Consider all. Test All. Hold on to the good.

tagCharles Darwin

Allen Birchler on the Rhetoric of William Jennings Bryan

Allen Birchler, “The Anti-Evolutionary Beliefs of William Jennings Bryan,” Nebraska History 54 (1973): 545 – 559.
Go Bryan was very skilled in the use of the English language. Even on the cold pages of print over a quarter of a century later the pathos, humor, and sparkle of Bryan are not lost. For example, as Bryan would tell the story of the decline and fall of Darwin from grace it took on the pathos of a Greek tragedy. It was the story of the devout young Christian who had implicit faith in the infallibility of the Scriptures, but because he became involved in the theory of evolution, fell from grace, and died an embittered old man.

Samuel Wilberforce’s Review of Origin of Species

"Darwin's Origin of Species" in Quarterly Review (1860), pp. 225-264.
Go

Any contribution to our Natural History literature from the pen of Mr. C. Darwin is certain to command attention. His scientific attainments, his insight and carefulness as an observer, blended with no scanty measure of imaginative sagacity, and his clear and lively style, make all his writings unusually attractive. His present volume on the ‘ Origin of Species’ is the result of many years of observation, thought, and speculation; and is manifestly regarded by him as the ‘opus’ upon which his future fame is to rest. It is true that he announces it modestly enough as the mere precursor of a mightier volume. But that volume is only intended to supply the facts which are to support the completed argument of the present essay. In this we have a specimen-collection of the vast accumulation; and, working from these as the high analytical mathematician may work from the admitted results of his conic sections, he proceeds to deduce all the conclusions to which he wishes to conduct his readers.