Charles Darwin and lady hope - the legend still alive

• Authors: Grzegorz Malec

Abstracts

EN

The theme of the present paper is the story of Darwin’s conversion as spread by Elizabeth Hope. Her article was published in August 1915. She wrote under the pseudonym “Lady Hope”, and her paper was titled “Darwin and Christianity”. Elizabeth Hope claimed that she visited Charles Darwin in autumn 1881, a couple of months before his death. Darwin during her visit was supposedly bedfast and reading Hebrews. During their conversation Darwin allegedly asked her to speak about Jesus Christ and sing some hymns in his summer house. I claim that (1) strong arguments exist that Lady Hope’s story is only the fruit of her imagination, and (2) all her adherents can only have hope that Darwin, renouncing his theory, returned to Christianity. Finally, I show some unpublished opinions of modern scholars which indicate that Darwin’s conversion never took place, and he never rejected his theory of evolution by natural selection.

Keywords

EN

Lady Hope; Charles Darwin; James Moore; deathbed conversion; Christianity

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Internetowy Magazyn Filozoficzny Hybris
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 126-149

Dates

published

2015

Contributors

author

Grzegorz Malec

• Uniwersytet Zielonogórski

References

• Bering, Jesse. 2011. The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life, New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Berra, Tim M. 2009. Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Berra, Tim M. 2013. Darwin and His Children: His Other Legacy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Browne, Janet. 2002. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Caudill, Edward. 1997. Darwinian Myths: The Legends and Misuses of a Theory, Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press.
• Clark, Ronald W. 1984. The Survival of Charles Darwin: A Biography of a Man and an Idea. New York, NY: Random House.
• Clements, Jonathan. 2009. Darwin’s Notebook: The Life, Times and Discoveries of Charles Robert Darwin. Stroud, UK: The History Press.
• Croft, L.R. 2012. Darwin and Lady Hope: The Untold Story. Preston, UK: Elmwood Books.
• Croft, L.R. 1989. The Life and Death of Charles Darwin. Chorley, UK: Elmwood Books.
• Darwin, Charles. 1868. The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, vol. II, New York, NY: Orange Judd & Company.
• Darwin, Charles. 1972. The Voyage of the Beagle, New York, NY: Penguin Books.
• Enoch, H. 1967. Evolution or Creation. London, UK: Evangelical Press.
• Dawkins, Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. London, UK: Bantam Press.
• Eldredge, Niles. 2005. Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Freeman, R.B. 1977. The Works of Charles Darwin: an Annotated Bibliographical Handlist. Folkestone, UK: Wm Dawson & Sons.
• Hawton, Hector. 1958. “The Myth of Darwin’s Conversion.” The Humanist (London, UK), 73:4–5.
• Heiligman, Deborah. 2009. Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith. New York, Henry Holt and Company.
• Herbert, David. 2009. Charles Darwin’s Religious Views: From Creationist to Evolutionist. Guelph, ON: Joshua Press.
• Isaak, Mark. 2007. The Counter-Creationism Handbook, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Jodkowski, Kazimierz. 1999. „Naturalizm ewolucjonizmu a wiara religijna. Przypadek Darwina,” Przegląd Religioznawczy, 1:17–34.
• Jodkowski, Kazimierz. 1998. Metodologiczne aspekty kontrowersji ewolucjonizm - kreacjonizm, Lublin, Poland: Wydawnictwo UMCS.
• Keynes, Randal. 2002. Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution, New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
• Lady Hope (Elizabeth Reid Cotton). 1915 (Aug. 19). “Darwin and Christianity.” Watchman-Examiner (Boston, MA): 1071. Reprint in Moore 1994, 92–93.
