Hawley, John C., S. J. "Charles Kingsley and
the Book of Nature," Anglican and Episcopal History Vol. 61, No. 4
(December 1991): 461-479.
Hawley examines Kingsley as natural theologian and his views on the “meaning”
of nature. He discusses Kingsley’s attempt to bridge the ever widening
gap between the claims of science and religion and to establish a vocabulary
that would be intelligible to and supportive of both fields. In this
respect he provides a comparison of Kingsley’s views on the theological beliefs
of and the search for meaning in Arnold, Huxley, and Darwin. Kingsley’s
aim, according to Hawley, “was to circumvent fears and cynicism, and to move
his readers into a world of scientific endeavor and Christian cooperation.
In choosing the commitment of faith over strict empiricism he became for
many, in an age of increasing dichotomy between the realms of science and
religion, a model of a Christian who hoped that the truths of both would
ultimately coalesce” (479).
Nature
; Science
; Religion
;
Natural Theology
; Arnold,
Matthew
; Huxley
; Darwin
.
Manlove, C. N. “Charles
Kingsley (1819-75) and The Water-Babies,” in his Modern Fantasy:
Five Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975): 13-54.
Manlove relates this examination of the major
themes, theories, and stylistic devices of The Water-Babies to Kingsley's
wider views. He contends that we should be tentative about categorically
assigning a specific idea to Kingsley. The one constant is the protean
nature, the multiplicity, the diversity, the volatility, and uncertainty of
his thought. Kingsley's many contradictions have "a natural home" in The
Water-Babies (17). Manlove believes that the split in Kingsley's
depiction of Tom's character not only lies at the root of the difficulties
in The Water-Babies and Kingsley's other works but also mirrors the
manifest divisions in Kingsley's own personality and thought, for example
the divide between Kingsley the materialist and the mystic, between Kingsley
as scientist and Christian. Manlove concludes that "Kingsley was not more
of a materialist than a mystic: rather he was each with divided faculties.
About the only thing that unites the dualism in himself and his work is his
vigour" (53).
The Water-Babies
;
Dualism in Kingsley
;
Natural Theology
.
Muller, Charles H. “Spiritual Evolution
and Muscular Theology: Lessons from Kingsley’s Natural Theology,” University
of Cape Town Studies in English Vol. 15 (March 1986): 24-34.
Kingsley’s understanding of the relationship between science and religion
is quite straightforward according to Muller. The natural world for
Kingsley everywhere reveals the work of God; everything physical is but a
reflection of the Eternal Realities. The work of the scientist is essentially
a glorification of the Creator. “As a religious thinker, Kingsley was
deductive and intuitive in his logic; as a scientific thinker, he was inductive,
seeing the infinite in the finite, or maxima in minimis, as exemplified
by the wonders of creation in so lowly a creature as the spider-crab.
In seeing the divine mirrored in a pebble or spore, however, he was combining
a scientific and religious vision of life – uniting the function
of the microscope and the telescope, as it were” (31).
Science
; Religion
; Nature
;
Natural theology
; Glaucus
.
Paradis, James G.
“Satire and Science in Victorian Culture,” in Bernard Lightman (ed.) Victorian
Science in Context (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997): 143-175.
Paradis points out that though Kingsley was a
strong advocate of the scientific efforts of the likes of Lyell, Darwin, and
Huxley, he also eagerly sought a post-Darwinian equivalent to natural theology.
Kingsley considered that Victorian science was inadequate in itself as a
philosophy of life and caricatured its one-sided scientific naturalist approach
in The Water-Babies.
Science
; Religion
;
Natural Theology
;
The Water-Babies
.
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