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Department of History
roinn na Staire

aileen fyfe

science and salvation

Science and Salvation: evangelicals and popular science publishing in Victorian Britain was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2004.

Threatened by the proliferation of cheap, mass-produced publications, the Religious Tract Society issued a series of publications on popular science during the 1840s. The books were intended to counter the developing notion that science and faith were mutually exclusive, and the Society's authors employed a full repertoire of evangelical techniques--low prices, simple language, carefully structured narratives--to convert their readers. The application of such techniques to popular science resulted in one of the most widely available sources of information on the sciences in the Victorian era.

A fascinating study of the tenuous relationship between science and religion in evangelical publishing, Science and Salvation examines questions of practice and faith from a fresh perspective. Rather than highlighting works by expert men of science, Aileen Fyfe instead considers a group of relatively undistinguished authors who used thinly veiled Christian rhetoric to educate first, but to convert as well. This important volume is destined to become essential reading for historians of science, religion, and publishing alike.

Publishers catalogue, with order details.

ISBN 0-226-27647-3 (cloth), 0-226-27648-1 (paper).

Contents

Introduction
1. The Threat of Popular Science
2. Christian Knowledge
3. Reading Fish
4. The Techniques of Evangelical Publishing
5. The Ministry of the Press
6. Reinterpreting Science
Postscript
Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of RTS Writers and Staff
Appendix B: Volumes of the "Monthly Series"

A sample from the book

In the mid-1840s, a devout schoolteacher suffered a spiritual crisis. Mrs. Sarah Pugh had decided to read George Combe's The Constitution of Man in Relation to External Objects (1828). She hoped that its explanation of the laws of nature would help her to understand her pupils' different aptitudes for learning. She was also curious to discover whether scientific views of the human mind were compatible with her Christian faith. The inexpensive "People's Edition" of Combe's work, issued in 1835, had become a best-seller, with an unprecedented forty thousand copies sold within a year. The success had concerned many Christian commentators because Constitution of Man could be read as suggesting that natural laws were more important than divine or moral laws. Sarah's first impressions, however, were favourable. She became convinced that "the science of Phrenology has truth for its basis," and that reading the bumps on the skulls of her pupils would help her to understand their innate talents and limitations. Then she reached the ninth chapter, "On the Relation between Science and Scripture," and her mind was "painfully exercised." She read the chapter over and over again. The problem, she would later write, was that "Many of the views seemed to be at variance with Revelation. I could not disbelieve the evidence of my senses on the one hand, nor relinquish my hold of Scripture truth on the other. To recede, appeared to be folly; to advance, madness."

Sarah Pugh now had a difficult decision to make. She had been convinced by phrenology--it "had given me more light and assistance than I had obtained from any other source"--but she was desperately unwilling to give up her faith. "I laid the book aside for many months. I searched the Scripture diligently. I wept and prayed. . . . 'Perish the knowledge of science,' I thought, 'if it can only be obtained by the abandonment of my hopes for eternity!'" Yet she was still unable to convince herself to give up either phrenology or faith. She began to study the writings of other phrenologists, including those of William Newnham, who shared her commitment to an evangelical form of Christianity. Finally, she read Constitution of Man again, determined to decide for herself how much "appeared to me to be in accordance with Revelation, and what seemed otherwise, that I might feel satisfied whether his opinions were really opposed to the Scriptures, or merely independent of and distinct from them." She eventually followed Newnham in deciding that phrenology could indeed be reconciled with evangelical faith.

Sarah's hopes for eternity had thus been saved, but it had been a long and traumatic process. Her experience illustrates the two central concerns that are the subject of this book. First, in mid-nineteenth century the sciences were increasingly being perceived as opposed to religious faith, but this was something that many Christians worked to overcome, convinced that, when properly considered, the claims of science and salvation would be perfectly complementary. Second, cheap print allowed more people than ever before to read about new developments in the sciences. While this might be useful educationally, it could also be profoundly unsettling. Sarah Pugh began reading about phrenology with a firm evangelical faith, but by the end of the work she was left in a quandary. The temptation to accept phrenology and abandon her faith was very strong, and it took months of mental debate, coupled with an extensive reading programme, before she was able to develop a compromise position that included both systems. This was precisely why evangelical Christians were so concerned about the expansion of cheap publishing in the middle of the nineteenth century, and why the sciences were one of the areas of most concern. Sarah Pugh was a well-educated reader with a strong personal faith and access to the additional literary resources she needed--and yet she almost succumbed to the temptation. Just imagine what cheap books on the sciences might do to less prepared readers!

In this book I explore the relationship between science and religion, specifically the religious reaction to the perceived threat posed by cheap science publishing in the middle of the nineteenth century… (A. Fyfe, Science and Salvation, pp.1-2)

Reviews

An online review can be found on the Victorian Web.

    

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