A Conscience in Conflict: The Life of St. George Jackson Mivart

Abstract

Owen whose evolutionary views even before the publication of Origin of Species prepared him for the new orientation of biological thought under Darwin. In 1858 he became a disciple and fast friend of Huxley through whom he met the future leaders of darwinism including Darwin himself. He readily accepted the theory of natural selection, but after maturer reflection he rejected it as primary casual agent in evolution though still according it a secondary role. His knowledge of the nature of the human soul made him postulate a special creative act to explain its origin in the evolution of man. Both these conclusions enunciated in his first important work Genesis of Species (1871) earned him the enmity of the darwinians and started a cleavage which became final after his well-meant but intemperate review of an eugenical work by Darwin's son, George. Most of his remaining years were taken up, apart from first class scientific work, in showing that there was no incompatibility between religion and modern science, including historical and biblical science. In this attempt he finally gave expression to an uncompromising liberalism and on refusing to retract was denied the sacraments in January 1900. By the first week in April he was dead, a victim of the diabetes which he knew was killing him and probably also of a broken heart which he would not admit even to himself. Some years afterwards his friends, convinced that this final episode was utterly discordant with the rest of his life, procured medical testimony to the effects of the disease on the mind and character of its victim and his remains were re-interred with

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 77 citations exist upstream.