In what appears to have been an unplanned quip, Wilberforce asked Huxley if he thought he was descended from an ape on his father’s or mother’s side. Huxley retorted that he would rather have simian...

In the Modern Age, there are still those who refuse to contradict a single word of the Bible, even though the Bible contradicts itself.

Natural science in England, as Darwin already knew to his cost, was still the purview of Christian scholars. But here was a question that Darwin found compelling: if God had created all the creatures of...

In 1867, George Campbell, Duke of Argyll, had published The Reign of Law, a book that Darwin found deeply annoying. A supporter of Richard Owen, Campbell argued that while evolution (or “Development”) might be observable...

Thomas Wollaston, in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, complained that Darwin did no seem to know what a species actually was. The British Quarterly, deliberately sitting up trouble, speculated that a time might...