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tion in which the structures of living organisms had been beautifully adapted
for their functions. Darwin’s lifelong preoccupation with adaptation and how
it had been achieved was inspired at least in part by his reading of theologians,
such as William Paley, who saw evidence of design in impressive organs like
the human eye.^4 An old Darwin reminisced that in Cambridge he had preferred
beetles to books, but he had nevertheless absorbed the customary references
to a Creator. In his early transmutation notebooks he suggested that “the Cre-
ator creates through laws.”^5 When he wrote hisDescent of Man(1871), he was
explicit in saying that ideas drawn from a prevailing Christian culture had
shaped his theory: it was from works of natural theology that he had uncritically
accepted the view that every detail of structure must have had some use for
the creature that possessed it.^6
Despite the shaping of Darwin’s science by these historical and cultural
contingencies, evolutionary biologists would also want to say that the final
mature theory transcended them and has a universal application. It would not
be difficult to find comparable examples from the history of religious thought.
In this essay I focus on an idea that illustrates the quest for truths that are
rooted in human experience, but that also purport to transcend it. This is the
idea of the “unity of nature,” which has featured in both scientific and religious
discourse. My argument is that both science and the monotheistic religions
have had an investment in the unity of nature, and consequently that, because
Darwin achieved an unprecedented unification of biology, his science actually
provided a new resource for theologians, even if it was not always welcomed.
I also intend to show how ideas about the unity of nature have mediated be-
tween scientific and religious discourse. References to the unity of nature pro-
vide a window through which many different connections between scientific
and religious concerns can be observed. We should not imagine that the rela-
tions between them are always best understood in terms of conflict. Popular
anecdotes certainly encourage the dualities and the dichotomies. Alluding to
the Darwinian theory, the British politician Benjamin Disraeli declared that it
seemed one had to be on the side of the apes or of the angels, and he was for
the latter, sprouting angel wings when depicted in the popular press. Good
jokes, however, are not always the best guide to good history. It was not that
difficult, in principle, to interpret evolution as a method of creation.
I begin with historical examples that predate Darwin and show that mono-
theistic concepts could do real work in the sciences. I shall then examine rea-
sons why Darwin inclined to an agnostic position on matters of faith and
consequently shed some of the metaphysics that had previously driven the
quest for unity. To associate Darwinism with divisiveness rather than unity
may seem to make sense on other grounds too. But my conclusion will be that
Darwin unified nature as never before. Therefore, intentionally or not, para-
doxically or not, he lent support to modified theologies of nature.