[email protected] wrote: > It does leave open the question what Desmond and Moore would be going > on about if "Darwin's sacred cause" [the title of their book] was > largely won before he published his _Descent of Man_ in 1871.
I haven't read Desmond & Moore's book either, but I think it was true that Darwin was intensely horrified by slavery. There is some material in Janet Browne's biography about this. It was *American* slavery that was the main object of his feeling, which continued on for decades after it had been outlawed by England and France, and took a catastrophic war to finally bring to an end. (My point was, rather, that there is no reason to claim the opposite, that religious figures were particularly supportive of slavery.) As I recall, Darwin regularly discussed the issue of American slavery with his Harvard friend, Asa Gray. Just to add a little extra punch, Darwin's leading opponent among American scientists (and Gray's Harvard colleague), Louis Agassiz, was a defender of the proposition that American slaves were inferior as a race, using his renowned zoological expertise to justify his position. Regards, Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