• Letter from Asa Gray to Charles Darwin (31 March 1862). 1997. In The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: 1862, vol. 10, eds. Frederick Burkhardt, Joy Harvey, Duncan M. Porter, Jonathan R. Topham, 140, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Letter from Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell (11 October 1959). 1991. In The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: 1858–1859, vol. 7, eds. Frederick Burkhardt, Sydney Smith, 343–47. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Letter from Charles Darwin to Daniel Mackintosh (28 February 1882). 1903. In More Letters of Charles Darwin: A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters, vol. II, ed. Francis Darwin, 170–171, London, UK: John Murray.
• Letter from Charles Darwin to John Murray (21 January 1882). Murray Archive Ms.42153 ff.51–52 (National Library of Scotland). Unpublished material kindly sent by the Editors of the Darwin Correspondence Project with William Huxley Darwin’s permission (this material is from the prepublication stage and the Project cannot be held responsible for any errors of transcription).
• Letter from Charles Darwin to William Horsfall (8 February 1882). 1903. In More Letters of Charles Darwin: A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters, vol. I, ed. Francis Darwin, 398. London, UK: John Murray.
• Letter from Emma Darwin to Charles Darwin (February 1839). 1986. In The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: 1837–1843, vol. 2, eds. Frederick Burkhardt, Sydney Smith, 171–73. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Litchfield (ed.), Henrietta. 1915. Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters. vol. II, New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company.
• MacAlister, John. 1985. The Scientific Proof of Origins by Creation, Midland, TX: Servants for the Coming New Order (quotation from: McIver, Tom. 1986. “Ancient Tales and Space-Age Myths of Creationist Evangelism.” Skeptical Inquirer (Amherst, NY) 10:267 [258–276]).
• Malec, Grzegorz. 2014. “Darwin and Lady Hope: The Untold Story (book review).” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 49(1):261–263.
• Malec, Grzegorz. 2012. „Teologiczne dylematy Karola Darwina”. Roczniki Filozoficzne, LX(1):67–85.
• McCarthy, Tony. 2006. The Facts of Death. Cork, Ireland: Belgrave Publications.
• Midgette, Thomas D. 2007. National Morality. Thinking Outside the Box: A Call to Action. vol. I, Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing & Enterprises.
• Mitchell, Tommy. “Darwin’s Deathbed Conversion - a Legend? Arguments Christians Shouldn’t Use.” Answer in Genesis. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/03/31/darwins-deathbed-conversion-legend
• Moore, James. 1994. The Darwin Legend. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
• Moore, James. 1999. “Telling Tales: Evangelicals and the Darwin Legend.” In Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective, eds. David N. Livingstone, D.G. Hart, Mark A. Noll, 220–233. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Moore, James. 2009. “That Evolution Destroyed Darwin’s Faith in Christianity - Until He Reconverted on His Deathbed.” In Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, ed. Ronald L. Numbers, 142–151. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Morris, John D. 2006. “Did Darwin Renounce Evolution on His Deathbed?.” Acts & Facts (August) 35(8). http://www.icr.org/article/2834/
• Numbers, Ronald L. 1993. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism. Los Angeles and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Panin, Ivan. 1928 (May–June). “Darwin on his Deathbed Again.” Bible Numerics (Aldershot, ON): 3–32.
• Pennock, Robert T. 1999. Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
• Pleins, J. David (2013). The Evolving God: Charles Darwin on the Naturalness of Religion. New York: Bloomsbury.
• Rosevear, David. 1996. “Darwin’s Change of Heart?”, Pamphlet published by Creation Science Movement 309:1–4.
• Sloan, Pat. 1960. “The Myth of Darwin’s Conversion.” The Humanist (London, UK) 75:70–72.
• Treharne, Trevor. 2012. How to Prove God Doesn’t Exist: The Complete Guide to Validating Atheism. Boca Raton, FL: Universal-Publishers.
• Victor Pearce, E.K. 1974. “Darwin, Charles Robert (1809–1882).” In The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. J.D. Douglas, 283. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/1689-4286.29.06

Biblioteka Nauki

18682002