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ESPAÑA: EVOLUTIONISM & RELIGION, CENTURY XIX
PUCHE RIART, O. (1); AYARZAGÜENA SANZ, M.(2); MAZADIEGO MARTÍNEZ, L.F.(1).
(1) E.T.S.I. Minas-Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. (2) S.E.H.A.
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
ABSTRACT.From the Englightenment to the middle of the 19th century, geological time and the antiquity of human beings received ever growing attention. This was caused by a series of events, such as:
*the beginnings of experimentation in Geology (Buffon, 1778)
*the development of the transformism (Lamarck, 1809)
*the recognition and description of extinct animals (Cuvier, 1812)
*as well as the studies made in alluvial deposits, caves and gravel beds, with brought to light artefacts, human rest and bone of extinguished animals (from John Frere, 1797, to Albert Gaudry, 1859).
The development towards evolutionism (Darwin, 1859) came gradually.
In Spain, all these currents found their echo: Spain, e.g. was the third country where the Palaeolithic remains were discovered (Verneuil and Lartet, 1863).
Also the Darwin ideas were introduced forcefully, right from the beginning. But the change in worldview, which was prerequisite to these ideas, lead to polemic controversies in the political and religious realm. The most significant evidence was the official prohibition of
the teaching Darwinism in public educational centres (1875).
At theological level, thanks to the advance of the geologic knowledge, went leaving the literal interpretations of Biblical texts was eventually discontinued and replaced by more liberal interpretation.
In some case, the process was difficult because some political, religious and scientific authors and researchers didn’t understand the new scientific ideas.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES.Charles Darwin (1809-1922) studied Natural Sciences in Cambridge. Latter, he travelled for five years in the Beagle (1831-1836). In
this trip he was elaborating his theories on the evolution. Theses theories were written from 1837 to 1839, but he didn’t even feel
prepared for his publication. Finally, stimulated by the geologist Charles Lyell and the botanist Joseph Hooker, he published On
the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It seems that
the fact that Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) had reached the same conclusions by an independent way encouraged Darwin
too. The work of Wallace was published in 1858. For Darwin, in Origin, the natural selection is the principle in which the
evolutionary change is sustained. This is based on: 1) the individuals of each species vary somehow between themselves, both in
the characteristics of constitution and in those of conduct, 2) the variations of each individual are hereditary, 3) the criteria of the
Anglican priest Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), spilled in Essay on Population (1798). Darwin indicated that the fight by the survival
is one of the basic pillars of the evolution and diversification of the species. The natural selection is conceived like a useful
process that takes place on a population of individuals. These subjects prevail or fail in the adaptation process. The process of
natural selection is slow and it is reinforced with successive generations. For Darwin the conditions of existence can determine
the extinction of the species.
At the moment Darwin does not even consider the topic of the antiquity of the man.
Marquis of Orovio
Fig. 7: In 1875, the Minister Marquis of Orovio forbade the diffusion of the Darwinism in the public educational institutions.
THE PROHIBITION OF THE DARWINISM IN SPAIN.-
Fig. 1:The creator of the theory of the evolutionism: Charles Darwin.
THE DARWINISM IS KNOWN AND IT SPREADS IN SPAIN.The theory of the evolutionism entered in Spain quickly. The first known work on Darwinism, corresponds to the read Speech,
by the University professor of Natural History Jose Planellas Giral, in the solemn inauguration of academic course 1859-1860,
in the University of Santiago. Other speeches with data on Darwinism were distributed by the Medicine University professor
Francisco Flores Arenas (1801-1877), in Seville (1867), expressing ideas very critics against Darwin, and by University
professor Lucas García Martín, in Salamanca (1873). Also the Catalan geologist José Monlau Sala (1832-1908), in the first
volume of his book Natural History (1867) engaged to the evolutionists theories (passing ecclesiastical censorship), and also
the institute professor of Granada Rafael García Álvarez (1822-1894) in Exhibition of Darwinism (1872) and the naturalist
Serrano Fatigati (1845-1918) in the Evolution of the Nature (1874), among other authors. Also the engineer of mines Emilio
Huelin, in the Cronicón Científico (magazine published in biennium 1870-71) gathered this controversial topic in an article on
Paleontology and Darwinism. The engineer of Mines Recaredo Garay y Anduaga, from a clearly evolutionist point of view, in
his article The prehistoric man (1870) did a general review of the studies which had been done on Darwinism until then in
Spain. The catholic, prestigious prehistorian, and first professor of Geology of the Central University of Madrid (1850), Juan
Vilanova y Piera (1821-1893), published eight volumes of his Natural History (1872), where in seventy pages he exposed the
theories of Darwinism, although without adopting a position.
