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Presbyterians and science in the north of Ireland before 1874

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2008

ANDREW R. HOLMES
ANDREW R. HOLMES
Affiliation:
School of History and Anthropology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

In his presidential address to the Belfast meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874, John Tyndall launched what David Livingstone has called a ‘frontal assault on teleology and Christian theism’. Using Tyndall's intervention as a starting point, this paper seeks to understand the attitudes of Presbyterians in the north of Ireland to science in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century. The first section outlines some background, including the attitude of Presbyterians to science in the eighteenth century, the development of educational facilities in Ireland for the training of Presbyterian ministers, and the specific cultural and political circumstances in Ireland that influenced Presbyterian responses to science more generally. The next two sections examine two specific applications by Irish Presbyterians of the term ‘science’: first, the emergence of a distinctive Presbyterian theology of nature and the application of inductive scientific methodology to the study of theology, and second, the Presbyterian conviction that mind had ascendancy over matter which underpinned their commitment to the development of a science of the mind. The final two sections examine, in turn, the relationship between science and an eschatological reading of the signs of the times, and attitudes to Darwinian evolution in the fifteen years between the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 and Tyndall's speech in 1874.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 541 - 565
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 British Society for the History of Science

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References

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11 For a readable and reliable introduction to the history of Irish Presbyterianism see R. F. G. Holmes, Our Irish Presbyterian Heritage, Belfast, 1985.

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35 For the attitudes of Cairns and Young see Fourth report, op. cit. (27), 54, 103; for Hanna and Carlile see ibid., 66–7, 129.

36 For a good overview of the tensions between the synod and the Belfast Inst see R. F. G. Holmes, Henry Cooke, Belfast, 1981, 68–73, 124–8.

37 Minutes of the General Synod of Ulster, Belfast, 1835, 37–8; 1837, 54.

38 For histories of these colleges see Allen, op. cit. (25); and R. F. G. Holmes, Magee 1865–1965: The Evolution of the Magee Colleges, Belfast, 1965.

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41 The religious and cultural background may be traced from the following: D. Hempton and M. Hill, Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster Society 1740–1890, London, 1992; R. F. G. Holmes, ‘“Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right”: the Protestant churches and Ulster's resistance to Home Rule, 1912–14’, in The Church and War, Studies in Church History, 20 (ed. W. J. Sheils), Oxford, 1983, 321–35; idem, ‘United Irishmen and Unionists: Irish Presbyterians, 1791 and 1886’, in The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History, 25 (ed. W. J. Sheils and D. Wood), Oxford, 1989, 171–89; Livingstone and Wells, op. cit. (40).

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43 Gibson, op. cit. (42), 12–13.

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50 Second Annual Report of the Londonderry Natural History Society and Museum, Londonderry, 1840, 6.

51 Livingstone and Wells, op. cit. (40), 28.

52 My exposition of Chalmers is indebted to D. F. Rice, ‘Natural theology and the Scottish philosophy in the thought of Thomas Chalmers’, Scottish Journal of Theology (1971), 24, 23–46; and J. R. Topham, ‘Science, natural theology, and evangelicalism in early nineteenth-century Scotland: Thomas Chalmers and the Evidence controversy’, in Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective (ed. D. N. Livingstone, D. G. Hart and M. A. Noll), New York, 1998, 142–74.

53 ‘The Synod of Ulster and collegiate education’, Orthodox Presbyterian (1833), 4, 268–70.

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55 Yeo, R., ‘An idol of the market-place: Baconianism in nineteenth century Britain’, History of Science (1985), 23, 278CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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60 Cited in R. L. Numbers, ‘Charles Hodge and the beauties and deformities of science’, in Charles Hodge Revisited: A Critical Appraisal of His Life and Work (ed. J. W. Stewart and J. H. Moorehead), Grand Rapids, MI, 2002, 82–3.

61 Allen, op. cit. (25), 101.

62 ‘Dr. Chalmers and the divinity class in the University of Edinburgh’, Orthodox Presbyterian (1830), 1, 414–15; original italics.

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66 J. G. Murphy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Genesis, with a New Translation, Edinburgh, 1863, pp. xi–xii.

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76 This reading of Chalmers is based on Topham, op. cit. (52), quotation on 168.

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79 Watts, op. cit. (75).

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85 For the Presbyterian understanding of these theological themes see A. R. Holmes, ‘Millennialism and the interpretation of prophecy in Ulster Presbyterianism, 1790–1850’, in Prisoners of Hope? Aspects of Evangelical Millennialism in Scotland and Ireland, 1800–1880 (ed. C. Gribben and T. C. F. Stunt), Carlisle, 2005, 150–76; idem, ‘The uses and interpretation of prophecy in Irish Presbyterianism, 1850–1930’, in Protestant Millennialism, Evangelicalism, and Irish Society, 1790–2005 (ed. C. Gribben and A. R. Holmes), Basingstoke, 2006, 144–73.

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88 Gibson, op. cit. (54).

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91 Numbers, op. cit. (60), 87–8.

92 W. Gibson, ‘Self-development’, Banner of Ulster, 29 April 1865.

93 Watts, op. cit. (75).

94 Banner of Ulster, 13 June 1867.

95 J. R. Moore, ‘1859 and all that: remaking the story of evolution and religion’, in Charles Darwin, 1809–1882: A Centennial Commemorative (ed. R. G. Chapman and C. T. Duval), Wellington, 1982, 167–94.

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111 J. S. Black and G. Chrystal, The Life of William Robertson Smith, London, 1912, 161–3.

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