Darwin versus the Bible

In Europe until the nineteenth century (and still today in many places in the world), the origin of life was a subject for theology, not biology. Darwin’s intended profession was in the Anglican church and he was educated at Cambridge, where many of the lecturers were clerics, as was the intended profession of practically all the students.

 

In fact, Darwin is not the inventor of evolutionism, but of one of its principal mechanisms: natural selection. He forged his theory for over twenty years, until he received a manuscript from A. R. Wallace, who had discovered it parallel to him, with a smaller case study. From this moment on, Darwin contacted the person who would be his lifelong publisher, John Murray. The work published by Darwin and his intellectual presence became paradigmatic, with abundant defenders and detractors, including changes of side, such as Wallace himself. For Darwin, the natural consequence of his discovery led to agnosticism, but this is not the case of many of his followers to this day. Darwinian evolutionism has fluctuated since its origin in the confrontation with the Bible in its literal sense, until its harmonisation, with its story being regarded as a symbol.

 

With this exhibition, we are taking part in the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, comparing two collections from our library. On the one hand, the bibles and other derived texts, with their stories of the creation. On the other, the natural sciences collection.

 

In selecting the materials, we have discovered that the emergence of evolutionism was followed by the Counts of Peralada from the start, so we are not exhibiting material subsequent to them to highlight this curious and recent piece of information about the scientific culture of the owners of Castell de Peralada in the nineteenth century.