Did Darwin recant?
by Russell M. Grigg
Charles Darwin died on 19 April 1882, at the age of 73. To some it was
deplorable that he should have departed an unbeliever, and in the years that
followed several stories surfaced that Darwin had undergone a death-bed
conversion and renounced evolution. These stories began to be included in
sermons as early as May 1882.1 However, the best known is that
attributed to a Lady Hope, who claimed she had visited a bedridden Charles at
Down House2 in the autumn of 1881. She alleged that when she arrived
he was reading the Book of Hebrews, that he became distressed when she mentioned
the Genesis account of creation, and that he asked her to come again the next
day to speak on the subject of Jesus Christ to a gathering of servants, tenants
and neighbours in the garden summer house which, he said, held about 30 people.
This story first appeared in print as a 521-word article in the American Baptist
journal, the Watchman Examiner,3 and since then has been
reprinted in many books, magazines and tracts.
The main problem with all these stories is that they were all denied by members
of Darwin's family. Francis Darwin wrote to Thomas Huxley on 8 February 1887,
that a report that Charles had renounced evolution on his deathbed was 'false
and without any kind of foundation',4 and in 1917 Francis affirmed
that he had 'no reason whatever to believe that he [his father] ever altered his
agnostic point of view'.5 Charles's daughter Henrietta (Litchfield)
wrote on page 12 of the London evangelical weekly, The Christian, for
23 February 1922, 'I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present
during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in
any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief.
He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier … . The
whole story has no foundation whatever'.6 Some have even concluded
that there was no Lady Hope.
So what should we think?
Darwin's biographer, Dr James Moore, lecturer in the history of science and
technology at The Open University in the UK, has spent 20 years researching the
data over three continents. He produced a 218-page book examining what he calls
the 'Darwin legend'.7 He says there was a Lady Hope. Born
Elizabeth Reid Cotton in 1842, she married a widower, retired Admiral Sir James
Hope, in 1877. She engaged in tent evangelism and in visiting the elderly and
sick in Kent in the 1880s, and died of cancer in Sydney, Australia, in 1922,
where her tomb may be seen to this day.8
Moore concludes that Lady Hope probably did visit Charles between Wednesday, 28
September and Sunday, 2 October 1881, almost certainly when Francis and
Henrietta were absent, but his wife, Emma, probably was present.9 He
describes Lady Hope as 'a skilled raconteur, able to summon up poignant scenes
and conversations, and embroider them with sentimental spirituality'.10
He points out that her published story contained some authentic details as to
time and place, but also factual inaccuracies—Charles was not bedridden six
months before he died, and the summer house was far too small to accommodate 30
people. The most important aspect of the story, however, is that it does not
say that Charles either renounced evolution or embraced Christianity. He
merely is said to have expressed concern over the fate of his youthful
speculations and to have spoken in favour of a few people's attending a
religious meeting. The alleged recantation/conversion are embellishments that
others have either read into the story or made up for themselves. Moore calls
such doings 'holy fabrication'!
It should be noted that for most of her married life Emma was deeply pained by
the irreligious nature of Charles's views, and would have been strongly
motivated to have corroborated any story of a genuine conversion, if such had
occurred. She never did.
It therefore appears that Darwin did not recant, and it is a pity that to this
day the Lady Hope story occasionally appears in tracts published and given out
by well-meaning people.
References
- James Moore, The Darwin Legend, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan,
1994, pp. 113-14.
- Down House retained the spelling of the old name of Darwin's village, which was
changed to Downe in the mid-nineteenth century to avoid confusion with County
Down in Northern Ireland. Source: Ref. 1, p. 176.
- Watchman Examiner, Boston, 19 August 1915, p. 1071. Source: Ref. 1 ,
pp. 92-93 and 190.
- Ref. 1, pp. 117, 144.
- ibid, p. 145.
- ibid, p. 146.
- ibid.
- After the death of Admiral Hope in 1881, Lady Hope married T.A. Denny, a 'pork
philanthropist', in 1893, but preferred to retain her former name and title
(Ref. 1, pp. 85; 89-90).
- Ref. 1, p. 167.
- ibid, p. 94.
(Available in Polish)
|