In 1875, the Minister of Promotion of Public Works and Education, Marquis of Orovio (1817-1883), forbade the diffusion of
the Darwinism in the public educational institutions. The reason of this prohibition was that: "the majority and almost
totality of the Spaniards is catholic and official education must obey to this principle, subjecting its consequences.
According to this argument, the government cannot allow that, in the chairs maintained by the State, ideas against a
dogma, which is the social truth of our mother country, were explained". The refusal of the naturalist Augusto González de
Linares (1845-1904) to accept this law caused him his expulsion of the educational staff. 36 professors supported him and
so they underwent the same consequences. Some of them participated, in 1877, in the creation of the Free Institute of
Education.
Some papers were written against Darwinism. An example of this was the pamphlet published by the doctor Francisco de
Asís Aguilar, entitled: Is the man son of the monkey? (1873).The famous theologian Francisco Javier Caminero y Muñoz, in
1875, attacked the geologist Juan Vilanova y Piera, Recaredo Garay and the European prehistorians. Caminero indicated
that the antiquity of the man did not go back more than sixty centuries and tried to demonstrate it by data of Old History
and literal interpretations of the Bible. One of his phrase strikes: "it would not be impossible that, before the appearance
of the man, a type of completely similar animals in the organic order to the man had existed, without being able to call it
so with property". Does Caminero display an evolutionism mitigated? Nevertheless it indicates latter: "Finally the catholic
geologists as Mr. Vilanova propose to admit interruptions in the genealogical lists of the Genesis, or because names were
suppressed or because they accidentally disappeared, as it is very possible and have happened in other ancient historical
documents. Speaking frankly, this hypothesis disgust us even more than the two previous ones...”
Fig. 8:The debate on the origin of the man arrives at the civil society, as we see in the label of the anise of the Monkey (monkey with face of
Darwin, but without will of ridicule), designed in 1870 the motto of the anise puts: "he is the best one, he says science to it and I do not lie".
CATHOLICS WHO ADMIT THE DARWINISM.Fig.. 2, The first Professor of Geology of the Central University of Madrid, Juan Vilanova, in 1872 exposes the theories of Darwin
without taking position to favor or in against
THE DISCOVERY OF THE PALEOLITHIC IN SPAIN.In Spain the first prehistoric lithics pieces were found by the engineer of mines Casiano de Prado (1797-1866) in 1850,
almost ten years before international the scientific community admitted to prehistoric science. In 1859, the members of
the Geologic Society of London decided that 1) these pieces of flint were made by the man, 2) they had been found in
lands non removed, 3) they were related to extinguished animals, 4) they belonged to a period of time including at the last
geologic times, previous to the moment to which the terrestrial surface fixed its relief present. Prado, with Eduard Verneuil
(1805-1873) and Louis Lartet (1840-1899) identified the Palaeolithic in San Isidro, Madrid, in 1862. Verneuil and Lartet
published the finding in the Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France (1863). Spain became the third country of the
World where the Palaeolithic was identified. The appearance of human rest next to extinguished animals activated the
debate on the antiquity of the human specie.
The Professor of the Council Seminary of Barcelona, Jaime Almera y Comas (1845-1919), in the book Cosmogony and Geology
(1877), admits a greater antiquity of the Earth, but not of the man. This book was based on the work Geology and Revelation of
the Dr Molloy and was guaranteed by several Spanish bishops. Almera’s position was in principle of opening, although he
pretended the opposite, since the way is necessary to do it slowly, as it indicated Almera: "Perhaps some of our readers will say
that the way in that we ventured ourselves is a dangerous route. They might get used during all their life not to see the History of
the Creation more than through the ideas... ". Almera criticized the evolutionism in agreement with the scientific method: 1) they
consider that the organics perfections are a subjective criterion, sometimes in the nature it seems that it happens the opposite,
2) they consider that there are typical species, without next analogy, and representative species, that come from the
transformation of other pre-existing species. The man would be a typical species (in sort of high order), that would not come
from any other. Thus, they partly admitted the theory of the evolution (and with them the bishops that guaranteed their work).
This supposes to consider as certain the transformation of the organic forms: "as the sensible palaeontologists understand it".
