charles_darwin

Overview
Egerton, the Earl of Bridgewater (1756–1829), and the authors were
chosen by Davies Gilbert (1767–1839), the president of the Royal
Society (which was the most important scientific society in Britain).
The treatises were supposed to use the latest scientific knowledge to
demonstrate ‘‘the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested
in the creation.’’ 5 Recognizing the debate among scientists at the time,
each of the eight authors addressed the question of decline or decay
in his treatise. Talking about superfluity in the physiology of animals,
Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), professor of divinity at the University
of Edinburgh, asked the question: ‘‘Now what inference shall we
draw from this remarkable law in nature, that there is nothing waste
and nothing meaningless in the feelings and faculties wherewith
living creatures are endowed?’’ 6 Commenting on geological decay,
William Kirby (1759–1850), a clergyman in the county of Suffolk,
asserted
3
It is not moreover at all improbable that while its population
was concentrated, many regions when uninhabited, God so willing,
by diluvial, volcanic, or other action of the elements, might
be materially altered, new mountain ridges might be elevated,
mighty disruptions take place and other changes to which there
could be no witnesses, but which can only be conjectured by
the features such countries now exhibit. 7
William Buckland (1784–1856), professor of geology at Oxford University,
stated that extinct species provide a ‘‘chain of connected evidence,
amounting to demonstration, of the continuous Being, and of
many of the highest Attributes of the One Living and True God.’’ 8
The comments were cautious and conservative. These authors did
not defend the fixity of the species, nor did they abandon the idea
that God controls nature. 9
Darwin was different. He questioned the conclusions of the
prominent scientists of his era. More significant, he did not accept
the orthodox explanation for the decay and extinction of species: a
flood, as described in the Bible, or a similar kind of catastrophe. In
The Origin of Species, Darwin argued that transmutation had
occurred. Over a long period of time, and particularly in reaction to
changes in their living conditions, different species had experienced
small but significant mutations. The accumulation of these small
mutations eventually led to transmutation. And why did the small
mutations remain permanent? Darwin argued that the mutations had
helped the plant or animal to adapt to its environment better than
its competitors for resources such as food. Natural selection, as
Darwin called it, was the process by which those plants or animals