Tag: William James
Shelley, Darwin, and the 19th-Century God Debate
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley threw down the gauntlet for what was effectively to become the great Victorian dispute about religious faith.
Alfred Russel Wallace’s Bicentennial Year: A Cause for Celebration and for Sadness
All the hyperbole shows the fix is in — Wallace has been made safe for scientism and Darwinian reductionism. The academy can breathe easy.
The Outsider: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Reputation in the Darwinian Era
Was Alfred Wallace a “crazy” crank? Was he an undisciplined “dilettante” bemused by every fringe belief he encountered?
Correcting a Cartoon Version of Alfred Russel Wallace
Was Darwin a Nazi? Of course not. But did his ideas form a causal nexus via Galton to ideas that would be integrated into Nazi policy? Yes.
Wordsworth and the Faith of the Victorians
Even Charles Bradlaugh, the first atheist member of Parliament, was haunted by the psalmist’s reproach, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”