Monographs on the Universe: Americans Respond to Ernst Haeckel’s Evolutionary Science and Theology, 1866–1883

Daniel Halverson

Ernst Haeckel was one of the nineteenth century’s most famous and influential scientists and science popularizers. According to one historian of biology, he was “the chief source of the world’s knowledge of Darwinism” in his time. At the same time, he endeavored to set up his own pantheistic-evolutionary theology in the place of Christianity. This study makes use of new information technologies to gather documents which have been largely unavailable to historians until recently. Halverson finds that Haeckel’s ideas met with a poor reception in the United States because American journalists, ministers, and scientists insisted on maintaining a sharp separation between science and theology, while Haeckel was intent on merging the two under an evolutionary-pantheistic framework. Although often regarded as an advocate of the “conflict thesis,” on his own terms he was a deeply religious man who wanted to reform, rather than abolish, theology.