheological reinterpretation. In Princetoneminent conservative theologians sup-ported Darwinism. B.B. Warfield, a leadingdefender of Calvinist orthodoxy, was opento natural selection because, Livingstonesuggests, he had himself been involved inlivestock breeding before entering theologi-cal school.

The themes of race and gender are largelyconfined to two chapters. Eric Andersondemonstrates that American blacks showedlittle concern with Darwinian theory,despite its clear racism. Darwin at least gaveall human groups the same ancestor, nomatter how distant. The theory of poly-genesis, asserting different origins for diff-erent racial groups, was much more threat-ening, and scientifically trained Americanblacks focussed their energies on attackingpolygenesis. John Stenhouse includes racein his chapter on New Zealand, showinghow, in the decade of wars over land, manysettlers appealed to notions of an inferiorand dying race to justify violence againstthe Maori. In the 1890s Maori scholarsbegan to question these apparently scientifictheories.

A few women engaged in extendedcritiques of evolutionary theory. SallyKohlstedt describes how these womenquestioned the competitive ethic, arguingthat natural selection promoted cooperativeas well as competitive individuals, evenclaiming that cooperation was characteristicof a higher stage of development. Someemphasised sexual difference and com-plementarity; a minority dared to argue thatthe evolutionary theorists had exaggeratedthe inequality and difference between menand women.

It is tempting to ask for finer dis-criminations and further groups in theanalyses: were there any secular racists inthe American South and what did they thinkof Darwin; is there any relationship betweenviews on Darwin and views on race amongthe theologians of the American South; didthe colonies of New South Wales andVictoria, or Otago and Canterbury, differ intheir responses? But in small communities,

when relatively few individuals offeredsustained comment, further subdivision isproblematic. Also, purely local studies arenot valid. There was interaction among lo-cal communities and between the imperialcentres of evolutionary debate and thesecolonial outposts. American Catholics readSt George Mivart, the English Catholicreinterpreter of Darwin. The Australiancritics of Darwin frequently built on thecriticisms of their English patrons andteachers and debate was stimulated byvisiting American and British publicists.

Indirectly, Disseminating Darwinismundermines its own Darwin-centred title.Some groups, for example, Americanblacks, were not particularly interested inDarwin. For American Jews and Catholics,positions taken in relation to evolutionarytheory had more to do with issues of identityand assimilation within migrant com-munities than with the origins of species,even the human species. For them, Darwinwas an aspect of modern, secular culture.References to Herbert Spencer and JohnTyndall throughout the volume remind usthat ‘Darwin’ also stands for others. With itsfocus on Darwin, the book as a whole is formembers of the Darwin industry. Individualchapters will have a wider appeal to thoseinterested in the particular groups or regionsdiscussed.

References1 Ellegard, A. (1958) Darwin and the General

Reader: The Reception of Darwin’s Theoryof Evolution in the British Periodical Press,1859–1872, University of Chicago Press(reprinted 1990)

2 Brooke, J.H. (1991) Science and Religion:Some Historical Perspectives, CambridgeUniversity Press

Ruth Barton

Natural History Investigations in

South Carolina: from Colonial

Times to the Present

by Albert E. Sanders and William D. Anderson, JrUniversity of South Carolina Press, 1999.$35.95 hardback (xxxix � 333 pages)ISBN 1 57003 278 5

Why South Carolina? It is only one of the fifty United States, and though natureheeds boundaries of its own making, other states have as diverse a landscape asSouth Carolina. And yet, in the course of

three years, three historical studies ofnatural history have been published aboutSouth Carolina: South Carolina natural-ists: an anthology, 1700-1860, edited by David Taylor, Science, Race and Religion in the American South: John Bachman and the Charleston Circle of Naturalists,1815–1895, by Lester D. Stephens, andNatural History Investigations in SouthCarolina: from Colonial Times to thePresent by Albert E. Sanders and WilliamD. Anderson, Jr.

The latter of these three is the mostambitious. The authors’ intent is to docu-ment all investigations of natural historywithin the boundaries of South Carolina,from the descriptions of Jacques LeMoynein the late 16th century, to L. BarryAlbright’s fossil identifications in the late20th century, and to place these investi-gations within a broader historical contextof the rise, fall and rebirth of the south. Forthe most part, they have succeeded, and inthe course of their narrative they haveconveyed the frustration and dismay anyresearcher experiences when faced withholes in the historical record, whethercaused by the destruction visited uponcollections, archives and libraries by war orby neglect.

In the case of the data and collectionsgathered in the south, and in particular inSouth Carolina, the American Civil Wareffectively halted the advance of naturalhistory collecting, only recovering mo-mentum in the mid-20th century. In theirhistorical account of natural history in-vestigations, Standers and Anderson dis-covered too well how many collections werelost during this time. The greatest devast-ation occurred when General Sherman’sarmy burned and occupied Columbia, whereJohn Bachman, friend and collaborator ofJohn James Audubon, John McCrady, notedfor his research in marine animals inCharleston Harbor, and many others hadsent their collections from Charleston forsafekeeping.

The authors describe the slow advance of investigations after the Civil War, and the interruption of two world wars and amajor depression, which curtailed theadvances already made. Post-secondaryeducational institutions were hardest hitduring the decades following the Civil War.The Confederate military suffered almosthalf a million deaths, and with these deathsalmost an entire generation of college-agesouthern men. Those that survived the warhad more immediate concerns closer to

184 Endeavour Vol. 24(4) 2000