Replies

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.

No, it is Asa Gray. Look at the dates. It is from Darwin's early period, before he wrote his studies on Domestication. Decades earlier than the thinking of Fiske and Darwin. Notice how the author of the article, from our secular friends studying Marx at the same time, fasten on Gray and ignore Fiske who was also a professor at Harvard, but at a later date. Doubtless Gray was not a black Republican either, but most likely an advocate of Webster, though this shouldn't be too hard to ascertain. The parting of the ways with Gray would have come over the relevant passages to race in Descent.

It is well worth noting that Asa Gray retired in 1873, the year Fiske published his Cosmic Philosophy. Interesting to note also that Fiske includes a very extensive list of those who he felt contributed to the understanding of Darwin's theory in that age, and that Asa Gray is nowhere mentioned. Interesting too to note that although Fiske was a student at Harvard in 1863 when he first found a copy of 'Origins' in the bookstore in Harvard Square, it was not part of his curriculum. It would be interesting to see if Gray ever taught anything on Darwin, but I doubt it.

'Origins' was nowhere near as profound in it's impact on religion and philosophy as was Descent, and this is clearly reflected here. The work of Darwin only really begins to show up after the Civil War, when suddenly everyone from Alexander Stephens to Stanton begin to let slip comments that are meant to establish that they have read him. But then, the true measure to which Darwin's Christian notions about race were understood and accepted are reflected in the reconstruction, and the answer was not much.

Asa Gray is more likely in the ID camp, which is the in the line of Newton's clockwork universe, where the maker builds it, winds it up and walks a way. Not found in Fiske, and no found in Darwin's last works, which you said you have not read.

One other observation:

The premise of that link that Asa Gray would have been the only American to see the manuscript of Darwin's, to the extent that he did, is erroneous also. Harvard's scientific committee shared on a regular basis in the reports and literature of the Royal Academy of Science, so the materials would have been available to anyone on that committee, and dispensed through them into Boston's intellectual society.

As a divinity student, Fiske might not at that time have been a member. But in any case, as for the black republicans, their views in race were based on the ideas Massachusetts brought to the US constitution, and not on scientific analysis, but rather on commom sense and religious belief.