Tag: Matthew Arnold

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
September 25, 2025

Categories
Arts
Evolution
Tagged
, alchemy, ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Aristotle, Ben Jonson, Charles Bradlaugh, Christopher Marlowe, Cicero, David Berman, Doctor Faustus, Enlightenment, Epicurus, evolution, Galen, George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, H. J. Shephard, history, HMS Beagle, intellectual history, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Journal of Researches, literature, Lucretianism, Lucretius, Matthew Arnold, Misia Landau, Origin of Species, Peter Bement, philosophy, Plato, Renaissance, seafaring, The Alchemist, Tom Wolfe}

Darwin, Faust, and the Alchemist: Unexpected Roots of a Scientific Idea

_{Neil Thomas
September 25, 2025

Arts, Evolution

19}

Today we would of course brand both Faust and the Alchemist fantasists or “mad scientists” of the first order. Was Darwin prone to such wishful thinking? Read More ›

^{Type
post

Date
February 11, 2023

Categories
Bioethics
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Christianity, Communism, Dominion (book), ID the Future, Matthew Arnold, miracles, Peter Robinson, podcast, The War on the West, Tom Holland, Uncommon Knowledge, Victorian England}

From “Dover Beach” to Wokeness and Beyond

_{Science and Culture
February 11, 2023

Bioethics, Faith & Science

1}

Can we embrace the Christian ethical framework without belief in God, miracles, and the afterlife? Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 16, 2023

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, abiogenesis, Alphonse de Candolle, Aristotle, atheism, atomism, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Christianity, complexification, David Hume, Edward Aveling, Epicurus, Erasmus Darwin, Friedrich Engels, Georges Cuvier, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Greece, Homo sapiens, Karl Marx, Law of Correlation, Lucretius, Matthew Arnold, Middle Ages, natural selection, On the Origin of Species, Patrick Matthew, Plato, Rome, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Malthus, transhumanism, Unmoved Mover, Victorian England, William Paley}

Old Wine in New Bottles: How Darwin Recruited Malthus to Fortify a Failed Idea from Antiquity

_{Neil Thomas
January 16, 2023

Evolution, Intelligent Design

16}

It was undoubtedly a tremendous philosophical coup for Darwin whose knowledge of formal philosophy was limited. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
November 6, 2022

Categories
Bioethics
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Bible, Christianity, cosmogony, earth, Heaven, Hell, hierophany, Matthew Arnold, Mircea Eliade, poetry, romanticism, Rudolf Otto, The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James, William Wordsworth, Wordsworth versus Darwin (series)}

Wordsworth: Disciples at Home and Abroad

_{Neil Thomas
November 6, 2022

Bioethics, Faith & Science

3}

In 1848 Ralph Waldo Emerson is on record as having paid a return visit to the then aged Wordsworth. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
August 1, 2022

Categories
Culture
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Adrian Desmond, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, Crisis of Doubt, Dover Beach, Edward Aveling, Erasmus Darwin, In Memoriam, James Moore, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Matthew Arnold, On the Origin of Species, Oxbridge, Robert Chambers, secularism, The Rights of Man, Timothy Larsen, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Victorian England}

Darwin and the British Secularist Tradition

_{Neil Thomas
August 1, 2022

Culture, Faith & Science

10}

The arresting historical vignette of Darwin’s fraught meeting with Bradlaugh and Aveling at his country retreat would doubtless make for a good TV docudrama. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
March 4, 2022

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Alfred Tennyson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, asceticism, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Darwin and the Victorian Crisis of Faith (series), Dover Beach, Epicurus, Greek gods, In Memoriam, Matthew Arnold, Mrs. Humphry Ward, On the Origin of Species, Oxford, Robert Elsmere, theomachy, Victorian England}

Darwin and Theomachy

_{Neil Thomas
March 4, 2022

Evolution, Faith & Science

4}

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) provides the closest chronological fit with Darwin. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 25, 2022

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Philosophy
Tagged
, afterlife, atomism, Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin and the Ghost of Epicurus (series), Darwinian theory, demiurge, Epicurus, evolution, gods, Greek, Latin, Lucretius, materialism, Matthew Arnold, Victorians}

Charles Darwin and the Ghost of Epicurus

_{Neil Thomas
January 25, 2022

Evolution, Intelligent Design, Philosophy

4}

Darwinism, when viewed from a philosophical perspective, might more accurately be understood as a late sub-branch of ancient speculative thought. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Date
September 24, 2017

Categories
Faith & Science
Physical Sciences
Physics
Tagged
, __k-review, Caltech, Dover Beach, Facebook, Matthew Arnold, meaning, Paul Nelson, religion, Richard Dawkins, Sean Carroll, Ten Commandments}

“Poetic Naturalism” as a Religion

_{Science and Culture
September 24, 2017

Faith & Science, Physical Sciences, Physics

3}

Paul Nelson reviews the recent book by physicist Sean Carroll, in Dr. Nelson’s characteristically charming and insightful way. Read More ›