As Almera would say: “why not to admit these novel scientific criteria?”. In defence of this position, the arguments of father
Angelo Secchi (1818-1878) were indicated, in Unité des forces physiques, where it is explained that the old scholastics, although
very religious, had maintained the Aristotelian theories of the spontaneous generation, where the forces of the nature acted
capriciously in the formation of the fossils, which were no longer maintained by anybody.
Fig. 9: The priest Jaime Almera
Figs. 3, 4 y 5:Litthic piece discovered by Casiano de Prado, in 1850, in San Isidro, Madrid. Picture of engineer of mines Casiano de
Prado. First Spanish lithic piece published by Verneuil and Lartet in 1863, in the B.S.G.F. (these geologists were taken by
Prado to San Isidro, where they discovered the Spanish Paleolithic).
THE DARWINISM AND THE ANTIQUITY OF THE MAN.Influenced by Darwin, Charles Lyell published in 1863: The Geological Evidences the Antiquity of Man, leaving outside
discussion that the origin of the man was located in the geologic time, not in the historical one. The same year, the disciple
of Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), publishes Evidences ace to Man's Place in Nature, where was reasoned the
place that the man occupies in the nature, indicating the taxonomic affinity between the man and the monkey. Shortly after,
John Lubbock (1834-1913) introduced the Darwinist theories in Prehistoric Archaeology by the work: Pre-historic Times,
illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and costumes of modern savages (1864). We thought that all these books
took to Darwin to the publication, in 1871, of The Descent of Man, where the author tied to the man to their evolutionary
system. Darwin, with his ideas, broke the rigid theological scheme of the prevailing world in century XIX. The reasons
expressed by diverse authors are the following ones: 1º) the idea of the natural selection hit the protestant theological
doctrine of the Divine Providence. 2º) the evolutionary vision of the species hit against the idea of the instantaneous
Creation. 3º) The most shocking idea was the animal origin the man: from primates.
LIBERAL PRIESTS AND CONSERVATIVE PRIESTS.In 1876, the anthropologist Gregorio Chil y Naranjo (1831-1901) publishes Historical, climatologic and pathological Studies
of the Canary Islands, which had great opposition in island ecclesial circles due to its evolutionist character. The bishop of
the Las Palmas, Monsignor José María Urquinaona y Bidot (1814-1883), determined in April 30th that it was put under the
work ecclesiastical censorship and in June 21th considered: "to our very loved faithful the serious obligation of not
admitting in its houses productions of this sort without reading them, nor allowing that their dependents conserve or read
them, otherwise they would commit disobedience to the Church... The Venerable parish priests will give knowledge to the
condemnation of this work to their parishioners by announcing it in the Offertory of the mass ". The canon Gregorio Chil
Morales, uncle and godfather of the author, was changed of posts because he had accepted the dedication of the work. In
this time it appeared works like Liberalism arise is sinned (1884) of Sardá y Salvany, in which it was attacked hard the
Darwinism and its defenders. Sardá, talking about to an evolutionist assumption, indicated that if: "it came here, with his
liberal compositions scientists, it would already know how nasty some Spanish theologians can get". However all the
theologians were not so conservative, the priest José Domingo Corbato in the God, Fatherland and King or Catechism of
the Charlist (1896) complained bitterly about the existence of numerous liberal priests. Let us remember that indeed it was
a priest, Muñoz Torrego, who proclaimed in legislative organ (in the Parliament of Cádiz of 1812), for the first time in Spain,
that the sovereignty resided in the people.
CONCLUSIONES:
1-Before the evolutionism the catholic people and the other members of the society saw themselves before a very abrupt
change of their view of the world. In any case their ideas progressed quickly in intellectual circles, including the
ecclesiastics, although in these ones with greater reluctance.
2-In main lines there were many authors who tried to arrange faith and reason, sometimes by hitting against the ecclesial
authority, more opposite to the changes than the catholic intellectuality.
3.-We think that Spain was not different in this aspect from other places of Europe, both of catholic and of protestant.
4.-At the end of the 19th century, many authors began to criticize the scope of the inheritance of the characters acquired.
Also at the beginning of the 20th century, the studies on the abrupt variations that supposed the genetic mutations, and
other aspects the Darwinism as their applications to racism and wild liberalism did that scientifically this doctrine were
developed.
Fig.-6.-The possible origin animal of the man brought great debates. Cartoon of Darwin.