Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800 1860

Science and Religion assesses the impact of social, political and intellectual change upon Anglican circles, with reference to Oxford University in the decades which followed the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. More particularly, the career of Baden Powell, father of the more famous founder of the Boy Scout movement, offers material for an important case-study in intellectual and political reorientation: his early militancy in right-wing Anglican movements slowly turned to a more tolerant attitude towards radical theological, philosophical and scientific trends. During the 1840s and 1850s, Baden Powell became a fearless proponent of new dialogues in transcendentalism in theology, positivism in philosophy, and pre-Darwinian evolutionary theories in biology. He was for instance the first prominent Anglican to express full support for Darwin's Origin of Species. Analysis of his many publications, and of his interaction with such contemporaries as Richard Whately, John Henry and Francis Newman, Robert Chambers, William Benjamin Carpenter, George Henry Lewes and George Eliot, reveals hitherto unnoticed dimensions of mid-nineteenth-century British intellectual and social life.

The impact of social, political and intellectual change upon Anglican circles is examined with reference to Oxford University during 1800-1860. A case study of Baden-Powell is also made showing his intellectual and political reorientation from militant right-wing to greater tolerance.

Preface; List of abbreviations; Part I. Biographical Introduction; 1. The Hackney Phalanx: a family network; 2. Baden Powell’s early theological papers; 3. Baden Powell’s reflections on science in the early 1820s; 4. Science and religion in the 1820s; 5. Rational Religion Examined; 6. Baden Powell between Oriel and Hackney; Part II. Baden Powell and the Noetic School; 7. The teaching of Richard Whately; 8. The collision; 9. Science and academic politics at Oxford: 1825 — 1835; 10. Science and revelation: 1826 — 1836; Part III. The New Synthesis and its Developments; 11. The methodology of science; 12. The Christian apologetic and the fallacies of natural theology; 13. Christian tolerance; 14. The parting of the ways: Baden Powell versus Richard Whately; Part IV. The Question of Species; 15. The French threat; 16. Species without Darwin; 17. Towards the Origin; 18. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.