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To: Stultis
There are not on the net yet, but they are coming.

Here is a link to Fiske on Darwin. The site has a large number of articles by Fiske. The text below it is the last paragraph of the article. It is an obituary for Darwin written by Fiske an widely published in the US.

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?root=%2Fmoa%2Fatla%2Fatla0049%2F&tif=00843.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABK2934-0049-165&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50

It is fitting that in the great Abbey, where rest the ashes of England’s noblest heroes, the place of the discoverer of natural selection should be near that of Sir Isaac Newton. Since the publication of the immortal Principia, no sci- entific book has so widened the mental horizon of mankind as the Origin of Species. Mr. Darwin, like Newton, was a very young man when his great discovery suggested itself to him. Like Newton, he waited many years before publishing it to the world. Like Newton, he lived to see it become part and parcel of the mental equipment of all men of science. The theological objection urged against the Newtonian theory by Leibnitz, that it substituted the action of natural causes for the immediate action of the Deity, was also urged against the Darwinian theory by Agassiz; and the same objection will doubtless continue to be urged against scien- tific explanations of natural phenomena so long as there are men who fail to comprehend the profoundly theistic and religious truth that the action of natural causes is in itself the immediate action of the Deity. It is interesting, however, to see that, as theologians are no longer frightened by the doctrine of gravitation, so they are already outgrowing their dread of the doctrine of natural selection. On the Sunday following Mr. Darwin’s death, Canon Liddon, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Canons Barry and Pro- thero, at Westminster Abbey, agreed in referring to the Darwinian theory as “not necessarily hostile to the fundamental truths of religion.” The effect of Mr. Darwin’s work has been, however, to remodel the theological conceptions 6f the origin and destiny of man which were current in former times. In this respect it has wrought a revolution as great as that which Copernicus in- augurated and Newton completed, and of very much the same kind. Again has man been rudely unseated from his im- aginary throne in the centre of the universe, but only that he may learn to see in the universe and in human life a rich- er and deeper meaning than he had before suspected. Truly, he who unfolds to us the way in which God works through the world of phenomena may well be called the best of religious teachers. In the study of the organic world, no less than in the study of the starry heavens, is it true that “day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.”

- John Fiske.

You didn't really expect them to teach you this in the modern and secular USA, did you?
145 posted on 11/02/2003 6:44:55 PM PST by Held_to_Ransom
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To: Held_to_Ransom
the profoundly theistic and religious truth that the action of natural causes is in itself the immediate action of the Deity

But this is Fiske's interpretation of Darwin, which is fine, but it is NOT Darwin's view. Darwin remained indecisive and wavering about the issue of "design" throughout the later part of his life, but he was consistently resistant to the notion that divine intention was to be found in the specific details of selection and variation. For Darwin the divine intent, if it was there, was expressed in general laws. He made this distinction often. See his correspondence on the subject with the American botanist Asa Gray. There is an article concerning their debate here.

148 posted on 11/03/2003 2:58:52 AM PST by Stultis
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